The fifth and penultimate episode of Marvel’s Moon Knight packed a lot in, filling in the blanks of Marc and Steven’s (Oscar Isaac) shared backstory as they tried to balance their afterlife scales and escape the strange mental facility they were trapped in. Look, it made sense if you watched the episode.
By the end, they managed it – but at a cost. After failing to find balance for too long on the ship, “unbalanced souls” rose up from the sands to drag both Marc and Steven into the Duat. And while Steven was able to fight them off initially to help Marc, in the end Steven himself was dragged down, turning to solid sand and left behind.
However, his “death” had an unexpected result. Suddenly, having lost Steven, Marc’s soul became balanced, granting him access to a glorious afterlife (aka the Field of Reeds). The episode ends with Marc standing there, and it’s unclear whether he’ll continue to try and escape to the real world, go back for Steven, or stay in this new peace.
Well OK, it’s not that unclear. It wouldn’t be much of a show if he just spent the finale hanging out in some reeds while half the world was being zapped into Egyptian death mode by Harrow (Ethan Hawke). But exactly what the show intends for Steven’s story is a little ambiguous.
Frankly, if this was a death in any other Marvel story we’d know where we stood. Either that person would be dead dead, or we’d be looking at a kind of sci-fi fakeout where they could return in some form (looking at you Gamora, Loki and Vision).
Steven’s death, initially, would seem like the latter – he’s part of Marc’s mind, rather than his own person, and so it’s technically impossible for him to “die” while Marc still lives anyway. Plus, his “death” is weird fantasy stuff. Easy to undo.
Moonknight episode 5
— z (@reblmoon) April 27, 2022
THERAPY BILLS ON THE WAY MARVEL #MoonKnight pic.twitter.com/knpNo1klWL
But from what we’ve learned about Steven in Moon Knight’s fifth episode, this doesn’t feel as clear cut. In flashbacks, we’re shown how Marc created Steven to escape the trauma of his childhood, making him a figure who was free of what Marc had suffered.
Their two selves only started to properly bleed together two months before the events of the series after the death of Marc’s troubled mother, at which point both Marc and Steven’s lives were thrown into disarray.
In learning about Marc’s past, Steven eventually comforts him, noting that he wasn’t responsible for the death of his brother or the horrible things that his mother did to him. It’s a kind of breakthrough for Marc, it seems, who’s finally forced to confront memories he’s been actively running from.
I'M NEVER RECOVERING FROM THIS SCENE OF MARVEL 'S MOONKNIGHT EPISODE 5#MoonKnight pic.twitter.com/zmJScmwHmb
— z (@reblmoon) April 27, 2022
This, followed by the fact that Steven’s “death” balances Marc’s soul leads to an obvious conclusion – Steven is what has been holding Marc back from balance. Steven is a coping mechanism, and without him Marc can move on with his life. In which case, would bringing him back in the finale even work for the story the Moon Knight team are trying to tell?
It’s possible that this is an over-simplistic reading. Maybe it isn’t as simple as magically curing your mental health issues or finding inner peace through a symbolic death. Maybe Marc doesn’t need to be “fixed” or “healed”. And given how central to the series (and popular) Steven is, surely they’d want him front and centre in the finale. Or at least give him a hero’s exit?
Altogether, it’s hard to know how to take this latest character exit. Who’d have thought that combining a constructed mental personality with the fantasy trappings of the Egyptian afterlife and superheroes could get confusing?
Moon Knight episodes 1-5 are available to stream now on Disney Plus. New episodes Wednesdays. Check out more of our Sci-Fi and Fantasy coverage or visit our TV Guide to see what’s on tonight.
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