While a fascinating idea of hero as unreliable narrator lies within, encouraged by intriguing notions of mental health issues, there are frustrating elements to the new series “Moon Knight” that begs the question of whether Marvel Studios will ever figure out how to make truly great television. Because while they’ve got a pretty terrific formula for making entertaining movies and thus far have made good-to-ok TV, Marvel is a machine stuck in the mold of plot, within a medium that always favors character.
READ MORE: The 70 Most Anticipated TV Shows & Mini-Series Of 2022
It’s an inexorable truth that TV is a character-driven medium. Take, for example, all the grifter TV series out right now: “WeCrashed,” ”The Dropout,” “Super Pumped.” They are all rise-and-fall stories of hubris and excess and we know how they end, but that’s not the point. TV is rarely about the destination and all about the journey. Marvel is stuck in mystery box plotting: who is the true bad guy behind the curtain, why are they pulling the strings, and plot, plot, plot with a dollop of character strewn throughout.
Which is what makes “Moon Knight” so captivating and refreshing… at first (especially as it dispenses with the “who is the real bad guy of this story?” trope, thank Christ). Taking a page out of broken realities, shattered minds, and amnesia-like narratives like “Memento,” for example, the series created by Jeremy Slater and directed by Mohamed Diab and Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead uses the premise of a slippery POV of chaos and confusion. Mild-mannered British gift-shop employee Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac) isn’t in control of his life and doesn’t really know what’s going on in it: much like the viewer who is trying to find solid narrative footing, Grant is also unsure of what’s real, and what’s a waking nightmare.
Suffering from dissociative identity disorder, blackouts, memory gaps, and fragmented recollections of another life, Grant struggles with dark visions, feverish hallucinations, and transporting delusions that put his life in danger. Or are they just extremely vivid dreams? One minute, Grant is in the Egyptian wing of the British Natural History Museum he works at in London, the next he is being chased by armed mercenaries somewhere in central Europe, being shot at and almost killed. In other moments, he is seemingly stalked and called to by a creepy and monstrous Egyptian moon god.
What the hell is going on? Indeed. In the excellent and intriguing first episode, none of that is clear (thankfully) and Grant stumbles upon religious zealot and cult leader Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke), who is using some kind of mystic power to pre-judge people. Using a supernatural staff and an anamorphic scales of justice tattoo on his arm, Harrow, through touch, is able to see whether someone is capable of great evil or sin. If so, they die at his hands, if not, they are spared. But when Grant comes in contact with Harrow, the extremist is confused, unable to read him and senses great “chaos within him.”
Grant apparently is also in possession of some scarab that Harrow wants, and Grant does have it on him but has zero clue how he came in contact with it. During a series of bewildering action sequences where Grant keeps blacking out and coming to, moments after some sequence of violence has obviously transpired, but is shrewdly not seen on screen—edited out via Grant’s mental blockage and collapse—he is seen besting and defeating Harrow’s henchmen and somehow narrowly surviving a series of perilous car stunts on a mountainous European highway.
Just as death seems to have caught up with him, boom, Grant wakes up in his London flat, having chained himself to his bed as he does every night so he doesn’t get up to no good. Was this all just some kind of unreal but intense freaky delirium that happens during his dissociative slumber? The jagged narrative perplexity of “Moon Knight” makes that first episode compelling and rich. Alas, there are six episodes, and everything that’s mysterious and intriguing in episode one becomes quickly resolved by the end of episode two, which leads to an adventure, a plot-driven goal, and a series that quickly resembles the basics of most Marvel stories, even if it’s dressed up a little different (“The Mummy” meets “Indiana Jones,” meets a Batman-like unhinged vigilante meets “Memento” or even something like “Total Recall” which marries point-of-view disorientation with plot very well).
But, spoiler (not a spoiler if you’ve seen the trailer and TV spots) once Grant finds out who he is—also the American mercenary Marc Spector—and discovers he is one of (at least) two personalities battling for the control of the host body, “Moon Knight” becomes less and less interesting as it goes along and becomes more straightforward. It’s always nice to see the excellent May Calamawy from “Ramy,” who plays Layla El-Faouly, an associate of Spector’s that doesn’t know Grant, but her character really doesn’t have much to do and isn’t terribly well-written, unfortunately.
The third voice battling for control of Marc Spector/Steven Grant is the banished Egyptian Moon God Khonshu (voiced by F. Murray Abraham). Khonshu is manipulative, has his own agenda, and basically has Spector as his slave—though they do have a slanted agreement and understanding. He essentially gives Spector/Grant the ability and power granted by the Moon Knight costume (the traditional Garb for when Spector is Moon Knight, a more modern sleek version for when Grant is the anti-hero), but all of that heightened, supernatural superhero stuff is borderline ludicrous even for the world of unbelievable superheroes, and honestly detracts from what could be a great story about damaged psyches, PTSD that causes split personalities and all the juicy stuff this series could delve into if it weren’t so interested in plot.
The gobbledygook McGuffin storyline involves the aforementioned scarab that Harrow wants from Grant. It’s the key to unlocking some kind of Egyptian god that could bring great power, prophecy, and all that kind of destined doom and gloom. But the search and hunt for the scarab plot soon overtakes the story of Marc Spector/Steven Grant character and their conflicted battle for control of their host body. Sure, the running narrative of this struggle is always in the background, is used for humor and convenient blackout action sequences (it’s also an expedient way to hide the more R-Rated side of Moon Knight’s violence which is hinted at but not really shown), but all that good, dark, damaged human texture often takes a backseat to the story stratagem once episode two kicks into gear.
Ethan Hawke is very good as the messianic figure Arthur Harrow (cue a chilling opening sequence set to Bob Dylan’s “Every Grain of Sand” which obviously is a Marvel first). And the way his character’s morally twisted perspective makes him the hero and savior of the story seems incredibly absorbing. But every time a purple CGI swirl shoots out from his staff or a kooky-looking Egyptian God appears, it’s a reminder of the genre and the universe we’re in. Lip service is played to notions of mental illness, traumatically broken humans, and all that, but at the end of the day, this is a superhero TV show, and the kind of character depth we crave from must-see TV always feels like it’s kept at an unsatisfying distance. Granted, the fourth episode of “Moon Knight” purports to blow up and upend the entire narrative of what you have seen so far and tries to trick you into thinking that none of it has been real, but we’ll see how long that lasts (one episode, I bet). “Moon Knight” is vaguely different, has no real connections to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and will be hailed by many as a deeply original chapter in the MCU. But when you look outside that limited worldview and recognize all the aforementioned touchstones it’s drawing from, “Moon Knight” is initially thought-provoking, but hardly the game changer that many devout fanboys will likely declare it. [C+/B-]