‘Moon Knight’ Episode Five Recap: “Asylum”

*Warning: This piece contains spoilers for episode five of Moon Knight*

With some mysteries solved and new cliffhangers to resolve, episode five of Moon Knight packs a fun, yet emotionally resonant punch.

The episode begins with Marc Spector/Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac) being sedated with meds after getting hostile during a meeting with Dr. Harrow (Ethan Hawke). We jump right to where we ended last week’s episode, with Marc and Steven screaming as they’re greeted by the goddess Taweret (voiced by Amanda Salib).

Taweret explains to the two that they are dead and that the hospital is actually inside a ship sailing the Duat, the Egyptian underworld. Taweret is to weigh their hearts on the Scale of Justice and if they balance, the two can proceed to the Field of Reeds, a heaven-like place. Their hearts don’t balance out the scale, so Taweret advises Marc and Steven to go throughout the ship and reveal lost memories to each other to repair their imbalance.

Steven witnesses a memory of Marc’s where his younger brother accidentally drowns in a cave where the two were playing. When young Marc attends the funeral, his mother berates him and angrily blames him for his younger brother’s death.

Marc also shows Steven the memory of how he first became Khonshu’s avatar. Marc encounters Khonshu’s statue half dead after a mission, and Khonshu takes advantage of Marc’s poor condition to lure him into being the avatar.

With the gates still unbalanced and the ship approaching the Gates of Osiris, inside the ship, Dr. Harrow persuades Marc to fully reveal a previously concealed memory. Steven witnesses a memory of young Marc enduring his mother’s abuse following his younger brother’s death. In a distressing moment while being yelled at by his mother, young Marc unwittingly creates the Steven personality to help shelter himself from the abuse. Learning this truth helps Steven and Marc reconcile, but their scales fail to balance.

Undead spirits begin to invade the ship and attack the pair, with Marc and Steven fighting them off. While fighting one off, Steven goes overboard. Having fallen off the ship, the scales balance and Marc passes on to the Field of Reeds.

Episode five of Moon Knight finally airs out the mystery of Marc’s/Steven’s origins, but leaves us wanting to know more after this ending. Does Marc make it out of the Field of Reeds. Does Steven survive? Will Layla help vanquish Harrow? In less than a week, now, we’ll learn in the Moon Knight season finale.

You can stream Moon Knight now on Disney+