'Moon Knight' Episode 1: "The Goldfish Problem" Recap and Review
A hot start for the Marvel series, in spite of its tonal clash.
WARNING: Contains Spoilers
There is something not quite right with Moon Knight. That is, both within the context of the show and with the show itself. Within the show, the feeling is a good thing, there is an air of mystery surrounding Oscar Isaac’s Steven that is interesting and engaging. Ethan Hawk’s Arthur is mesmerizing and the Egyptian aesthetic is fresh and interesting. But the show itself feels a tad odd. There is an inherent tone that manifests around the subjects handled by Moon Knight. Mental health, religion and extreme implied violence all combine to form a dark cloud of grim psychosis that clashes with Marvel’s all-too-familiar quirky heroics. It’s as if the Egyptian God Anubis got its face painted at a carnival. All the zealous dread that comes with facing the Egyptian God of Death is still present and palpable, you just can’t help but wonder why its face is painted like a kitty cat.
The episode begins in the office of an unknown man with a recognizable tattoo of scales on his forearm. We watch as the man meticulously prepares broken glass that he pours into his shoes. Slowly he slips the shoes on, stands, and walks deeper into the ruins attached to the room. Suddenly Steven wakes in his bed. As if routinely, he looks around the room for anything out of place, checks to be sure his shackles were still on, and other odd ways to be sure he didn’t leave during the night. Steven feeds his one-finned fish, Gus as he leaves a message on his mother’s machine before he heads to work at Brittan’s Natural History Museum where he works as a gift shop clerk. A woman approaches him and checks to see if they are still on for a date that he doesn’t remember making. At the end of the day he grabs a taco and talks to the human statue in the square before preparing all his precautionary measures and lying down for bed. But he doesn’t sleep; instead he plays a tape on staying awake, plays with a Rubix Cube, and researches the group of Egyptian Gods known as the Ennead. He wakes again abruptly, this time in a field with a dislocated jaw. He looks around and sees a small village in the distance before a disembodied voice, F. Murray Abraham, tells him to go back to sleep. The voice commands him to surrender the body to Marc and Steven is dumbfounded by this. Steven checks his pocket and finds a small golden scarab just before getting shot at from the building directly behind him. Steven scurries away to the small village where he blends in. He comes to an odd sight as a man with a divine aura known as Arthur walks in to the town square and asks for volunteers for judgement. This is the man with glass in his shoes. A man approaches Arthur who places a double-sided can in his hands and lets it swing back and forth. As the cane swings, the scale tattoo on Arthur’s arm shifts and contorts and then changes to the color green. Arthur deems the man to be good and he walks away. A woman then approaches seeking the same judgement, but this time the scales turn red and the life is drained from her body. She collapses and and is taken away. It is then that Arthur is informed by one of his henchmen that a mercenary has escaped. Quickly, Steven is identified as the Mercenary and Arthur demands he return the scarab. Steven tries to hand him the scarab but both his body and the voice in his head refuse. Fed up, the henchmen surround Steven with guns and force the scarab out of Steven’s hands. Suddenly, Steven blacks out and wakes up with the henchmen sprawled out around him in a bloody heap and the scarab safely back in his hands. Steven steals a cupcake van and speeds away. A chase ensues and another well-timed blackout saves his life. Steven screams himself awake and finds himself back in his bed.
The next day, Steven starts noticing some odd occurrences, the first one being that his fish, Gus suddenly has two fins. At the fish store, he notices the time and rushes home to prepare for his date. After waiting, he calls his date for an update and she tells him that he stood her up, two days ago. Steven quickly realizes he is missing the memory of all that time. As he leaves another message for his mom, Steven returns home. In his apartment, he finds other oddities that lead him to discover a phone and key behind a hidden panel. He searches the phone and finds several missed calls, all from someone named Layla. Suddenly, Layla calls and asks him where he has been. She calls him Marc just before he hears another voice, but this one sounds more like him, just without the accent. He searches his apartment but finds no one. As the lights begin to flicker and his apartment rumbles, Steven sprints to the elevator and tries to shut the doors as a gigantic white figure with a bird skull head wrapped in white tries to force the door open. It opens, and a little old lady enters. Steven blacks out again, but wakes on the bus. As he leaves, he spots Arthur who had followed him. Arthur confronts Steven inside the museum and explains who he serves: the Egyptian god, Ammit. Arthur reveals that he knows there is a voice inside Steven’s head as he places his cane in Steven’s hands and lets it swing. Arthur is puzzled by what he sees in his scale tattoo and lets Steven go. As Steven leaves for the day, he hears what he thinks is a dog roaming the museum. Steven investigates to find a jackal-like demon dog. Steven runs and hides in the bathroom where his reflection starts talking to him. His reflection demands control and promises to keep him safe. With no other options, Steven surrenders to the reflection and is transformed into the Moon Knight.
Oscar Isaac is hamming it up as Steven. Every bit of Steven, including the choice of accent, has created a meek and somewhat pathetic persona that contrasts hilariously with the hyper-violent nature of Moon Knight. Steven is hilariously befuddled throughout the episode as he snaps in and out of reality and you can feel the fun Isaac is having while playing Steven. Opposite Steven is Ethan Hawke’s Arthur who feels terrifying, in spite of the green for good, red for bad nature of his tattoo. The character walks with purpose and speaks softly and is a cult of personality that commands the people of the small Alpine village. The designs of Moon Knight and Khonshu are beautifully comic-accurate and dread-inducing at times. It seems they are building for Steven to be the manifested personality and Marc to be the real person. His colleagues imply that he hasn’t been employed in the museum for very long, he has two conversations with his mother’s ‘answering machine’, and the contact with Layla implies that Marc has been missing for a few months. The issues with the first episode kick in when the Marvel tone start to sink in. The score is overly intrusive in some parts that if pulled back could be legitimately unsettling and scary. There is a chase scene in the middle set to “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” by Wham! that works ironically but feels out of place. Fun seems to be the key word from adapting this violent and psychologically unsettling comic into live-action. In place of the hyper-violent drama seen in the comic, we have a tone similar to The Mummy franchise.
The series is no doubt off to an excellent start and the performances and story presentation are all on point and in top form. Tonally, the show could darken up as the series progresses, like how they hinted at the hyper-violent nature of Marc Spector and Arthur seems to darken any room he occupies. The lighter tone of the first episode could just be a way to ease you into the bloody nature of the series. Given that the last Marvel series was a family-oriented, Christmas-themed buddy comedy, seeing Oscar Isaac beat people into a bloody pulp could be a tad shocking.