Jeff Lemire began his stage in ‘Moon Knight’ with ‘Welcome to New Egypt’, a saga in which he put the hero in a psychiatric hospital going full throttle with the great doubt if everything is real. That has been the great turn of the Disney + series as we saw in the previous episode and in the fifth chapter we already know a little better what is happening.
Of course, from here on there will be spoilers for ‘The psychiatric hospital’ (Asylum), episode 1×05 of ‘Moon Knight’ (Moon Knight).
Jeremy Slater, creator of the series had already said that one of his great influences was the aforementioned stage, drawn by Greg Smallwood. In her, this stay in the asylum was a ploy for Marc Spector to reconcile with his multiple personalities in order to move forward. That’s the theme this episode literally navigates.
Opening the trunk of memories
Thus, the center of the episode finds Marc and Steven aboard the ship of the goddess Tueris (Antonia Salib), the guide to the duat, the egyptian underworld. They are dead and must put their hearts on the scales. However, there is a problem that indicates that they are not complete, so they must go through rooms of the psychiatric hospital where they can relive moments of their lives and secrets from the past.
All this while the script of Rebecca Kirsch and Matthew Orton keep playing with that doubt eternal question of whether what we are seeing is real or not. Are they really dead? Were they really shot by Harrow? Why that Ned Flanders psychiatrist look of Ethan Hawke’s character?
Marc is very reluctant to open those doors, but Steve is determined to try and solve the puzzle his life has become. Of course, the first step is required: learn the truth about his alter ego. His victims… from which a very particular one soon emerges: a child.
Leaving Marc behind, Grant opens a door from the past with little Marc and his brother RoRo going out to play in a cave, with a tragic end. It is the great wound of the family, from which the Spectors have not recovered. Especially her mother (Fernanda Andrade) who, deranged, not only blames her eldest son for the death of her other son, but also begins to mistreat him.
This is you Steven Grant
And this is where one of the big reveals comes in: the true origin of Steven Grant as a release valve. Throughout this part there are many echoes of the beginning of the series (the fish with a fin) and, if we remember correctly, it was already hinted at that time that there was something strange in the relationship of Marc / Steven with his mother.
In this way, taking on the character of a film about adventurous archaeologists (of which we saw a fragment in the previous episode), Marc created a whole parallel life in which he had a perfect mother. A second personality that overflowed (and mixed) two months ago, after the death (and shiva) of his mother.
Drunk and haunted by how his life has turned (being a mercenary, becoming the fist of Konshu’s revenge), being unable to reunite with his father in these toughest moments, Steven reappears calling his mother and telling her that he has lost himself again.
All this emotional journey is too much for Steven, which still cannot reconcile all the information. Which brings us to the final moment of the episode, with the lost souls of the Duat storming the ship to take our heroes. A fight that ends with one turned into sand and the other into the field of reeds.
What will happen now is what we will see in the final episode of the series, which still has things to resolve for a seemingly free Marc from Steven. First thing, get out of this underworld. The second, to stop Ammit who has already started his process of preventive justice in humanity, overflowing Duat of souls.