1x05 Asylum

[8.3/10] This is the episode of Moon Knight that made the series click for me. I largely enjoyed what we got so far, from the strong direction to the great acting to the intriguing additions to the lore. But those superb pieces never really amounted to more than the sum of their parts to this point. What kind of show was this, exactly? Is it a horror pastiche? A psycho thriller? A throwback adventure tale? An internal psycho drama? I couldn't quite get my hands around it.

But this is the one that crystalizes it -- it’s a show about extreme childhood traumas and the resulting mental disturbance that affects a person for the rest of their life. It is a tragedy, an exploration of the self, a confrontation of one of the hardest things a person can go through and the psychological coping mechanisms that may or may not be healthy, but which the mind reaches for in times of crisis.

To the point, we now have two possibilities for Moon Knight. One of them is that all of this is real. Marc is the avatar of an Egyptian god named Khonshu. There is a villain named Harrow trying to revive an ancient deity of vengeance. Marc and Steven are venturing through the afterlife (sorry, “an” afterlife) with a goddess as their guide. The power of the Moon Knight, his powers and supernatural foes, are all genuine and part of the broader cosmology of the Marvel Cinematic Universe which has seen wilder and weirder things than this.

The other is that these are all the delusions of a poor, mentally distrubed man, currently trying to grapple with his myriad of traumas in a mental health facility. There is no Khonshu, only the hallucinations of a man grappling with the mental baggage of feeling responsible for his brother’s death, the emotional and physical abuse inflicted by his mother, and a career as a soldier and mercenary that once again put blood on his hands. Marc needed to contextualize all that killing, to explain it, justify it, account for it, and so invented Khonshu and these other grand forces,a reflection of the dead pigeon he saw near the cave where his brother died. His mother declared him a murderer, and this is way of processing that. Her death prompted him to check himself into a hospital lest he suffer further.

I feel the same way about these two possibilities as I do about the same sort of dichotomy in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five -- it doesn’t really matter whether or not it’s real. My assumption is, given that the MCU is more interesting with another spooky hero out there than if it’s all in one merc’s head, the Moon Knight business is real. Maybe the psych ward routine is another trick by Harrow, or a test from the gods, or some other mystical mumbo jumbo. But I assume Marc will figure out some way back to the real world and real events eventually, with perhaps some hint or wink that he could still be imagining all of this just to keep the audience guessing.

And yet, regardless of whether it’s “real” in-universe, the thematic and symbolic impact is the same. Marc blames himself for all the bad things that happened in his life since his mother’s death. He doesn’t think he’s worthy of being with Layla because he fears that if she knew the truth about him and her father, she’d see him the same way his mother does. He needed Khonshu as a form of salvation, to externalize his sense of being a murderer and the psychic weight of all those deaths that are slowly crushing him. Whether or not Khonshu is a genuine Egyptian god or delusion of an unwell human being is immaterial. The impact of the idea, the impressionistic rendition of what it would feel like to labor under such immense guilt and self-hatred, is what matters.

And yet, we know one thing is true: regardless of whether Marc is really Moon Knight, he did suffer a psychic break as a child and develop Steven as an alternate personality. I had assumed Steven was a product of more mystical mumbo jumbo, but this episode is downright frank about the more down-to-earth manner in which he appeared.

Steven was a defense mechanism to the abuse inflicted by Marc’s mother in the wake of his brother’s death. He is composed of the pieces of the same VHS tape of an adventure movie and game Marc played with his brother, meant to be a fantasy who can hold onto the good, loving relationship Marc had with his mom before tragedy struck. It is an extreme means to compartmentalize the psychic and physical torture of his childhood from a grieving but contemptible parent. I appreciate that, for all its fantastical elements, Moon Knight doesn’t just treat its multiple personality disorder like some wacky thing that just happens, but rather digs into it as the product of extreme events a child’s mind wasn’t capable of dealing with, that left scars which linger to this day.

On a personal note, I have to say that this was a tough episode to watch first thing in the morning. The MCU is no stranger to delving into harrowing (no pun intended) stories about trauma. Much of the post-Endgame output, particularly on the T.V. side, has been about processing the losses from the Blip and its aftermath. Wanda grappling with the loss of Vision, Bucky reckoning with his own history as a killer, Clint Barton still mourning Natasha Romanov have all been key parts of the series that preceded Moon Knight.

But I have to say, I was not prepared for this madcap journey of the mind to turn into a meditation on the tragic loss of a child, followed by years of blame and abuse from a parent, accompanied by severe psychic disturbance from the aftereffects of being beaten and shamed for your childhood and adolescence. People right off superhero films and shows as being for children, which is reductive to begin with. But this is the type of episode that shouldn’t just be put forward as an example of what these stories can achieve artistically, but as a disclaimer that not everything that involves comic characters is suitable for kids to consume. (I hope this comes with a warning for parents on Disney+, frankly.)

That said, I really like the approach this episode takes to such heavy materials. Candidly, I’m a sucker for this sort of Charlie Kaufman/Michael Gondry-esque exploration of the soul material. So reimagining Marc’s past as a journey through a psych ward with abilities to revisit key childhood moments and process the lives he’s taken in impressionistic ways works like gangbusters for me. The show doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to the brutal reality of Marc’s youth, but putting it in this package ironically makes it feel more impactful and visceral than plain flashbacks might.

I also love the hippo god. The CGI is surprisingly convincing for such a mythical creature, and her general attitude of a pleased middle manager excited to have guests for the first time in a while puts Moon Knight in line with some of the prosaic weirdness of Loki. The colorful iconography of the ship of the dead sailing on the sands, the ghouls of the past climbing aboard to drag our heroes to hell, and the beauty of the “sea of reeds” stands out.

And once again, Ethan Hawke does an incredible job, making the psychiatrist version of Harrow seem chipper and demure in a way his evil tempter guise does not. (I died laughing when Steven called him Ned Flanders-esque, a thought I had when I first saw the mustachioed, bespectacled version of the series’ villain.) There continues to be a quiet menace here that's hard to put your finger on, where Harrow says things that seem and sound right, but he seems like he’s putting on a show for his own purposes somehow. There’s great ambiguity in the performance that Hawke plays just right.

In the end, there is catharsis. Marc had to deal with his past to be able to get his heart in balance, a metaphor for the way he needed to process his trauma with his mom to find peace. There is obviously one more episode, and more ground to cover, but the idea of Marc reaching heaven, even if it comes at the cost of the meeker self he created to compartmentalize his worst and most difficult feelings about his mom, is poignant.

Putting the events we’ve seen thus far in that light helps make this show finally make sense to me. This is far and away the series’ best episode to date, with a difficult but raw and imaginative look at something unthinkable in the life of a parent and child, and a means to cope with so much psychic hardship all around. There’s more to come, but this is the Rosetta stone of the series, to put it in archeological terms -- the piece that helps to comprehend so much more about what we’ve seen so far, and understand its deeper meaning.

Oh dear, this got real dark real quick. I don't really like it anymore - it's just way too messed up and I should stop watching such TV shows.
That whole mother thing is really messed up, schizophrenia is super horrifying (movies and TV shows might be scary but the problem with schizophrenia is that it does exist IRL - I'm not that scared of it as I hopefully shouldn't be at risk but the thought of it / imagining having it is absolutely horrifying), and that psychic stuff is even worse (it would completely break my reality - we humans don't know anything but at least we can take comfort in the fact that things currently behave in a predicable way / make sense / are consistent - such a psychic trip would completely break that consistency though).

Anyway, I'd rather enjoy life than to worry about such things (and this is one of the reasons why I'll definitely stay away from drugs - they can be fine but I won't dare risking it as it's just not worth it for a long shot for me).

PS: At least the hippopotamus had a kind personality (that provided a little bit of comfort).

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THUMBS UP:

I love how this episode doubles down on the major twist from the previous episode while using it to further the Jeff Lemire-inspired narrative and delve deeper into the Egyptian mythology that is such a huge part of the show.

We are finally given some more backstory to help flesh out the main character of the show - this happens through a rather effective method of having Steven and Marc relive old memories - and it gives Steven a dark past that makes his current status more relatable.
The long-awaited Moon Knight origin story is told here, and it's wonderfully faithful to the comics.

The episode still navigates multiple narrative planes, keeping the truth of the matter shrouded in mystery - which plane is the reality, or all they all (or none of them) part of it?

The very end of the episode goes in yet another surprising direction and offers an emotionally strong ending thanks to all build-up during the episode.

Gotta say the Ned Flanders joke was a good one!

The hippo lady is hilarious, but her true purpose remains somewhat undefined as of yet.

This episode interestingly brings out both Marc and Steven at the same time, allowing for a very different sort of interaction between them.

Now we finally know who is the original persona, and who appeared later to cope with emotional trauma. The characterization of Marc and Steven is stronger than ever before and used for some genuinely emotional moments - it also feels like a fine representation of how DID can work in reality.

The fight scene at the end followed by the emotional twist puts the Steven/Marc dynamic on its head heading into the final episode, so it will be interesting to see how everything plays out.

Oscar Isaac keeps upping his game and this is yet another impressive double-turn from him, particularly in the role of Steven.

Ethan Hawke is similarly convincing with his almost annoying and treacherous calm, particularly when compared with his performance during the first half of the series.

Slower in tone and with a bigger focus on emotions and symbolism, Episode 5 is another character-centred piece, meant to provide more backstory by showing us emotional key moments from Steven's and Marc's pasts.

The final moments are heartbreaking precisely because we've spent most of the episode learning more about Steven and Marc as individuals and two parts of a whole.

THUMBS DOWN:

This series still feels very detached from the larger MCU and feels at times so focused on religion and mythology that it's difficult to see its relevance within the franchise.

Spending the entire penultimate episode on providing backstory, which should have been brought in sooner, feels somewhat weird given the fact that there's only one episode left to wrap up the narrative.

This one goes for a more hectic and fractioned direction and editing style, which at times makes it hard to follow.