Moon Knight – The Tomb review S1 E4

April 20, 2022May 2, 2022 Jeffrey Lyles 0 Comments Ethan Hawke, F. Murray Abraham, Marvel Cinematic Universe, May Calamawy, Mohamed Diab, Moon Knight, Oscar Isaac

It took a wild final 15 minutes to make this episode of Moon Knight feel like more than a superhero in name only version of The Mummy.

That’s been the real struggle with the series. Beyond Marc and Steven jockeying for position of the body, Moon Knight hasn’t nearly emphasized the hero, Moon Knight.

He’s made cameo appearances, but for the most part, the last few episodes feel more like the continuation of Rick O’Connell’s adventure. Although Oscar Isaac clearly has better hair than Brendan Fraser did at any point in The Mummy franchise.

Some of Moon Knight’s issues can be attributed to keeping Steven Grant as the dominant personality. He’s an interesting choice for a main character as he’s kind of bumbling and more the sidekick comic relief than the star. This then positions Layla more as the standard hero.

And then Moon Knight starts to feel like a CW Verse show where the supporting character/sidekick has more hero moments than the title character. Again, it feels more like a bait and switch. Would viewers be tuning into a show called Layla? And would they be annoyed if a costumed vigilante in all white was constantly stealing her spotlight?

Most of the episode finds Layla finding solutions to various problems like taking out a gun-mounted jeep manned by the two dumbest dudes toting open explosives. Then, she took on a mummy while Steven stumbled around for clues in another section of the tomb.

It was impressive, but I’m here for Moon Knight not Layla’s Great Adventures.

Layla and Steven having a romantic connection also feels unnecessary. It’s the obligatory path of this Mummy style adventure yet just staying on the basic path with Marc and Layla would have been fine. We’ve only got two more episodes left so it’s not like it needs any more romantic subplots.

To splash some cold water on that, Arthur chats Layla up from across the tomb ravine happily tells Layla that Marc was one of the mercenaries that killed her father. It’s not true as Marc was just there while his greedy partner killed Layla’s father and nearly killed Marc.

This leads to a face-off with Marc and Arthur, who shoots our powerless hero. Marc’s fall is a little unusual as he splashes into some water and awakens in a cold and overly sterile psych ward. Marc is a patient doped out on medication holding a Marvel Legends Moon Knight figure. How’s that for a little cross promotion?

Not surprisingly, his therapist is Arthur who seeks to cure him of his delusions of Steven and being a costumed hero. From there, things get crazier resulting in the kind of wild cliffhanger this series has needed a bit more of over the last few weeks.

This ending set up all kinds of wild possibilities that I hope the writers are willing to explore further. Moon Knight needs a bit more sizzle especially if the hero’s cape is going to stay firmly entombed until the season finale.