When crafting the pilot episode for, say, Moon Knight, a Marvel show centered on a lesser known character that’s yet to be introduced in the MCU, it’s wise to have the driving question be, “What is happening to Steven Grant?” and not, as maybe you’d assume, “Who is Moon Knight, anyway?”
Which is not to say that the latter question doesn’t structure this first entry in Disney+’s latest Marvel endeavor. The final scene, after all, is as thunderous an answer as you’d want, a kickass moment that punctuates an episode of television that quite intentionally obscures some of its most action-packed plotlines. Car chases happen, yes. And henchmen are kicked to the curb, too. But in leaning into being an exercise in withholding, the blood-splattering fights that happen whenever Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac) loses consciousness and finds himself in danger are left to our imaginations.
As a storytelling tactic, these blindspots already give Moon Knight a different narrative rhythm from the MCU properties that preceded it (on screens both big and small). The focus of this premiere isn’t the caped being with superpowers for whom the show is named and their no doubt impressive fighting skills, but rather the hapless gift shop worker who keeps losing entire days and nights to oblivion, even after sleeping with ankle restraints in hopes that he won’t once again wake up in the middle of a field with armed gunmen aiming their rifles at him.
Which begs the question: What is happening to Steven Grant? The socially awkward Londoner is aware he has a problem (ergo the bedside ankle straps). Yet he keeps trying to live his life as normally as possible. He keeps his mum abreast of the little that’s going on with his life (including his one-finned pet fish) and mostly just keeps himself busy. Sure, he misses his bus every now and then and keeps having really vivid nightmares. But he still dutifully shows up at work at a museum gift shop, where his vast knowledge of Egypt is all but ignored by his supervisor, who’d rather he just sell snacks to visiting kids and stop pestering her about how two gods have been omitted from the marketing materials for the institutions’s banner exhibit.
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Oscar Isaac, who’s slowly made a name for himself as one of the most effortlessly charming would-be leading men in Hollywood, gets to lose himself in the trappings of a mop-haired capital-L loser (but oh, what hair!). As Grant, Isaac’s body is a knotted contradiction. He hunches over in deference to the world around him, too self-conscious to take up any space, even when you can already tell there’s a presence about him that remains, perhaps, all too inscrutable for him to understand. With an admittedly very distracting accent, Isaac nevertheless makes us feel for Grant. We’re in his shoes the entire time. Something is clearly going awry and by god(s) we need to figure out what it is that’s happening soon, lest we lose the plot.
The joy of this pilot is how Grant’s bumbling persona becomes our introduction to the occult world of Moon Knight. Like Jason Bourne, it’s clear that Grant is more than meets the eye. (Why else would some very angry men go after him and the golden scarab he didn’t even know he had on him?) Oh, and then there’s the booming voice inside his head who keeps calling him a parasite and eggs him on to let himself go (“Go back to sleep, worm!” they bellow as a meek Steven listens on helplessly). Yes, something is very much wrong with Steven—and that’s all before he finds a hidden phone in his apartment with missed calls from a certain Layla and discovers his fish has, maybe, grown a new fin.
This is how you tease the arrival of a new superpowered being. Having the danger lurk always in the margins (what is that shadowy figure haunting Steven’s apartment building, or that monster scurrying along the museum?) means we can color it in with our own fears, with just enough suggestive power to make their eventual reveals all the more impactful—and, yes, frightening.
Which brings us to the other main character we meet, the one who actually kicks off the episode: Ethan Hawke’s Arthur Harrow. Where Isaac’s Steven is all awkward limbs, Hawke’s Arthur is a study in stoicism and all the more threatening because of it. Clearly tapping into a supernatural force (his scales tattoo can channel the goddess Ammit , we learn), Arthur is a welcome foil for Steven. It was only once I saw the two come face to face at the museum in the premiere’s third act that I realized Moon Knight was already gifting us two things plenty of MCU properties have struggled with: thrilling, enticing villains (Loki and Hela aside, naturally) and leads who are as exciting as their caped alter characters.
By the end of the episode, I was hooked, and a line from the song that opened the entire thing (Bob Dylan’s “Every Grain Of Sand”) now echoes in my head as I brace for what’s to come. For just as Arthur is convinced in a higher power who’ll guide him well in the path ahead, I am hopeful that Moon Knight can keep the promise of what’s on display here. As Dylan sings, I want to find myself trusting this story so I can similarly claim, “I’m hanging in the balance of a perfect finished plan.”
Stray Observations
- I would like to thank everyone involved with Moon Knight for delighting us with not one but two instances of Oscar Isaac meekly and earnestly delivering the line “later gators!”
- Speaking of the Internet’s favorite boyfriend: We have to commend his physicality here. If you’ve watched him dance in Ex-Machina or stroll with confidence in the latest Star Wars trilogy, you know Oscar knows how best to deploy a weighted physicality in every one of his roles. That’s definitely the case here, as his Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde moments (especially those mirrored ones in the museum bathroom encounter when Steven comes face to face with Marc Spector) are able to telegraph sudden mood shifts in split-second gestures. No small feat!
- Given that we only got one uninterrupted action set-piece, I’m very curious to see how Moon Knight’s fighting sequences stack up against those we’ve seen in the MCU before. We’re in full on horror territory (and with Morbieus and Dr. Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness coming up, there’s no denying we’re going to spend some time in this genre) and hopefully that means plenty of jump scares and darkened fights ahead.
- How do we feel about the needle drops in this episode? Sure, hearing “Every day I start out, then I cry my heart out” (from “A Man Without Love”) while watching Steven, uh, wake up, may feel a bit on the nose, but sometimes you just gotta lean into these obvious cues, no?
- Oh, and yes, we must ask all the big questions we’ve been left with here (on top of “Who is Moon Knight?”). Namely: Who is Layla? Why does Steven’s mirrored alter ego have an American accent? And, more importantly, will Steven’s love life take a turn for the better as he embraces this darker being within him?
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