Moon Knight Episode 5

The fifth episode of Moon Knight explored Marc Spector's intense trauma—but did it do so well?

Fingers crossed that the series won’t be a victim to a lackluster finale like some of Marvel Studios’ Disney+ outings have been so far. It is worth noting that the absence of Marc’s rival Bushman was a rather glaring omission. If this is truly Steven’s end, having his time run out right after basically losing the innocence for which he was created is a very poignant and heartbreaking way to go.

This trauma dump of an episode tells us pretty much everything there is to know about Marc Spector's past. A recap of “Asylum,” episode five of the Disney+ ...

Marc also mentions that he went AWOL in the army and was summarily discharged; that could have been Jake’s doing. Marc can, in theory, go back to the “upper world” through the Gates of Osiris. He may need to first appeal to the God of the Underworld, but it’s not impossible. Back on the boat, eventually Marc and Steven convince Taweret to turn around and take them back to the land of the living, a.k.a. the Gates of Osiris. But once they get there, even after Steven helps Marc to forgive himself, the scales are not balanced. What happens when Marc teams up with Bushman is more or less the same on the page and on the show: Bushman murders the father of Marc’s future partner (their names are Dr. Peter Alraune and Marlene Alraune in the comics, though, rather than Abdallah and Layla El-Faouly) and would have successfully killed Marc if it weren’t for Khonshu. Putnam is also the name of the psychiatric hospital where Marc is first interned in the comics. Then came the mission that resulted in the death of Layla’s father and Marc’s “rebirth” thanks to Khonshu. His name is Selim, and he’s played by Khalid Abdalla (The Kite Runner). But the last we saw Selim, he seemed to be on Harrow and Ammit’s side. The work to balance the scales continues there but in the form of a more traditionalish therapy session. Steven gives a litterbug of a little girl a lesson on the Egyptian afterlife, and she sasses back to him, “Did it suck for you, getting rejected by the Field of Reeds?” “That doesn’t make sense,” he says, “because I’m not dead. Over the course of the episode, Marc and/or Steven occasionally get stressed out and disassociate back to Harrow’s office. Marc and Steven (and maybe someone else) traveled to the Duat, the Egyptian afterlife, where the goddess Taweret is leading them by boat toward the Field of Reeds. She explains a few things: (1) Marc perceives the Duat as a psych ward because it is too much for the human brain to process, and (2) he and Steven need to balance their hearts with a feather by confronting some memories before the boat reaches the Field of Reeds or else sand zombies will claim their soul. Am I … am I?” What a disturbing bit of foreshadowing, knowing now that Steven actually does get rejected at the end of this episode. We first heard about the Field of Reeds — within the context of Moon Knight, that is — in the series’ very first episode.

What's really going on with Marc Spector and Steven Grant at the end of Moon Knight episode 5? And is there another personality or identity at work?

The big plot of the episode is that the goddess Taweret can bring Marc and Steven to the Field of Reeds (a form of Heaven) if their hearts are found to be balanced on a magic scale. Instead of running off, he picked up an impromptu weapon and prepared to attack Harrow. As he started to come off as a pissed-off Robert De Niro, “Marc” was held down and injected in the neck with a sedative. The thing is…how real is the real world in this story? Steve steps up and saves Marc, but at the cost of falling into the Duat and becoming eternally frozen. This whole development had been foreshadowed in the second episode when Layla appeared confused at Steven claiming to be in contact with his mother. Marc was part of the military, but having a double life didn’t exactly gel with that kind of situation, so he was discharged. Steven has always been imagining these conversations and even uses the “later, gator” farewell his mother used to give him as a kid. Marc ignored the warnings and they continued their adventure, only for the rain to pick up into a storm and flood the cave. Marc experienced the truth when it came to his mother, but Steven got to live the lie that his mother loved him. Then there’s the third world, where Marc and Steven are trying to comprehend the afterlife. The penultimate episode of Moon Knight certainly borrows a lot from fellow Disney+ Marvel show WandaVision. Our protagonist is forced to confront their past and the secrets to their fractured mental state through mystical means. What's really going on with Marc Spector and Steven Grant at the end of Moon Knight episode 5?