Moon Knight – Asylum Review

Well, the penultimate episode of Moon Knight was far more concerned with explaining just what turned Marc Spector into Steven Grant than it was with taking steps to solve any of the key narrative arcs the show set-up at its outset. Which is all well and good, if you were looking for an MCU series focused on exploring the origins of Marc’s Dissociative Identity Disorder personalities*, but much less satisfying if you were looking for a series about Moon Knight – you know, the character it’s named after?

*Still no word on the third personality, who is presumably still trapped in that sarcophagus in Marc’s psyche, perhaps ready and willing to jump out again now that Steven has (maybe?) successfully completed his journey as Marc’s emotional protector. While DID does tend to emerge as a means to protect a person from a major life trauma, the work here was pretty shoddy, both in explaining the disease and showing the seeming ease with which Marc was able to remove the Steven personality from his mind – assuming, again, that Steven is down for the count.

While I haven’t read the Moon Knight comics, I am aware that the question of Marc’s sanity – and the reality of his Moon Knight exploits – are also a point of question within their panels, with Marc spending time in a mental institution that may or may not be of his own making. So, I wasn’t shocked to see the series venture into this part of the comic story. And many a sci-fi television series has pulled the “is this all real or is our hero stuck in a mental institution?” question (see Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for couple of the most successful iterations in the last 25 or so years). But here, it simply felt like a fun Easter Egg diversion and not a real question of which reality was real. Considering the number of dangerous items on Harrow’s desk, it was pretty clear that this was simply a construct for Marc to take refuge in while trying to come to terms with his impending death – and his desire to finally confront the death of his brother and the horror that inflicted upon his life.

So, without that lingering question of reality, it felt a lot like the series was spinning its wheels while we wait for Steven and Marc to unite to escape the underworld and move onto the next stage in their journey. That it required Steven’s apparent sacrifice to get them over that last hump was not a shock either. Steven’s contribution to Marc’s story was two-fold: Deep knowledge of Egypt and the emotional protection that allowed Marc the ability to go off and complete his Khonshu quests without worrying too deeply about the human cost. Now that Marc has separated himself from Khonshu and is able to function as a more complete human, and now that the bulk of the Egyptology elements are past, Marc can move forward to complete his mission: Stop Harrow and free Kohnshu.

But that leaves us with the rather depressing question of was this series worth it? There’s no question that Oscar Isaac has been lights out as Marc and Steven, absolutely immersing himself in the dual roles and hitting it out of the park. Similarly, the rest of the cast has been incredible with great work from Ethan Hawke and May Calamawry. But at this stage of a series, we should be gearing up for a final show down – one last series of events that will help illuminate the character we’ve been following as we watch their arc come to an end, and if the story is meant to move forward into a second season, set-up the next step in their overall storyline. Here, we’re nowhere near coming to a satisfying end on either of those fronts. We’ve spent the bulk of the series’ time with Steven, and now we’ve presumably lost him. We know precious little about Marc now – we know who he was, what made him into Steven, and why he accepted Khonshu into his life. But we don’t understand why he went into the military, why he opted for black ops works after (sure, a mental breakdown in the service would leave you with precious few options if you want to keep up that line of work, but we’re missing too much of the story here). And we don’t really understand his relationship with Layla nearly enough to make us care about the peril we will undoubtedly find her in during the finale.

Origin stories are tough. They’re even tougher when you’re dealing with a complicated character like Marc – suffering from DID and possessed by the fighting spirit of an Egyptian god most folks never studied in school. You have to balance introducing the character and his quirks to the audience while also inserting him into a story with more new characters and trying to get the audience to care about all of it – while they learn what makes their hero tick. It’s a delicate balancing act. And it doesn’t always work. Here, with only six episodes, I think the series might have been better off without the Harrow/Amitt elements – just let us see Marc dealing with a simple tomb robber or other generic villain, teach us about his story, and then resolve things in the six episodes. As it stands, I think we need at least a couple more episodes to really give us an idea of just who Marc is, who Harrow is, and who Layla is – all to make the upcoming finale all the more satisfying. My thoughts may change if we get a truly lights out end to this story, but as of right now, I’m poised to write up Moon Knight misstep within the MCU. That’s fine – you can’t win them all – but boy, did I hope for more than this stunted mess of a series.