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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 6 Review: Finale Suffers From Finish Line Sprint
Moon Knight episode 6 is yet another example that Marvel still is not entirely sure how to pace their TV shows. They seem to miss the mark more than they hit it when it comes to their finales, and even on the ones that work, they always leave so many plot points that need to be wrapped up to make for a satisfying show. For some reason, they keep making this mistake over and over and over again. Perhaps everything was just too late in development for anything to really get changed, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating to be this many shows in and see how many of them can't seem to stick the landing. It will turn people off eventually, even if the other episodes are a lot of fun to watch.
And this episode of Moon Knight is a lot of fun to watch. We get to see Marc accept Steven as part of himself and someone he needs to feel whole, which gets rid of that implication from the previous episodes that didn't sit right with us. That sort of acceptance meant that the two of them began to move between the two alters much quicker and seems as if they are in control as to who had the host body at any given time. This is, again, leaning into tropes of DID that aren't accurate to the real world, but considering the showrunners didn't bother to check how old someone is when they usually form an alter [much thanks to the person in my DM's who sent me this link], we have to wonder if accuracy was ever really a goal. Now that Marc and Steven have accepted each other, despite them being two separate people with different skills, apparently, Steven can indeed fight now. It isn't surprising that the show decided to lean into more conventional tropes of DID, but at least they don't lean into too many problematic tropes, or at least they don't until they get to the post-credits scene.
The highlight of the entire episode is Layla becoming an alter and taking on the mantle of Red Scarab. Her costume design and weapons are awesome and probably the best that any costume has looked in this series so far. Unlike the Moon Knight costume, these actually look like they exist in the real world; unlike any other time, the Moon Knight costume has been on screen, specifically Marc's costume. It really is kind of baffling how bad it looks at times with the damn near limitless money that Marvel and Disney could throw at this series. Was there really no way to make any variation of a practical costume? Couldn't they do some combination of practical and CGI like they do with Vision? There had to be a better solution than this, and it says a lot that the best episodes in a Marvel show were the episodes where the costume that took you straight out of a scene didn't make an appearance.
Oscar Isaac just can't seem to win when it comes to costumes in superhero properties, and maybe after the mess that was X-Men: Apocalypse, he told Marvel that they weren't going to get him into some bulky and uncomfortable suit, so they had to work around it. The contrast between the bad CGI of the suit and the performance that Isaac is giving in this show is so jarring that, at times, you think you're going to get whiplash. He's putting it all out there and doing his best to make this sprint to the finish line work while two giant animal gods smack each other around in the background. It's insanely goofy looking and doesn't mesh with the tone of the rest of the series. The lack of consistent tone has been an ongoing issue with the series. After the emotional journey that the last episode was, the fact that this one ends with Ammit and Khonshu growing to Godzilla size to punch each other in front of the Great Pyramids is certain a choice creatively.
This is not to say there isn't anything good. As previously stated, making Layla an avatar for someone who isn't Khonshu is a great idea, and her costume is awesome. The fight scenes that she is in are great and absolutely believable that she could kick ass. The blackout reveal that makes it, so none of us get to see how the final fight scene actually plays out is the kind of amusing subversion that we don't get to see in Marvel enough. It's a fun creative choice and even if the reveal of Jake being even more violent does lean into some problematic stereotypes when it comes to DID, even more so since he is an alter unlike Marc who is the primary personality, it does make it seem like that they are doing the "this person is dangerous because they have DID" thing. Marc is dangerous because he was a mercenary and his known alter is the more pacifist of the two. Jake coming into play as even more violent than Marc and having him be an alter could be interpreted as "Marc is dangerous because he has DID." Still, at this point, the show left proper mental health representation behind a long time ago.
Jake's reveal and how Khonshu is still involved is a cute little scene that feels like it should have been given more room to breathe. They have been teasing Jake since at least episode three now, and we only get a couple of minutes of him. The specific language Khonshu uses to keep Jake under his wing while "releasing" Marc and Steven is clever writing that needed time to breathe. Instead, it passes by so fast, and we have no idea if another season is coming, so it could be completely pointless. If Moon Knight is a one-off, and there is nothing wrong with it if it is, then that reveal is needlessly teasing something we aren't ever going to learn anything more about. Again, this all comes down to pacing and this sprint that Marvel feels the need to do in their final episodes. If they want to have a sprint in their final episode, then they need to start making them longer.
The needless sprint in this finale didn't give us enough time to appreciate Layla becoming a badass, or Steven and Marc really working together or showing what a threat Ammit really is, or making Harrow anything more than a dude that walks around with glass in his shoes that they never really explain, or how the reveal with Jake and Khonshu will play out in the end. All of these plot points could have been expanded on if there was another episode or if this episode was longer. If Marvel insists on having these sprint finales, then they need to start making them much longer, at least an hour, because right now they are failing to stick the landing more than half of the time. One could argue they've maybe done it once or twice, depending on what you think of the finales of Hawkeye and WandaVision, and both of them still felt like sprints to the finish line. Moon Knight was trying to be a dense character piece that forgot that if you want to have big superheroics in your finale, you're going to need more time to finish those character beats come the final moments of this episode. While Moon Knight as a whole doesn't completely fall apart thanks to yet another bad finale, it's another Marvel show that really fails to live up to its potential and another one where we're likely not going to see them have another shot to see if they could make it work in a second season.
Moon Knight Episode 6 "Gods and Monsters"
7.5/10
Disney+ & Marvel Studios' Moon Knight Episode 6 is yet another streaming series finale that sprints to the finish line due to poor pacing decisions. However, it's not a total dealbreaker.
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