‘Moon Knight’ Episode 1 Recap & Easter Eggs – ‘The Goldfish Problem’
Moon Knight episode 1 has arrived and wastes no time with its introductions. This is going to be a wild ride.
For those just joining the party, the show’s synopsis:
Moon Knight follows Steven Grant, a mild-mannered gift-shop employee, who becomes plagued with blackouts and memories of another life. Steven discovers he has dissociative identity disorder and shares a body with mercenary Marc Spector. As Steven/Marc’s enemies converge upon them, they must navigate their complex identities while thrust into a deadly mystery among the powerful gods of Egypt.
The first episode drops us right into Steven Grant’s chaotic life – his crappy job, his issues with time loss, and the others he shares his body with. While it has a few issues, it’s a great start to the six episodes. It doesn’t slow down once and you really get an understanding of what Steven/Marc’s existence is like. And we get a taste of Arthur Harrow’s cult and abilities.
Spoilers Under the GIF
Even Moon Knight Has a Crappy Boss
The first episode takes no time getting to it. In the first 15 minutes, we meet Steven and Arthur Harrow as well as Khonshu and Marc (kind of). And chaos. Lots of chaos. George Michael fueled chaos.
Let’s rewind a little bit. Steven’s loss of time is handled really well. You get the sense of how it screws with his life, how exhausted and exasperated and confused he feels at just existing. His boss is horrible. The people he works with don’t remember what his real name is. His life sucks, at least as far as he can tell. His life is not glamorous and he is certainly not a superhero.
He deals with his time loss by trying to stay awake as long as possible, to stay in control. Reading, feeding his shapeshifting goldfish, working on a rubrics cube late into the night… and suddenly waking up on a hillside in Germany. His first encounter with Arthur Harrow has him bouncing from Marc to Steven with Khonshu (voiced by F. Murray Abraham) echoing in his ears.
By the end of the episode, Steven has accepted what’s happening to him in order to survive. He doesn’t understand it, but he gives up control to Marc and Moon Knight to live.
via Marvel Studios
Who is Arthur Harrow?
There was an assumption when the first photos dropped that Harrow was going to be the Sun King. He’s most definitely not, at least not entirely. Harrow has a cult following like the Sun King (who got his powers from Amon Ra), but that’s where it ends.
His powers seem to come from the Egyptian goddess and demoness Ammit. She’s represented by the three largest man-eating animals known to ancient Egyptians. Ammit has the forequarters of a lion, the hindquarters of a hippopotamus, and the head of a crocodile. She’s a funerary deity that lived near the scales of justice in Duat, the Egyptian underworld. The scales of justice are operated by Anubis and judge if a soul is worthy to pass into the realm of the dead. If a soul was found to be unpure it would be devoured by Ammit.
It seems Harrow has some sort of connection to her that allows him to judge souls using a double-headed crocodile cane and a mysterious tattoo. It’s going to be interesting to see what other powers he has and where exactly they come from. A recent clip shows him using Dark Dimension magic.
via Disney+
Moon Knight Episode 1 – Quick Thoughts
The theories/easter eggs: Is the Duchamp in Marc’s phone Jean-Paul DuChamp aka Frenchie?
The good: Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke are brilliant, as always. This was a character and world introduction, so while there’s a lot to take in there’s also not a lot to take in. The story has started off on a good foot and I really want to see where all of this is going. It also doesn’t feel cookie-cutter.
The not-so-good: Compared to the other CG-heavy Marvel shows, this feels visually flat when adding CG elements most of the time. I get that it’s not a big movie tie in and this is likely its only season, but it deserves Loki level CG. It worries me a bit as the story is going to rely on it with three of its main characters. It’s also lost some of the nuances of the comics, but that’s to be expected. And, yes, the accent is goofy.
New episodes of Moon Knight drop on Disney+ every Wednesday through May 4th.
