In the “Moon Knight” recap, Marc searches for Ammit’s tomb in Egypt but he needs Steven and Layla’s help to find it…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
If you’re not steeped in Egyptian mythology, the latest episode of “Moon Knight” does its best to serve as a crash course in an education about the gods that serve alongside Khonshu.
After last week saw Marc Spector and his counterpart Steven Grant manage to lose the golden scarab that leads to Ammit’s tomb to the god’s avatar, Arthur Harrow, he was forced to leave England to travel to Egypt so he could hopefully find the burial site before the man who seeks to resurrect her.
Ammit is a judgmental god who wants to punish evil in any form — even against those who have never actually committed any wrongdoing just yet — but the rest of the gods ensnared her in a tomb where she’s supposed to remain for the rest of eternity. Harrow, who previously served as Khonshu’s avatar, is seeking to release her so together they can pass judgment on the entire world, which seems like a really dangerous game to play considering Ammit would gladly wipe out children of she deemed them as threats to one day commit an act of evil.
With Marc now back in control over his body and Steven locked away inside his head, he lands in Egypt with hopes of tracking down Arthur Harrow and stopping him before Ammit is resurrected but in order to find the tomb without the scarab, he has to call on Khonshu and the other Egyptian gods to help on his journey.
With that said, let’s get to our full recap for the latest episode of “Moon Knight” titled “The Friendly Type”….
Gods Amongst Men
The episode actually begins with Layla El-Faouly aka Marc Spector’s wife getting a fake passport that will allow her to travel into Egypt — a country where she may not be welcomed when using her real name. Her conversation with an old family friend gives a little insight into her upbringing and her skills as a thief when stealing precious pieces of art and antiquities.
Layla also talks briefly about her father, who was an archeologist and explorer in his own right and that’s a key moment considering something that happens with Marc in the episode. More on that later.
Meanwhile with the golden scarab directing Arthur Harrow to the spot of Ammit’s tomb, which leads to a massive excavation getting underway, Marc realizes that he doesn’t have much time to find the site and stop the god of judgment from being resurrected.
In order to get to Harrow and the dig site, Marc decides to interrogate a group of his loyal followers, which results in a knife fight on top of a building. Rather than pull out his Moon Knight gear, Marc decides to fight these guys on his own while Steven shouts at him through reflections not to kill these men.
Unfortunately during the fighting, Marc loses control over his body and he wakes up in a cab headed for the airport with no memory how he got there. When Marc jumps out to find the Ammit worshipers running away, he gives chase until capturing one of them. Yet again, Marc black out and wakes up to find that he’s killed one of the men yet Steven claims he didn’t commit this act of violence either.
That means there’s a third personality crawling around inside Marc Spector’s head.
Now in the comics, the most prominent other personality is a New York City cab driver named Jake Lockley but that seems a far cry from the murderous mercenary that just popped up to kill these men. But in the comics, Steven Grant is an eccentric millionaire rather than a bookish gift shop worker in London so it’s entirely possible that the Jake Lockley personality in the series is the mercenary willing to kill to get whatever answers he needs.
When the final Ammit worshipper kills himself rather than give up information on Harrow’s location, Marc is back to square one with his search.
With limited time until Harrow uncovers the tomb to free Ammit from her imprisonment, Marc calls on Khonshu for help and this is when he decides that it’s time to call upon the other gods to help him intervene. Khonshu then uses his powers to cause an eclipse, which summons all of the other gods for a meeting inside the Great Pyramid of Giza.
There Marc is greeted by Yatzil, who is the avatar to the goddess Hathor, who represents love and music. Yatzil explains that the gods won’t actually appear at this meeting but rather they will speak through their chosen avatars.
Not all of the gods show up but rather just five of them — Horus, Isis, Tefnut, Osiris and Hathor.
Taking over Marc’s body to speak through him, Khonshu explains to his fellow gods that Arthur Harrow has found the location of Ammit’s tomb and he means to resurrect her to pass judgment on the entire world. The rest of the gods all but scoff at his accusations, especially considering they don’t really like Khonshu all that much anyways.
While Khonshu has dedicated his time to Earth and humanity as a whole — even though he’s really determined to dish out a lot of punishment for evil doing — the rest of the gods aren’t all that concerned with getting involved with mankind’s problems. The gods explain that they did not abandon humanity but rather humanity has abandoned them through disbelief so now they used their avatars to carry out their orders in secret while observing mankind but never interfering.
Khonshu objects and says that now is the time more than ever for the gods to play a bigger role with humanity while telling them to return from the Overvoid or risk losing this realm.
Now the Overvoid is reference to the Celestial Heliopolis, which is the home dimension to the Egyptian gods known as the Ennead. This is the world where the Egyptian gods reside similar to the realm of Asgard, which is where the Norse gods reside.
Mentioning the Overvoid seems like an important moment, especially as the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to expand further and further into outer space with the inclusion of characters from the Eternals and other realms outside of Earth.
As far as Khonshu’s claims, the rest of the gods call upon Arthur Harrow to answer for himself and he really does just essentially talk himself out of trouble without actually needing to show any proof about the dig he’s conducting in Egypt. Instead, Harrow points to Khonshu’s misguided vengeance against him while revealing that he’s using a damaged man as his avatar these days because Marc would be easier to control thus better to carry out his bidding.
When Marc is allowed to speak for himself, he confesses that he’s not well and that’s all the gods need to hear.
They sent Harrow on his way and allow him to return to whatever business he’s conducting while warning Khonshu that one more misstep will result in his banishment where he will be encased in stone forever.
It’s a crushing defeat in an effort to stop Harrow from resurrecting Ammit, although truth be told it was a rather weak attempt at putting an end to things anyways. Regardless, Marc is about to leave the Pyramid when he’s stopped by Yatzil, who gives him information to help find the tomb where Ammit is imprisoned.
She tells him that a sarcophagus belonging to the Pharoah Senfu contains a map that will lead him to Ammit’s tomb and hopefully he’ll get there in enough time to stop Harrow from resurrecting the god.
Back in Cairo, Marc starts asking around about Senfu’s sarcophagus but he isn’t getting much help — that is until his estranged wife Layla shows up to lend a helping hand. While he objects to her arrival, Layla knows she can lead Marc to the sarcophagus so they decide to team up together on this particular mission.
While their marriage is clearly falling apart, largely thanks to Marc lying to his wife about his dissociative identity disorder, which she had to figure out on her own after meeting Steven Grant in person, Layla is still willing to help because she knows the danger Harrow represents if he’s able to resurrect Ammit from her tomb.
Ammit being unleashed on the world would be greater than any plague and Layla wants to stop that as much as Marc does.
As the two of them reconnect, Layla tells Marc that she’s taking him to an art and antiquities broker named Anton Mogart — played by late actor Gaspard Ulliel, who sadly passed away in a skiing accident back in January. It seems much like she’s done throughout her own life, Mogart collects rare and expensive treasures and it appears he’s the one who possesses Senfu’s sarcophagus.
After arriving under the guise of a cover story as a married couple just returning from their honeymoon, Layla is greeted by Bek, who is Mogart’s right hand man. While talking, Bek mentions some sort of incident involving Mogart and Layla in Madripoor, which should sound familiar because that was the place where part of “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” took place.
Madripoor now serves as home to the Power Broker — later revealed to be Sharon Carter — who also deals in rare and expensive pieces of art while simultaneously running a criminal empire.
After being introduced to Mogart and giving their cover story, he allows Marc and Layla to examine Senfu’s sarcophagus, which is covered in hieroglyphics and symbols. Marc doesn’t understand any of it but Steven would — so at Layla’s insistence, he allows Steven to take over again.
Just as Steven is figuring out the map to Ammit’s tomb, they are interrupted by the arrival of Arthur Harrow and his followers.
Harrow offers Mogart the greatest treasure of all while showing him the scarab that leads to Ammit’s tomb. He also taunts Layla about the death of her father and the secrets that Marc has been keeping from her, which only serves to raise up even deeper issues from the past.
As teased earlier, Layla’s father was killed on a dig in Egypt and based on the “Moon Knight” comics, this would seem to hint at Marc Spector’s origin story where he was a mercenary working alongside a man named Raul Bushman. As the story goes, Bushman killed the lead archeologist on a dig for a Pharoah’s tomb, which led to Marc punching him to protect the archeologist’s daughter.
Bushman later betrayed Marc and left him for dead in the desert, which is when Khonshu found him and offered to save his life in exchange for his serve as the moon god’s new avatar. Now in the comics, the archeologist’s name was Peter Alraune and his daughter was Marlene, who later became the love of Marc Spector’s life.
While the names have changed, it would appear that Layla is taking on the role of Marlene in this particular story because everything else matches.
Back to the episode — Harrow convinces Mogart to side with him, which forces Marc to take back over the body before transforming into Moon Knight to save Layla and help them escape. A great battle ensues with Moon Knight taking out all of Mogart’s men while still protecting Layla from any harm — although she’s rather adept at protecting herself as well.
While Harrow escapes, Moon Knight seemingly kills Mogart while also grabbing several pieces of the sarcophagus that will hopefully lead them to Ammit’s tomb.
As they race away, Layla questions Marc about Harrow’s story that he was keeping a secret about her father but he plays it off as if he has no idea what the cult leader is talking about.
After they arrive in the desert, Layla attempts to put together the pieces of the sarcophagus to find where Ammit’s tomb is hidden but she can’t seem to figure it out. So she asks Marc to allow Steven back into the body so he can assist.
Sure enough, Steven takes over and he figures out that the sarcophagus is actually a map of the stars and a constellation that points to Ammit’s tomb. The only problem is the stars shift over time and considering this map is more than 4,000 years old, it won’t actually tell them anything without knowing what the stars looked like on the night when this was drawn.
Khonshu appears and reveals that he knows exactly what happened on that night — and with all of his powers summoned, he changes the stars in the sky to configure them to look like it did when the map was first drawn and placed on Senfu’s sarcophagus. Of course, Khonshu knows that carrying out this act will alert the other gods and it will force them to imprison him in stone just as they threatened.
Thankfully, Marc is able to help Khonshu with the spell he casts on the stars and Layla uses the map to locate where Ammit’s tomb is located. As the location is revealed, however, Khonshu falls away into nothing as the other Egyptian gods come together to trap him in stone inside the Great Pyramid of Giza where he is to remain for eternity.
Before he disappears, Khonshu instructs Marc to free him or risk going after Harrow without the powers he’s been granted.
Once Khonshu is imprisoned, Marc passes out on the ground with Layla tending to him while the avatars to the Egyptian gods call on Arthur Harrow to show the stone figure that now represents the moon god. Harrow decides to take the opportunity to taunt his former god while telling him that he’ll do more good with Ammit than they ever did together while trying to punish the wicked on Earth.
Harrow promises to finish what they started — except now all evil will be snuffed out thanks to Ammit’s immense power and the judgment she will cast upon the entire world once she’s resurrected.
“Moon Knight” returns with a new episode next Wednesday on Disney+
