Moon Knight’s finale is just okay

After six weeks of mind-bending storytelling, we’ve finally arrived at the season finale of Marvel’s Moon Knight. It’s been a wild ride filled with some great performances from Oscar Isaac (Marc Spector/Steven Grant), Ethan Hawke (Arthur Harrow) and May Calamawy (Layla El-Faouly), but all good things must come to an end. Let’s break it down.

As always, this review will contain SPOILERS for this week’s episode of Moon Knight.

Moon Knight episode 6 review

In last week’s episode, “Asylum,” Marc Spector’s journey through the Duat earned him the peace of the Field of Reeds. But with Arthur Harrow and Ammit on the loose, will he be able to get back in time to help with the final showdown?

It’s Marvel and Disney, of course he will. In fact, Moon Knight is so casual about this that it outright spoils it, as well as the fact that Steven Grant survives his tumble to the sands in last week’s episode, right there in the one sentence description for the episode. This isn’t the kind of thing that I’d normally point out in a review, but when you combine it with the fact that Moon Knight’s finale is also the only episode of the season that doesn’t have a title (it’s simply titled “Episode 6”) and that its 43-minute run time makes it the shortest episode of the series, it starts to feel like Disney and Marvel may have rushed this thing out the door a bit.

Which isn’t too much of a knock on the episode itself. “Episode 6” is an overall solid episode of Moon Knight, somewhere between the chaotic brilliance of “Asylum” or “The Goldfish Problem” and the hot mess that was “The Tomb.” It’s comfortably middling in terms of the quality and how it wraps up the series, with a few standout moments.

Crocodile on the loose

The finale of this limited series is all about the clash between Arthur Harrow and our heroes. After last week’s episode took place entirely in Marc Spector’s subconscious and the Duat, this week we’re back to cold hard reality. We rewind a little at the start as Harrow takes the statue of Ammit from Marc’s corpse and sets out to revive the goddess by shattering the small stone prison of her shakti statue inside of the Chamber of the Gods. Layla is grief-stricken over Marc’s death, but doesn’t let that stop her from doing her best Assassin’s Creed impression and sneaking in among Harrow’s soldiers in order to try and kill him. It’s great to see May Calamawy get some solid material this week, and she does a fantastic job throughout this episode.

Things quickly escalate as Harrow succeeds in freeing Ammit after killing a whole bunch of people, including the avatars who ignored Marc Spector’s pleas for help a few episodes back. There’s a curious question here: why are these avatars so weak compared to Harrow or Marc or Layla, who reluctantly becomes the vessel of Taweret in this episode? Because they’re not the stars of the show, and therefore it’s more important to keep things moving along than worry about that continuity blip.

Anyway, Layla accepts Taweret’s power and receives one of the most badass superhero outfits since Sam Wilson took over the mantle of Captain America. She frees Khonshu, who confronts Ammit and has a godly battle. Ammit is a very cool CGI creation. From her crocodile visage to her braided hair, she looks fantastic.

But as with the climactic dragon fight in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, there’s something about enormous CGI Khonshu and Ammit battling that feels a little hollow. They go over the same emotional beats the show has pounded into us all season: Ammit will rid the world of evildoers before they do the evil, Khonshu only gives vengeance to those who deserve it, etc. It would have been nice to hear the debate between these gods deepen and take on some extra nuance beside Ammit giving the stereotypical bad guy offer of “you can rule at my side!”

It wouldn’t be Marvel without a big fight scene at the end

Meanwhile, back in the afterlife, Marc Spector turns away from the promise of eternal rest in the Field of Reeds because he doesn’t want to condemn Steven to the sands of the Duat. He goes back and has a beautiful scene opposite himself. Oscar Isaac’s acting continues to be masterful.

Ultimately, Osiris takes mercy on Marc/Steven and opens the doors of the underworld, allowing them to escape. Taweret flies by on her ship, crashing into a wave of sand to buy them time in a split-second cameo that feels specifically designed by Disney to make her appeal more to the kids.

And then we’re off into the finale’s climactic showdown. There’s fighting and more fighting, with some really wonderful visuals. The setting in particular deserves a nod, as Harrow begins judging people for his goddess while standing atop the pyramid.

The battle itself is fine. There are some cool moments, and some odd ones thanks to the editing. Layla totally steals the show, which feels really well deserved and exciting to watch. There’s one brief moment where a little girl asks if she’s an Egyptian superhero and Layla answers yes that’s a little jarring. On the one hand, the representation is fantastic; on the other, it smacks just a bit of Disney patting itself on the back, kind of like it did with the charge of female heroes in Avengers: Endgame. Since I’m not from the community being represented here I can’t comment on how effectively they did it this time around, but I’ll be curious to follow the discourse about this bit.

It all leads to a climactic moment where Marc/Steven’s third personality comes out and basically murders everybody. Marc regains control with Harrow limp in his arms. In shock, Layla asks him what just happened. They trap Ammit in Harrow’s body, but instead of killing him, Marc opts to leave Khonshu’s service.

But this is Marvel! Marc can no more leave Khonshu’s service than we can leave the MCU. After one more pretty solid fake-out where Marc, Steven, and personality #3 are back in an asylum with Harrow and realize it’s an illusion, Marc wakes up back in Steven’s apartment. He falls on his face because he’s tied to the bed, just like in the series premiere. Cue credits.

However, unlike many of Marvel’s other movies and series, where the post-credits scene serves as a teaser for their next thing, the end credits scene of Moon Knight feels like an essential part of the episode. It is the real ending of the limited series, which reveals that Harrow/Ammit is in a mental hospital. A man comes in and wheels him out past a bunch of dead bodies and puts him in a limo where Khonshu sits waiting in a snazzy suit. We then get our final reveal: Marc is still in service to the moon god and Khonshu was never interested in recruiting Layla anyway. Why would he be, when Marc has a third personality named Jake Lockley buried deep down that seemingly exists for the express purpose of murdering people when Marc or Steven’s morals would get in the way? He shoots Harrow and drives off, and the show ends for real.

Bullet Points

Some closing thoughts here, since as of this writing Moon Knight has not been renewed for a second season, which leaves us in the position of assuming this was a true limited series:

• It was great to have a personality flip factor into the climax with the sudden shift to Jake. Marc and Steven are finally in sync, switching between personalities and suits throughout the fight, so having a moment that mirrored the disorientation of the first episode was a great way to contrast how far the characters have come, while also highlighting that there’s still more secrets to uncover.
• We knew Jake was coming; the show has hinted at it for most of its run. Did it handle the reveal well? For my money, yes. It does leave the door very open for a sequel, but it’s also a fittingly disconcerting final note to leave the series on. Khonshu is taking advantage of Marc/Steven/Jake.
• However, the idea that Marc and Steven have no idea about Jake by the end of the series as Khonshu claims doesn’t sit quite right with me. Jake just came out for a second time in the middle of a climactic fight, with Layla there to witness it. Surely this is now a conversation topic for Steven and Marc?
• What’s the deal with the Ennead, and the Egyptian pantheon in general? The show made it a point to mention how many and which gods were part of this group in its premiere, so its odd that we only ever saw five gods calling the shots and most of them weren’t even among those mentioned. It’s felt like a mystery the show was going to unravel. Where is Anubis? I still want to know why there’s all this talk of scales and he was hardly ever mentioned in the series when that was one of his primary duties in Egyptian myth.
• A nod must be given to the writers and to Ethan Hawke for pulling off the line “I don’t need to show you my papers. You need to show us your souls.” What a boss.
• And another nod to the scene where Marc Spector tells a frozen Steven Grant that “you were the only superpower I ever had.” Despite any griping I might have had about the finale or series as a whole, Isaac’s relationship with his multifaceted character was never anything less than gripping.
• May Calamawy totally stole the episode as Layla. I would watch a spinoff about her character. Knowing Disney, it’s probably already in development.

Verdict

The finale of Moon Knight packed a punch and pulled together many of its disparate plot threads into a satisfying conclusion that feels right for the character. Steven and Marc don’t quite get an uncomplicated happy ending, which is exactly the way it should be for one of Marvel’s most complex superheroes. May Calamawy’s Layla was a highlight and the CGI was impressive, if not always the most engaging.

Episode grade: B+

Series grade: A-

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