moon knight Episode 5 He had a lot to answer for, after “WTF!” Cliff End Episode 4. Mark Spector/Stephen Grant/Moon Knight appears to have been killed by Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke), only to wake up in a strange new world. Mark found himself a patient in a mental ward, and Harrow was his physician; His Stephen Grant character is now a separate person; A giant hippopotamus in Egyptian garb guarded the door to the hospital ward. So what the hell is going on?
In Moon Knight Episode 5, “Asylum,” we get more than just answers – we get the powerful original story of Marvel’s Moon Knight – and all the characters that come with it.
What is a hippopotamus? to explain
As evidenced by the credits of last week’s episode, the Egyptian hippopotamus deity is Tawert, the goddess of women and children who help spirits cross into the afterlife. Taweret (in her optimistic way) is there to guide Mark and Stephen to balance the scales of their hearts, so they can be judged in the afterlife.
What is the reality of asylum? to explain
As Tawert explains, the reality of the asylum is the “dawat” or Egyptian mortal realm, which (in mythology) is ruled by Osiris. There are a lot of legends behind it (a world of gods, spirits, demons, etc.) but for the purposes of the Moon Knight, it’s the interior of the Taweret boat, which sails over the underworld desert. Asylum is asylum because it is the form of the inner self that Mark Spector has shown as the “organizing principle” of his mind, as it is transported towards the place of his final judgment.
striving for balance
Inside the Tawert boat/sanctuary, Mark and Stephen undergo a “heart weight” ritual. Mark and Stephen’s hearts were removed by Taweret and weighed on the Anubis scale against the mythical Maat feather (which represents truth and justice). As Harrow first predicted, Mark’s spirit is wildly unbalanced. However, Stephen is willing to confront the things Mark has been hiding from – or so he thinks…
lost brother
Stephen wasn’t prepared for just how dark Mark Spector’s life had been. Mark Asylum’s mind holds dark rooms – like everyone who killed Mark Spector. However, when a child appears in the room, Stephen loses his cool and is separated from Mark, and is struck by a different memory: the death of Mark’s younger brother, “Ru Roo”, aka Randall Spector – an important Marvel Comics character (more on that later.. .).
Young Mark takes Randall to play in a heavy rain cave. Mark managed to get out while Randall drowned. Mark’s mother Wendy never recovered from the loss – and she never forgave Mark. Stephen has personally witnessed the emotional and physical abuse his mother has been subjected to over the years – until teenage Mark finally leaves the house and goes out into the world to become something… much darker.
Classic Moon Knight Origin (Bushman confirmed)
The memory of Randall’s death sends Mark and Stephen fighting through another doorway into an equally dark memory: The first The time when Mark Spector died, on the bloody sands of Egypt during the carnage at the archaeological excavations where Laila’s father was murdered.
Stephen and Mark finally talked about what happened that night: Mark revealed that after leaving home and joining the army, his mental health issues led to his being laid off, and he was forced to go to work for pay. Mark’s employer was his old captain, Raoul Buschman – a character one of Moon Knight’s biggest enemies in the comics. Bushman decided to massacre the archaeologists, but Mark tried to save them – only to have them shot down, too. An injured Mark crawled to Khoncho’s temple to put an end to his misery, only to ask Khoncho to speak to him, recruiting him.
This scenario with Bushman betraying Mark and leaving him to die – only to be resurrected by Khoncho – is the classic Moon Knight origin story.
Who is Stephen Grant? to explain
Stephen gets a rough dose of reality that Mark was protecting him from when he finally stumbles upon the memory of the day Stephen’s character was born. In a scene of terrible abuse from his mother, we see Mark’s mind first detach from reality; He takes the adventurous hero he and his idolized brother (Dr. Stephen Grant) and turns him into a psychic mask to hide Mark from moments of intense emotional trauma. Poor Stephen realizes it’s just a coping mechanism.
Back to the start
To wrap things up, Stephen eventually arrives at the remembrance of Wendy Spector’s funeral. Mark is drunk, devastated and too traumatized to accept his father’s offer to finally come home and be cured; Instead, Mark breaks up completely and Stephen takes charge full time, bringing us back to exactly where the Moon Knight series began, as Stephen wanders obliviously.
RIP
The re-beginning also proves to be the end: once Stephen learns the truth of his origin, he sacrifices himself in order to save Mark from the still-in-death souls that claim him. Stephen falls from the boat into the sand and turns into glass; However, the “death” of Mark’s other character balances his scale with Anubis. Mark is granted passage to the Fields of Heaven – although there is still a mortal world to be saved from Harrow’s efforts taking lives.
Where is Jake?
Seriously – one episode left, one character dropped, and we still have no clue what that third character (Jake Lockley) is about…
Did Khuncho kill Mark’s brother?
The other note to this episode is the little breadcrumb hints that Khuncho may have been manipulating Mark since childhood. We see a skeleton in the form of a khoncho bird outside the cave in which the young Mark and Randall go to play; Stephen’s rig Khoncho was summoned in memory of Mark’s resurrection. This development could pave the way for the eventual return of Mark Randall’s brother as the “Shadow Knight” as in the comics.
Moon Knight has one episode left. You can stream episodes 1-5 on Disney+.
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