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A Complete Unknown is far from the worst thing you'll see this Christmas season, and many people will probably like it simply because of the various performances.
Posted in: Disney+, Kaitlyn Booth, Marvel, TV | Tagged: disney, marvel, moon knight, Review, tv
Moon Knight Episode 4 Review: Two Sharp Tonal Left Turns Make a Right
Moon Knight episode four is the one that people who had access to the screeners have been talking about for weeks, be it in very vague terms. The thing that sets this episode apart from all of the others is the stark change in tone that we see not once but twice. This sort of left turn would probably leave a lot of series feeling a little off base, but for Moon Knight, it feels strangely natural. This is a show that has been getting progressively weirder with every minute that goes by. The first episode was almost generic compared to where we are now, so while these tonal changes are a lot, the first one at least doesn't feel completely out of left field, and the second one is just weird enough that it works within the context of the show that we're watching.
The first tonal shift that we see in this episode of Moon Knight is basically a version of any mummy movie that has come out in recent years. We get the introduction of a proper monster in this episode, and the little clicky noises echoing within the walls and echos of the tombs are genuinely creepy. This is the sort of the thing that proves that you don't need a ton of gore or blood to make tension or even something that looks genuinely creepy. All you need is some atmosphere building, and the second that Steven and Layla get to the tomb and we see it abandoned with the blood on the sand, we know that things are going wrong. The Heka Priest and the scene that we see with it removing the organs of one of Harrow's followers while Layla hides just out of sight is the kind of thing that horror movies are built on. The fight scene she later has with the priest, yanking her into the darkness included, is pretty paint by numbers in terms of horror, but it's something we haven't seen explored in the Marvel Cinematic Universe just yet. We know that gods exist in this world, so something like this isn't out of the frame of possibility.
Moon Knight continues to be a show that isn't really focused on the hero of Moon Knight at all and is more focused on Marc and Steven as characters. The removal of Khonshu and with it the suit and the healing adds another level of tension to everyone, but it's not often that a superhero show will go out of its way not to show its costume. That remains one of the weaker elements of the show and removing it makes this one of the season's stronger episodes because the distracting CGI cape isn't there, and the effects for the Priest appear to be practical, which is fun to see. While Steven might be nerding out about this whole thing and being in a tomb, the episode is making sure that we as an audience are aware of the danger for all of our main characters.
That danger comes to a head in the second massive left turn that Moon Knight takes in this episode that really can only be likened to Legion. While the second season was just all right, and the third season kind of vanished into nothing, season one of Legion remains some of the best Marvel television has ever put out full stop. The details of this twist are the things that make it work, as every inch of the scenes in the asylum are callbacks to previous things we have seen throughout the series. We see Donna, Steven's boss again, we see the same cupcakes from the pilot, we see the gold statue from London, Marc holding a figure of the Moon Knight armor, all of these little things that have appeared throughout the episodes as normal or surreal things are presented as ordinary things within an asylum setting. It's deliberate and makes the audience question whether or not everything we've seen so far is real.
The "it was all in his head" twist is a copout if there ever was one, but the show doesn't hold onto that possibility for very long. They make it linger just long enough to make you question what is real and just long enough to watch Marc question whether or not any of this is real. The surreal aspects of it and the appearance of Taweret, the Egyptian goddess of childbirth and fertility. It's the kind of twist that makes people angry because this show is weekly, and they want to know what the hell is going on immediately, but they have to wait a week to find out. [Note: I saw it about six weeks ago and have been sitting on my hands ever since I'm not mad that I get a new episode next week too]. It's two massive tonal left turns that makes Moon Knight into one of the weirdest shows we've seen so far. However, these two turns are coming late in the game, and there is a lot to wrap up in just two episodes.
As for everything else in this episode, everyone continues to put in very good work, with the MVP award absolutely going out to May Calamawy as Layla. The chemistry between Layla and Steven is cute but still a little awkward to see as she is clearly struggling still with Steven and Marc sharing the same host body. The final scenes of this episode also let us see Oscar Isaac playing both Marc and Steven at the same time and side by side, and we once again get to see the little differences between the body language between the two characters. We'll have to see how these next two episodes wrap up, there is a lot still going on, and Marvel is infamous for not sticking the landing.
Moon Knight Episode 4 "The Tomb"
9/10
Marvel Studios & Disney+'s Moon Knight Episode 4 makes two sharp tonal left turns that lean into how weird this show has been slowly getting, but they make for an episode that ends right.
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