Moon Knight Series Review: To talk about the season finale of Moon Knight we need to start from a big assumption, the sixth and final episode is narratively a black hole. The final chapter, Gods and Monsters, hastily closes the battle between Marc/Khonshu and Harrow/Hammit. In doing so he forgets about some characters and above all gives the audience many answers that remained pending during the season; Since it is a miniseries, a complete closure of the story is mandatory. However, the screenwriters choose to give space to the final conflict, exaggerated CGI, and fighting, although the latter are also treated very superficially. In short, the excellent premises of the first episodes and the interesting introspective evolution of the fifth episode leave room for bewilderment.
With this, we do not want to doubt the acting qualities of Oscar Isaac or May Calamawy, but only to highlight a big problem in the season finale. The Marvel/Disney+ series is bound by a narrative structure whereby the last episodes give shape to everything, Moon Knight is not exempt from this discourse. The holes we are talking about refer to the protagonist's moments of darkness, those in which he awakens with a pile of dead people at his feet. If the device had worked previously to create suspense and mystery, this does not apply to the ending, where we would have expected a series of flashbacks that would have shown those gaps. None of this happens, on the contrary, narrative lightness is added that makes the hairs on our arms stand on end. But let's go in order.
Moon Knight: the final battle between Khonshu and Ammit
The fifth episode of Moon Knight, entitled Asylum, saw Marc and Steven deal with their past traumas, traveling into the memory rooms of the Duat (the Egyptian afterlife). The two had previously been killed by Harrow in the crypt of Alexander the Great, as well as the last avatar of the goddess Ammit. The episode (the best of the entire series) revealed the mystery about the protagonist's sanity and the consequent birth of Steven. It all arose from the death of his brother Randall and the abuse he received from his mother after his psychological breakdown. For Marc and Steven it is a race for survival, decided by the outcome of the scales of life; without balance in the heart they cannot reach "heaven". It is only with Steven's sacrifice that Marc can finally achieve that much-needed peace. Meanwhile, in Egypt, Harrow brings his sense of justice to fruition thanks to the new powers he received as a gift from Ammit.
This is, in short, the premise that led to the season finale, where Marc is still in the underworld, Khonshu has been imprisoned and the villain is free to carry out his mission. The sixth episode starts right from here, with Harrow in possession of the statue of the Egyptian goddess. Khonshu's former avatar returns to the pyramid of Giza, where he faces the other gods. Together with him we also find Layla, to whom the screenplay entrusts a predominant role. The woman manages to free Khonshu, who rejoins Mac and Steven after they manage to return to life. Thus begins the final battle between the forces of good and evil, in a clash between gigantic gods and mortals equipped with flamboyant costumes. In the night Egyptian sky, Moon Knight manages to defeat his enemy and free himself from the bond of Khonshu. But will it really be like this?
The post-credit scene and the approach to Jake Lockley
The sixth episode of the Marvel series ends with an ambiguous cliffhanger. The scene taken individually is very interesting and well done, but it is linked to some serious defects linked to the conclusive nature of the series. In fact, Moon Knight was born as a miniseries, and therefore a second season is not planned. It is likely that we will see the superhero again in other Marvel products, but for now there are no actual plans. We are obviously referring to the post credit scene starring Jake Lockley, Marc Spector's third and ruthless personality. As we have pointed out in the various focuses on the series, the character had already been presented, however covertly, in the previous episodes. In particular we refer to the third episode, to the red sarcophagus of the fifth and to the moment in which the protagonist defeats Harrow. In these moments the writing has decided not to show us his intervention, but only the effects of his actions. If this expedient might have worked at the beginning, the same is not true for the season finale; where we consider it a serious error of form.
Returning to the post-credit, the scene shows Harrow in a mental hospital where he is picked up by a man with black gloves. Leaving the facility, the man realizes the killing of nurses and orderlies and is made to enter a large limousine. Here we find Khonshu in formal clothes, the same ones he wears in the comics and very similar to Steven Grant's costume. The god points out to Harrow that he never intended to take Layla as his avatar, as Marc's personality is more fragmented than he thinks. Thus Jake Lockley appears and, with an evil grin, kills the villain in cold blood. The sequence ends with the limousine about to leave the parking lot and on whose license plate you can read a sub-sort of acronym for Spector, Marc's surname. The god has therefore always hidden from the protagonist the fact that he has also made a pact with another personality of his. As we were saying, the scene taken individually has its own charm, so where does the problem lie?
There are narrative "rules" when talking about narrative products, the pillars on which the success of a product and its experience by the public are based. With the last episode, Moon Knight breaks them all, leaving the story suspended between what we have seen and what has not been shown. When certain canons are broken, it is done out of coherence with the subversive nature of the product or with very specific, sometimes meta-narrative, intentions. In this case, it is a decision that has no support within the series. By not showing us the moments in which Jake took over, perhaps with flashbacks towards the end, the perception of the series is totally distorted. It's like finding yourself in front of an illegal bad copy of a film in which parts are missing. In this case, key moments are missing, and as far as we're concerned this is a serious mistake on the part of the production.
Moon Knight's ending is truly disappointing
We now come to the purely visual and adrenaline-filled component. Moon Knight confirms itself as the worst Marvel product in terms of CGI; although still a cut above other television products, that's for sure. The costume action scenes make the superhero a puppet dressed in white. The choice to favor computer graphics over real stunts totally undermines a certain adrenaline-filled response to the fights. For example, the fights in John Wick are so well done that they energize us in our seats. The same does not happen with the Marvel series, where this response is blocked by a strong awareness of fiction. The abuse of CGI weighs heavily on the entire season finale, especially in the representation of the clash between Khonshu and Ammit. There is a certain imbalance in proportions when we see them in their gigantic form. The graphic rendering of these creatures, almost anthropomorphic animals, does not do justice to the quality we have been accustomed to from Marvel. All this undermines a series which, having reached its fifth episode, seemed to have found its center of gravity. We are facing a season finale in which there is a profound imbalance, both narrative and visual.
We also feel this sensation with Layla, when she becomes the new avatar of Tawaret, albeit "temporarily". The outfit reminds us a lot of that of Wonder Woman 1984 and, regardless of the good intentions, the character is quickly forgotten. The script would rightly like to give more weight to the female component of the series, but it ends up being just a pretext to say "we did it". It's the same mistake the Russo brothers ran into in Avengers: Endgame with the heroines reunited in the battle against Thanos and the screenwriters of Shang Chi with the protagonist's sister. Returning to Layla, after the greeting between Marc/Steven and Khonshu the two return to the apartment in London, still tied to that bed symbolizing questions and uncertainty. We have no answers about Layla's future and her relationship with her husband. The character, initially predominant in the narrative, fades into the background until he disappears. All of this undermines the excellent work done by May Calamawy in the characterization of Layla who, in some moments, worked better on screen than Oscar Isaac.
Even the character played by Ethan Hawke ends up being a mere speck, a textbook villain who runs out of jokes at the end. All introspection is left behind for a series of punches and kicks in terrible CGI. It's a real shame, because Asylum was not only the best episode of Moon Knight, but among the most interesting of the Marvel series. The first four, ranging from genre to genre and winking at films like Indiana Jones and The Mummy, had their own reason. Although surrounded by some errors, the previous episodes seemed to be heading in an excellent direction. We don't know what Marvel Studios' plans are for the character's future, but after seeing Gods and Monsters there doesn't seem to be a well-established direction. As the wise old saying goes “Less is more”, and Hawkeye has proven it with flying colors. The latter, with its city setting and mortal protagonists, was able to seize the opportunity to give shape to something less high-sounding but coherent until the end. With Moon Knight we wanted to bite off more than we can chew precisely at the moment in which the story would have required less and more attention to detail.
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