Moon Knight episode 1 is here, and it did a fine job of testing audiences' willingness to be confused. So, let's break down what we just saw, so you'll be less confused than Steven Grant. We're not saying that you'll be caught up like some of Steven's new friends, but we're getting a head of ourselves.
As we explained in Tom's Guide's Moon Knight review, this series thrives when it's confusing both the audience and its protagonist. This series is utterly confounding, to the point where even fish fins are leaving Grant asking questions.
So, consider this your spoiler warning for our analysis of Moon Knight episode 1, where we break down the characters we just met, and who is voicing that booming voice. We're also accounting for what we know from the comics, so things may change (and we'll make that clear).
Arthur Harrow is revealing Steven Grant's true selves
While the Moon Knight series starts by focusing on timid-mannered museum shop worker Steven Grant, his night-time habits of restraining himself and using multiple locks are a big indicator that even he knows that something is wrong.
Time is passing in such odd and random ways, with days (and that date) slipping past him because Grant has dissociative identity disorder (also known as DID). He's just one of many identities that his body holds. So all of Steven's dreams that he thinks are too real are actually things that happened to other people, when he "surrenders his body to Marc," as the voice he heard shouted at him, and Marc gets into some very shady things, as one would expect when they wake up and people are shooting at them for no clear reason.
And so, why does Grant possess a scarab that Ethan Hawke's character Arthur Harrow wants, and one he had no idea about? Why did he find a flip phone hidden inside a wall? Well, that's because he's also Marc Spector, the name that this mysterious Layla person called him on the other side of the phone.
It's unclear what Harrow is up to, aside from passing judgement, possessing cool shape-shifting tattoos, and looking to resurrect an Egyptian goddess named Ammit. And Ammit, according to Harrow, needs to be summoned because she would have stopped history's worst atrocities.
But Harrow does call out Grant — thinking he's Marc — as a mercenary, and he may know more of Marc's past. In the comics, Marc Spector became a mercenary after being a marine and CIA operative. Those details? They're not privy to Steven at this stage.
As we learn later at the museum Grant works at, Harrow has a lot of power over the world around him. And his tools of passing judgment have helped Harrow learn about Grant's multiple identities, revealed when Harrow said "there is chaos in you." It doesn't appear to be the same chaos magic that Wanda Maximoff had, though.
Who's the voice in Steven's head?
You know how that disembodied voice talks to Steven Grant, demanding he not hand over the scarab or drop it? Well, Disney (via its press materials) revealed that Khonshu, the Egyptian god of the moon, was to be voiced by F. Murray Abraham.
Yes, the actor who won an Oscar for his work in Amadeus and has appeared most recently in Mythic Quest, is now voicing an Egyptian god that is talking to Grant/Spector in his head.
Explaining that big bathroom-breaking fight
After a very spooky incident where the lights go out at the museum, where Harrow tries to intimidate the scarab out of Grant, and mythical undead-looking four-legged things chase Grant? Our hero finds something that surprises him even more in the bathroom.
When you or I look in the mirror, we see ourselves. But when Steven Grant looks in a reflective surface, say the bathroom mirror at the end of Moon Knight episode 2, he finally "meets" Marc Spector. And Marc wants control of Steven's body, which he requests in a cool, calm and collected manner, with charisma that Steven could never even begin to provide.
That's when — off camera — Steven Grant becomes Moon Knight, and beats these demons the heck up. That's where the episode ends, and where I went waiting for a post credits scene we don't get.
