Moonknight

After being very pleasantly surprised by the first episode of Moonknight I was very much looking forward to how they were going to open this story up further. I think that so far they are doing a great job of balancing all of their story elements, here are my in-depth, as I watched thoughts on the second episode of Moonknight.

So at the start of the episode, Steven seems to be remembering more and seems to start to understand what is happening to him, at least to an extent. Steven visits the storage locker of Marc’s (using the key he found in the ceiling in the first episode) and finds a very barrack-like space, his unit is set up for military living (a nod or potential foreshadowing to Marc being former military and now a mercenary). Turned out it was foreshadowing and his background was weaved in brilliantly.

Marc and Steven have a lot of back and forth in this episode, which though I don’t know how accurate it is in the framework of DID but I think it's a really interesting exploration of the characters and a wonderful way to balance both personalities for the audience. Also Oscar Issac acting opposite himself is just great, he truly was a wonderful casting choice and he plays both personalities so so well.

If they keep this up I'm going to be saying this every episode but the cinematography is so phenomenal. They use beautiful cinema-like shots as well as very intricate thriller/scary movie shots and every single scene reflects not only the tone of the show but also the chaos that goes on in Steve/Marc’s head.

So knowing things about comic books is cool, and doing lots of research to prepare for a new MCU project is great, but then the MCU does random crap with the characters or bring in characters that never existed and it really throws us comic heads off (I am speaking directly about Layla, Layla doesn’t exist guys).

Setting up the “villain” as not only the opposition to Khonshu but as someone who was previously used by him was an absolutely brilliant decision, I use quotes because honestly we can’t be sure this vessel for Ammit is really the villain. In fact something Marvel has done already is make the antagonist very relatable, sympathetic and seems to actually have a very morally strong motivation, their execution is really the only thing up for debate.

That said, our deeper and more meaningful theme in this show seems to be the struggles in moral judgment, finding a balance and fighting between right and wrong. As an overarching theme it's not necessarily original but to also have that struggle happening inside 1 man’s head between two personalities is a brilliant approach.

“I kinda draw the line there, at child murder” - honestly just a good line and really put Ammit’s side in perspective.

Steven is struggling with letting Marc in enough to let him save his own life, was a great illustration of the theme. There is a moral boundary that Steven has set based on his limited information and he can’t seem to cross it even when his life is in danger. Steven finally summons the suit onto himself and he summons it very badly (He gave Mr. Knight vibes which is a comic book thing so that was cool).

Having Steven be the one to use the suit is definitely a choice, not one I particularly care for. I understand all the creative choices that are taking place, I just really want more Marc. They went a very specific direction with this storyline and making Steven the main personality that we see, I definitely would have gone in a different direction, such as; Marc in his mercenary days, being chosen to become Moonknight, why the scarif is important, finding it with Layla, you can still do the whole warring gods thing I just still don't know if making Steven the main personality was the right decision yet.

Overall I think the show is still on the right track and I’ve liked everything they've done so far and I look forward to seeing how they expand on these characters and this story.