Moon Knight Finale Continues The MCU's Oldest Ending Problem

Warning: SPOILERS for Moon Knight episode 6 ahead.

The Moon Knight season finale continues a troubling trend when it comes to the MCU's problem with endings. In Moon Knight episode 6, Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke) succeeds in resurrecting the Egyptian Goddess Ammit (Saba Mubarak) while Marc and Steven (Oscar Isaac) attempt to return from Duat - the afterlife of Egyptian mythology. When they finally make it back, the stage is set for a final showdown with Harrow and Ammit between the combined forces of Marc and Steven as Moon Knight, Layla (May Calamawy), and Khonshu (F. Murray Abraham).

In the course of this battle, Marc and Steven finally work together, seamlessly shifting between Moon Knight and Mr. Knight as they battle Harrow and his cult. While they're still unaware of their third alter - who will presumably play a part in any potential Moon Knight season 2 - it's clear that the pair are a team. They're complemented by Layla, who becomes an avatar of Taweret in order to aid her husband and Steven's fight against Harrow and Ammit. However, it's in this final battle that Moon Knight repeats one of the oldest problems with the endings of MCU films and TV shows.

One of the key things about Moon Knight has been how it's tackled mature themes like mental health and domestic abuse. It was something that was championed by Oscar Isaac, Ethan Hawke, and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige in the promotion of the show. The problem with the finale is that, aside from a touching reconciliation between Marc and Steven on the sands of the Duat, it sacrifices emotional depth for the visual spectacle of special-effects-laden battle sequences. This is not solely an ending problem with MCU's Phase 4, however - it's something that's been affecting the MCU for almost a decade.

The huge, climactic battle sequence has been so much of a recurring trope during Phase 1 and 2 of the MCU that it was affectionately parodied in the climax of Ant-Man. In the climax of Paul Rudd's debut Marvel movie, Ant-Man and Yellowjacket fight each other on a model train set while director Peyton Reed zooms out to reveal the minuscule scale of their epic struggle. Seven years after Ant-Man's release and the MCU is still repeating the same climactic format of the hero and villain, locked in a monumentally destructive battle, often hovering in midair and waving their hands at each other while rubble and bystanders fall about beneath them. While Moon Knight depicts Khonshu and Ammit locked in a Kaiju-style battle, which feels new, the climax still falls into the same template as many MCU movies and shows before it.

While it became repetitive across the Marvel movies, the fact that this huge battle trope has found its way into the MCU TV shows is more disappointing. In a cinema, audiences can forgive a huge battle between three Spider-Men and their assembled rogues gallery of movie villains at the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home because it's a thrilling spectacle designed for the big screen. The more intimate nature of television drama, and the release schedule of one episode a week means that there's a stronger investment in the storytelling. Marvel clearly understands that on some level, given their focus on more complex, emotional plot lines like Wanda's grief and Marc's dissociative identity disorder in WandaVision and Moon Knight respectively. However, the TV shows are still too heavily structured like the movies, with a villain to be defeated in a climactic battle. It's a disappointing and ultimately simplistic experience for viewers who are more familiar with the satisfying character arcs of prestige television. Disappointingly, given the talent involved, the Moon Knight finale falls into this same trap, cheapening the honorable intention to tackle themes of mental health in the MCU.

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