Moon Knight Episode One Review

The first episode of Moon Knight was released two weeks ago, on March 30, much to the delight of fans. Directed by Mohammed Diab and starring Oscar Isaac, the six episode television series is the latest installment in the Marvel Cinematic franchise, marking the debut of the fan-favorite comic book character. It is the sixth MCU Disney+ series, coming right behind Hawkeye, which debuted in November of last year.

The first episode was fairly good, with the episode opening with the series villain, Arthur Harrow played by Ethan Hawke. However, not much of Hawke is seen in the beginning of the episode, as it mainly focuses on one of the protagonists of the story, Steven Grant. Steven Grant, played by Oscar Issac, is a mild-mannered gift-shop worker at the National Art Gallery in London. However, Steven begins to experience blackouts, even finding objects around his apartment that don’t belong to him. All the while, he begins to hear mysterious voices in his head and strange happenings start in his waking hours, as he is in the possession of a strange artifact. It all culminates to a head at the end of the episode as Steven finally gives into the mysterious voice-now named Marc-and becomes the titular protagonist, Moon Knight.

Oscar Isaac plays Steven Grant to a fault, perfectly conveying the timidness and general kindness one would expect from a gift-shop keeper with a hobby of talking to random strangers and his one-finned fish. I particularly enjoyed the lack of fight scenes in this episode, finding the way Steven blipped in and out of consciousness and waking up to the chaos around him far more enjoyable. Khonsu, as expected and adapted from the comics, is a bit of a jerk here and his CGI form is nearly identical to the comics. A concern of many fans shared was the portrayal of DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder), which Marc Spector shares with his alters Steven Grant and Jake Lockley in the comics, and so far in the show, they’ve done a surprisingly good job of portraying it in a positive light. It remains to be seen in the show how this will progress, and whether they will continue to give positive representation.

“I thought it was decent, and I’m looking forward to the rest of the series,” says junior Aiden Amaya.

“It was good. The music and the soundtrack was great,” says sophomore Miles Weida.