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Stray thoughts from rewatching Moon Knight (part 1)
All six episodes of MK s1 on my D+ profile are paused in random places mid-episode, from times when I was looking up a specific scene to double-check something for fic purposes.
Not counting targeted canon-review moments, I might have only watched the whole show through twice? Figured I should get in another, for the sake of giving Disney that “hey, viewers like this, we should make more of it” data.
Observations, episodes 1-3:
- Steven is the character who swears the most. Really noticeable in comparison with Marc (in the first 2 episodes, he doesn’t at all). If none of the characters cursed at all, you could chalk it up to the TV-14 filter, assume Marc is “really” swearing like a sailor — but as-is, it’s clear that with or without the filter, Marc curses dramatically less than Steven does. It’s a nice contrast, angry Marc lashes out physically, angry Steven does it verbally.
- Mirrors Marc has smashed while fighting with Steven: 2
- Khonshu’s voice isn’t as deep as I remember. Not that it’s high, but…probably I’ve written about him “rumbling” and “booming” and “thundering” so often, I started to imagine a level of bass reverb that just isn’t there.
- In the Alps, there’s a fight scene Steven blacks out for, snapping back in with bloody hands and surrounded by a ring of collapsed bodies. Fandom has debated whether those people are dead or just unconscious. Harrow definitely killed a person in the Alps, and the next time Steven sees Harrow, he doesn’t hesitate to call it out — so it’s notable that Harrow doesn't even try to claim "you/Marc killed people there too." Later on, Harrow engineers for Steven to see a report about the archaeologists Bushman killed, and only after that does Steven throw an accusation of “you’ve killed people” at Marc.
- The way Layla talks about the suit when she first meets Steven, it seems like she hasn’t actually seen Marc wear it that much. Comics Marc is wearing some version of it constantly — it’s basically a security blanket — he came up with the business-suit model so that, even on non-superhero occasions, he still has a comfortable mask to hide behind. MCU Marc seems like he holds it back until he really needs the healing factor. Maybe it makes him feel too dependent on Khonshu? Maybe he’s just being a masochist.
- Fandom also debates “did this Marc actually die in Khonshu’s temple?” (His original backstory in the comics says no. Later retcons say, actually yes.) So I perked up toward the end of e02 when Khonshu says “You were nothing more than a corpse when I found you.” Maybe he’s just being figurative/poetic (and I think that’s how Marc interprets it)…but maybe it’s literal. When Khonshu first speaks to Marc in the temple — it’s fully possible that Marc was already dead, he just hadn’t noticed.
- That whole e02 Marc-Khonshu conversation is wild. On the one hand, it plays like Khonshu found an incel/PUA manual somewhere, and is diligently following it. (“First, neg the girl so she feels bad about herself. Then tell her something nice, so she’ll feel grateful to you for liking her anyway!”) On the other, you could also read it as Khonshu the confused extraplanar immortal who’s doing his best. (“This human only responds when I’m mean to him! I tried saying I’ll protect him, and assuring him that he’s worth protecting, like it says here in page ∞ of the Caring For Your Squishy Human Avatar manual. All he did was scowl at me!”)
- It says so much that Layla (a) has a go-to Passport Forger (b) who’s familiar with her whole family. Kinda wish the counterfeiter was some kind of comics tie-in, the way we get with Crawley and Mogart. On the other hand, women over 40 are notoriously thin on the ground in comics, and I wouldn’t want this one swapped out for somebody younger just to make the reference.
- It’s been said before, and I’ll say it again: major props to the crew for so much footage of the pyramids that emphasizes “no, really, they’re not far out in the mysterious desert, Cairo is Right There.”
- The interrogation scene is even harder to watch when you know how it ends, whoof.
- Marc and Layla are really well-practiced at fighting together, covering each other’s weak points and playing off each other’s combat styles. But their attempt at an undercover operation with secret identities falls apart so fast.
- When Steven appears during the fight scene at Mogart’s place, he implores everyone to “chill the F out” — as in, he says the letter F. Later, Marc dismisses Harrow’s manipulation as “baloney.” In light of that first bullet point, gonna quietly headcanon that Steven’s non-swear was a product of the TV-14 filter, and Marc’s was not.
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