House of R - 'Moon Knight' Episode 2 Deep Dive

Episode Date: April 9, 2022

Mal and Jo summon the deep dive into the second episode of Disney's 'Moon Knight' (06:45). They dive into the intricate relationship being established between Steven and Mark, (26:33) along with Ethan Hawk's portrayal of Arthur Harrow (71:02). Later they dive into their favorite Easter eggs, along with answering your mailbag questions. Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joanna, do you ever wish you could definitively prove that you had the right opinions about movies? Uh, yeah, Neil, because I do have the right opinions about movies and television, right, Dave? No, because I'm more right about those things, and I demand trial by content. Oh, boy, what is trial by content? Each week, we'll take on a huge question. Each of us will bring a choice and combine with listener submissions and your votes, we will come to a decision. It's trial by content every Tuesday on Spotify, the ringer.com, wherever you're listening right now. Don't let Neil win.

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Or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those WeatherTech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need WeatherTech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Look, I don't care how bloody handsome you are. Tell me what it is you are. What are you?

You sure you want to know? Yes, bloody, yes. I serve Kanshu. I'm his avatar, which means you are too. Sort of. We protect the vulnerable and deliver Kansu's justice to those who hurt them. Conch? Yeah.

The Egyptian god of the moon? Oh my God. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I eat one piece of steak and then bam, I go bonkers. Greetings. And welcome into the Ringerverse here on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only to share this bowl of lentil soup, but also to join us on the Ringer's Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. Joining me today. Now that she's finished telling me it's like area 51, like MI6 bunkers, brough.

It's my house of our... That's getting like longer and more dramatic as we go. Joanna Robinson. Oh, boy, oh, oh. Hello, bro. It's Joe, isn't it? Frewd to be here on a Friday. Yeah.

Flooded, overjoyed. What could be better than talking midnight with you? I don't know. Maybe if you use that accent the entire time. Oh, that is. I think that's an international incident if I do that. I think Interpol has to get involved if I do that. Joe, it is once again moon night time.

And it is also once again programming reminder time. On Monday, if you haven't heard, we teamed up with Van and Charles. for a house of midnight Morbius extravaganza. So check that out if you haven't. The podcast at least. Not necessarily the film, but the podcast at least.

Next week, and the midnight boys. Poo-poo! We'll be back with their instant reaction to Moonnight, episode three, and we will be back next Friday with our episode three, deep dive. Episode three,

already almost at the mid-season moon night mark. unbelievable. You can follow all that by following the pot on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast and by following the ring or verse social feeds, including on TikTok. And of course, bear in mind our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning. Today's podcast will feature plot details from Moonnight episode two, summon the suit. So proceed with more caution than the jackal did when pursuing Moonnight across the rooftops of London. Lovely. Beautiful moon backdrop there.

All right, Joe. Let's summon the bod. All right. So we are here, of course, talk about episode two, summon the suit, directed by Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson,

written by Michael Castellian. Run time, a juicy, 53 minutes on the second episode here. Before we get into the episode, if you have not heard over on the Midnight Boys, they've been dealing with this question of screener gate,

how many episodes of a show to watch in order to have an instant reaction, how many episodes a show to watch in order to have a deep dive. Disney and their Infinite Wisdom gave us four episodes of Moon Night, Mallory and I

only watched two. Disney keeps tempting us. They keep refreshing these screeners leaving them there against their usual protocol. They're just sitting there, tempting us. But it's just something I want to say

maybe a little bit quickly in Charles' defense. Not that he needs it. We love the Midnight Boys. The Midnight Boys. The Midnight Boys love you all. It's all copacetic. But I just want to say that everyone who

gets those screeners, watches those screeners. Everyone, that is the culture. That is what is done. At my old gig, you had to watch any screener you got immediately or else someone you worked with would spoil it for you. That's just sort of how it works. At the ringer, it's not really how it rolls. And I think Charles and I both are learning that as we go. That's something that I've definitely learned. And it's been a really interesting experience for me. But I've heard from you guys that you would rather go along the ride with you, be fresh. So that is what we're trying to do here. But it's just sort of, I don't know. I just want to, like, address the fact that that is, that is the culture. That's usually how it works, that people who are trying to

prepare you and give you context and give you added insight into a thing will watch as much of it as possible so they can let you know what they know. So that's all. Just a little screener gate. And just adding my love and support to the Midnight Boys. How are you feeling about that, Mel? I thought that the opening few minutes of Wednesday's Midnight Boys was, some of the most touching podcasting in ringer history. I was moved to tears. Love Charles, love Van, love everyone in the Ringerverse family, and I think we should all be supportive and kind to each other. Everyone's trying their best. Last one at least, and most importantly, I believe, I don't know if I misheard this, but I believe Van said that if 40,000 of you

said you wanted the Midnight Boys to watch Buffy the Vampire Slair season one. The Buffy moment. And I saw one person. This is your big. That signal, Joe. I saw one person on Twitter say they would want it. So there's only 39,99 more people to go. And then I believe you're getting a Buffy season one rewatch from the Midnight Boys. Joe, how many burners do you have at the ready? Oh, I don't even want to discuss it.

Legion's. We are Legion. Find them on every platform you can. Whip those Buffy votes. Anyway, love the Midnight Boys. They are the best. Piu! No, No, Episode 2.

Quick snapshot here before we dive into our character-by-character talk. Overall impressions. How did you enjoy this episode of television, Joanna Robinson? Well, Mallory, but I'm so glad you asked me. No, I had a great time with it. I think, you know, we get a lot more mark in this episode, obviously, but Lela is a huge force entering the show here. I love this character.

I love this introduction of her. I thought it was really thoughtfully done. So for that, I'm thrilled with episode two. How about you? I quite enjoyed it. Had a great time. Also, just really taken, taken with Layla right away. Wonderful. Had a blast yet again, tracking all of our reflections, you know, all of our mirror moments, all of our upside down pans. It was wonderful that the first time we had to see Layla, for example, Stephen was looking at her upside down. So many fun moments of the way that this show is staged and shot. You know, our pals and colleagues over on The Midnight Boys talked about this a lot of. in their episode, but just spectacular acting from Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke in this episode. It's just such a treat. It's a treat to watch Stephen and Mark and see everything that Oscar Isaac is doing in those sequences.

And it is a real treat to watch the conversations between Harrow and Stephen. I felt a little bit of a Loki Morbius. We could just sit here and chat in the cafe for as long as they'll let us inside of this episode energy here in episode two. And as you know, Joe, that's my favorite kind of energy. And also, you know, we always are texting, we're slack in, we're in the Google. comments together. We're exchanging thoughts in so many different forms when we're prepping for a pod. Is it accurate and fair to say that 97% of our prep for this episode centered on our respective history with lentil soup? Absolutely. Nay, I would say 98%.

Just love lentil soup. It's a favorite of mine. I was not. thrilled to see it here. We're lentil soup people. So, and what I will say is this. I would rather have Victor's mysterious lentil soup in the killer cult than the sad iceberg lettuce salad that Mobius and Loki often had to eat in the TVA cafeteria. So yeah, I mean, if you, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, it's the TVA coming to call or the murder cult coming to call. Murder cult has the advantage on the menu. So I'm just saying. The quick glance we got of the tomatoes and the community garden.

Wonderful. Yeah. The other thing I discovered as we were prepping for this episode is Malibu is extremely susceptible to cult coercion. You were like, looks charming. Would join 10 out of 10. I have some notes. I mean, some of it's bad.

course. I'm fully in Stevens camp on the, you know, let's not prejudge everyone before that they've done anything and let's also not kill kids. I'm with Stephen on that. That's not good that the cult does that. However, did the soup seem great? Yes, it did. Would you want to watch nature docs, which it seems to be what they're also out on the Oclockwork Garage slash Lost Room 23 brainwashing video campaign, which is very obviously what is happening there. I did like that they all had headphones. you know, that's better than the clockwork orange eye clamps for sure. That's real improvement here in the MCU. That's a meaningful step forward. I like that. You know, when Harrow was talking about how they all strive to learn three languages, they teach each other what they know. Hey,

admirable. That's kind of where I draw the line on what sounds appealing inside of the cult. I'm honestly probably more in the TVA camp in terms of my diet, as you know, as nice as the vegetables looked and as pleasant as the soup sounded. The cabooy, you know, old school pruned timeline candy and the cans of 80s Jasta, probably more my speed. That's true. You are a bending machine kind of girl. I know this about you. Wow.

That's just, boy, that sums it up, honestly. It does. It does. You captured my essence with that one. Speaking of essence, Joe, one more kind of big picture note here before we dive into our character breakdown. Let's make this a little bit of a weekly routine. You know, we have one true North Star on the weekly routine front and it's obviously

Secret Scroll Watch and that'll never change. But within the Moon Night season, we'll add this. The horror meter check in. Week two, this is not a horror show. I think even less so at episode two than at episode one. Downright chock full of levity in spots.

Again, certainly unsettling. There is a palpable thriller vibe and there is a lot of introspection and psychological and mooring unfolding. But are you getting the kind of horror energy that we were we were told awaited at all no i mean i would show this at a like slumber party for little children right like the way that i watched beetle juice as a kid but like the uh would you start

right on the part at the slumber party for children about killing children is that where you would yeah where you would tee it up no i would start with ease them into their dreams i would start with crush his windpipe um i think the shot where uh where conchus coming down the storage locker hallway and the motion sensor lights are slamming on and off and the sound design on that it was a really loud like those are the loud in motion motion sensor lights i've ever heard so that's that's the closest i think we get to like horror movie vibes but the the thing that i found out this week um that i think it was director jeremy or writer jeremy slater said this that it was kevin faggy's idea so if you look at the moon you know we got two costume designs this episode

We're obviously going to talk about that. But the Moon Knight costume, which we've been seeing on posters and in trailers, and we got to see in action in this episode, is a slight variation on the comic group version in that it has these bandages, these mummy bandages. And apparently that was Kevin Faggy's note specifically to sort of give it this universal, and I'm talking about like Universal Studios, Universal Horror, Mummy, Old Creature vibe. And we've talked about Marvel Horror and how Werewolf by Night,

is coming and how we've got Blade and stuff like that. And so is Marvel going to do a sort of Midnight Sun's team up? Do the, you know, Universal recently tried to reboot its horror franchise that did not go well. People might remember this, like, great group photo that they took of the actors and they're like, never mind, we're not doing that franchise. But are we going to get a version of that through Marvel? And is that the version we want? I don't mind Marvel doing their different genre thing.

You know, this is something that, like, Kevin Feige, who is overall, like, a movie nut before he's a comic book nut. And so if Kevin wants to live out his, like, movie nut producer dreams doing these different genres, I am all for it. But it is still going to be like a watered down Disney version of Universal Studios horror. And I would rather have, like, the original Hammer Horror in addition to. I'm not saying Marvel can't do this, but it's not a full substitute for that. I don't know. What do you think? I agree with that.

I mean, I personally am not a horror fan. I'm a coward. I can't watch horror movies. I don't know this about you. As you know. So it's not like that's something I'm particularly longing for, but I do think, as we've talked about more broadly, that the leaning into the more mature storytelling in any number of ways is appealing

and is something that I hope to see more of, you know, those Netflix shows are. are on Disney Plus now, and we have all of these stories coming from Marvel zombies to Blade, you know, and whatever potential Midnight Sun's future awaits. So I am eager to see the genre expansion

and just the differentiation of tone and vibe across the MCU more broadly, not even just specific to horror. But, you know, I think that the genre variance has always been one of the strengths of the MCU across the first three phases. Like if we think about something like, you know,

the political thriller energy and inside of our favorite film, you know, Winter Soldier and the period piece of making a war movie and First Avenger, hopefully Jomey forgives me for mentioning First Avenger, a film that I love.

You know, it just helps keep everything feel fresh and Fagie has spoken so many times over the years about how essential that is to maintaining the essential quality of the MCU where it never, if it all feels connected, but it never feels the same. And so this feels like one of the natural next steps. I'm for it as long as I can sleep at night. That's where I net out.

Thus far, at least, it's not diverged wildly from there is sort of like a core Marvel Disney feel to these movies and shows, which I'm not mad about, but I don't think it's like offering the full flavor profile that we might get. So yeah. Yeah. And I think one of the interesting things to track over the next, you know, a few years and future installments will be how the MCU is able to maintain that sense of like the through line and the sense of this is really one continuity and one shared universe

that has eluded other studios like the Sony or Sony, exactly, while also injecting more variance across films because one of the things that you, of course, risk when you lean into that more fully is, hey, these things don't feel like

they're a part of the same world. But I think that in deft and capable hands, it is more than possible to do both of those things well. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business to keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 US-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas.

Shall we talk about our guys? Stephen? Mark. Steve. Moon Knight. Mistanite. Scotty. And your personal fave.

Conchoo. Scotty. Man. Wonder how long Stephen was working with everyone at the museum who does not know his name. Very, very tough. Very tough. Okay. We have, by the end of this episode.

And as you noted in last week's pod, Joe, the first couple episodes are sort of considered a package, a joint entry into what the season of TV will be, right? So by the end of this second episode, we arrive at a couple key changes that, and again, we have not seen beyond this, so we don't know, but it seems very reasonable to assume set up the rest of the story to come. One is the shift in the controlling identity. Mark has taken over. Stephen is now the one who is encased in the mirror dimension. Not that mirror dimension. Dr. Strait. fans, at least we don't think. You know, this starts in subtler ways

in the episode like Stephen putting down his Stephen name tag, and we see him, we also see his reflection upside down in the glass desk in the HR office. It continues organically as he is absorbing, and we are too, this kind of deft exposition, these details about

who Mark is, what he's done and why, what his relationship to Layla is through, not only like conversations between Mark and Stephen in the storage locker, for example, but all of the conversations between Layla and Stephen, and then ends with this seating control moment. For now, as Stephen puts it, but that is obviously not Mark's view on the matter or his intention, because we realize that Mark does not intend to give it back. And then we land with Stephen encased,

first in the streets of London following the Mr. Knight into Moon Knight Jackal fight, all the way into seeing him draped in that sheet, bloody knuckles. in the mirror in Egypt. Both Stephen and Mark looking fucking great in that sequence, by the way. This might come up again today. The ring of verse contains adult content. Possibly. There is something literalized at this point.

We talked last week a lot about how unsettling it was that Mark seemed to be imprisoning his other identity, Stephen, in these falsehoods of his life, the postcards from quote, unquote, mom, the voicemails to quote unquote, mom, what is happening with Gus, etc. And now that encasement is literalized. I think what's interesting, I mean, I like that you're saying encasement. I mean, it's very like entombed Egyptian sort of evocation.

But I think also what's really key about this, we're obviously going to get into Layla a bit more. But to give Mark a motivation outside of, I don't know, pursuit of power or something. like he is using Stephen, however he is using him, entoming him or hiding inside of him or whatever it is, it all seems to be in pursuit of protecting Layla. And so to give him that motivation then makes Mark who, you know, if I were to pick between Stephen and Mark who to hang out with, I pick Stevie.

We're going to like talk about French poetry and like hang out. Mark, you know, seems like a bit more. Just wait till he praises your unilateral. Oh my gosh. I swoon. But, like, you know, Mark seems like a bit more of a dick. However, you know, a dick who has altruistic motivations, which is to protect this woman who seems to be like the love of his life is, you know, a good package to put that character in. Do you believe in altruism?

Yes. Do you not? Listen to the next hour talking about altruism. I love when we really go deep in our deep dives. I'm going to need a bowl of Lendell's soup for this. Joe, there is another key, key, key repositioning at the end of this episode. And it is the location, farewell London. We had a jolly good time.

Trafalgar Square, very clearly Trafalgar Square. We hardly knew you. We are in Egypt at the end. In a recent interview, in an interview that Oscar Isaac gave Ali Plum, one of my faves over BBC, Ali was like, how much time did you spend in London actually filming? And Oscar said zero, because they filmed in Budapest, I believe. So I'm wondering if that was an Oscar Isaac double in Trafalgar Square. If Oscar Isaac never set foot, it's so fascinating.

Blighty. Did they just get some guy and put a curly wig on him and let him walk through Trafalgar? I don't know. It's hard to, boy, it's hard to approximate those particular curls. He has just such great hair. The Trufogger Square thing was so, like, jarring in episode two because it's quite different. from the entry to the museum at episode one, I thought I was very amused by that.

But anyway, we end up, again, with our underwear-clad heroes in Egypt at the end of this episode. Now, certainly from all of the many trailers, we knew that this was a location we were going to hit. Surprise it all to get there this soon, surprised maybe in the flip side that it took this long. How long do you think we'll be here, the rest of the way? I don't know, but I think listening to Mohamediyah

talk about this season as like pairs. So we got like the London duology that our episode one and two. So we might get an Egyptian duology, but I don't know then where we would go for the final two. Or maybe we're just in Egypt for the rest for the duration. But I think this promise of a sort of Indiana Jones slash the mummy adventure, which I think is more probably how this show should have been sold than we're doing real horror. you know, I'm thrilled to be here. Something I love that that Mohamed Diav said, one of his interviews is he was talking about,

you know, we get this shot of the pyramids out the window of the hotel room, one presumes, the apartment that Mark finds himself in. And the pyramids are right there in the city. And Mohamed Diav is like, this is the first time in a mainstream Hollywood production that I've seen the pyramids depicted where they actually are.

Usually they put the pyramids out in the middle of the desert as if that's where they are. But in reality, there's like a KFC at a Pizza Hut right across from the pyramids. So this is a more accurate framing of where they are. To me, it looked like this one splash page out of the Jeff Lemur run that I popped in our notes here where the pyramids come to New York City. They're right in the middle of the skyline of New York City. So I don't know if it's a nod to that intentionally or just a more accurate Egypt, but that's here we are. One of the interesting things that that particular visual and panel from the Lumer Run takes place when Mark is trying to escape from this mental health facility that he is in.

And in terms of like where else we might spend time, one of the things like revisiting all of the different trailers, you know, there are clearly sequences are featured. and really like the trailers linger on them of either Mark or Stephen we don't know in what appears to be a hospital setting. Is that still to come in the timeline of the show? Could those be flashbacks?

I'm curious as we learn more about both Mark and Stephen and any other potential identities we might meet, how much time we will be spending in the past through flashbacks or other other methods. You know, Layla in particular referenced the past, their adventures together, all they've been through many, many times. There's obviously a lot of kind of coded, um, foreshadowing language from Mark and Conchu alike about what unfolded between them. We learn about Harrow's past in this

episode with Conchu. So so much in this episode tells us information shares with this information that we did not have about the past, so we have more of a bearing heading into future episodes. But we don't really know what any of those things mean or how they unfolded. So I feel like we will see some of that in full. And I'm excited for that. I think you can't do, you can't say we're doing the Lemire. Like, you can't say the Jeff Lemire run is our strongest influence and not do a mental health facility storyline in some way.

And I think that also, whether it's flashbacks or not, or my preferred would be what Lamere does, which is the blending of the reality and, and, you know, you. You know, is it all a dream? Am I actually awake? Am I actually a superhero? Is this my delusion? All that sort of stuff that Lemire deals with. In terms of flashbacks, though, something that's really interesting that I think our

Palerick Voss pointed out, but someone pointed out that they've cast a younger actress in the role of Mark's mother. So that tells us they're probably going to do flashbacks at some point. There's also a Judaism consultant credited. So I don't know, you know, Mark wakes up in Egypt and he's got a star, like his star of David necklace is sort of prominently displayed. We've talked before about he is like a rare sort of Jewish superhero here. So I don't know how much that is going to be involved in sort of the flashbacks. His identity is a rabbi son growing up, something like that.

Excited. Maybe we'll get a facta tank in here, you know? A flashback. What do you think? No. I banish the Bacta sink back into the healing fluids. Nope, hard no on the Bacta.

Okay, let's chat a bit more about Stephen and Mark and the dynamic on display between them throughout this episode because it is a fascinating insight into the way that they are at war with each other, which of course means the way that this character is at war with himself. Conshu always lurking like a creepy fucker.

I did enjoy some of the shots of Kanshu where a light fixture, like when he's, he's, the sequence that you mentioned with the lighting and the storage locker, one of the, the, the, the, the, orbs looks like almost a glowing moon behind him. And then when he's kind of crouching on the rooftop with the gargoyles. As the compound, yes, as the compound sequence is unfolding, there's another light that sort of looks like the moon behind him. Very, very cool. Just, just hanging with my pals of the gargoyles. No, no big deal. Conchew. the reflective surfaces, once again, proved very handy in this episode, not only as these plot devices and facilitators that allow us to learn more about what everybody's thinking, what they've done,

but as these symbols for the state of understanding. And it was really cool inside of this episode how, again, we get a lot of those upside-down images, Stephen entering the museum, camera flips upside-down, that shot of his reflection in the glass desk at the museum. But when you, when they go in, when Stephen goes into the storage locker,

the walls are reflections so that Mark can speak to him, but they're not crisp. They're not clear. They're foggy, right? The Gus fish tank sequence, which I know you have some thoughts coming up on later, Joanna.

It's not just a clear mark to Stephen vessel. They're looking through Gus. They're looking through Layla at them. Gus and Layla loves, right? People that they love. Yes, I just called Gus. person. Mark looking out of surfaces, like the reflective edge of the gun, that was a really disturbing image. The mirror that Stephen finds himself encased in on the street in London after the

fight and also the mirror in the room in Egypt are fractured. They're shattered. So neither Mark nor Stephen can see like the full clear picture. And of course, neither can we as the viewers. there's this opaque quality to their ability to understand fully what is unfolding. And of course, their ability to trust each other. And I think that trust dynamic was so interesting to track across the episode because they both think the other one is a fuckup. They both think the other one is inhibiting them. Can I go back to the mirrors for a second and say, I think it's everything you say is brilliant as always. But what's also true is this is a hilarious challenge for the production designer,

Stefani Acella, because I imagine the directors are like, all right, we're going to need. She's like, you want me to put a mirror where? You need to find a reflective surface where? We were talking before we started recording the boys and I about the fact that I've never seen a storage unit with walls polished to a high gleam the way that Marx is, you know? So they're like these creative ways that they're trying to shove reflective services. into various spots.

It's fun trick. My favorite was, I think in this episode, was the little portion of the bread bowl during the lentil soup sequence. And then we can kind of see, we see Mark, but we also then see him recede away as the harrow calls out.

Conscious hypocrisy. Stephen and Mark, neither trusts the other, and they both have their own reasons for it. But you have an alternate read on this, or at least a possibility that you would like to present. Well, okay, so, you know,

Mark thinks Stephen is a dweeb. Stephen thinks Mark is a murdering asshole, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But is this less about these two being at war with each other and more about these two finding common ground? They immediately find common ground in this episode over Laila, essentially what we're seeing, because, you know, we saw the way that, like,

Stephen, you know, reacted to having his arms around Lela on the motorcycle or like reciting poetry with her. Like he's a smitten little kitten, right? Yeah, absolutely. You know, and Mark, despite wanting a divorce, like, it's clear that he wants a divorce because he's trying to protect her. Like, he cares about Layla.

And so they immediately have this united purpose, despite how they're at odds with each other, the united purpose of protecting Layla and or Randos on the street of London, right? And so I think it's going to be more about finding common ground and finding a whole. I mean, you read the Lemire run, The way to the Lemire run is about Mark at first trying to put away all of his other identities because he's like,

sorry, boys, you got to go away. I need to focus. And it's Mark versus Consume in that run, by the way. But he's like, I need to focus here. And then eventually they all come back together. And it's only together that they are able to succeed. And so I think this idea of this is almost like a love story. I mean, we talked about this with Loki, right?

Like, you know, who are you going to fall in love with by yourself? And I'm not talking about romantic necessarily, if anything, this is like a thruple between Stephen and Mark and Laila. But I think, you know, Stephen calling himself, calling Mark handsome is one thing. But I think more importantly, it's going to be about seeing the advantages. Mark understanding the strengths that Stephen can bring to any kind of mission and Stephen understanding the strengths that Mark can bring and that their powers combined, they can do more. Yeah. I actually, I completely agree.

I think that is where it's heading as well. But the journey to that understanding and that sense of self and that acceptance of self in all of the many aspects and phases isn't an easy one. And they have to work through the hesitations that they feel about each other. So even something like the Layla point where they are both motivated by affection and a desire to protect, Stephen notes that he doesn't believe what Mark is saying. And Mark says, you don't know what you're talking about. So they have to work through the fact that they haven't actually been on this shared plane of understanding in order to then get to that point. And the thing that Mark feels or

fears, and it's so interesting because of course Stephen and Mark are the same person. They are different identities within one whole. And so this is about Stephen, but also in a way about Mark himself, that he's not capable, that there is something that he won't be able to do. And some of that is fueled by Conchu when he says things like, the deal is contingent on you not interfering, or you swore he would not interfere is what Conchu says. And then Mark says something similar to Stephen, when he says the deal is contingent on him not interfering. Like the idea that Stevens' interference is something that could disrupt the entire plan and set back Mark's ability to execute the mission and thus escape his life as Conchus's avatar, which is obviously what he wants,

but also in a way what he fears because Conchue was leveraging the Layla thread against him. And was really struck by the way that Mark uses some similar language to Conchue, like when he says, give me the body in the storage locker sequence. That's the way Conchue was talking, right, in episode one. And the idea that Mark would view his own body also as this just tool, a weapon, casing to achieve an end was pretty unsettling. Something that I think is really interesting that they are like, that they've slightly twisted in this version of the story because in this version, the leverage that Conchu

has over Mark seems to be primarily Layla, right? Like, the threat is, if you don't want to do this job anymore, cool. You know, I got my eye on Layla. Great. And Mark is like, absolutely not, right? In the books, that's not a thing at all. First of all, we're going to talk about. Layla is not quite a book character at all.

But it's shame, really, that Conshu weaponizes over Mark because, you know, he finds Mark half dead or dead after this attack. We learn about it in this episode, but this attack that happened in a dig site. And the truth is that Mark was a mercenary. Mark wasn't whether or not he actively did any killing in that dig site. You know, we could find out in the show. it's different versions exist in different storylines of the book, usually he isn't the one who did the killing, but he feels responsible because he was part of the team that was there. So there's shame and

guilt and sort of like red on his ledger, right, that he's got to get clean. And so whenever he bucks against Conshu being like, do this for me, do that for me, Conchue says, remember, I know who you really are. And so in this episode, when Stephen says to Leila, look, you seem absolutely lovely. This Mark, on the other hand, is the right twit. We see Mark and the reflection of mirror duck his head, like out of shame. You know what I mean? So shame is a thing that is motivating Mark and I think, and shame in, as it relates to the DID in general and the state of his mental health in general. Yes. And that work, that's a great point. And I think it works in all directions because there are so many moments where Stephen

is struggling with his own feelings of inadequacy when he says he can't do what Layla is asking him. He cannot do what Mark is asking him. And then the really energizing, rewarding swing inside of the episode when Mark tries to, during the jackal fight, like weaponize that idea by saying, give me control, Stephen, you can't handle this,

which is the idea that Stephen would fear that he couldn't handle something. And Stephen says, I think I can, actually. And we'll talk in a little bit more about the Mr. Knight, Moon Night dynamic and the distinctions. But that is such a cool moment to see Stephen riding that wave of newfound confidence. The other thing that he seems pretty confident in in the episode is that Mark is a bad guy. That Mark is, in fact, a monster. And some of that is what he has witnessed or gleaned directly.

and some of it is what other people are feeding to him. But there's that really harrowing moment where he tells Mark that he's been eating away at parts of my life like a parasite. That's what he said. That's what he said to him. So again, that idea that they view each other at this moment, at least,

as like actively harmful to each other and what they are each trying to pursue for their own happiness and their own well-being. The detective Fitzgerald and Kennedy sequence Bobby and Billy from the comics when they identify Mark to Stephen as a quote, full-blown international fugitive and show Stephen and us

that photo, the four corpses, the blood seeping through the coverings. We have these moments where Mark is saying to Stephen and to us, like it's not what you think. What is Stephen's response to that? He keeps insisting, that's not me.

That's not me. Because the idea that any part of him could have done that in any way brings to the fore that shame that you were talking about. We wanted to inject a little extra comics corner as we were talking about this sort of like archieal of the dig and the murder at the dig. In the comics, there's a character Raul Bushman who is sort of the one responsible for the murders. He is a persistent antagonist to Moon Knight. in the comics, Jeremy Slater on Twitter said that the reason they used Harrow, which is, as we discussed last week, is a minor, minor comics character, right? The reason they used him is he said, you know, Bushman, he said, was too close to Killmonger, so they decided to use Harrow as a series

villain instead. I don't think that's a great comparison, Killmonger and Bushman, but what is true is that every version of Bushman that I encountered in the various stories that I read, all pinged is problematic to me. And if I were making a Moonnight story, I would say I'm just not going to do this character at all, even in the more recent runs. Like the way he's drawn and all the depictions, I'm just like, I wouldn't want to touch that. Even the name Bushman.

It's just like, no. So I think they sort of neatly sidestepped doing that at all. I'm curious for your read on how Mark seems to feel about Contru, Mark, not Stephen, because you made the great. point last week that the way that Kanshu and his relationship to Moon Knight has Avatar his aspect, it can vary across the runs. So far inside of this show, even though Amit and Kanchu, Harrow, and Mark Stephen Layla are being set up as oppositional forces, as foes, I don't see a path to rooting for Contchu's success so far.

He seems like a pretty bad guy, and some of that is the way that he talks about Stephen and belittles him, mocks him, seeks to make him small, and some of that is the way that he uses Lela as this leverage chip to manipulate and control Mark, and some of it is the way that he seeks to keep Mark under his control. I got some strong Mark is not into country either vibes in this episode. And how about you?

Absolutely, of course. And I think that we got a lot of questions from people being like, is Conchue a good guy or a bad guy? And I think it's not that easy either in the comics or this show. I think what's clear is if you're going to pick between the god who, you know, exacts his vengeance on people who have done a crime versus a god who's like, baby murder? Maybe. Like we would pick Conchue theoretically, right, provided he could also give us some lentil soup. But I think that if we were to pick between Conschu or no Conchoo, we would probably pick no Conchu whatsoever. We'd be like, how about all of these gods who are in comics, can't kind of aliens?

Like, how about they all leave us alone? So I do think it's very much Mark v. Conshu, not Mark and Conchu. But Mark will ally with Conchu if it means stopping Amit. And Mark will ally with Conchue if it means distracting Conchu from his experience. extremely hot, a very cool wife, you know, all that sort of stuff. So I definitely see it as an antagonist relationship. Yeah, I agree. And also there's like this interesting brew.

And, you know, again, presumably we'll learn more of the next few episodes about the moment that Mark became Conchus Avatar, but it seemed inside of this episode to be like a brew in a blend of the gratitude that you would, of course, feel for somebody who either literally resurrected you from the dead or at least thwart it off your untimely demise, right? But also that resentment, like the burden that Contchu represents in Mark's life, the language that he uses the way that he talks about servitude, the way that he talks about the price that I pay, the way that he talks about the debt that he has to pay. And obviously, again, the way that he clearly is appalled by Contchu's intentions regarding Layla,

I was really interested, though, in the way that Oscar Isaac read the line about justice, because it seemed to me, this is when he's explaining to Stephen who and what he is. He says, I serve Conchua, I'm as avatar, which means you are too sort of. We protect the vulnerable and deliver Conchus justice to those who hurt them. I thought, maybe I'm reading too much into it, that he paused in telling fashion before saying the word justice in a way that indicated, are we sure this is justice really? Like, got to talk yourself into it to get through the day. Did you feel that that was present in that at all? I felt air quotes around the word justice.

Okay. We're aligned here. We are aligned here. How many identities will ultimately pursue alignment is a question that remains. There were a lot of are there other identity clues inside of this episode. This is another thing that we will be tracking across the season. Also within that, the question of whether Mark has always had dissociative identity disorder or whether, as you round through last week, there have been different renderings in the comics, whether the other identities popped up after Conchu took over. So there's this moment where Harrow asks Stephen, do you think that Conshu chose you as his avatar because your mind would be so easy to break or because it was already broken?

And that is, first of all, deeply cruel and appalling. And I thought it was like a devastating moment. And that response from Stephen, I'm not broken. I just need help. Just need help. Was so, so heart-wrenching and moving. The fact that Harrow is looking to make Stephen feel that shame and that vulnerability. is one of the most villainous things.

There's also something else going on here with Harrow because, you know, I'm going to talk about it a little bit now, despite the fact that we're going to talk about Harrow more later. But I think, you know, the vision we get of Conchue view through Harrow's eyes, right, is like, I think the Midnight Boys sort of described him as a jilted lover, and that's kind of true. But it reminds me, you mentioned Lost earlier.

It reminds me a lot. There's a TV series Lost. Don't know if you've heard of it. And there's a god on the, island of lost named Jacob, right? And there's a tremendous character named Benjamin Linus, played by Michael Emerson, one of TV's greatest characters of all time. And a lot of his motivation on the show is this petty, petulant feeling of rejection. Why are you chosen and I'm not? Why are you Jacobs chosen and I'm not? And that is so clearly to me what's going on

with Harrow here, because there's this, I've been, I've been rejected. I've been objected by Conchoo. I don't know, because I'm a weirdo who puts glass in my shoes. I don't know what to tell you. But like Conchu's like, not for me anymore. Ethan Hawk. No, thank you. And so two things are happening, right? Harrow is seeking out a new God to be the aviddle. Oh, fine. You don't want me. I'll go fine. You don't want me dead. I'll go fine. Like, you know, mom will take me or whatever. But what's also true is that he is trying to make Stephen in or or Mark feels small, like, oh, he only chose you because you've got this broken mind and he can more easily control you more easily than he could me or something like that. So that's all, it's all this, you know, there's cruelty there, but there's also just white hot jealousy because he wants to be conscious fave. The Ben comp is brilliant. That's so perfect. And what would Ben or Arthur in this scenario do if he felt unworthy seek to make other people feel unworthy too.

Right. The way that Ben would shit talk John Locke, I mean, that's like all he did on Lost all the time. So, yeah. This is making me want to yet another lost rework. Let's do it. I just always feel the pull. We have.

Oh, God. In terms of the timeline question and what we will learn about Mark and Stephen, Stephen, when he's in the glass after the London fight, asks how long you've been doing. this and Mark says, I don't know, it's a long time, long time. So that's one, one bit of new evidence that we have inside of this episode. We also already mentioned those lines about the deal between Mark and Contra being contingent on Stephen not interfering, which I think implies that Stephen was already around when Conchu chose Mark as his avatar. But we'll find out, hopefully.

There was also that great Layla moment on the bike ride. where she says, what the hell is going on? Is this Stephen the latest fake identity for you? She thinks this is just a front, right? A quote coded message, as she calls it. But it raises the possibility, like, has she met Jake? She's clearly never met Stephen because she is completely convinced that this accent is fake. She brings it up multiple times throughout the episode doesn't understand why he's doing this.

I wonder why she would fake that, bro. I do wonder. That's fake. But, like, it made me wonder, has she maybe met other actual identity? Has she perhaps met Jake and just did not know? This is the messy territory that Moonnight stories get into when they're dealing with DID, right? Because there's this idea in the book sometimes that Mark invents certain character, certain alter egos. And, you know, they talk, when you talk about the various alter egos, you talk about Jake Lockley, you're like, oh, Jake's a personality that is invented because it allows Mark to sort of get the word on the street.

he's able to mix and mingle and get out there because he's a cabby. He's a cab driver. Or Mr. Knight is a personality, you know, so that Mark can do this kind of back-channeling detective work with the police. But as far as I know, and I am not a mental health professional, if anyone is, please do right into me and let me know if I've got this wrong. But, like, that's not how DID work. You don't invent your other personalities in order to serve a specific purpose.

Maybe you do. And maybe I'm wrong. And maybe you do invent certain personalities if you have DID in order to grapple with certain emotional situations that you can't grapple with. Because obviously most people with DID are not fighting crime or maybe they are. I don't know. But this idea of Mark sitting down and crafting Stephen, like crafting the accent, crafting all of this in order to hide in him, it feels like this show is being really smart about the way in which is dealing with mental health. but this is one aspect of the use of it in the comics that I have questions around. So for people who know more about this, like, please let me know if I'm wrong about it.

I think the show is being very sensitive. Like, I think Mark saying, I'm not broken. I just need help. Or the way in which the HR person of the museum was talking to him about, like, you've been struggling. Here's some help. Like, all of that I think is very sensitively done, not like, you know, but I don't know. I just have some questions. We'd love to hear from people. That's all.

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Accept it. Schedule pickup. And we'll come to you with a check in hand. Your car, your timeline, your terms. Visit Carvana.com to sell your car today. Pick up fees may apply. Where are you after episode two on the was Mark dead front? We got a few more key lines in the wake of episode one that certainly support the idea

that he was either actually dead or near death. Conschu says you were nothing more than a corpse when I found you. Mark says to Stephen when I am done when I've repaid my debt, the debt presumably the resurrection or the saving at least. Mark also says to Stephen, we wouldn't be a lot. If it weren't for Conchu. And my pause. Servitude is the price that I pay.

So this seems safe to say just confirmed at this point. We'll see the details. But yeah. Dead and or dying is, you know, the rom-com meet cute of Conchew and Mark was a dead and or dying space. Yes. And presumably that will connect to the, that's not exactly how it happened. mercenary dead archaeologist sequence and we'll get the details there in future episodes.

Another question, and this one is, I think, firmly still a question and is presented as such here, is what changed between Mark and Stephen? What has caused this new phase of their ability to interact with each other? Because clearly, from Stevens' perspective, this is all very, very new. This is not something that he has experienced for. We have moved very rapidly from him to discussing his sleep disorder into him having full exchanges with Mark and now being encased in these reflections. Mark says to see even after the London fight, sorry, we've always managed to keep a wall between us, but something's changed. The one who controls the bodies become stronger. So what has changed? Like, could something, if we think about the broader MCU storytelling at this time,

Could something with the multiverse have triggered this change? You know, we're going to talk a little bit more about color coding inside an MCU and we get to theory quarterliner and the purple rivulets and splits in the floor as Harrow was working at it's keen, opening this, what seems to be a gate into a dark dimension or another dimension to summon the jackal. There's a lot of multiversal vibes there. we, you mentioned briefly last week this celestial heliopolis in the comics, this other void, which is this other dimension that the Eniad call home inside of Marvel comics.

Like, obviously, Conchu was already connected to Mark before the multiverse opened. I shouldn't say, obviously, we have a lot of questions still about how all this connects and when it happens. But that seems clear. But what about the change between Mark and Stephen specifically? Could the multiverse have something to do with that? Do you have another theory? I don't have a better theory.

So the rules of debate usually say I shouldn't say no because I don't have a better theory. But I don't think and I hope not is what I'm going to say. Because as we keep discussing, we like the way that this feels separate from what else is going on. we did get a GRC a reference to the blip Easter egg in this episode so that means we're not in another

multiverse which was a fun theory that was floating around like maybe the blip didn't even happen in this show that we're watching so we got a reference

to the blip a very subtle one but a reference to the blip in this episode so we know that we're in the same sort of continuity but no

I'm rejecting multiverse being in love Joanna out on the multiverse. You heard it here. Listen, happy to be wrong. Joe, we

have another pod to do together today right after this and we won't get into a ton of detailed spoilers about another show on this podcast, but could not stop thinking about severance while

watching this episode of Moon Night, some palpable any outy Yeah, the overtime vibes. Apple TV Plus's show, Ben Stiller, Adam Scott, et cetera. You should check it out, but there's a good. There is a, like, each of our core for cast members in that show, including John Tutoro, have a work identity and outside identity.

And sort of the idea of being trapped by your outside identity into your inside identity, which is your work identity. It's all here. It's all clear. You guys should watch it. it. It's all available. The finale are just incredible first season. Check it out. And then after you check it out, head over to the Prestige TV podcast. Listen to us, Yammer, about it. And Van and I broke down the first three episodes on the Prestige TV feed. So, you know, there's a lot of, a lot of podcast content waiting for you. But the Mr. Night Moon night thing is really interesting, this thing that we're about to get into because this has actually been the biggest pushback I've seen from like the comments.

comics nerds to the Moon Knight show. Mr. Knight, as we discussed last week, and as we mentioned earlier, is another persona. And that's the natty suit, the vest, the psycho-colonel Sanders, if you will, look that Stephen adopts when he's told to summon the suit. This is what he thinks, right? It's obviously a really clever way for the show to distinguish, like, who is controlling the suit in a given fight here. in the comics, Mr. Knight is this whole other persona. He's very snarky. I mean, it's a Warren Ellis sort of character.

I mean, he's very like sardonic in all this or stuff. And so to see him as not only just a suit rather than a character, but also played for laughs, really cheesed off some comic fans this week, if Reddit is to be believed. I don't mind it, personally. I think it's a really brilliant idea. I think it really works. And I think there's a possibility. You know, Oscar Isaac has said he only signed up for six episodes of the Disney Plus show. He's like, I know what it is like to have the golden handcuffs on at Marvel.

I have decided not to sign up for 10 movies at once. Were there some golden handcuffs in Stevens bed too? I didn't spot those. Oh, my dear, they are sadly like canvas restraints. But that's probably gentler. Jettler on the ankle. But I think that I would love to see more Moon Knight. And if we saw more Moon Night,

I think there's a possibility that Stephen in the suit could take on an interesting alter ego persona, could accomplish things in the suit that Stephen himself couldn't and could turn into something that's closer because Mr. Knight in the comics is a problem. He's a detective. He's a problem solver.

So that could be something that they would go to in the future. But for right now, it's a really clever design element they're using. And so I will pour one out for the comics fan who are pissed about that. I enjoyed it too. I thought it was fun and charming and, you know, fit, fit King Stephen Grant. You'll love to see it. It's great stuff. But I really just loved to the shorthand for the TV show viewers of associating Mr.

Nye with Stephen. Moon Knight with Mark. And I loved getting to see Steven's confidence and comfort build as he became Mr. Knight. Like, pretty cool, actually. I like this. Getting to hear him say that,

he's quoting Ali, amending. One of the most famous quotes in the history of the world. Great stuff. But there was also something like really sad about it because in the present of that confidence, you then feel the absence of it in other moments in his existence,

and also to see him then have to seed that control back to Mark and know where that's leading. The adjacency of getting to see Stephen as Mr. Knight and then Mark as Moon Knight right back to back, even just like Layla's response to, you know, shifting from, oh, like, this is different to, oh, yeah, here you are, the familiar one. Here comes my husband. The moment when Mark as Moon Knight impales the jackal. Iconic. Fantastic.

I will say I'm with Charles, I think it was, where I think some of the rooftop chasing looked a little like video gamey to me in a way that I, you know, didn't love. And I think it's why I prefer the Mr. Knight suit because for the most part, I believe that was a stunt performer. You know what I mean? Especially like when the sleeves are rolled up, you can see some actual flesh on that. Like, that's a person. Marvel, of course, all the time does complete digital replacements for characters who have their face covered in suits.

And sometimes it works tremendously. And sometimes it looks a little cartoony. And I think it looked a little cartoony in this one. But the jackal and pale, fantastic stuff. Really cool. On that same CGI front, how does you feel about the choice to reveal that not everyone can see the jackals? Leila, the people of London, cannot see the jackals. Only Stephen can.

sequence. J.B. Our guy possible secret scroll, J.B. There's nothing there when J.B. and Stephen are watching the security footage. It's just Stephen. I loved the, are you crying a bit? Yeah, a bit. Exchange so much. That was so great. How did you feel about this choice? Well, as you mentioned, the notes and a lot of people pointed this out and the creators have said this, like, this is a very fight club visual that we get, you know, both in the streets of London. when the passers by are just like, hey, he's just a fancy drunk, you know, like, you know,

when you see a guy. Fancy drunk, really something. You see a guy punching the air. You can't help but think of Edward Norton with like, you know, blood pouring down his work shirt. So, yeah, I think that's what they're going for. I liked it, actually. And I like, I like that Layla,

Laila who's obviously seen a lot, who's been on adventures with Mark, the move with the bottle, like smashing the bottle to make the liquid show the outline of the jackal. Great move. I thought, I liked it. I like that too. And I mean, the bottle moment, something like that, it just shows how quick thinking and adept she is out in the field as well. But also it's like this whole invisible jackal thing, of course, for both the viewers and Stephen, crucially alike. It does heighten this, this uncertainty about how you can, how much you can trust or believe in what you are seeing or not seeing. But then those moments where the bottle smashes in the liquid coats the form or the jackal footprint in the windshield of the car, they then kind of minimize that.

impulse, I thought that was a cool balancing act, balancing the scales of our dubious viewing throughout the episode. Speaking of Leila. Yeah. Let's chat about our new fave. Got me how many use. Yeah, really excited for how she's being used here. This is some, May Kalamawi is an Egyptian actress and someone that, uh, director Mohamedia, like,

knew from her other work. I think it's really important that they have someone actually Egyptian in the cast for this show that is so much to do with Egypt. In the comics, Mark's love interest is a woman named Marlene, who's a blonde white lady. So the fact that they changed her here, I just think that's a no-brainer really smart. And I think that also, I don't know if you agree with me, I think she looks a little bit like a Mommy era, Rachel Weiss, Rachel Weiss, obviously not an Egyptian woman,

but the curls and the lit, like she looks, I think she looks like her. And I think that's not unintentional. Some people have been asking me about her accent. Guys, that's just what that actress sounds like. That is what an Egyptian woman who, you know, speaks English fluently can sound like. That's just her natural accent.

So, but yeah, I'm a big fan of Layla and of May's performance here. Agreed. Tremendous so far. Can't wait to spend more time with her. You want to give us another little comics corner snapshot here in terms of the canon about Marlene's father in the dig that might be updated to apply here? In the comics, it's Marlene's father who gets killed at the dig site that Mark Specter almost dies at. And so he's carrying the, when we're talking about guilt and shame, like part of that is his guilt and shame around the death of her father and how that flavors his relationship with her. In terms of regret.

Yeah. We learn. Not only that Layla is Mark's wife, but that she is there with divorce papers in hand. Joanna, we were already hyped about Moonnight, but now we have entered one of my favorite genres as a child of divorce. Divorce story. I can't believe they gave you lentil soup and divorce papers in the same episode. It's like the Mallory Rumen episode. Oh, my God.

Thrilled. Elated. Elated. We hit on a lot of this already, but I think we would be remiss not to note when talking about how Stephen is clearly smitten, has the hots for Layla. We get that amazing. I would never divorce you line. We just have to spend a minute talking about one of the best moments in Marvel history, which is the bike sequence when Stephen doesn't know where to put his hands, what to do. And Layla says, would you stop clasping my shoulder like that?

And as Stephen is apologizing saying, I'm sorry, I don't know where to hold. She says, it feels like I'm riding with a Victorian duchess. And then Stephen gives it the old alma lee on the back of the motorbike, like nestle into the shoulder, hands tentatively around the waist. Love it, love it, love it for him. He looked pretty blissful in that moment.

He really did. We also already talked about how it seems very, very clear to us and to many viewers that Mark does not want to get divorced from Lila. This is all about protecting her. There are a lot of different moments in lines that support that. Mark saying to Stephen in their flat, mom's flat. Who is mom? She shouldn't be here, get her out of here.

Layla saying, after everything, you told me that we needed to move on. What is everything? Is it what happened with her father? As you just alluded to, is it everything with Conchu? Is it the archaeologist murders, presumably, maybe there's more. Mark says, you're going to get her killed, you hear me. This is when Stephen's nearly showing her the scabbard. He is very fearful that something might befall her. And that seems to be not just specific to the consue avatar plot, but to what might

be unfolding with others in pursuit. Obviously, the sequence of the Alps, like Mark knows other people are after that scare up, right? So he doesn't want her in Harvard's way. In that respect, literally says, I am protecting her. You don't know what you're talking about, etc. And again, And in all directions, there was this like multi-purpose nature to the lines in this episode where we're learning, Stephen and we about the history of who Mark is and what his relationship with Layla is in these lines that are ultimately like pure exposition, but also help to flesh out the connection and the arts. Really well done.

One of my pet peeves for a position is when people are, when they say like, I don't know what you're doing here, mother, or like, brother, I've always told, you know, something like that, it's always just lands. But when she says, like, I'm still your wife, I don't know, it didn't, it didn't hit the same way. Like, I thought it really worked. I agree. It was like subtle and incorporated, seemingly, like the mom moment was a good example when he says that it's his mom's flat and she says, okay, so you guys are talking again. Again, something we might see in a flashback, some more info about that. I think that would be really interesting. But yeah, it's, it's, It's all sort of sifted in there in a way that I really, really liked.

And I, like, you know, I usually agree with a lot that the Midnight Boys have to say, but I'm going to say I disagree. Van made a point here about how he felt like it wasn't, there wasn't like a lot of romance or love story sort of in here that she was just here for the job or the adventure and didn't really care. And I wildly disagree about this. I think there's a lot of poignant love story and hurt running in all different directions. There's a love, a French love poem recited aloud in the apartment. You know,

she takes a look at the restraints on the bed. And says, are you living here with someone else? What we're Mark and Layla getting up to? Yeah, exactly. So. You must those flashbacks. My goodness. Yeah, I agree with you. It was like one of the lines that struck me in was really touching in that respect was when she says, you really don't remember why we've been looking for this. Our adventures are life together. Like just those simple words, our life together. It hints at this real depth of feeling and shared history. And the use of adventures.

I think that's such a like a beautiful, like, evocative word to use to, when you think about this incredibly cool, capable woman that we've just met and who, what we know Mark is capable of and just like think of like what that prequel looks like, Mark and Lila, like, you know, globetrotting and, you know, excavating, etc. I mean, just in, in this episode, we learned that she found him by tracking the phone, that she has also direct history with the scarab, with the archaeology site. She knows how to read the hieroglyphs.

She's able to evade Bobby and Billy when they show up at the flat. She then tracks them to harrow. She enters that compound, like fearlessly, despite how vastly they are outnumbered. And again, the fact that everyone, she is entering the freeway there, just been casually chatting about killing kids.

And battles the jackal, even though she can't see it. I mean, she is a complete badass. Which, you know, on the Contru front, I think is worth talking about for a moment because we don't know totally what Conchue's motivations are. He has that moment with Mark toward the end where he talks about how they need each other. He actually seems quite reluctant to let Mark go. The fact that we learn that Conchue was pursued, has his sights set on Layla as his next avatar, it functions neatly and in a dual capacity because it gives us that motivation from Mark's perspective that we already talked about.

But it also helps to like reinforce, not that we need more support for it even at that point, but it helps to reinforce like the capabilities that Layla possesses. Because we see Mark do what we don't see. We wake up as Stephen and recognize that Mark has done astonishing things. And for consue to measure Layla as like equal is a pretty pretty, pretty, handy shorthand to catch us up on everything that she is able to do. I'm curious, like, how much she knows, because obviously she knows about the suit, tells him to summon the suit, knows about the scarab, was a part of that quest for it, talks about its tomb

and that pursuit has all of this knowledge and all of this information. Does she know everything about the resurrection, if that is, in fact, what happened, about Conchu himself and his role in all of this? Like, where do you think her knowledge ends in terms of everything that is unfolding with Conchu? She knows he can summon the suit. She knows he has special powers that are associated with a suit. Has Mark ever explained the source of those powers? Yeah, I don't know.

But I feel like, given her knowledge of Egyptology, like, I feel like she would not be okay with a relationship with Conchu. So this feels like something Mark would have kept secret from her. He kept his DID secret from her. You know, I think he's keeping a lot of things from her. This is her frustration. She says it's been months, right? That he's been hiding from her for months. And she just wants to know.

She just wants to be involved and know. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great point. There are all of these, like, shots in the trailers of them in Egypt together. Again, does that await us in the future? Are those moments from the past? from the dig or other sequences who can say.

Can't wait to find out. Our guy still walking around with glass in his shoes. What an incredible Ethan Hawk episode. It's funny. You can see, you know, we talked about last week how the glass in the shoes is originally supposed to be in episode two. And you can see exactly sort of where they would have put it.

I mean, the Bob Dylan song is even in this episode, the way that it was in that sequence in episode one. So I'm glad we got that in episode one that we didn't meet Harrow, like, in the random European hilltown that we met him in later. But, yeah, just a fantastic moment. You already talked about your favorite thing. My favorite thing, which is two people talking in a room. The old Tyrion Linister special.

Shout out, Taryn. I think the information we get about Amit wrapped up in this persuasive cult. delivery from Ethan Hawk. His idea to play Harrow as really calm. Can I talk to Mark? You don't know where the scarab is? Can I talk to Mark? Is Mark there?

Do you know someone who does? Oh, I know exactly what Conchus said. I've been there, buddy. It's a bad vibe, isn't it, that voice in your head? Come. We got lentil soup. Yes. Give me the scarab.

We got lentil soup. It's fine. There's this like through line in his interactions. Even the, you know, I wish you could live to see the world we make lines as he is draining the life force from others. There's just like conspiratorial quality to the way that he interacts with other people. Oh, no, I'm on your side. We are pursuing a shared goal on a common end together. And the moments where the villainy, the pure villainy and the evil of what he,

is pursuing for himself, for omit, or on display are so deeply disturbing. Again, like, I love that Stephen was unafraid to voice his opposition. The conversations and the, you know, there's just like this hypnotic quality to the soup sequence and the conversation between them. It picked up right on the heels of what we are, we discussed at length last week with the way that he described, you know, would you, the, the weeding of the Rose Garden, right? and this philosophy of stopping the sin, stopping the misdeed before it happens, and how, like, noxious that idea is, how you can't rob people of their free will of their

ability to make a choice. And to hear Stephen voice that with such confidence in the face of, I thought, the single most disturbing moment, Joe, like, honestly, even more so than the amputation, the comparison that he was making about severing the diseased limbs of civilization was when he said in the wake of their screams evil eradicated, Stephen, to exist at that moment, heaven on earth. That is the embodiment of the true believer who you need to fear. Speaking of severance. Yes. Yes. But Shrake's character in severance has a needlepoint that says you have to cut to heal. And that is like, exactly what he's talking about here, right?

The rapture on his face, the world we're going to make, but really it's like, the hypocrisy is so blatantly here. The way he kills that guy who picks up the scarab without judging him, right? Right. Just kills him. No cane. Yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, when Steven's like, what about a child? And he's like, eh. Very much. I'm glad you asked. Yeah. Well, you know, yeah. It's persuasive until it's not until you really stop to think about it. And until he starts chanting and thrusting his walking stick to summon a devil dog.

Those are little clues that perhaps this is not the cult for you, Mallory, despite the lentil soup. Wow. Hearing you just say devil dog, something about that, like instantly triggered Deviltown? And now I'm thinking about Friday night lights. What would coach say about all of this? Oh, God. Clear eyes. Hull hearts. Don't join a cult.

The reveal that Harrow had been Conchus avatar. Surprising at all? I mean, in some ways, it makes like a moment like the episode one, you know, it's maddening, isn't it, the voice in your head, relentless forever unsatisfied line, kind of stand out in a new relief. It raises so many interesting questions. Like, why was he chosen in the first place? How long did he serve? Why was he cast off and then in terms of where we might be going from here in his pursuit of Amit, is that because of the former connection to Conchu? Like, is that something that he is craving to

approximate or replicate again? Because he belittles Conchu quite a bit in this episode, like, comparing him to a toddler, saying that Stephen doesn't have to listen to him. But he also has that line about, like, it's a privilege I no longer have. And there's this, like, sense of long in the way that he describes that lost relationship. Does he want that power back? Yeah, I mean, you know, once you have a taste of being the avatar, right? You can't let it go. But I think that privilege, he says it so sneeringly, right?

What a privilege I had to be manipulated by Conchio. And I think, you know, again, to go back to the lost thing, this, the loss, the way that lost examines the idea of gods as bad dads is like so clearly. in the mix here. This idea of Conshu as a god and also like just a bad dad, like the worst. And the twisted relationships we have with them. Something that Marvel does very carefully, and I think the men I boys were talking about this, is when they're talking about gods, they often make them alien figures to not mix

in with other people's real life faith, right? We're not going to pass judgment on what. what it is like for you to have faith in your God. That's your business. But let's talk about these weird aliens and what they're doing here and the way in which they're manipulating people's beliefs and people's faith and all of that, I think is really interesting.

While on the one hand, we can never trust anything that Harrow is saying, because we know that he is seeking to manipulate the person that he's talking about, like it did seem that there was this you know when we're thinking of well why why is he undergoing this pursuit currently how did he gain this fraction or this sliver as he says here

of the power that he currently possesses you know we learned that the the cane was um it's first avatar he he shares with stephen here but like he says that conshu was banished we learned in the first episode from him that um it was betrayed by the indolent other guys as he said, does he identify with that betrayal because he feels that he was betrayed by Kanshu? Is there a unity that he is seeking or a worthiness that he thinks Amit will perhaps see in him given his past experience? Like how did he come to be undergoing this current pursuit? And how did he come to be in this position in this cult where all of these followers have

amassed around him? Like he talks about how the neighborhood that they're in used to be. have the highest crime rate in London, and now it's this, you know, again, heaven on earth, right? Well, does that imply that every single person there in that compound has passed the weighing of the scales? Did they offer up their souls and hearts for assessment freely? A really important follow-up question. How global is this operation? Because we saw him, he says, praise Amit is what he says to get that town somewhere in Europe to kneel, a whole town. So like how many outcroppings

You have like in how many you know How many sort of like Mormoness You know Folks as you have going around the world and knocking doors Like Victor Victor comes from the Yucatan Like where is he drafting and recruiting all these people from

Yeah and how long has he been at it To build up a following of that scale And with that reach Do you think that the HR guy at the museum Is a part of his crew? The pamphlet that he gives Stephen, again, he's saying, like, you're not alone and there's something that seems nurturing and supportive about it. And Stephen has that reply. Yeah, that's part of the problem, isn't it? But, you know, there's the moment in the first episode in the museum where Stephen calls out to one of his colleagues for help and, you know, a raising of the sleeve. And we learned that that guy, Ronnie, was part of the crew. How many other people is that true for? Like, I was struck by the way that the gentleman said, this particular group of doctors has a long. longstanding relationship with us.

Why would that be the case for the museum? We already mentioned the trailer scenes that seem to be in that setting, the Lemuron, in a setting like that. Because my brain is diseased, not in a clinical way, but like, I looked at the pamphlet. The pamphlet has like a little crescent moon logo on it. And then at the bottom of it, it has the word, it looks like A and S are the letters at the bottom of the pamphlet, though it's sort of in soft focus. So I went back to the Lemire book

and like frantically looked everywhere I could to see if there was any kind of logo or name on the asylum in that run. No luck because that asylum is like seems to be set in an abandoned train station. So like there's no branding on any, on anything. So I couldn't find any deep connection there. But I love the idea that this is somehow like an arm

of the hero cults. That's a great idea. It just seemed more likely, I think, not only because of our general, like, disposition of not trusting anybody's motives across these episodes, but because of the detectives, you know, in, we hear a Bobby mentioned, and then in the credits that are officially listed as Billy and Bobby from, from the comics, and from, again, that setting, like, it just feels like all of that could, could be connected. We should say that Bobby and Billy and the Lemire run are, are orderlies in the mental health,

are like orderlies in the Mental Health Institute, but then they're also jackal-headed followers of Amit. Like, you know, when Mark's reality sort of bends and ebbs and flows, Dr. Emmett, Amit, is in control of the mental institution and that Bobby and Billy are orderly's there. Right. And he has to, he puts his mask on so that he can see their true faces and recognize them for who they really are.

So this idea, again, of like a truth being hidden and, yeah, all fits. Okay. How about the scarab? you ready to take us to Egyptology corner again? You got a lot of goodies coming here. Okay, so first of all, I already talked about the mummy in Las Cursay. And I think, you know, the scarab obviously probably also maybe gave you some snitch vibes, right? When like, when it's a little wings on for all.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there's a lot going on here. The question of like where is obviously some sort of map thing, right? Like Stephen calls it a compass. He's like, but you're not facing north. Where are you going? That is a classic sort of Egyptology adventure story device. You know, there's like the Grail Diary in the Last Crusade or the various macguffins and the mummy.

We're looking for something buried in Egypt. Layless says Shapti, which is, you know, Ahmed Shapti, which is really interesting because that's not, that doesn't mean tomb. What a Shapti is, is, like, if you've ever seen tombs where pharaohs are buried, there are little jars or little statuettes that represent the servants that are going to fall. You know, and you hear about Pharaohs being buried with their servants. These are the servants that will come with them to the afterlife and serve them there. So a Shapti is like a servant. So the idea of like Amit's servant, maybe Amit's avatar.

like could be the first avatar, right? So we're looking for Ang in an iceberg somewhere in Egypt. No, but like I think that idea of like maybe the avatar who betrayed her or something like that is, is what they're looking for. But I thought that it was really interesting word language there because Amit wouldn't have a tomb because that would imply that Ahmed is a person. And Amid is a person. Amid is a god, it's an body god. But as for the scarab itself, I can't take credit for this. course, like, this is Reddit working over time.

The ancient Egypt, there's an ancient Egypt subreddit that has gotten involved in Moonnight. So if you, like, want to go deep, you can go to, like, the ancient Egypt subreddit because they're watching Moon Night and, like, translating the Coptic and, like, all those sort of stuff. So they said about translating the hieroglyphics that are on the Scarab. But you could see it in a couple different shots. It's in the closing credits. This was a prolonged process that took them a really long time.

And I really loved watching it. one of our listeners, Crystal Newfeld, is the one who pinged me on Twitter to let me know that this is sort of like happening over on Reddit, but the inscription reads, O'Kepri, who dwells in his sacred bark, primeval god himself, you rescue Osiris, Amenhotep justified. O'Cepre being raw, the sun god, who dwells a sacred bark, bark being like the ship that the sun god uses to fly across the sky every day, you rescue Osiris. So this idea that I think what it means is a resurrection, a like, let's bring this God into the light. It is a justified God bringing it into the light, possibly. It is from the Book of the Dead, Chapter 17 of Book of the Dead. And Book of Dead contains all these various spells. And this is a spell from the Book of the Dead that's on this scarab, which is really interesting.

The scarabs themselves, obviously like scarabs are a record. recurring motif and image that we see in Egyptology. The scarab itself was often associated with the sun god because they thought that the way that the scarabs roll their little like dung mounds, the dung beetle, was similar to the way that the sun god would roll the sun across the sky every day. So scarab is often associated with the sun god. If you're fond of the Brennan Fraser film, the mummy, you will be familiar with scarabs in that. But in ancient Egypt, they were also the...

these amulets that they would place over the heart of a person during mummification, they would wrap it into the bandages. The heart scarabs were inscribed with the spell of Book of the Dead to not stand witness against the person because the person's heart would be weighed on the scales against a feather of mott. And we talked about this last week. That is something that Amit was intimately connected with. But I just think that's a really, I mean, a scarab being used in an Egyptology, story is not surprising, but the fact that they went to the trouble to put these specific hieroglyphs on, the fact that it might be something that was associated with a person who was buried somewhere, maybe that first avatar that you're talking about, I think is really interesting.

Do you have any thoughts or feelings scar-related? Boy, that was genuinely riveting. My goodness, did you see me leaning in closer to my computer on Zoom? I was like wrapped. My goodness. That's how I felt watching Ethan Hawk and Oscar Isaac eat lentil soup. I was hypnotized. Okay.

So the Osiris mentioned. Mm-hmm. That makes me think of Seth from the Lemuron because Seth is Osir's brother. So that's yet another potential degree of connectivity to that particular storyline. It's really interesting. Are these words that need to be recited in order to like, bring about a resurrection, what's going on with this, Ushaapti. Like, you know, I'm excited to find out.

But those are sort of the big Egyptology clues that we're working with. Harrow needs the scarab to point him towards something. And Ushapti, a servant of Amit. And is that servant of Amit, an avatar, the original avatar, that could give Harrow what he needs because he's got a sliver of the power, right? He's got the cane. He can summon a devil dog. but he doesn't have the full

consue level connection to Ahmed and that is what he is looking for why were Mark and Layla looking for it? I don't know. That's what I was just going to say it just makes me even more eager to learn why they were hunting it in the first place

and also what they will do without it because the episode ends with the scarab in Harrow's possession he sees... I was struck by the fact that he sees that Leila sees him, take it from the man, kill the man, totally unfazed, completely

unconcerned that she is with this, does not feel any compulsion, does stop her, send anybody after her. He feels that confident in his position now. And when Mark and Conshu are navigating what comes next and we'll get to Conschue in a hot second here, the only

way forward is, well, we'll get there first. We'll get there without it. How? How will they do that? Again, classic mummy. It's a race, right? race where they don't have the most powerful tool.

Or Raiders at the Lost Ark, they're digging in the wrong spot. You know what I mean? Like, here we go. I love it. This episode is brought to you by Nass Energy. Every ounce of dirt, sweat, and gears, every checkered flag and trophy raised, every lap, every race, every hard-fought place. They're all jammed inside every can of Nass Energy, high-performance energy for burning the midnight oil in the garage, and pedal to the metal human horsepower for the streets.

Go ahead. crack open a can of Nas energy and get after it. Conschoo Corner today, Joe. We got a lot of mailback questions specifically about Contru and a lot that connect to your expertise in Egyptology. So we're going to hit the regular mailbag again later, but we're going to hit a few mailbag questions that are specific to Conschoo Corner here.

Jomi, would you like to join us for Conschoo Corner? Oh, I would love to. Man, we are here. The sun is shining. the clouds are gone from the sky and there's an ancient Egyptian moon god who owns our soul. This is great.

What could be better? What could be better? Our first question in the Kanshu corner comes from Eric. Does Kanshu need his avatar to be resurrected to serve him or for him to assert control? Do you think Lela knows

that Kansu is pursuing her? This could bring extra weight to Mark trying to create distance by serving divorce papers. I think we talked about this back half a bit, but I think the front half, to my knowledge, it does not need to be a resurrection situation.

But it does, as we said, give Conchue that extra leverage over Mark. Well, I have two follow-up questions. Yeah. One is, again, like, should we deduce from this, potentially that Contri resurrected Harrow? And then moving forward, should we be fearful

that if Mark does complete the mission, if Conchu does let him off the hook, that that's a wrap, that he'll be dead again, that his ability to live hinges on continuing to serve as avatar? I feel like some of the things he said, you know, like maybe his goal is like, let me rest, let me die.

But that doesn't seem to be it. It's sort of like one last job. This is the price I pay. and then I get to live my life. And the Lemire comic, I don't know if this is going to end the same way the Lemuric comic does, but the Lemur comic is very much

about Mark freeing himself from Conshu, and that doesn't end with his death. You know, so for him, it's about basically killing Conchus so that he can live. Also, like, if we're being real, the MCU, they're not going to want to eliminate the... Oh, no.

They got... They got... They got F. Murray Abraham on the phone. They're not, they, they, they bothered to design the floaty head, God. They're not getting rid of him. Man, the floating head. It's really good. Boy.

Legitimately terrifying. Haunting. Next question. I love this name. Boom. Chocolata. Can you give more history in the comic canon of Conschus motivations? Are there prior consue avatars like Harrow or potential avatars like Layla?

in the comics? This is really fun. There have been a ton of other Moon Knight figures in the comics. Of course, it's Marvel. Of course. One Moon Knight ever? Never. You just said Moon Night like Stephen would say it. Mean Night?

Moon Night? Cricy. So there are other female Moon Nights, Moon Shade, Crescent Moon, Moon Made. There's Jessica Specter who was Mark's daughter. Ravonna Renslayer ever heard of her. Hell. Who we met in Loki. Was a moon night and a sort of Kang story.

There's been a lot of Kang-conshu connections, which, you know, we could see that. In sort of the time-jumping Kang versus Moonnight story that we got recently in the acts of evil mini-event, there was like an old-timey gunslinger moon night, a gladiator moonlight, a World War II soldier moon night. and so on. So, yes, there have been plenty of previous moon nights. As far as Conchus motivation, again, I think we've talked about this before, it differs from storyline to storyline how nefarious or how good Conchu is. This idea of him is like a protector of travelers in the night is sort of this constant thing.

But also there's this ambition of like, I don't know, taking over all of new, like building new Egypt to New Egypt. York or in the Avengers plotline that I outlined last week, gathering all of these precious Avengers artifacts, the Iron Fist, Ghost Rider's Whip, you know, Thor's Hammer, to getting control over, you know, that's a, that's a, that's a bad conchew. So it's ghostriders whip also on Stephen's bed. The cat of nine tails. That's coming on the next pod.

Yeah. What a day it's going to be for us. I think to Joanna's point, the one through line of Conchu, no matter what the story, no matter what the motivation, he's a dick. Yeah. Just thoroughly. Just the worst. I mean, I don't know that there's ever been an Egyptian god who isn't a dick. They're all imperious and like shitty. That's just what gods do. If you were to pick one of these like moon names for yourself, Jomey, what would you pick? Oh, dude. It's got to be moonshade.

It's got to be moonshade. That's tight. It's right good. I like crescent moon. Or maybe waxing moon. What would yours be? Gibbis moon. Crescent moon makes me one of a Pillsbury crescent roll.

I'm not going to make the waxing moon joke. I'll just, I'll resist the urge. No, manches. I love them all. These are all incredible monikers. My goodness. Wonderful. I will only be referred to as moonshid for the rest of my life.

That's all I'm calling you for now on moonshade. Our last question in the consue corner comes from R.J.O. And they want to know, do you think choosing to portray consue as more of a villain diminishes the fun side of Moon Knight as a character. One of my favorite things about Mark in the comics is the humor of him enjoying the fights, but in the show he's resentful. Maybe Stephen will develop into the cocky character we saw in the 2014 Mr. Night Run, but that changes Mark's identity quite a bit, I think.

I mean, I agree with this question. I think that that's not what they're going, but it might be that in future seasons, if we get them or movies, We might find a Mark and or Stephen who has a chiller relationship with Conchue, a more copacetic, let's fight crime, let's join the Avengers, let's do this sort of vibe, which is something, you know, that Moon Knight did, that Conchu was a part of the Avengers at a certain point. So I don't know. What do you think, Mel?

Yeah, I agree. And, you know, it's just like you were saying earlier, this version of Mr. Knight does give us a lot of the levity and humor and charm, just in a different way, in a different way than in the comics. So I, you know, we've talked about this across probably every Marvel series and film we've ever covered. Like, Marvel, the MCU updating, tweaking, MCU canon is one of the most consistent traditions inside of the MCU. There will be connections and callbacks and references, influences, but also then all of

these amalgamations and updates. I don't think that it's less fun. And I think as the Midnight Boys talked about this week and as we've chatted about many times before, having a compelling villain in any number of respects or the moral ambiguity inside of our hero, it's ultimately going to be more interesting if it's not just a this, that binary of good and evil.

So I think this is great. Joe, I have a couple more questions for you, if you don't mind. Is there any precedence? for Amit and Conshu Waring? No, not at all. Like, zero. As I said last week,

Ahmed, it was more of, like, a demon. The thing about there weren't any temples to Amit. She was not worshipped. Like, Harrow's a real maverick in his desire to worship Amit because she was seen as a demon to be feared, not a deity to be worshipped. So there wouldn't be a temple to, her. There wouldn't be any sort of specific site, and there is no history between

Kanshu and Amit. In the comics, you know, in the Lemire run, it's Amit and Kanshu and set are like sort of the three deities at play there. In the history of Kanshu and the comics, it's been a sort of Kanchu versus Ra thing, which makes sense because it's sun god versus moon god. That's sort of been the dynamic. The fact that they went for Amit here is kind of a little, a fun little tweak on that. Yeah, that's all. Okay, from Conchoo Corner to Theory Corner. It's back. We have no idea what's coming next. We could speculate freely. Wildly.

We teased this earlier. This is something that the Midnight Boys chatted about a bit. The MCU color coding watch, it is time to assemble yet again. We talk about the salacho, and clearly we have been compelled to do so again by the purple color coding of Harrow's magic, um, it's magic coming out of this cane. Justice for Ban, who got, uh, absolutely, piled upon the midnight boy.

Yes. Yes. So what do you think? Because there are a number of different places that we've seen the purple magic, the purple color coding across the MCU. A lot of them connect to each other, the dark dimension, the purple rifts in the sky with Dr. the strangest spell, when the multiverse is cracking open and then healing in No Way Home, the watcher, the encasement of Strange Supreme in his dead world in this purple tomb. Kang, obviously, associated with purple. Agatha, our gal, our pal, Agatha Harkness, and her

dark purple magic. Are you leaning in any particular direction here again? Obviously, a lot of those connect to each other. The color coding in magic is so interesting in Marvel because I feel like this is something they came to a little late. And so it's like a little retcony and sloppy. Like I first remember us talking about it in earnest around Wanda Vision, which is only, I mean, obviously the infinity stones are color coded in certain ways. But in terms of Marvel saying officially we have an idea of how various magic should be color, you know, chaos magic versus time related magic, etc. That seems to be something they came up with,

I think a little later, just to get all their ducks in a row. And so then when you go back through, it's sort of hard to fit everything in a tidy little purple-colored bucket. I'm happy to say Dark Dimension. The one that's not on your list that I think has been interesting going around

is this idea that in Black Panther, the color of, of the heart flower and Black Panther is this purple color associated with the god that the Wakandans consider, which is Bast, which is related to Bastet, which is a cat god from Egyptology. So, like, the Egyptian history.

This idea that the Wakandan worship could be related to, that this could all be sort of one. And even like the way that Bast is designed in that grains of sand sort of, sequence that we get in Black Panther with the glowing eyes, it reminds me a lot of sort of like the moon night design. And I think it was in our pal Eric Voss's video, Eastrade Breakdown this week, looking back and discovering that last week,

on the desk, Stephen had a book about Wakanda. Yes. And Asgard. More gods inside of Marvel. No pantheon, Stephen, too weird for our guy, Stephen. Yeah. Yeah, I am, I'm intrigued by the multiverse connection there as we, as we talked about earlier. I can't, can't shake it quite yet.

I can't shake it quite yet. We actually got a question on Twitter. This was even, came in even before our mailbag prompt from the gods we belong to. Hashtag moon night theory. Could this be a different earth? Just a hunch. We chatted about this a bit already. But you're, you're saying no, not a different earth.

This is the prime MCU Earth. Only because of the GRC thing that we saw. Yeah. Any other theory corner theories that you want to highlight after episode two? I mean, yeah, I want you to hit me with this Layla theory. Okay. So Rosie Knight, Rosie is awesome. Great.

Brilliant. One of Rosie's theories after episode one was... So after episode one, Rosie, uh, presented on nerdist the theory that perhaps Leila, whose last name is El Fauli, could be connected in some way to the comic canon around the scarlet Scarab Abdul Faul. And in the end credits, because I had read that rosy theory, and then when I got to the end credits this week, I gasped aloud because when we get to May's name on the end credits, there's this glowing scarlet color at the heart of that image.

Is Layla going to find the ruby scarab in Egypt? Here's what, I mean, a really fun theory. And here's why I like it. I think there's been such a movement in Marvel for the female love interest of a male hero to not, quote, unquote, just be a female love interest, but to be some sort of powered hero in their own right. I mean, you think of what happened with, like, pepper pots, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So I think the idea of introducing a Leila, who is not only can go toe to toe with Mark in their various adventures, but might become superpowered herself. It does not seem, I love this theory. It does not seem outside the realm of possibility. I love this. A great one from Rosie. Okay.

Last one. You have a mum one. Oh, yeah. Who is mum? We talked about this last week. I think the most, who is, who is Steve? TV calling on the phone. And he's like, hello, Mom, let's ask you.

And giving the download of what's happening to him, it feels a very, like, minchering candidate sort of thing. But the best idea I've heard is that he's just actually calling Mark. And this is how Mark tracks what Stephen is doing, you know, so that he can know what's going on. And Stephen's like, oh, no, I ate a steak. I got stood up, like, whatever. And someone on Reddit, I'm so sorry, I don't have the credit in front of me,

but someone on Reddit noted that in the call log when he scrolls through and it's like, Lila, Lila, Lila, Lila. Duchamp, Leila, Leila, Leila. There are call numbers missing between 19 and 30 on his phone. You know, maybe speaking to, like, deleted calls out of the record. So maybe Stephen is just calling this Motorola razor phone and leaving voicemails that are like, hello, mom, got a fish. We care about it.

If anything happens to it, please do replace it. I miss it. He's got one thing. You know, stuff like that. Oh, my God. I think on the heels of that, you have to tease. next week's trial by content. Do you want to hear more distressing accent work?

Next week on my favorite trial by content yet, we debated the worst accent in TV history. There are audio clips. They're tremendous. The extreme abuse of vowels and consonants from some of our finest actors of television, you have to have to be heard to be believed. So trial by content, subscribe.

It's a fine podcast. incredible, an absolute delight. Joe, it's time to reach into the old cranes egg basket. We talked about a few of the Easter eggs already. Any faves that you want to highlight? You know, so the Lefleur's poem that the separated that Lela and Stephen sort of read together, if you want to read the whole thing, it's a really beautiful poem. This idea is not just about separated lovers, which is obviously like a poignant theme

for Mark and Layla. But this idea of like, don't write to me, which is Mark being like, don't call me. And the line is to not, it says, do not write. I am sad and want my light put out. Summers in your absence are as dark as a room. I've closed my arms again. They must do without to knock at my heart is like knocking at a tomb. Do not write.

So, you know, tomb is a, is a interesting word to be used here in an Egypt. sort of conversation, but also just that idea of pointing separate lovers. Do you not call? Also, as you alluded to, my 90s-addled brain could not possibly see this shot of Layla looking at Gus in the fish tank and the reflection, as you noted, not an actual reflection, but like a spectral mark, looking at her from the other side of the fish tank, looks exactly to me like the meet-cute of Romeo and Juliet, played by Claire Dane's Leonard DiCaprio. What do you think? Am I reaching? Or is this real? This is like uncanny.

I mean, you put a screenshot in the outline and it is uncanny. This is... I will say this. Off by the time that we get to doing this podcast, it's like a Thursday night, you and I are in the nose, blah, blah. So many brilliant people have done like breakdowns on Reddit. Rosie's done our Nourdes Breakdown. There are many videos that we watch.

Ryan Air, Eric Boss, et cetera, et cetera. All that stuff is out there. It is so hard for me to find something that people haven't hit already. So my heart filled with joy that no one had... that I saw had hit the Baslerman Romeo and Juliette fish tank note yet. What else is in the old crane's egg basket that you want to pull out? We hit on a lot of them already. I think this is a long-running MCU tradition,

but there were some fun letter and number references to comics canon that popped up in this episode. You know, the Interpol file number is 1975. That is the comics debut year. for Moon Knight, the top of the bus, some starring role action from London, double-deckers in Moon Night to date, including the WBN 0032,

atop the bus that Mr. Knight ends up sprawled beside World Wolf by Night, number 32, the Moonnight intro. And the other one was the storage locker, number 43, Moon Night 43, where Jomey made his debut, Moonshamed. And also, and this is, you know, the internet has been a buzz, about this for two weeks now,

but the 43 label for the lockers where the QR code appeared this week. It was in the museum exhibit in episode one, and you can scan those and get free comics for Marvel. So if you're eager to check out some comics, go for it. The passport is hilarious to me, unbelievable. This is a treasure trove. They put Mark, you know, he's from Illinois in the comics, Chicago,

so they put that in there. Great. They put Mark's birthday as in 1987. So it makes Mark 35. Oscar Isaac is 43. So that's some funky little math that they did. A little favor for Oscar. I don't care how had some you all, you 35-year-old bugger.

For me, the one that I really liked also, and Eric pointed this out, Eric Boss in this video, but also Ryan Airy did a great breakdown of this. This is the Apocalypse Now imagery that's on Mark when we open on him in Egypt, the broken mirror, the bloody, the bloody knuckles, the bottle of booze, the bed sheet, all of that is very Martin Sheen getting actually drunk in or high and breaking up his fist when he was filming Apocalypse now. So, yeah.

Incredible stuff. Who is your secret scroll? Oh, it's an easy one for me. And this actually comes from Reddit's response to the Mandarin that is used in this episode. apparently it was absolute gibberish, as opposed to the Coptic and the hieroglyphs. This Mandarin was gibberish. So I'm going to give it to Jamila, she of the football and the Mandarin for her gibberish

Mandarin. That's my scroll. Who's yours? Mine is Crawley. The amount of information that Crawley is receiving and these really touching tellalls with Stephen, you know, maybe this is just pure and I hope so. but is that information making it back to the scroll headquarters who can say the side eye when Stephen hugged Crawley you know that glance when when we saw the expression on Crawley's face I thought

here's my here's my episode to a secret scroll couldn't help it I just wished mostly that I had waited to pick J.B. until this episode because he would have been my pick again really good what a guy Moonshade brov you're going to come back it's mailback time isn't it well so I am coming back, but here's the thing. I want to be very clear. Okay. We got the colors from Van. That's not what tripped us up.

What tripped us up was Van going. I've come to podcast. We literally haven't heard that word in six years. Dormamo is how I like to do better to Cumberbatch's American accent. Dormomomu. Dormomomu. I've come to bargain. Dormammu.

You can't just. Say purple. All right, that's Dorma moon. It's like, bro, what do you mean by that? What are you implying? You know, let's get into it. Let's dive in to the mailbag. First question comes from Gene. So after the reveal that Stephen basically likes everything Layla does, are we to assume Steve's identity was based off of her and thus is more recent? Or was he always there and Mark was subconsciously attracted to Layla? because Stephen likes the same things as her. If we're going to, like, let's put aside my early concerns about the accuracy of how

the idea is treated on the show and say, if Mark created an identity in Stephen, a place for him to hide, I find it so touching that he would create someone similar to Layla. What do you think, Mallory? Yeah, we didn't really talk about this as we went, but the fact that we get that, oh yeah, that's my favorite poet. Like, no, it's not. It's mine moment. It's so sweet that the things,

whatever the exact nature of, of that answer is, regardless, the fact that maybe Mark and Layla didn't share some of those interests or passions, and Stephen likes the things that Layla likes, that they do share those interests. It's just lovely.

It's so sweet. This is a win, win, win, win, for Layla. Let's be clear. because not to tread on the Midnight Boys territory and get into like dating corner, but like imagine, imagine Mallory, your beloved husband who you love. And then you meet someone who looks just like him, but he likes the other things that your husband doesn't like that you like. So you get all the things that you and your husband currently share, you and Adam, the wonderful Adam. There have to be, I know that you and Adam share a lot in common, but there has to be like one or two things that you like that he doesn't.

And then you meet someone and you're like, oh, my God, he looks just like my beloved Adam. But he also, I don't know, Adam likes everything you like. I know. I know. I think honestly, as you're describing this, I'm like, I'm out. I start to assume that something like supernatural has occurred. If we had any more of our common interests, we're already inclined to spend 14 hours, totally sedentary sitting on a couch, binging seasons of TV without moving, just, you know,

sustained on the power of sour patch watermelons. It's my ideal Saturday. as you know, and Adams as well. I was about to say, that's like a actual like Paul Red Netflix show living with yourself where Paul Red splits into two people

and like his wife is like, likes the new one better. You know, because she's more interesting than the old Paul Red. I was like, oh man. And maybe Layla's like, okay, I liked Mark because he looked like Oscar Isaac. And it was fine that he punched people, but you like French poetry

and you also look like Oscar Isaac. Let's start. all have some Rubik's cubes together and try out these restraints. Well, how will Mark feel if he sees some vibes, some feelings developing between Layla and Stephen. They're already there in one direction. I think they should all just share each other and enjoy each other. Jomey, are you for this thruple?

I mean, that's the math, right? Is it a threesome? I don't know. Like, the math, I kind of feel like, hopefully my my goal is hopefully toward the end of the series no matter what happens between stephen and leila that mark and stephen work it out so that they can you know come together and they can both you know share you know their love for leila this is where joanna would say phrasing phrasing i almost said it and i saw and i saw i saw the way that mallory's eyebrows were waggling and

i got really excited i really wish our listeners could see the old rubin eyebrow waggle A comment from Steve in the Zoom. Mirrored ceilings work a bit different here. Wow. Man. Boy. Pringerverse contains adult content. I mean, I'm for, you know, Layla and whichever version, Mark or Stephen, getting together.

I just hope. Why not both? Second question comes from Tim. Tim asks, if the suits are unique to the personalities, what would your Moon Knight suit? look like. Such a tough question because, like, there's only so many versions of the tag. You feel like you need a tactical suit of some kind, right, if you're going to be doing some fighting and there's only so many versions of that.

But what I absolutely must have with much love and respect to the Mr. Knight look, which I think is actually a much better look, the Moon Knight look, but it doesn't have a cape. And I love a cape. And we didn't even get to see it here in episode two, but I think we see it in the trailer. So I'm hopeful we'll see it in the future. But in the comics, Moon Nights cape like billows out supernaturally to the shape of a crescent moon behind him in this like extreme way. So maybe I want like two capes. Maybe I want like multiple capes on my on my, uh, is that too much?

We'll see. I don't know. What do you think, Mellie? I think you could pull it off. I would. I know. It's white joggers. Select.

After careful consideration, basically my regular ward. which is a t-shirt and or loose-fitting and comfortable Henley, pajama pants and or joggers. I'm really digging the Nike yoga, like lightweight yoga pant line right now. Those don't come in white, but maybe they will in the future. Also, just to be clear, I've never used them for yoga. But they're very comfy. And then I need to inject just a touch, just a touch of color somewhere into my Moon-Night fit.

and so I will be selecting as my footwear. This was really the only part I gave careful consideration to. Obviously. The off-white Nike AirMax 90. Steve knows what I'm talking about with those because they've got just a little little pop of color, the tags, the soul. But I think they're still eligible for selection here. That's my pick. Jemmy, what's the Moonshade costume?

What are we talking about? I got two for you. I got two for you. First one's real basic, right? Moonshade costume is the moonned costume, but black, right? Yeah, obviously. No, just moon, but black. But Mr. Shade, right?

Mr. Shade. Mr. Shade. Mr. Shade. Oh, my God. He's got a button down top, right? First, top two buttons unbuttoned. He's showing chest, right? It's summertime.

He's showing chest. He got the chain on, you know, maybe one or two, depending on how he's, feel. You know, it's hot. He got them, he got them short shorts, them summer shorts, you know what I'm saying? Thighs everywhere. This is amazing. Right? Got some slip on shoes. And of course he's not, he's not Mr. Shade without some shades on him. Wow. You know what I'm saying? So if Van goes, if Van goes as Mr. Night for Halloween, will you go as Mr. Shade? Oh, of course. Oh, of course. That's easy. That's easy. I got that. I got that in my wardrobe right. now.

All right. Our last question comes from Jason. Jason specified. This is not a question, but a request. Each of you do a favorite line of dialogue from either episode in Steve's Steven's accent or it doesn't have to be from Mark or Stephen. It could be from any character in the show. All right.

So Mallory and I decided that we were going to pick a line for each other. But I've done some bonus work and I've got a line for Jomey and a line for Steve as well. So who wants to go first? Let's have Steve go first. All right, Steve. I'm going to DM it to you on the Zoom chat. Here we go. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

My name's Stephen with a V. That was like Guy Richies. Parkstock and two smoking moon nights. Ported inside of Snatch in a mere moment there. My God. I loved it. Incredible. All right, who's next?

I'm going to throw one to Arjuna right now, and it's coming. Hold on. Where did I put this? Found it. The Egyptian god of the moon. Oh, my God, that stupidest thing I've ever heard. I eat one piece of steak and bam, I go bonkers. For the record.

Arjuna's mom is British. so just some added intel there. Fooled me. In case you were like, cranky, I'm in baseball. God, from the top rope. Steve. That was, that was tough, man.

Who's next? Jomey? Jome, you want to go? All right. Here you go. I see you, you plug ugly coyote. You're in the wrong ends, mate. You're in my yard now.

Amazing. Beautiful. Listen, if this was Love Island, this would be different. I want the Stephen Jomey Guy Ritchie spin-off of this show. All right, Mallory, do you want to go or was it me? I'm ready. Mine will be the worst by far. Not even close.

Not even close. Not even close. I'm not capable of doing this. I'm going to die in an evil magician's man cave. All right, here's the one that Mallory and I picked for each other. Let me get into the accent. I got to go, I can't tell the difference between my... I'm waking life and my dreams.

The line is, soup's very good. It's ace, yeah? It's lovely. I just loved the way he said, Ace, yeah. It's incredible. Utterly ridiculous. It's like Area 51, MI6, bonkers, bro.

That's my, that's my, that's my, that's my, that's my, that's, you would have gave me that one, would have killed that. So good. It's area 51, like, MI6, bonkers, bro. It's the way that Oscar is it definitely. cannot say bonkers, but they have him say it 10 to 12 times in the episode. It's bonkers, bro. Bonkers.

Broves. So good. My deepest apologies to England. Okay, once again, please check out next Tuesday's trial by content for more of Accent Corner. Arjuna just got himself kicked out of the family will. So, oh boy. All right. Everyone, a passerby just called us fancy drunks,

so it's officially a wrap on today's episode. Thank you, as always, to our Mr. Knight, Steve Allman, for senior producing this episode. Thank you to our vegan lentil soup enthusiast O'Juna Ramgabal for his additional production work on this episode. And thank you to our national art gallery meme curator, Jomi Adaneron, for his work on the social for this episode. Please tune back in next Wednesday and Friday, respectively, for the Midnight Boys Moonnight, episode 3, instant reaction and the House of Our episode 3 deep dive. Until then, remember, don't care how bloody handsome you are.

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