The MCU’s original Disney+ content has always touched on darker ideas than the franchise’s big-screen projects would dare to. Wanda Maximoff held an entire town hostage to make her sitcom dreams come true. John Walker beat a Flag-Smasher to death with the Captain America shield. What If...? used the infinite possibilities of the multiverse to kill off everyone’s favorite Avengers over and over again.
But Moon Knight is arguably the franchise’s darkest Disney+ show yet. Marvel’s first full-fledged psychological thriller is a deep dive into a fractured human psyche.
When Steven Came Out Of A Blackout Surrounded By Blood-Soaked Corpses
The blackouts in the first episode of Moon Knight were delightfully jarring, teasing the brutal violence to come. When Steven is confronted for a scarab he doesn’t realize he has, he’s attacked by goons and suddenly blacks out.
When he comes to, he’s covered in blood, holding a handgun, surrounded by corpses. This moment instantly established that this series had a much darker, more uncompromising tone than MCU fans were used to.
When Moon Knight Bludgeoned An Interdimensional Jackal To Death
The first episode of Moon Knight nearly went through its entire runtime without introducing the titular antihero. And then, in the final sequence, Steven is attacked by an interdimensional jackal in the museum where he works.
This jackal chases him to the bathroom, where Marc appears in the mirror to demand control of their body so he can deal with it. In the episode’s final moments, Marc summons the Moon Knight suit and mercilessly beats the jackal to death.
When Khonshu Chased Steven
After meeting Marc in his own reflection, Steven starts to investigate who his other self might be. He follows a lead to a storage locker and uncovers his second identity: a cold-blooded mercenary.
As he leaves the storage locker, Steven is once again confronted by Khonshu, who stalks him through the dark corridors. The filmmakers use unnerving Dutch tilts and abrupt cuts to create a sense of dread in this chase sequence. As a giant humanoid bird skeleton, Khonshu was clearly designed to look like an intimidating monster.
When Marc Kicked Steven’s Judgmental Reflection
When Marc finally takes over the body, Steven finds himself trapped in Marc’s reflection. With no other power at his disposal, Steven voices all of Marc’s guilt from inside that reflection.
Marc finally reaches a breaking point and angrily kicks a glass surface until it’s so chipped and cracked that he can no longer see his other half’s judgmental reflection. He yells out, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!!!”
When Layla Found Out The Truth About Her Father
When Steven takes control of the body once more, he goes on a Romancing the Stone-style adventure with Marc’s wife Layla and ends up making a real connection with her.
But after she learns that Marc had something to do with her father’s death, she coaxes him out of Steven’s subconscious for answers. Marc confesses that his old partner killed both Layla’s father and himself before Khonshu revived Marc as his avatar.
When The Title Character Was Seemingly Killed In Cold Blood
History seems to repeat itself shortly after Marc’s confession to Layla as Arthur Harrow arrives in the tomb and seems to deliver a fatal gunshot. Marc falls to his death against the striking background of a CG moon.
This show continued to subvert expectations when the main villain seemingly killed the title character in cold blood right in the middle of the series’ run. And that’s when the rug got pulled.
When Marc’s Reality Came Crashing Down
After Marc’s supposed death in the long-lost tomb of Alexander the Great, he wakes up in a psychiatric hospital surrounded by imagery from the series: Moon Knight is an action figure, Arthur Harrow is a therapist, and Steven Grant is a character in an adventure movie.
Both Marc and the audience had to come to with the shocking revelation that maybe the entire series was taking place in his imagination.
When Jake Lockley Was Introduced
In the following episode, arguably the strongest in the series, Marc is relieved to learn that he didn’t imagine his superhero career and the psychiatric hospital is an elaborate mirage in the Egyptian afterlife. As he tries to flee the hospital, Marc finds Steven trapped in a sarcophagus.
Together, they find a third sarcophagus containing another personality that’s trying to get out. They leave that one where it is, since two is already a handful. As it turns out, the third one is even more brutal than Marc.
When Marc’s Backstory Was Revealed
The series’ penultimate episode took a deep dive into Marc’s mind and revealed, among other things, his harrowing backstory. As a child, Marc took his brother into a cave on the day of a big rainstorm.
The cave was filled with water and Marc was unable to save his brother from drowning. The true horror is that Marc’s mother blamed him for the death and never forgave him.
When Jake Lockley Made His First On-Screen Appearance
In the mid-credits scene at the end of the Moon Knight finale, Harrow finds himself in a psychiatric hospital similar to the one where Marc and Steven were projected in the Egyptian afterlife – except this one seems to be real.
Harrow is taken out into a limo and assassinated by the driver, Jake Lockley, Marc and Steven’s third personality who’s an even more ruthless killer than Marc. As it turns out, Jake is working for Khonshu to protect a newly reformed Marc from committing acts of heinous violence. This tantalizing development sets up a bright (or dark) future for Moon Knight in the MCU.