Moon Knight Episode 2 Review: The Name’s Knight, Mr. Knight

Warning: This review contains spoilers for Moon Knight Episode 1 & 2

Episode 1 of Moon Knight titled “The Goldfish Problem” saw Oscar Isaac planting the seeds of the character by introducing both Marc Spector and Steven Grant. The episode ended on quite a brutal beating from Spector, who had taken over Grant’s body to defeat the Jackal sent out by Ethan Hawke’s Arthur Harrow.

In Episode 2 titled “Summon the Suit,” the show begins right where it left off, with Grant waking up in his bedroom after the events of the previous night. After meeting Spector for the first time, the museum gift shop employee tries to find out what happened, only for him to bump into Harrow at his workplace. From there on, things kick into another gear, as we learn the motives of the show’s antagonist, while also adding Layla, the estranged wife of Marc Spector, who’s played by May Calamawy.

While the first episode stayed at an arm’s distance from expanding the plot in favor of setting up its protagonists, the second episode shines more focus on Ethan Hawke’s character, who reveals to be a former avatar of Khonshu. With Harrow serving Ammit, the character now follows the orders of a cruel justice system, which will check for any sins that a person might make in their lifetime. Grant challenges this idea in front of Harrow, who wants to fulfill Ammit’s dream of a world without a “bad person” by asking if this would mean if he would kill children too. This gives reasoning for both Marc and Steven to go after Ammit and Arthur Harrow for their plans, which sets up a great arc for the two in the future.

However, at the same time, we also find out that Khonshu has been forcing Spector to remain as his avatar by threatening to make Layla her next avatar, even though the Egyptian deity has vowed to leave him, once he completes his task of stopping Ammit from gaining power. Layla has shown herself to be more than capable in helping Steven and Marc, and she came up huge following the abduction of Grant by Harrow’s men, which makes her a solid choice for Khonshu. Marc may have a troubled relationship with his estranged wife, but Oscar Isaac plays the mercenary perfectly to show that he cares about her a lot, even though he has been hurt a lot too.

However, the big moment of the show came with the introduction of Mr. Knight after Steven Grant tried summoning the suit. Following the arrival of Mr. Knight, we see more of MCU’s trademark fight scenes filled with hilarious gags in the middle. Even though Isaac fought as Grant, the show kept the brutality to the minimum, which made it quite lackluster. But, with the entry of Moon Knight later on, it seemed like we would finally see more of the violence we saw in the first episode, only to see a pretty average fatality at the end.

While Episode 1 introduced Moon Knight’s suit in the perfect manner, Episode 2 has little to no character development for Grant to wear the Mr. Knight suit. While the suit looks quite suave and comic-accurate on Oscar Isaac, there’s little to no payoff for fans to get excited about it, because of the lack of subplot behind the sudden change in avatar.

However, at the same time, the show does a good job of progressing the over-arching storyline in the battle between Harrow and Moon Knight, with the story shifting its setting to Egypt at the end. Along with that, the relationship between Spector and Grant isn’t as straightforward as it seems, with the two feuding over taking the reins of the body they share, and it will be interesting to see if we would see action similar to the ones we saw in Episode 1, where Grant would randomly switch places with Spector in the middle of a fight.

In the end, Episode 2 works well when it comes pushing the story forward of Arthur Harrow and the fight against Ammit. However, unlike Episode 1, “Summon the Suit” slightly falters in the Moon Knight department with the sudden introduction of Mr. Knight, even though it also built a strong foundation for Marc Spector with his relationship to both Steven Grant and Layla.