I debated whether to cover Moon Knight in this retrospective. I’ve covered the other Disney+ shows up till now, and need to cover them again before watching The Marvels, but that was only because of their links to the main cinematic universe. Each show follows an existing MCU character and leads to a movie: Wanda in WandaVision leading into Multiverse of Madness, Ms. Marvel and Secret Invasion leading to The Marvels, Falcon and Winter Soldier into Captain America 4, you get the idea.
Other shows, like Echo and She-Hulk, have their own confusing thing going on and I will cover them in due time. But Moon Knight, on the other hand, doesn’t have much to do with any other MCU property at all. No existing characters, no name drops, no mention of Thanos or the snap. Which means I could leave it out if I wanted to. And this is why I didn’t.
Moon Knight is not a good representation of Dissociative Identity Disorder. It makes the same blunder as nearly every genre piece that uses it – Split, Identity, Inside No 9, and Ratched to name a few – one, if not all, of the alters are dangerous or capable of murder. It’s lazy at best and harmful at worst, propping up the old cliché that a person’s mental illness equals danger to others. Moon Knight’s creative team have owned up to this ,by pointing out that it is a genre show that deals with magic and ancient gods, but that only partially lets them off the hook.
But here’s the wrinkle that I think saves the show: – up until the post-credit scene, of course. Steven Grant is the mild-mannered, sweet, and clever protector personality for Mark Spector, a mercenary who made the deal to become Moon Knight in the first place. It’s the violent killer who this time is the main personality. Mark needs to embrace Steven, his gentler, better nature, in order to be whole and become a better person. The fact that this all plays out against a backdrop of an Egyptian quest is all the better since I, like any good millennial, am still obsessed with the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies.
Ticking the Romance box
Dear me, does May Calaway have a tough job as Mark’s estranged wife Layla. A swashbuckling adventurer in her own right, it takes a while for her to do anything but shout at Mark/Steven for things that the audience is only just catching up with. Layla gets the worst dialogue (“hold my hand so we can complete the spell” had me cringing into the next life), but credit to Calaway for salvaging Layla by the end, where she gets to become the MCU’s first Egyptian superhero.
The Wasted Villain Corner
Ethan Hawke might not fully deserve to be here. He puts in a game performance as Harron, especially the fake doctor version that can’t help but sound sarcastic when he is trying to be comforting, but he is mostly relegated to whispering mumbo-jumbo about morality and divine judgement that it gets a little repetitive. Which brings us to…
The mysterious third personality, the one who makes very brief murderous appearances and mostly chills inside his sarcophagus in the realm of the dead (relatable), breaks the show. All of the good work done by Mark and Steve – and the show’s representation of DID – is undone by the homicidal Jake Lockley. After six very entertaining episodes, with outrageous visuals, a romantic lead and villain overperforming in weak characters, and Oscar Isaac putting on an acting clinic, the original cultural DID bogeyman appears: the killer alter. The third personality goes from intriguing to becoming a plot hole: how can Mark and Steven’s hearts be balanced if they are only two parts of three?
Moon Knight is a novelty for Marvel in that it mostly succeeds and fails on it’s own merits. That there is no connection to the wider MCU feels like a refreshing twist, but if there is a second season, Moon Knight has a lot of work to do to fix the damage done by the inclusion of Jake.
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By Kevin Boyle
(header image via Radio Time)
No But Listen 