The first episode of Marvel’s latest Disney+ MCU series Moon Knight has now been released and the hype it has created already is unbelievable. Oscar Isaac’s unparalleled performance as the main lead combined with a gripping plot and jaw-dropping cinematography has made Moon Knight totally unputdownable and fans can not wait for the next episode.
However, there is a lot to talk about in the first episode itself as it gave away numerous easter eggs and hidden details that need a thorough explanation. Thus, in this article, we shall be breaking down the first episode of Moon Knight and we shall also be talking about the Easter Eggs and Hidden details present in it.
1. The Opening Scene
Unlike most movies where we see the protagonists first, Moon Knight’s opening scene shows the antagonist Arthur Harrow and how he starts the day with his Egyptian traditions. This shows how Moon Knight is nothing like any other MCU project we have seen so far and adds different shades to all its characters.
2. Arthur Harrow is a true believer of Ammit
The opening scene shows Arthur Harrow breaking a piece of glass with his stick which has two crocodile faces on it after drinking from it and then he put those broken glass pieces in his sandals. He then wore those sandals and it is most likely an Egyptian pain-enduring procedure to Meditate in which one inflicts pain upon oneself.
It is interesting because this scene proves that Arthur Harrow is not a fake ‘Guru’ and is indeed a staunch believer in Ammit and his ways as he is not inflicting all this pain as a ‘showoff’ and his followers are probably not even aware of it.
3. Who is Ammit?
Ammit is an Egyptian funeral figure associated with judgement. He is seen with the head of a crocodile, front legs of a lion and hindquarters of a hippopotamus. According to popular Egyptian mythology, when someone dies, the god of death Annubis weighs their heart on a scale against the weight of a feather. If the heart weighs more than the feather, the heart and the person are fed to Ammit.
Ammit is not a god but is called the ‘Devourer of Deads’ and is feared by Egyptians. Ma’at is the Egyptian way of leading a perfect life and basically, if a person does not lead a life accordingly, he/she is devoured after their death by Ammit.
4. Steven Grant’s identity is completely different from that in Comics
According to Marvel Comics, Marc Spector is the main identity of Moon Knight and Steven Grant is his alternate identity. Marc Spector is a mercenary while Steven Grant is a Billionaire Entrepreneur. While the Marc Spector part has been kept intact, Steven Grant’s character has been completely changed in the MCU.
The Moon Knight TV series shows that Steven Grant works at a library and has abundant knowledge about Egyptian history. Basically, he is broke and is definitely not a billionaire. This change in character has probably been made so that fans can not just say that Moon Knight is Marvel’s version of Batman (it has already happened before). Moreover, it seems so far that Steven Grant is the main identity according to the MCU show.
5. Steven Grant’s connection to Egypt
Steven Grant’s connection with Egypt is extremely ironic as he does not even have a clue that he is the living incarnation of an Egyptian god itself. He works at a Museum and has a wide range of knowledge as far as Egyptian history is concerned.
Also, the first thing that Steven Grant does is that he steps on sand which is symbolic of the Egyptian sand and is another allusion to the fact that he is very much connected to Egypt at a subconscious level.
6. Steven’s Dreams
Steven Grant a.k.a Marc Spector suffers from a split personality disorder and the series has shown it in the best way possible. According to the series, Steven Grant has very realistic dreams but what he actually isn’t aware of is that the Dreams are actually happening in his actual life through his alter ego Marc Spector and it helps us take a deep dive into the complex character of Marc Spector.
7. The Sleepwalking Security Measures
Steven Grant has started to question his dreams of late and he suspects that they are real-life incidents thus he has formulated a way to Make sure that he is not going anywhere while in a dream. He thus ties his legs before going to bed and seals the gate.
However, Marc Spector is obviously smart enough to re-do those small intricacies after returning from his missions to make sure that Steven does not get suspicious and mess up with his mind further.
8. Gus – Steven’s pet fish
Steven Grant has a one-finned pet fish called Gus. He swims around in circles inside his swimming pool just likes Steven whose life revolves around in circles. However, Gus also has a big role to play later in the episode to reveal that Steven is not actually dreaming but something much crazier is going on in his life when he wakes up from his dream to find out that Gus now had two fins.
Marc Spector had clearly replaced the fish with a two-finned one and it was revealed from the words of the woman from the shop as well.
9. Steven’s Mother….?
Steven is often seen talking to his mother on the phone but this is a very suspicious scene as from what we know about the character, he has no family that we know of and thus he is possibly talking to no one on the phone which makes the scenes rather spooky. After all, he is a messed up character.
It is also possible that Steven and Marc interact with each other via Voice chats. The truth about his phone calls with his mother will probably be revealed in the upcoming episodes and we shall be looking forwards to unearthing the details of the same.
10. Steven’s Best friends
There are three people who Steven talks the most with (from what we have seen so far in the first episode). They are Gus, his pet fish, his mother (who probably does not exist) and Crawley the street performer who pretends to be a statue.
Interestingly, none of these three can talk back to Steven.
11. Atlantis Easter Egg
In the scene where Steven is going to catch the bus to his Museum, we see a building named ‘Atlantis Islands’ in the background. It is probably an easter egg referring to the hidden city of Atlantis that is ruled by Namor the Submariner. Atlantis and Namor are rumoured to make their MCU debuts with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
12. The Mysterious Kid in the Museum
Just as Steven enters the museum, he sees that a little girl was sticking her gum into a mini pyramid of Giza and gives her a lesson about an intriguing fact about Egyptian history (basically the mythology of weighing their hearts) and the kid then makes a very suspicious statement.
“And did it suck for you getting rejected from the field of Reeds?” the girl says. This is highly suspicious for a little kid to make such a statement. Is she not was she seems to be?
However, Steven gives a very interesting response. He says, “That doesn’t make any sense because I’m not dead Am I? Am..I?” before he is cut off by Donna.
The “Am…I?” part shows that Steven himself is unsure about his reality due to his messed up dreams and he is not sure whether he is aware or not.
13. The 9 Gods of Ennead
Steven points out a major blunder in a poster of Ennead in Donna’s office. The poster only had 7 gods while Ennead actually had 9. However, the poster also includes Hathor who is not actually a part of the Ennead but is the Sky Goddess. She is a very important deity who mates with Khonshu to enable creation. A Moon Knight link right there!
14. Rift Between Gods and Men
Steven Grant reads many books related to Egyptian mythology and one of them showed a chapter on Ennead which read – “Rift between God and Man”.
This probably alludes to the relation of Khonshu and the other members of the Ennead with Humans and it probably sets them up as the new gods of the Marvel Universe alongside the Norse Gods and the Celestials.
15. The first dream
Steven Grant falls asleep and wakes up with his jaw dislocated in an Alpine village (that is actually shot in Slovenia) and then he is chased by Arthur Harrow’s men. Apparently, after Steven fell asleep, Marc Spector took over, travelled to the Alps to steal the Scarab and got injured in the process. Unfortunately, Steven Grant regained consciousness right after that.
16. Khonsu’s voice
After Steven Grant gets back his consciousness, we hear F Murray Abraham’s voice (the voice of Khonsu) and he says: “Go back to sleep worm” as if Steven is the one that does not belong in the mind. However, it might also be because this is a serious moment and Khonshu needs Marc Spector to save the Scarab and not Steven Grant.
17. Alpine Natives speaking English?
The people who were chasing Marc Spector spoke in English and this suggested that they were not actually Alpine residents but rather followers of Arthur Harrow who are from different parts of the world and they just follow Arthur wherever he goes.
18. Ammit’s judgement
When one of the followers of Arthur Harrow submits himself to the judgement of Ammit and Arthur Harrow acts as a medium to make the judgement. “I judge you in Ammit’s name with but a fraction of her power” he says as the scale tattoo in his hands start to move. It turns green and Harrow says “This is the face of a good man” which means that he is going to heaven.
However, the scales turn red for the old lady as the tattoo tips in the direction of her heart and she lays dead in front of Harrow. The scene proves that a person’s future deeds are also taken into account while Ammit makes her judgement.
19. First look into Marc Spector’s Split personality
When Steven Grant is asked by Arthur to give away the Scarab, he is ready to part with the item but Khonshu’s voice asks him not to do so. He also physically restricts Steven from giving away the scarab by closing his hands and moving his body but when Arthur’s followers snatch the scarab from his, we get the first look into his split personality. In the very next scene we see that Steven has blood all over it and some of Arthur’s men lay dead on the ground.
What happened is that Marc Spector took over the control of the body and got the Scarab back by killing all those men. However, Steven got his consciousness back soon and as we are seeing the series from his perspective, we do not see Marc’s action sequence as Steven is not aware of it either. We see it this phenomenon multiple times throughout the dream sequence.
20. It’s not a Dream!
When Steven Grant wakes up, he sees that he is still tied to the bed and thus thinks that he had been dreaming all this time. But a sequence of events proves that it was indeed a real-life incident. First he sees that his fish Gus had two fins and thus he went to the shop to find out the reason behind this anomaly. There he found out that it was evening and he thought that he had slept for the entire day and prepared for his date.
However, on calling his date, he found out the it was Sunday and not Friday and thus he had no whereabouts regarding the 2 days of his life that he missed. This proved that Steven Grant has not been seeing Dreams all these days and those are actually real life events.
21. Layla and Duchamp
After returning from the steak restaurant, Steven finds the hidden chamber which had a phone. He turned it on to find several calls from Layla. However an interesting detail is that one of the calls was from a person called Duchamp. Jean-Paul Duchamp was a mercenary and a partner to Moon Knight in Marvel comics.
22. The Elevator scene
After seeing a moving and talking reflection of himself in the mirror, Steven runs out of his apartment and steps into the lift. However, the lift behaves weirdly and it stops on an empty third floor and then again on the second where Khonshu runs towards him from the hall but when he grabs the door of the lift, an elderly woman comes inside the lift.
However this does not make any sense as is it was indeed the elderly woman who Steven had seen, she was far away from the elevator and summoning button. Moreover, although we saw that Steven was hitting the button for the ground floor, the elevator took them to the 5th floor where the lady took off to meet her friend Claire. He turns back to see Khonshu right behind him and we get his first close up shot.
23. The Bus Scene
Right after the elevator scene, Steven finds himself inside a bus. Outside the window he sees Khonshu who immediately disappears. Steven escapes the bus and sees Arthur Harrow inside. It means that either Marc Spector was spying on Arthur or vice versa.
24. Who Betrayed Ammit?
Arthur Harrow comes to see Steven Grant in the museum where he talks with him about Ammit. He said that if Ammit was not betrayed by her own Avatar, she would have stopped beings like Hitler from causing mass catastrophe.
Now question arises, who is this Avatar? According to some theories, this might have something to do with the Eternals or maybe even Pharaoh Rama-Tut who was actually a variant of Nathaniel Richards or Kang the Conquerer.
25. Steven/Marc is impossible to judge
Arthur Harrow tries to use his scales to judge Steven Grant’s soul but the scales never settle. After this, Arthur says, “There’s chaos in you”. Now why could Steven’s soul not be assessed by Ammit’s scales? Well this could be solely because of Marc Spector’s split personality disorder as all his identities have a totally different moral allignment from each other and thus it is impossible to judge him.
26. Marc Spector takes control
When Steven Grant is under attack by the Jackal at night in the Museum and he locks himself up in the Public washroom, for the first time, Marc Spector talks to him directly from the mirrors and says that he could save them both but Steven needed to give control of the body to Marc. He did so by looking Marc straight into his eyes following which he turned into Moon Knight and beat the hell out of the creature.
27. Marc is Moon Knight and not Steven
Well, now we probably know why Khonshu is so rude with Steven always. It is Marc who Khonshu gave his powers and not Steven and thus only Marc could use those powers to turn into Moon Knight. However these dynamics could change in the upcoming episodes of the series and will definitely be interesting to watch.
Also Read:- The Batman Full Movie Breakdown: Review, Hidden Details, and Easter Eggs (SPOILER ALERT)
