The Short Take:
A solid second episode. I wasn’t surprised we got a few answers along with new questions. I was surprised that I was on Team Steven by the end of it.
[Spoiler Alert: With weekly shows, I’m going to assume most of you have returned here after the premiere because you’d like a detailed breakdown of Episode 2. The show has been very fun so far; if you haven’t seen it, catch up and rejoin us later!]
The Long Take:
I did not expect to be rooting for Steven Grant this much. I really didn’t. I found him endearing in the first episode, sympathizing with him as I watched the show yank him around from blackout to blackout. As I watched his coworkers berate him and demean him. I wanted to give him a hug, but I wasn’t necessarily cheering him on.
This week’s “Summon the Suit,” though, actually does more to position Steven as the preferred hero of the show than it does for Marc Specter. Mohamed Diab could have very easily relegated Steven to the role of comic relief audience avatar (no pun intended, but I’ll take it) or the bumbling sidekick. After the first episode, that’s where I thought we were going. It seemed like the final scene in the museum bathroom unveiled Marc Specter as Moon Knight in dramatic fashion and that we would then continue with him at the center of the story instead of Steven.
We do learn more about Marc in this next episode, mostly by way of his estranged wife, Layla, and a little bit through Arthur Harrow. He’s a deadly mercenary who killed multiple people, “execution style,” at an archaeological site. He told Layla that it would be better if they got a divorce, as she shows up with the papers for him to sign. It sounds like Khonshu brought him back from the dead in exchange for his “servitude.” He wants out, but fears that Khonshu will makee Layla his new avatar once he sets Marc free.
But did I come out of this episode on Marc’s team? No. In episode one, the flashes of Marc we get make him seem like the cool, confident safe harbor. He reassures Steven that everything is going to be okay. He’s taking charge of the situation. Surrender, he says to Steven, and I can save us. What we learn in episode two, on the other hand, is that Marc may be more of a mess than Steven.
He comes across as Khonshu’s pawn, and the conversation between avatar and god at the end of the episode raises a lot of questions about Marc’s motivations. On the one hand, he keeps saying that he’s only doing this to pay his resurrection debt and to protect Layla, but Khonshu says that he knows that Marc enjoys the work Khonshu gives him. This gives me huge Breaking Bad vibes because for so long Walter White says that all his misdeeds are to provide for his family, when really he gets a less altruistic thrill from being a drug lord. That’s not to say that Marc is a villain or even an anti-hero, but I do get the impression that he’s not being honest with himself. Steven also hits several nerves when he confronts his corporeal rival at the very end of the episode. Marc is a killer. He abandoned his wife. He ruins everything he touches. And, after Steven keeps needling him, Marc certainly doesn’t help his case by violently kicking in the mirror in a fit of rage.
As Marc fell short of my expectations of him as a heroic figure, Steven rose to the occasion, stepping up as a hero in the making. I really enjoyed Steven flexing his moral compass throughout the episode. He doesn’t fall for Harrow’s cool-aid for a second. He calls out the precognition Minority Report nonsense almost immediately. “Children? Are you really saying you’d murder children?” Does he sound like he’s a college freshman taking a moral philosophy course for the first time? A little. But that doesn’t detract from his taking a stand against Harrow. He can both compliment the lentil soup and spit that very same soup back in the false prophet’s face.
Even more surprising was Steven’s ability to step up as an action hero. It was very satisfying to watch the one punch that connected and how elated Steven was after he threw it because he gains confidence in himself and defies expectations. Marc says “You can’t handle this,” and instead of panicking or sniveling, Steven says, “I think I can.” I want to see more moments like this, though it looks like Marc is taking over next week as we jet off to Egypt. I still don’t really know where the Steven/Marc dynamic will go in the future. For now, that’s still exciting.
I love even the most cringey puns, so the play on the word “suit” in this scene bowled me over. It seems reasonable enough: why would Steven, who has never interacted with any kind of superhero vigilante before, know what Marc means when he says “suit”? I agree with Steven that he looked rather sharp, but also cackled at Marc’s snipe that he meant the ceremonial garb and not “psycho Colonel Sanders.”
I’m excited by the prospect of Steven becoming his own version of Moon Knight, with his own suit and his own fighting style. Granted, as I said last week, I haven’t read any Moon Knight comics, so this could very well have been telegraphed in past books. I’ve seen the phrase “Mr. Knight” thrown around the Internet, so it sounds like Steven’s version of Moon Knight might be called Mr. Knight to distinguish him from Marc Specter’s Moon Knight? If you’re in the know on this, please educate us all in the comments section. As an uninitiated viewer, at least, I was pleasantly surprised by Steven actually being able to summon the suit.
Right before this triumphant scene, Layla calls Steven “Steven” for the first time. Up until that point she had been insisting that his name was Marc. As they try to flee Harrow’s compound with the scarab, she acknowledges that Steven is his own person. In that immediate moment he isn’t able to summon the suit, so clearly having her call him by his name wasn’t in there to give him the confidence he needs. That must mean that the show is trying to tell us that Steven is here to stay and that he’s going to have his own identity, his own part to play, and his own strengths worth acknowledging.
This seemingly small choiice might be the show’s way of representing Dissociative Identity Disorder. While I acknowledge that don’t actually know much about Dissociative Identity Disorder and defer to those who have more experience with it, it seems like the show could be establishing that, unlike what some might assume, Marc doesn’t have amnesia and think he is Steven sometimes. Each of his identities is discrete, whole, and real.
In general, I found the role reversal of Steven and Marc as hero or helpless — or at least a blurring of the roles of these characters, going against my expectation — quite refreshing. Especially in the context of mainstream pop culture, which has taught me that I’m supposed to go along with a character like Marc and laugh at a character like Steven. Marc seems like a textbook handsome adventurer, not unlike Indiana Jones. He may be ornery and stubborn, but we’re supposed to think he can do no wrong even when he steals artifacts, leaves a path of mayhem and destruction wherever he goes, uses a corpse as a torch, shirks all his teaching responsibilities, and constantly endangers his sidekicks. I adore the Indiana Jones franchise, but the archetype it created may be a dinosaur in a post-colonial world. There’s an irresponsible, roguish masculinity that we’re supposed to give a free pass to, and while I admit that I am still very much susceptible to it, I’m also aware of how that might be problematic.
Moon Knight makes a big deal out of the fact that Steven, in contrast to this archetype, is a vegan. Maybe that wasn’t just for the steak jokes last episode. I think Diab may be trying to establish Steven as more of a pacifist than Marc, who is takes the more questionable “I am vengeance” approach, leaving a path of bodies in his wake. They create a really interesting dialectic about what it means to be a good hero in the 21st century. This all comes to a head in the tense final scene. Steven and Marc argue over their differences and, disapproving of one another, each want to maintain control of their body.
This scene works especially well not just because of Oscar Isaac’s impressive acting, because the production design and blocking is so thoughtful. I’m not just talking about the mirrors, though they help add subtext. The fracturing cracks of Steven’s image to show how “broken up” he is about being the one trapped and unable to control the body, for example. The angles also constantly shift from high angle down to low angle up, reflecting the ever-shifting power struggle between the two. And the empty seats surrounding them — in what I can surmise is an outdoor theater in the round — echoes what I noticed last week about Steven’s loneliness and his having one-sided conversations with no response on the other end. This time Marc is talking back, but the image emphasizes how no one is in the audience — no one is there to witness or understand their exchange and therefore their experience.
I have no idea what Marc’s referring to when he says that “something has changed” and that he can now maintain control of the body. Hopefully we get an explanation of that soon. I’m also hoping we find out more about the drama between Khonshu, Ammit, and Harrow soon, though I suspect that one will drag out until the end of the season. The reveal here that Harrow used to be Khonshu’s avatar seems very juicy because a.) Marc’s situation indicates that it’s hard to quit the avatar gig and b.) Khonshu and Ammit seem so philosophically opposed. What crazy thing might have happened to make Harrow switch sides?
I’m continuing to enjoy the mysteries of this show and can’t wait to see what we learn next time. Only now I want more Steven Grant too.