Steven Grant discovers he’s not totally alone in his body as we recap the second episode of Marvel’s Moon Knight, “Summon The Suit”. After trying to figure out whether he’s imagining things, Steven finally meets Marc Spector — as well as his wife, Layla. But thanks to Arthur Harrow, Steven learns that things might not be what they seem when they come to Khonshu. From Marvel Comics origins to Moon Knight Easter eggs, let’s break it all down.
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Full Episode Transcript
Alex: Welcome to MarvelVision, a podcast about Marvel, the MCU, and right now, Moon Knight, episode two.
Justin: Moon Knight!
Alex: Moon Knight! I’m Alex.
Justin: I’m Justin.
Alex: As mentioned, we’re going to be talking about the second episode of Moon Knight, which is now on Disney+, so if you haven’t watched it, go watch it, because we’re going to go all over the place talking about spoilers here, but brief bit of recap for the episode, picking up on the cliffhanger at the end of the last episode, where Moon Knight was finally revealed, Steven Grant wakes up, kind of thinks things are a dream, kind of thinks there’s not, but he slowly discovers over the course of the episode there’s a second personality lurking in his psyche named Marc Spector. Marc Spector has a wife who is estranged, named Layla. That’s the lady who was calling him the last episode, and by the end of the episode, they have come face to face once again with Arthur Harrow, who turns out was the previous Fist of Khonshu. I guess they’re not calling him the Fist of Khonshu yet in this show. They’re calling him just the Vengeance of Khonshu.
Justin: The avatar
Alex: The Avatar of Khonshu, and by the end of the episode, we are in Egypt and really getting to it. We’re from London to Egypt traveling.
Justin: That shot at the end of this episode, I was like, “Okay, we know.” There was so much pride in that long, slow push over, and they’re like, “The pyramids! You believe it?” I was like, “I know, we know, we know about them.”
Alex: I’m of two abides of that sort of thing, because I understand it’s like, “And now we’re in Paris in front of the Eiffel Tower.” It’s an easy visual thing, but also, there’s other things.
Justin: Well, of course, but if this was a movie, it would be pyramids, and then we go on with the story, and this is like, “Can you believe this Egyptian God has come to Egypt?!?!? It’s like his home!”, and the music, the needle drops to this show are intense.
Alex: Yeah.
Justin: It’s tuned up in the mix or something, because when that dropped, I was like, “Hoo, they are giving it-“
Alex: They’re definitely.
Justin: “Drinking a bottle of weird whiskey.”
Alex: They got a bunch of swagger, mind you, with the music. I think I’m enjoying it. The stuff over the end credits doing a little bit of, I assume it’s Middle Eastern rap or something like that, or whatever it is exactly going on. If I said the wrong thing and insulted everybody, I apologize. Please let us know.
Justin: Pre-apology.
Alex: Yeah. Pre-apology. I’m so sorry. We’ll delete the whole podcast. We’ll start over.
Justin: Yeah. Consider this deleted.
Alex: I’m enjoying it. It’s fun. Definitely fun music, but I get your point. There’s definitely… Like I was saying, there’s a certain amount of swagger going out here in terms of like, “We’re giving you something different to the MCU. This is not what you expect. Let’s go.”
Justin: I’m not saying I don’t like it. It’s just just funny, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the TV shows, it’s always very cool, they’re always sort of like, “Oh, you don’t get it? Okay,” and in this show, they’re like, “Look!!! Look, we did it!”, and so it’s that tonal change, and I actually prefer that confidence, that swagger you’re talking about, as opposed to the too cool for school vibe of so many of the other shows. It’s a funny… It’s a shift that I hadn’t expected with Moon Knight.
Alex: Well, this is something that they’ve talked about quite a bit in the interviews around the episodes, and we didn’t talk on the first episode of the podcast, but one of the impetuses behind the series, at least for the writing and directing perspective, is they felt like Egypt and Egyptian culture hasn’t been represented properly on screen, that it’s always presented as very exotic and weird, and the white man comes in and does all of these things, and here they wanted to present it more authentically, understand it more authentically. So I think what we’re getting there is that excitement over doing that, over being like, “We’re doing this in a big budget MCU project that probably gave us millions of dollars per episode,” and that’s fun. They’re having a nice time.
Justin: From what I know about the Egyptian sort of gods and just culture and stuff, it’s super interesting. Like the understanding of death and the weird choices they made, we saw Marc talk about. Yeah, they took out all the organs that left the heart. That was just the thing they decided, and that kind of stuff is super interesting, compared to, we hype up the Norse mythology because of Thor so much, but that’s very small in the larger sort of world culture.
Alex: I have affection for Norse mythology. I think it’s fun and weird, particularly, not to get too far afield, but if you go back and read the original Norse myths, they’re messed up on the level of original Grimm stories messed up, where they’ve been very sanitized through Marvel comics where I think most people like, “Oh, that’s what you think of when you think of Thor and Loki,” and I’ve talked about this on podcasts before, but there’s this weird story where… All of Loki’s tricks throughout Norse mythology are like, “I killed a horse and dumped in the river!”
Justin: Well, that was a big prank back then.
Alex: It was.
Justin: That was… Ancient Norwegian Jerry Seinfeld was like, “Look at all the dead birds!”
Alex: “Did you notice? Have you ever noticed this horse is dead?”
Justin: You see?
Alex: Now this actually, though, gets into something that I wanted to talk about here, the part that I skipped over in the recap, is we get a very big section delving into what’s going on with the avatars in this episode. Do you think… Are these gods real? I guess my question here is, they’ve been very careful setting up gods as science beings, as aliens. That’s what the Asgardians were. There’s that whole thing back in Thor about, “What you think as magic is actually science.” So here, we’re starting to touch on this a little bit with Khonshu, with all these powers with Ahmet, we get mentions of several times from Harrow, and that seems to be the main thing that’s motivating him, but do you think these gods are real? Are these actually gods, or are these more alien science beings?
Justin: It’s hard to say at this point. Khonshu is sort of a dick. We’ve seen him in the last episode and this episode, and he’s sort of like, “Come on, hurry!” He’s like a frustrated New Yorker of a god. He also doesn’t seem super powerful, and this is also in the comics, where he’s like, he has to get Marc to do everything, and so it’s like, “Oh, what is your deal?’ So to answer your question, I feel like if they are, it doesn’t feel alien. I feel like that touches, extends out of Moon Knight in a way that I think would be weird. So it does feel like it will be gods, but I think they are bad gods, or gods who aren’t super powerful, sort of like the old fashioned Greek mythologies, where it was just like each God is good at one thing, and then they were bad at everything else.
Alex: Yeah. It is interesting, and I’m curious to see how it plays out over the course of the series, because, not to touch on another property, but also Eternals is kind of the same thing. It’s skirting over this idea of, “Oh yeah. They’re aliens. They were sent to Earth. That’s where a lot of our mythology came from. That’s what this all comes out of,” but here, Khonshu is like a skull floating above a body that seems vaguely connected by little hairs or filaments or something like that, so I don’t think they need to explain it, and I kind of hope they don’t, but maybe this is the thing where it’s like, “We’ve already done the explanation for this, just roll with it,” and it’s all good.
Justin: Well, let me also throw out, and this happens in the comics a lot, Marc is like, “Are you real, Khonshu, or am I just imagining you because I’ve lost my mind?”, and that could be it too. There’s so much perception shifting in this episode, and Khonshu has the vibe of a Tyler Durden or a Mr. Robot, like that additional personality that our hero has that is just that, and maybe the power comes out of Marc. So we don’t really know, and what I sort of like that with this show so far, is they’re throwing us in and just letting the characters be themselves rather than being like, “So Khonshu, he’s he’s invisible,” doing the little bits and pieces, and obviously the jackal, that’s what plays in at the beginning of this episode.
Alex: Well, I’ll throw this out there too, just to bounce off of what you’re saying. I am surprised, not disappointed, but surprised that they’re not leaning into more of the Fight Club, Mr. Robot style thing of what is real and what is not real, because at the beginning of the episode, we get a little bit of that with the whole sequence with not Dax Shepard the guard, who is showing him the footage, and we see there’s nobody else there. He’s just kind of going through it, but by the end of the episode, it’s clear the invisible jackal is an actual invisible jackal as they’re fighting it, specifically because it’s happening to Layla as well. Everybody sees him in the Mr. Night suit. So this does seem to be really happening, he does actually seem to have these multiple personalities of Marc Spector and Steven Grant, and so I’d assume that Khonshu is real as well, which is different than the modern comics, which, to your point, it’s like, “Is he doing this? Is this real? What is happening here?” So I don’t know.
Justin: Yeah, and I do like the way that they play this. Again, that’s what I think the real innovation with this series compared to the other Marvel series is, is the way that they’re telling the story, and the perception shifts, because we get a bunch of them in this episode. Marc going to the Fax Shepard to talk about, look at the security footage and find that there’s nothing there, but all the consequences are there, and then we get the total flip, Steven loses his power by the end of the episode, as the sort of driver, and I’m curious if that will continue throughout the rest of the series.
Alex: Yeah. Oh, I also wanted to mention, which I completely neglected to mention in the first episode, F. Murray Abraham as the voice of Khonshu, which I definitely spent the whole first episode being like, “Who is this? This is very familiar,” and then the credits came up, but I was very happy. I’m glad that old Salieri is having a late career resurgence surgeons between this and Mythic Quest, and I think there’s a couple of other things that he’s done. Good guy.
Justin: Especially… His voice is strong. I feel like he’s doing some voice work, which is cool.
Alex: He is.
Justin: He’s great in this.
Alex: No, no. That’s his natural voice. He talks like that. They actually used to need to tone down the resonance on other shows, because-
Justin: Sorry, maybe I’m alone here, but you hear him all the time right? Being like, “Go to work, Justin.”
Alex: We’re actually not even taping a podcast right now. You’re just looking at a mirror and talking to me.
Justin: Oh, you’re my Khonshu? I’m your avatar?
Alex: No, no, no. I’m the Steven Grant [inaudible 00:11:16].
Justin: Yeah. Of course. Wow. This is awkward.
Alex: So let me ask a question while we’re kind of bouncing around randomly here through the episode about Steven Grant. There’s certainly a question of, who is the main personality here, Marc Spector or Steven Grant? Maybe this is because I’ve read the comics. My impulse is to think, “Okay, Marc Spector is the actual personality,” but two things happened in the episode that I thought were kind of interesting. One was that Steve… I keep mixing them in my head. Marc tells Steven, “Listen, just do this thing for me, and I’m done, I’m out of here,” and then there’s also a point when he is talking to Layla for the first time where it seems like most of the things that Steven Grant likes, he took from Layla, like speaking French, being into Egyptology, all of those things. So where’s your head at? Who is the real guy? Ultimately, I don’t think it necessarily matters, but what’s your take?
Justin: Coming from the comics where Marc Spector is sort of the main personality, and the way the show is, it’s like Steven is discovering that he has this other, much more intense life. The fact that Marc Spector’s married is like, “Oh, Steven feels like a sort of new personality. The other one’s married,” because it takes time to get married.
Alex: It doesn’t take that long if you head to Vegas or whatever.
Justin: True, but usually you can’t just walk to Vegas and be like, “Here’s your partner, get married.” You do have to bring… It’s like a BYOP situation.
Alex: You can also drive. I’m just saying. You don’t have to walk there.
Justin: Okay. That’s fair. That’s fair. I’m more of a walker.
Alex: You’re a walker. Walker traveler.
Justin: I’m a Walker, Texas ranger. What I do want to say is that all made me think, coming into this, that Marc was the dominant personality, and then Steven was sort of our way in. Like in a Superman movie, you hang out with Clark Ken a little bit, but it’s mostly Superman.
Alex: Right.
Justin: But I will say that the big difference maker for me here in this episode is when Marc falls off the building, or Steven falls off the building, smashes his head trying to summon the suit, and then the Mr. White suit does summon, and I was like, “Oh, interesting. Is that the way they’re going to play this?” Where Marc is Moon Knight, and Steven is Mr. Knight.
Alex: Yeah. That seems like what it is. That was a very fun reveal when he does summon the suit, and he summons a literal suit, and Marc and Steven have that very quick conversation about like, “What are you wearing? What’s going on here?” There’s a part of me, there is a little twinge, again, as a comic book fan, where I was like, “This is a bummer,” because I believe it was Declan Shalvey who designed the Mr. Night suit, and it’s so cool, it was this thing that came in the comics.
Justin: It’s cooler than the other suit, let’s be clear.
Alex: Exactly, and to treat it as the lamer suit is a bit of a bummer to me.
Justin: I hear you, because if this pattern continues with a rest of the show, it’s going to always be him being like, “Hey, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m in this suit,” so he won’t get to be cool, but I do think it’s such a good… I can hear the writer’s room, the writers in the writer’s room being like, “Look, he said suit, and of course he’s going to think of a suit suit, not a superhero suit.” So that idea is too strong to ignore, I think, from a writing perspective, and so I’m here for it.
Alex: It’s fine. It works in the show. This is just me holding onto some comic book stuff and the way-
Justin: Let it go. First off, set the comics down. We’re on a podcast. You don’t need to hold, grip white knuckle them as much as you are.
Alex: Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry. You know what? Comics suck. There you go. I’ll say it.
Justin: Okay. Too far, too far, too far.
Alex: Too far? Oh, I overcorrected. Oh, no. Yeah. I do like the Mr. Knight suit. I love that we do get a very clear sense… The superhero origin story, we talked about this on the last podcast a bit, that it’s funny that we haven’t actually seen the origin of Moon Knight in two episodes. We haven’t seen… Maybe a spoiler here. This is from the comics. In the comics, Marc Spector, if I remember correctly, dies. He dies while he is raiding a tomb. He’s a tomb raider, if you will.
Justin: Bit of a tomb raider.
Alex: Yes, a bit of a tomb raider, and he is resurrected by Khonshu, who makes him into the Fist of Khonshu. So that’s kind of how it works there, that’s kind of how it happens, but yeah. We’ll see if that plays out in the same way here. I don’t know necessarily if it will.
Justin: It feels like not. I don’t know, obviously, but it feels like it’s going to be… I don’t know how the… I bet we’ll get an episode five style reveal, like, “Here’s how Khonshu first met Marc Spector.” Their meet cute.
Alex: Romcom style? Yeah.
Justin: Yeah. Like they were both reaching for the same croissant.
Alex: Does that happen a lot?
Justin: Yeah. Are you ever-
Alex: Croissant, specifically?
Justin: When I was dating, I would spend a lot of time in bakeries just reaching for different pastries.
Alex: Oh, okay, I thought you were talking about it like it was a breakfast buffet or something.
Justin: When you think of croissant, you’re just like, “Oh, give me that Holiday Inn Suites breakfast buffet.” The breakfast croissant.
Alex: Well, I don’t think about that, but when I think about places where I can actually reach for a croissant, that’s probably there, versus a bakery where it’s like they’re handing it.
Justin: Maybe you’re destined to be with a baker.
Alex: I got so scared there.
Justin: This romance stuff stresses you out.
Alex: Speaking of romance stuff, why don’t we talk about the relationship with Layla here in the episode? You mentioned the Superbad of all. I almost feel like there’s a little bit of a love triangle bubbling up here, or at least they’re setting it up between Layla, Marc Spector and Steven Grant, and I’m here for that. That’s a great idea.
Justin: It’s great. The idea that she’s mad at Marc, and Steven is horrible around all women, but sort of nice, it feels like a classic romcom love triangle, like we’re joking about, right here in the middle… But a complicated one in the middle of this superhero show.
Alex: Yeah, and what do you think about Layla in general, because we heard her on the phone, but this is the first time that we really get to see her in action.
Justin: I like her. The actress, I haven’t really seen. I was like, “Where have I seen her before?”, and she was in Rami, I think the Amazon show, I really like that show. So I think she’s really good, and honestly, last episode, you talked about this as The Mummy, as like, “Oh, it’s Mummy, Indiana Jones esque.” I was like, “I don’t know,” but seeing her, she reminds me of the actress from The Mummy.
Alex: Rachel Weisz.
Justin: Yeah.
Alex: Yeah. Yeah, I think that is a little bit more of that vibe here, and it feels like they’re leading into it. That shot where she come in into Harrow’s little village. I guess he has several villages is what we’re finding out?
Justin: Who is this guy? This guy has a lot of real estate.
Alex: He does, but when she comes in and holds up the scarab, I was like, “Oh, that’s the Rachel Weisz moment right there. That’s exactly what’s going on.”
Justin: So yeah, that was a fun, interesting revelation, and interesting they’re leaning into the Mummy of it all. The Mummy, a movie that obviously was popular, but it’s not like everyone’s like, “Oh, when are we going to get more Mummy?”
Alex: I don’t know, man. Not to age us or anything, but I do feel like there’s obviously this generation that grew up on Indiana Jones as like, “Well, that’s how that’s supposed to go,” but The Mummy is a cultural touchstone, and it’s only become a bigger one over time in a very surprising way, and I think part of it, frankly, is because Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz’s chemistry in that movie, where everybody… Maybe this is like my pocket of the internet, but I don’t think…
Justin: It feels that way. I haven’t been on Mummy Reddit much lately.
Alex: Really?
Justin: But it sounds like it’s where you live.
Alex: Oh, okay. That’s the only website I’m able to access.
Justin: Yeah. I saw your Twitch rewatch of The Mummy. You do it once a week, right?
Alex: Day. Once a day.
Justin: Wow.
Alex: No, it has built up a cultural cache over time, and I think particularly… I don’t know, I haven’t checked the ages of filmmakers on here or anything, but I would imagine they’d be like, “Oh my god, let’s go for that Mummy vibe,” in the writing room, and then one old person like us in the corner is like, “What about Indiana Jones?”, and they’re like, “Who?”
Justin: Yeah.
Alex: Huh?
Justin: “The crystal skulls guy? That movie didn’t make any sense,” and I’m like, “You’re right about that.”
Alex: We’ll back you up there. Why don’t we move on and talk about Arthur Harrow, because there’s some big, interesting stuff that happens with him in this episode. You’re smiling. Why? What’s…
Justin: Oh, because I have a lot to say about Harrow. First off, these tattooed Harrow heads are everywhere. How many people has he got on staff? Again, huge real estate. He’s got all these people who are getting tats for him, which is a life commitment. It reminded me of… I feel like this is something that we see a lot, the sort of cult where the bad guy has everyone. We saw that a bit in Captain America and Winter Soldier, with all of those folks. So I’m not excited for that, but what I am excited for is… I think Ethan Hawke is crushing it. He has some sort of fucked up Obi-Wan Kenobi energy in this episode, and full-on Batman voice. He is Christian Bale pebble gargle all day.
Alex: Yeah. I’m really enjoying his performance as well. I agree with you on the whole cult aspect. Just trying to think around it, and granted, I never joined a cult, so I haven’t really gotten the mindset.
Justin: Fair.
Alex: But I did study cults a little bit in college, and there is a there is a… I did. I don’t know. I thought it was really interesting.
Justin: Gateway to joining one is studying them.
Alex: Well, yeah. Then I joined one. I don’t really have the cult mindset, but I was in a couple of cults, but it’s not a big deal, I don’t want to talk about it.
Justin: Yeah, for research purposes. Sex cults.
Alex: Yeah. Like sex cults. I was the only man.
Justin: Instead of reaching for croissants, you reach for the Kool-Aid.
Alex: So I still don’t, despite all that, quite get the mindset, and tried to wrap my head around, like you’re talking about, how this logistically works, that he walks up to people, has the [inaudible 00:21:34], and either they die or they don’t die. I guess there’s probably a certain amount of… Safety is the wrong word. Just relief in terms of getting this guy being like, “You are going to be good person your entire life. Confirmed by God.” That is great, but if the other option is you die, that’s not a great option. What were you going to say?
Justin: Oh wow. I like that you’re absorbing-
Alex: [inaudible 00:22:01] there.
Justin: So anyway, I’m against the villain of this show. “Oh really? You don’t like the way he moves.” I think at the end of this episode, we see that he just kills the random dude who found the scarab on the street, I think. I don’t think he’s judging him and doing all that, so it feels like Harrow’s whole thing is a bit of a show, and that he just can kill people with his little crocodile cane.
Alex: Yeah. Yeah, I guess that’s possible. I do think, on the other hand, I really liked… Not liked liked, but I liked the cult and the way it came out. I didn’t like like it. We didn’t reach for the same croissant. That’s what I’m saying.
Justin: Yeah. I got you.
Alex: Like you were saying, just going through this village, that whole detail of, “I made my own lentil soup,” it’s based on, I think it was Hector’s recipe, and Hector being like, “I love you mad,” or whatever. Very fun and weird. Also, just really like Steven liking the lentil soup as well, but the biggest thing for me that is the most interesting part of the character is the reveal that he was the former Fist of Khonshu. I think that creates a very clear line between him and Steven and Marc, and I think that’s going to be neat to see play out throughout the course of the series.
Justin: Definitely, and I also love how much he just shit talks Khonshu. It sets them up like they’re exes, technically, and we have Khonshu with the new guy, who’s sort of a little edgier, and Harrow is pissed about it, clearly, but also, he needs something. He gets the scarab, obviously, but it feels like he has unfinished business with Khonshu, and something happened.
Alex: I also do wonder if we’re going to find out how he broke free of Khonshu and whether potentially… It’s not going to happen with Steven and Marc, because Moon Knight is going to be ongoing throughout the MCU, but there’s this implication that it’s something that doesn’t necessarily just end when you die, that you don’t do it your entire life, because Khonshu, later on in the episode, doesn’t say her name, but very strongly implies that if Marc gives it up, he’s going after Layla.
Justin: He pulls the full on, “There is another,” Empire Strikes Back card.
Alex: Man, you’re real into this Obi-Wan this episode.
Justin: I think it’s there. I’m not putting it in here, but to me, that was the classic moment, like, “There is another.” It’s right there, and the Obi-Wan is he is sort of… Because he’s been through this, he was Khonshu’s person, and now he’s with Marc and he’s doing the twisted version of like, “Hey, here’s how it works, idiot.”
Alex: Yeah, but I like it. Like you said, I’m enjoying Ethan Hawke. I think he’s a good villain, and it’s always fun to have a sympathetic villain. I know there’s a lot of discussion about that. I feel like a lot of people are sort of pushing back on the whole MCU understanding the villain’s perspective thing, and wants just, “I’m evil,” but I don’t know. I like watching this better, personally.
Justin: I think that’s one of the main reasons why the Marvel movies and TV shows have been so much more successful than DC, because the villains aren’t. The DC movies that people flock to like Joker are literally in the villain’s head the whole time. So I think that’s important. Thanos is the main character of the final movies of the first phase of the Marvel universe, and here, I’m still not convinced, I said this last episode, that Khonshu might end up being the villain at the end of this first run.
Alex: Interesting. Other moments from the episode that you want to call out? We didn’t really talk about the jackal fight. We got to see that classic jumping across the rooftops in front of the moon. Just as a little bit of a side note, I don’t even know what I was in the middle of, but an ad for Moon Knight came up, and I was sitting there with my seven year old, and he saw that shot and he was like, “Well, that’s a rip off of Batman.”
Justin: Wow. Seven.
Alex: I know, and I was like-
Justin: Take down.
Alex: We just talked about that. Do you want to come on this podcast?
Justin: You’re training your replacement.
Alex: Yeah. It was definitely weird.
Justin: Yeah. He’s huge on Rotten Tomatoes, right?
Alex: Yeah. He’s accredited and I’m not, and it’s driving me insane, to be honest.
Justin: Bummer, and Mummy Reddit. I follow him on Mummy Reddit.
Alex: I did really like the shot at the end of the jackal fight where it was impaled on whatever that was.
Justin: Yeah. Some sort of church thing.
Alex: I don’t know.
Justin: Well, and just talking about that fight. I was talking the last episode about how what I like about the show is we really are riding along with Marc, Steven’s perspective. We’re right there with them and seeing the personality shifts and all that. That’s really cool, and the fact that we jump out to a third person perspective for this fight with the jackal and it’s invisible, and we’re getting that, I thought that was such a smart move and made for a really dynamic fight, and gave us the revelation that this is real, after the beginning of this episode, I was like, “Are you just making this up, dude?” So I thought that was really cool.
Alex: Also, I know we’re only two episodes in, but one of the things that I always look at with these TV shows is, are they trying to make mini movies, or are they actually trying to make TV shows? I think so far, again, we’re only two episodes in, but they’re doing a good job of making this episodic, which is no small compliment, because you have people like Taylor Sheridan doing Yellowstone and being like, “Well, we’re making more of a 10 hour movie here,” so for the movie people at Marvel to actually be working to make a TV show, I appreciate that. That’s nice.
Justin: Yeah, and this episode especially was such a good episode of television. They set up this thing, it’s not real, maybe, and then we find out definitively that it is real, and then we set up a bunch of things for the next episode. The pilot, great pilot. Put us in the action and then push us off. They’re doing a really good job with this. They’re learning. The thing about the MCU is they seem to always be…
Alex: They’re learning. Right?
Justin: Yeah. See? Good, good, good. Yeah.
Alex: It’s going to come back every episode, I think.
Justin: Yeah.
Alex: Little easter egg here. Despite the fact that it is in the MCU and they haven’t really been teasing other things, nobody’s mentioned Iron Man, nobody’s showed off Captain America’s shield or talked about him, but they did have a very quick easter egg in here during the jackal fight. On the bus, there was an ad for the GRC, the Global Reparations Council, that said, “Reuniting you with your better half.” So not that it’s a huge surprise, but this definitely setting it post-blip, even though nobody is necessarily referring to it, and I’ll tell you what. I like that. I like the fact that it isn’t Harrow being like, “I’m responding to the fact that Thanos snapped away half the people in the world. The people are feeling lost and I got them in a cult.” Maybe that’s the underpinning of it. Maybe that is why he is drawing in so many people, but not talking about that is so much more preferable to me, personally.
Justin: Yeah. Doing it in the way you said, with a bus ad, so you can notice it or not, but when it’s like this… Talk about the same thing that was said in Captain America and Winter Soldier. We have that, we have that in the lexicon. We don’t need to say it like, “Here’s why people are disaffected in the Marvel universe. All this bad stuff keeps happening.” It’s like, I know.
Alex: You don’t need to mention the giant alien ship that crashed in Thor: The Dark World. We’ll just go with it, or when Spider-Man blew up Mysterio on the bridge. It’s fine. We got it. London has had it tough.
Justin: You don’t need to show Harrow managing several tattoo artists who are constantly bringing people in, making sure the tattoos look good, updating that.
Alex: I want an episode on that, though. Now I want an episode on that. I want them to be auditioning the tattoo artists and be like, “Hey, just show me your scale. Do you have one of those scales tattoos? Can you make one of those tattoos that changes color and moves?”
Justin: Yeah. I want the moving one. If I’m in the cult, I want the moving one. I do like the idea of an episode where in the mornings, Harrow is coordinating the cupcake truck. Like, “Hey, come on. No. We have cupcakes through Thursday. Where are you? Oh, the truck’s still wrecked from when Moon Knight was here? Okay. Well, let’s get it fixed. I’m a cult leader. Let’s do some… You’re a cult person. You do what I say for a change.”
Alex: Onto a similar subject, when he said he made the lentil soup. Do you think he made enough lentil soup for everybody, because that’s a lot of lentil soup, or did he make enough for two bowls?
Justin: Well, and let’s say lentil, very cost effective soup. You’re not getting into a bunch of high end herbs, you don’t have to do a pork base or something like that. So I think he could have done it. I think they’re making big vats.
Alex: If Marvel is smart, they’re going to start marketing Harrow’s lentil soup and selling that, because I would definitely pick that up, like those Grogu Mandalorian cookies that they did when he ate the little macarons in one episode. They started selling those through Williams Sonoma. Do the same thing here.
Justin: Wow. You’re in a level of fandom that I do not know.
Alex: Mostly, that’s the stuff that we discussed on the Mummy Reddit, but… It comes up.
Justin: What is Williams Sonoma’s next geek culture recipe products going to be?
Alex: I’m telling you, Harrow’s lentil soup. It’s going to happen. Check it out later today when it pops up.
Justin: Alfred’s Batman cucumber sandwiches?
Alex: I need them. I need them. Are they shaped like bats? I’ll eat them.
Justin: That’s smart. Instead, I’m stuck in the Batzone or whatever from…
Alex: What is it? The calzone. It’s the Batman calzone. It’s not the Batzone. They should have called it the Batzone. That’s a different universe. We’re not going to get into that. Any other moments from the episode you wanted to call out in particular?
Alex: I like the line when they were looking at the footage, just real quick, where Dax Shepard, not Dax Shepard…
Justin: Fax Shepard.
Alex: Fax Shepard.
Justin: Facsimile Shepard.
Alex: “Are you crying?”, and he goes, “Yeah, a bit,” and then they kind of move on from there. Fun thing. What were you going to say?
Justin: Statue man still crushing it in this episode. What a confidant. The ultimate… I hope… We’ve seen him in episodes one or two. Is he a season long runner? Is he in Egypt? Is the statue man in Egypt?
Alex: I’ve got to tell you, when he showed up the second time, I started to get suspicious of him, which is insane, but I started to think, “Oh, he’s working for Harrow.”
Justin: Yeah, right. It’s only movement is to reveal the tattoo, but I wish in that big dramatic, swagger shot at the end of Marc drinking with Egypt, if in the corner, statue man is just frozen.
Alex: Statue man next to the pyramids or statue man’s in his room?
Justin: He should be next to the pyramids, technically, but I’ll take statue man any way I can get him.
Alex: Oh, he’s great. Couple other moments I’ll call out. This is just a… It was not the subtle thing, but I thought it was pretty nice. In the scene where the museum lets him go, and the last thing he has is his name, and they take his name, because that’s the only thing he has. Smart.
Justin: I like that, and the fact that he’s losing his identity, because he just found out that there’s another identity inside him. Actually, that is a little bit film school grad shit there, but I liked it.
Alex: No, I thought it was good. That’s why I brought it up. Also, I like the scarab. That also was very Mummy to me. Obviously they have scarabs in there, but the whole, “It’s a flying scarab that works as a compass, and we’re going to follow it.” It’s very simple, but it’s very fun.
Alex: The hallway scene in the storage facility, when Khonshu was chasing Steven, I thought was great. They’ve talked a little bit about how they really wanted to push the violence and push the horror, specifically for Marvel. I don’t think it’s wildly over the top, mind you, or anything like that, so maybe they feel like it’s pushed for Marvel, but regardless, the sequence worked really well, and it was really fun and well filmed.
Alex: Also, I don’t know if this was my version only, but I think this was a purposeful choice. At the end of that scene, Khonshu turns, faces Steven, and Steven screams, and there’s a freeze frame on him for a second.
Justin: Yep. It felt very Twin Peaks, in a cool way.
Alex: I love those little things we’re doing. We talked about some of the shots that are just a little showier in the episode so far, and it’s very fun to see.
Justin: Very cool.
Alex: All right. Well, there you go. Before we end up here, why don’t we talk about our vision board, what we want to see in the next episode of the series? Justin, what’s on your vision board?
Justin: Well, I’ve said that I really like the way they’re making this show, telling the story with all the different perception shifts. So I hope we get to see more of that. It seems like Marc is going to be in charge now, but I don’t want to lose Steven fully. I hope we get to see him sort of taking over at different times, showing up in the suit at the wrong moment ,and actually getting better, because really, we want to see him be a hero too.
Alex: Yeah. I agree with all of that. My big thing, now that we’re in Egypt and we know we’re in Egypt, are we going to get a scene back in time where we see how this Sphinx lost it’s nose? That’s a classic time travel thing. Something happens with the Fist of Khonshu, he slams into a sphinx, loses his nose, everybody goes nuts in the audience, because they’re like, “Oh, that’s how it happened. That’s very fun.”
Justin: That’s a great call. Mummy Reddit, watch out!
Alex: If you’d like to support this podcast, patreon.com/comicbookclub. Also, we do a live show every Tuesday night at 7:00 PM to Crowdcast YouTube. Come hang out. We would love to chat with you about Moon Knight. iTunes, Android, Spotify, Stitcher, or the app of your choice to subscribe, listen, and follow the show @MarvelVisionPod on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Comicbooklive.com for this podcast, and many more. Until next time, stay marvelous.
Justin: I’m going to head down and reach for a couple croissants in a sec, so I’ll catch up with you later.
Alex: Romantic.
