The Moon, Her Magic Be

[setsuled]

I guess last night's Moon Knight finale wasn't bad but I'm a little confused by the ecstatic reviews I've been reading for it. It felt oddly rushed to me, like a trailer for an episode rather than an actual episode. There were big chunks of character development still missing and necessary to support what happens and some dialogue just didn't make any sense. It had some nice spectacle, though.



The giant Khonshu versus Ammit fight was some groovy kaiju action. Too bad we couldn't get the starfish from The Suicide Squad involved. Eternals needed a scene like this. It wouldn't have saved it but it would have been a good start.



In terms of the human characters, Harrow is really the only one the feels like he was fully realised. It was interesting when Ammit remarked that Harrow's own scales weren't in balance. Harrow's humility and Ammit's decision to use him were just as interesting and made both characters come off as intelligent.

I was disappointed to see Steven rescued, especially since it didn't make a lot of sense. It reminded me a lot of the end of Frozen when Elsa saves Anna. It made a bit more sense in Frozen, though, and that was one of the weak points in that movie.



The weakest part of the episode was definitely Layla. She rescued Khonshu seemingly only to tell him that she didn't trust him and didn't want to work with him. And then later she agreed to become Taweret's avatar with no explanation as to why she trusted Taweret when she was so set against it with Khonshu. This, combined with her uneven or just plain absent development in previous episodes, culminated in the pathetic moment when a kid says, "Are you an Egyptian superhero?" and she just says, "I am." I haven't seen pandering this shallow since that phoney little video showing an Asian kid disappointed by the lack of representation in the Ghost in the Shell live action movie. But Layla's costume is kind of nice.



When Marc refrained form killing Harrow/Ammit, Khonshu said vengeance was necessary when he should have taken a cue from Palpatine or Mace Windu and said, "He's too dangerous to be left alive!" Then what would you say, Marc the Merc?

But it did lead us to the end credits scene in which we finally meet Jake Lockley, the third personality inhabiting Marc's body. That could pay off in good stuff when this show gets its second season.

Comments

[classysleuth]

It was leagues better than Falcon and the Winter Soldier's finale, that's not saying much, still there's something.

The episode had great energy and it was more in line with the rest of the MCU than the pervious episodes. So there's that too. For me it teased lots of interesting things to come.

The weirdest point for me was how Marc came back to life, if Khonshu had simple raised him from the dead, it isn't like that isn't in his skillset. Khonshu/Marc/Steven could have convinced her to get the awesome costume without it being weird.

You wouldn't spend the rest of the episode wonder why Osiris didn't just raise the rest of the avatars from the dead, since there wasn't any indication Khonshu need to be there to take down nifty Croc lady. Things just would have made more sense.

Thanks for you write ups! They were fun to read!

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, when I heard that this would be the last episode I was rather baffled as there seemed to be an awful lot of stuff to suddenly wrap up. And given the way it ends, it was clearly meant to leave some things hanging, because it opened up a whole new set of questions.

Also agree about Layla -- there was just no time for development. I can understand why she distrusted Khonsu as she would have heard about him from Marc. And presumably she knows enough about Egyptian gods to understand who Tawaret is and she would also know how time was of the essence in stopping Ammit. But it was still all very muddled, as is the fact that she now has her suit and knows how to use it instinctively, and I totally agree about the representation moment landing like an anvil.

I also don't know that it makes any sense that Steven could be rescued given what we'd been initially told, though I do understand Marc's determination to. I guess it represented that they were both two halves of a whole or it was a final test given their unusual situation. But that just re-emphasizes the fact that these episodes were rushed and we never got a good understanding of how the gods worked together (or apparently didn't), and how their verse worked either.

The season could have used at least two more episodes to better explore all the elements. Not that the other Marvel shows have been particularly long but this is also the first one in which everything is new -- the title character, the additional characters, the verse, the backstory. And given that half the show is about finding out who Marc and Steven even are it doesn't leave much time for anything else.