House of R - 'Moon Knight' Episode 3 Deep Dive

Episode Date: April 15, 2022

Joanna is joined by her 'Trial by Content' cohost Dave Gonzales to dive deep into the third episode of 'Moon Knight' (03:17). They discuss the latest struggles with Mark and Steven while also taking a look at the trial hosted by Gods and avatars (31:35). Later ,they answer your mailbag questions with Jomi (61:48). Hosts: Joanna Robinson Guest: Dave Gonzales Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons from The Ringer, and this is a podcast called The Rewatchables. We have been doing it. Really since 2017, it started with how much we love the movie Heat. We decided to structure a whole podcast with categories, most rewatchable scene. Who on the movie, Apex Mountain, what age the best? But here's the thing. If you want the full archive, you can hear them only on Spotify. For free, by the way.

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Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. What about the other gods? Are they just going to stand by and allow somebody to unleash omit? To signal for an audience with the gods is to risk their wrath. What? Well, what's the worst that could happen? Anger them enough, and they'll imprison me in stone. That doesn't sound so bad to me.

Welcome into the Ringerverse Nexus podcast feed for all your fandom needs. I'm Joanna Robinson. joining me today now that she's moved all the stars. Wait, what's that? Oh no. Oh, no. Malory Rubin has been turned into a stone statue and I'm afraid to say

will not be joining us today. No, Mallory is not feeling well so we've got a great substitute here to help me declare a mistrial in the Great Pyramid of Giza. It's Dave Gonzalez. Hi, Dave. How are you? Crush's windpipe. I'm doing great.

I'm excited to be here and talk about Moon Night. Love talking about some Marvel series, especially this one. It has been incredibly interesting ride so far. Dave, for those who don't know, Dave is my co-host on the Trial by Content podcast. He and I have been podcasting together for years upon years upon years about Game of Thrones, about the TV series lost. And also, back in the day, we had a podcast called The Thought Bubble about comic books. So Dave is eminently qualified. Also, we're writing a book about Marvel.

We're here to talk about a Marvel show called Moon Night. Before we get into all of that, programming reminders, Mallory Rubin, who is not here today, will be back on Monday to talk about the latest Fantastic Beasts movie. You're going to want to tune in for that. Hear what she has to say about that. All you binge mode fans who have been asking Mallory to talk about that movie, she'll be here on Monday to sort of grapple with that. And then on Wednesday, the Midnight Boys Pew Pugh.

We'll be talking about episode four of Moon Night. And also maybe Jomey's personal life. Who knows? We'll see. So you're probably going to want to turn in. Tune in for that. But let's get into episode three of Moon Night, the friendly type, friendly neighborhood, spoiler warning. We'll be spoiling everything up through episode three.

And also anything in Marvel's canon, comic book canon, is on the table. So if we know something about the Marvel comic books, we're going to tell you about it. That's just your warning. So jump off now if you feel. any way about it. Here we go. All right, we are here to talk about Moon Night Episode 3, The Friendly Type. It was directed by Mohamed Diab and written by three writers, Bo DeMayo, Peter Cameron, and Sabir Pirsada. My pal's over on the Empire Spoiler Special.

Shouted out that perhaps the three writers credited on this episode might give us an indication. Three writers? The maximum number of writers you're allowed to have credited on any artistic project? Perhaps it's an indication that they had to wrestle some things into shape for this episode, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Their other point that they made is, you know, because they weren't a big fan of episode three, I heard the Midnight Boys talk about episode three.

I think there's a lot to love in episode three. I think there's some questions I have about episode three. But a big question is, is this why journalists got four episodes? Which we talked about before is an unusually high amount of screters to get from Disney. Everyone was wondering why journalists got four episodes. And the question is,

did they know that episode three was maybe not their strongest installment, and they wanted to make sure that journalists saw number four, where I've heard there is some sort of major reveal. So, like, Dave thought some feelings about the number of writers credited or the screener strategy of Marvel Studios. Yes, yes. I am amongst the normal people who have not even offered screeners for the Marvel thing. So I'm assuming that this is,

Marvel being smart, and like you're saying, not necessarily because this episode is lackluster, but because the middle of serialized television is always going to be hard. Even this type of show, which has been very centered on character, and I love being Mark Forward in this episode, it is a change in tone, and we learn a whole bunch of new information, and all of that new information is stuff we need to know leading into the back half of the season. So allowing people to peek into the back half rather than sort of being left very confused

by this episode that I don't think was bad but felt herky jerky in production, at least compared to the first two. But I'm going to put that for like a table setting episode. So I'm going to say yes. The long, the short answer to your question is yes. That's why they got four episodes, because they wanted to leave people hanging with an exclamation point

where this is more the calm before the final storm. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I don't know how this would compare to other third episodes of Marvel shows. Like, my feelings about Wanda Vision are, I think, a little stronger than most people is only because I really enjoy the exploration of the different genres of television. But episode three is like sort of when we leave the bubble in WandaVision. That's why journalists got three episodes screeners for Wanda Vision, because they wanted to, like, get outside the hex in Wanda Vision.

Loki, I don't really remember what happens in episode three. So, yeah, I don't know if this is like a common middle of the season, sort of feeling for Marvel Studios. But this is, it's only we talked about before, is like Mohamed Diem has said that the six-season episode is broken up into sort of pair episodes. So the first two episodes are the London-based episodes, very Stephen forward. as you say, we're in the middle here.

Maybe these two episodes may be mark forward, possibly. We don't know. These are the Egypt episodes. And then is the third set, you know, we're going to talk about a third personality here that emerged in this episode. Is the third, like, do the back to five and six, do they belong to the third personality? Are they set in a different place? Where is that place we don't know? But like, that's sort of the idea.

Yeah. It's safe to assume that it's going to have that sort of. feel, I think. I don't know, like you were saying, how to narrow down if it's going to be a new personality, a new place, or if it's just now we get Mark and Stephen, like, fully aware of each other. And that's just enough to have this internal team up with these two characters that were presented as being separate from each other. So it's like, Mark, or Stephen, Mark, and then, like, Stephen and Mark is a fact of the-to- to stop the end of the world, you know, like the big climactic superhero thing.

All right. So let's break it down my character as we go through this episode. So Stephen, I disagree with you. You liked that it was Mark Forward. I found that I missed Stephen. You know, we get barely any Stephen in this episode. And for me, like, not just because I enjoy doing the accent poorly, but I just, I think I missed what makes Stephen special and different from our, you know, because, like, Mark being an extremely capable. mercenary with like superpowers and a cool suit.

Like that's something again that we've seen a lot in the MCU. And Stephen the like meek bumbling trying to figure out what's going on around him kind of guy is what felt special and different to me about the first two episodes. So I think I, I think I miss Stephen in this episode. Did you not miss Stephen at all? You're like, I think Stephen did great with what he had to do in the episode and he's becoming a lot more confident. with the transitions, and he's obviously, not obviously. It looks like he might be falling in love a little bit. So I think that there's like enough Stephen.

I do think that the extraneous stuff that Mark has to do in this episode is a lot about moving the plot forward. And the only like Mark centric stuff, I think, is the boat ride, which we could get to. But we have to learn a little bit about Mark's past through Mark, but not you know, it's not Stephen picking up pieces of clues. I have a really important question for you, Dave. So a couple times we've heard from Stephen that he draws the line at child murder.

We get two mentions of this. In a recent episode of trial by content, we were discussing vampires. You seemed a little less firm on the drawing the line at child murder. Do you object to Stephen's moral compass here? How do you feel? I mean, I don't think mercenary should murder children. On that episode, I was arguing if I was a vampire, why wouldn't I murder children?

Which I still feel stands in this fictional world where I'm suddenly this cool, undead thing that feasts on blood. I think mere morals go either way. But this is interesting because we've... This episode presents Kanshu in his relationship to humanity and the gods in a very weird way, because at some point in the episode, he's, you know, saying the other gods had abandoned humanity, but also Conshu seems to be very violent and willing to punish lots of people in very painful ways.

So the fact that Mark and Stephen have to get to have this argument is good. And I suppose for, you know, Stephen and Mark are heroes in this episode who are going up against God forces that are supposed to not be judging people, based on actions that haven't happened yet, probably not kill children. Something really interesting that Mark says when he and Leila are talking about the DID, which seems like Leila

didn't know. This was a question that Mal and I had last week, but it seems like Leila didn't know about the DID at all. Mark says, or for what is worth, I had it under control until very recently. And like a theory that Mallory put forth is like, what happened

recently that made Mark feel less control of the body, the various personalities, et cetera. Her idea was that it had to do with, like, the multiverse, that some, you know, whatever it is that Strange and Peter got up to, or whatever is Loki got up. Who, pick your multiversal cracking of reality event in Marvel. Whatever happened there, did that make Mark lose control of what was going on there? Some people think this is just a reference to, like, maybe Mark, as in the comics, Mark grew up

with another, you know, because Mark and Stephen are childhood friends. Like, those personality that Mark was dealing with from childhood in some versions of the comics, specifically in the Jeff Lemire run that we talk about a lot on this show, right? So, like, Mark and Stephen from childhood, and then he meets Conshu. Is Conchue the reason why Mark feels like he lost control? Or third option, this is my favorite option, my personal pet theory. Is this all about the emergence of Jake Lockley, the third, the third, personality that we've been talking about on the corners of this story the whole time.

Dave, what do you think? My farthest out there theory is what if Jake was the only personality that somehow got flipped, snapped. I don't know how you guys refer to it canonically. I love this. Tell me more. So you have violent personality who Mark gets under control. I don't know if he gets under control through therapy, through medication,

through just like meditation, some sort of practice. I guess meditation would be like Hulk-like and therefore kind of cool. So you get your personality under control, and then all of a sudden it's gone. And so you let all your walls down. Maybe you, you know, turn down the pills you're taken. Maybe you allow some stress to invade your life as like a wife who's a Indiana Jones, Robin Hood, a hybrid. And then all of a sudden...

Dream combo, honestly. Then all of a sudden, when Tony Stark starts messing around with time, this Mr. Hyde personality pops back into the corner of your brain, and suddenly you just don't have it under control anymore. And all the personalities to sort of deal with that trauma lose, like, lose the ability to conceptualize with each other.

Okay. So again, we should say, for the record. And I asked listeners last week to write in about their ideas about like how DID is being treated in the show, whether it's being, you know, accurate. I got a really interesting response from a listener who was talking about how DID usually originates from like trauma in your childhood or trauma in your life. That's how DID emerges. And while there isn't sort of this explicit, I sat down and wrote out a personality. Like some people have thought that Mark like super created Stephen,

learned the accent, all that sort of stuff, that's not how DID works. But sometimes personalities do emerge to help you cope with something. So this idea that like maybe Stephen emerged to help Mark cope with the loss of Leila, like the fact that Stephen has a lot of qualities

that Leila has, like that's a theory that people have. And to be clear in DID, one facet personality would not be blipped in the event that Thanos comes to earth and snaps his finger. However, that's a bonkers theory, and I absolutely love it. I don't think it's true, but I love it.

I love that idea. I just tried to swing for the fences before pulling it back in any sort of way. The chick was snapped and no one else was. Something that like, you know, the Easter egg hunters who have been pouring over the various documents that have shown up on this show, have pointed out in various passport photos, that it seems like neither Leila nor Mark were snapped because there are dates on their documents. that make it seem like they were here during the blip. A lot of those documents are forged,

so who knows if those dates mean anything? But, like, that's the prevailing theory is that they were not snapped. I started looking at those documents more closely and then realized they were all younger than me and got depressed and stopped looking at those documents. But the good news is that Oscar Isaac actually isn't. They just de-aged him for the show, but that's fine.

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Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. So let's talk about Jake. We've talked about him before on the show in the comic books.

He's this like cabby figure, this other personality who sort of, He's not like a Mr. Hyde, Violet Alter in the comics. But we've already seen like a big departure of comic lore in the show with Stephen being very different from how Stephen is in the comics. So Mark hits his head twice during the sort of the rooftop fight. Yes. He goes away and a couple people die.

And Stephen's like you did it. Mark's like you did. I didn't do it. I think you should take one step back just for thematic resonance. He stiffs a cabby for money and then gets hit in the head twice. Oh, so this is like revenge of the cavies? Is that what you're saying? I'm just saying it's thematically could be a thing where Jake's like, okay, okay.

Now you've taken it too far. Now you've really done it. You've disrespected cabbies. And so we think that maybe Jake Lockley is here to kill some people. you know, in the way that Mark would only like slap the youngest of the people that he's pursuing for information here. We've been talking about this all throughout. You know, it seemed like pretty clear that a third personality was in the mix here somewhere, whether it's asking people out on dates. Mallory is constantly pointed out the like the three reflection imagery that we've seen throughout.

So like this idea that Jake is here is not wholly surprising to us. What is kind of surprising is that Mark doesn't seem to be very aware of him. What do you think about that? I've been trying to think about this just since I saw the episode because it is sort of, in the weird theory I had about snapping, it did involve everybody sort of losing contact with the idea that there were multiples. Because Mark, at least when we first see Mark or Stephen in this series, he's built up enough of a life, 20 minutes away from Lila, but he's built up enough of a life to be independent and to look. like he has daily routines and to be calling a mysterious mother and whatnot. So I kind of feel like Mark might know that part about Stephen if Stephen didn't know about Mark, but I'd get all tangled up in who bought the new goldfish because it doesn't

seem like Mark cares about Stephen necessarily or he just wants, like there's no, there's no sort of trying to make Stephen's life better, like asking somebody out on a date or by a new goldfish or lovingly strapping yourself in and smoothing the sand out every night, that seems like it doesn't necessarily, isn't necessarily mark. It felt less like care to me and more like wanting to keep Stephen unaware of what's going on. Like replacing the fish and smoothing at the sand and re-taping the door and restrapping in the restraints is more like when Stephen wakes up, he won't realize that anything happened. Right. That's the super spy mercenary part of it.

Yeah, so it's not a kindness to replace his dead goldfish with a double-finned other goldfish. It's like maybe he won't notice, and I can keep hiding out because Stephen is such a good cover for him. And Mark is hiding out because he doesn't want Layla to find him because he doesn't want Layla in the mix, all this sort of stuff. And so keeping Stephen asleep, you know. Layla forward. So why is he asking people out at the gift shop? That's Jake. I think that's Jake. There we go. Okay. So one of the two things I said wasn't horrible. Nothing you said is horrible, but I think that like Jake is the Lethario and Mark is the like,

don't wake Stephen, don't wake dad. Like, let's keep him asleep and going about his life, you know? Since we haven't seen Jake yet and we're making a lot of assumptions that that's the personality that's emerging, what is the narrative character whole that this adapted Jake doesn't have to be a cab driver. It needs to fill for you. What are we missing from the Mark Stephen duology that needs to be something else? Maybe. I mean, we talked about this in other episodes, this idea that Mark and Stephen do have a common interest, and that common interest is protecting Laila because Stephen fell hard and fast for Laila, right?

And he cares about her safety. And that seems to be Mark's, like, number one concern is Laila's safety. So these two people who have no reason to work together, who are yelling at any. each other about their approaches to life, do have a reason to agree and to work together. And like something that the that the Lemire comics really drove home again and again is this idea of like stronger together, right? This idea that like Mark has a skill set, Stephen has a skill set, but together they can accomplish so much more than any one of them alone.

So to give them a common purpose in Layla. So this idea of like, Jake is the internal, internal enemy, a common enemy, possibly, or an even tougher thing to embrace. Because the point is sort of like embrace all sides of you, even the like ones that stab people in Cairo. What do you think? I mean, it could be kind of like an id personality if we were talking about approaching it from a more realistic DID position where he can't be, you know, snapped away by Thanos. It would be another facet that was developed to deal with something.

And definitely Mark's the core personality, him ending up being a mercenary, probably have a lot of horribly traumatic events. So I like that Mark and Stephen are having this debate about, you know, whether to kill and they keep doing it because inside of them is one personality that apparently has no problem with it. And that's only outwardly, since we haven't met that personality, since we haven't seen anything from their point of view, for all they know, they, you know, are put in horrible situations again and again. They're sort of like forced to kill. I don't know if they like it or not. I do like the idea of him kind of being like suave and a little bit more

swab than the other ones, because that's something that I think is missing from the overall personality so far. You mean when Mark was like, yeah, you don't, you don't know me. You never did Layla, that wasn't like a suave move with your ex in the car. No, definitely not. Not a nice move there. That's some bad nagging right there. To jump forward to something that Harrow

said, like, to address your point, Harrow, when he's trying to sort of divide and conquer, Leila and Mark, he's telling Leila there's like, you know, something she doesn't know, and he tells, he says to Mark, you don't tell her because you know that if you do, she'll see you exactly as you see yourself

unworthy of love. This idea of shame is something that we talked about a lot when it comes to Mark in the comics as well. Like, shame about his mental state, but also shame about the things that he's done in his past as like a mercenary. That's like a real driving force for him. In the show, Conchu is using like guilt. Like you were dead and also threats. Like, I'm going to take over your extremely cool wife. Like all that stuff to get.

Mark in line, but in the comics it's more like Mark is driven by like the red on his ledger to sort of clean his hands from what he did. So this idea that like Harrow is weaponizing shame to, you know, talking about Mark and he really leans on it in the trial sequence, right? He's he's using some like really, really dicey language about mental health, etc. This idea that Mark has an internal, like that Stephen is an internal aspirational side of him. Like Stephen Grant is the person that he would like to. to be the thoughtful,

nice person, and that Jake is the person that he's afraid he is. Do you what I mean? What do you think about that? I'm wondering how extreme Jake needs to be to set him apart from just like a really good mercenary. It's basically when we're talking,

like Stephen and Mark, or if we're going to talk about him like this way, Mark and his aspirational physicality are both very, very different. I'm wondering what the, the other, the scary one looks like, or if it's somewhat closer to Mark, and that actually makes it scarier? Right.

Is that Marks closer to Jake that he is to Stephen? Something that, you know, the thoughtful people over Reddit have identified is that when you look, and you're the one, Dave, who pointed this out to me, we were talking off air, that when you look at the three posters that they put out for Moon Night, you get Mr. Knight, which is Stephen in his suit. Also, the Mr. Knight poster is hilarious because he's looking so much hard. harder than, like, Mr. Knight ever will ever be on the show. He looks like a real guy, Ritchie character, which he definitely isn't it. So you see Mr. Knight in his, like, vest and tie. You see Moon Knight in the bandage suit with the moonerangs. And then in the middle, you just see Oscar Isaac in a white hoodie.

We've seen the white hoodie in this episode. We saw it in episode one in the, like, European sequence. there's this theory that the white hoodie might be what Jake looks like when Jake comes out to play. Obviously, it's Mark. It's definitely Mark who puts on the white hoodie in this episode. But it could have been Jake who put it on in episode

one before he went on his European vacation. What do you think about the white hoodie theory? Maybe it's Jake. Maybe it's how Jake would manifest the suit, which we don't see anybody manifest the suit in the daytime, but definitely now is going to be more difficult to try because, you know, Conchus in stone and isn't able to suit up, suit anyone up.

But he does put on the hoodie in that car conversation as they're driving out to do the final sky moving, and then he passes out, and that's the end of the episode from there. So I wonder if Jake is the one who wakes up, and because he's in that hoodie, that's where we're getting this poster image is like, our first look at Jake is in that hoodie.

I think it could go either way. I do feel like somehow there's a third costume coming. That feels very marvely, and you get to have another action figure and another cool design. They're like another toy to sell, yes. I think that my real feeling

is that they wanted to just put Oscar as face on a poster. And that's why we get the one where you actually get to see his face. But look at his look. Which character is that? Is that Mark here he's trying to hide? He looks very scary in that one. All right. Let's talk about Leila. You mentioned this to me off air and I wanted you to dig into it a little bit about how this intro that we get with her at the beginning of the episode, the passport scene felt very comic booky to you. I was wondering if you could talk about that a little bit. Yeah. So it's based on the scene as she's giving some back. story talking to an old family friend and together they are manufacturing a fake passport

for her to go to Egypt. And I just think it feels a lot like what it feels like to read a good comic book that's using parallel action to not only like download a whole bunch of information that you need, but take dialogue that really could be happening over anything and doing it over something that informs the story world and sets a mood. So even the way that we open up this episode through the lens of like another camera feels very Brian Michael Bendis powers like single frames of people talking their story directly to us or to a newscaster or whatnot. But this time it's a conversation that is happening over some fantastic business, love some fake passport making, love going into the details of it. I just like it read very comic booky to me is

just like, let's take a very visual action, very visual piece of business, and set it against all these other things people need to know. I wish more of the episode new to do that, because there is a part of the episode where Mark's just pulled into a dark hallway by another avatar and given another McGuffin to chase after. But like, sure, okay. I think this was very successful, cold open, and Moon Knight's been killing it and making it feel very comic booky. And I think the series has overall to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I agree. I think it feels like one of the more comic bookier of the shows. I want to shout out the Forger, who is helping her here, is played by Barbara Rosenblatt,

who is like a character actress who's worked in film and television and stage, but she's also, I think her main job is she's an audiobook narrator, and she actually is like my favorite audiobook narrator, and she narrated a series of books that I was obsessed with as a kid. A really popular mystery series, the Amelia P. Body Mysteries that are all about Egyptology. They're written by an Egyptologist. And I feel like that's not an accident that Barbara Rosenblatt is here. Those are very, very popular books and very, very popular audiobooks. So someone on the casting team was listening to some Moon Knight background and thought, hey, why not this person? I feel like it's true. I feel like it's not a coincidence that Barbara Rosenblatt is here.

Anyway, shout out to a legendary audiobook narrator, Barbara Rosenblatt. as the forger. Yeah, we get a lot of really necessary exposition about the fact that Layla is persona non-garata in Egypt. She has to sneak back into the country. We get this whole Robin Hood storyline for her, this idea, this Kilmonger-esque,

as a lot of people pointed out, idea that, hey, maybe it's not cool that the world's antiquities are shoved in museums. Have you been to the British Museum lately and seen anything that's actually British in there? No, you haven't. So, yeah. Love that for her. Love that for Leila. And the fact that she's willing to risk it all to protect Mark, right? She's going back just to protect him. I mean, maybe it's because she's interested in the scarup hunt, but I feel like

we, you know, given the boat scene and everything that happens, like her main motivation here, the motivations of the characters are a little up in the air for me for some of them, but for Leila, it feels like stopping Amit is important, but understanding Mark and understanding how what's going on with him now ties into why he left her and why the marriage fell apart is an important factor for her. And letting him know that she's here for him and she wants to be with him just, you know, not despite, but like as he's grappling with all of this. Would you agree with that? Yes. I mean, definitely going into the episode, I agree with that. That's what gets her down to Cairo. But towards the end, I think she's definitely been swept up just in the adventure of it. And not that she's not there for Mark. But Mark's a dick. And she is basically like... But Stephen's kind of nice. And Stephen's kind of nice. And that's the thing. She's there. And like when Stephen's out towards the... end the episode, she seems like very excited by the mind-bending things that are going on,

but also excited about taping together a little star and hearing Egyptology facts that she absolutely knows already. But, you know, coming out of Stephen, got to talk about something. Steven's version of small talk is like, can I talk to you about Egyptology? Same, same, Steven. Me too. Me too. Yeah. Speaking of Egyptology, let's talk about the Indian. I have a lot of questions about this. Sure, yeah. About this horrible, carriage of justice inside the great pyramid of Giza. So we meet the Aeneid, but instead of nine, as Stephen very clearly laid out in episode one, the Inead are nine gods in the Egyptian pantheon, and we talked, we broke that down

in episode one, sort of what that means in actual Egyptian mythology. Only five of the nine are here for this trial. They mentioned that two are missing. That still only brings us up to seven. So I have a lot of... Seven of nine. Beapoo, be, pew, I have a lot of... I have a lot of non-Star Trek questions about this.

So the five that are here are Horace Isis, Tefnit, Osiris, and Hathar. In actual Egyptian mythology of Inead are Atom, Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nutt, Osiris, Siss, and Nephth. So little difference there. They went with like sort of the more famous Egyptian gods in the Marvel Aniyadh. These are also actual canon Marvel characters. these Egyptian gods have shown up in like Thor comics, dealing with Thor and dealing with Loki. We've seen ISIS and Horace and Osiris and all of that.

Do you have any theories about, because I'm delighted to ask you about theories. The last time you dazzled me with this, Jake has been snapped theory. If only five of the nine are here and two are missing, who are the two that are missing, and who are the other two that would round out the nine here in this Marvel can't?

Like, do you think Amit and Kanshu were banished from the Yid? And then they're just like a bonus too that just like we're too lazy to show up to jury duty. Like, what do you think about that? I think that maybe, yeah, Kanshu isn't the only God that has some sort of lasting need to do something with the human. in this plane of existence. So my understanding is most of the gods are portaling into their avatars from not Earth, but from a magical comic book dimension that we probably won't address anymore, but have abandoned humanity in some sort of way.

I don't think that's necessarily true just because they say it. Like, I'm sure there are some gods that are fucking around on other planes. Dave never trusted God, Gonzalez. Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think I'm being taught by the Marvel universe to not trust people that say they are gods. They have weird intentions that I can't understand that sometimes means killing thousands of humans. So who are we really to judge?

But, I mean, who are we really to judge is literally the question of this series. So that's what we're building up to. I think we're going to have, like we've been having a discussion between Harrow and, and consue basically on how to best judge humanity and punish people deemed to be guilty, I think the gods have probably had this internal debate and it pissed two of them off. So I think we might find out that these guys are just the ones that are willing to show up for a trial because they're the ones that sort of all still agree with each other. and somewhere else there's a caucus of two

that we maybe haven't seen or heard from yet. Yeah, so the idea is that there were these, the council, this council of gods who decided at some point we have not abandoned humanity, they have abandoned us. There's a couple of theories around us. Like, let's sort of take it Egyptology wise

and comic book wise. This idea of we have not abandoned humanity, they have abandoned us, strikes me as very American gods, very Neil Gaiman, right? Like this idea, like, when humans stop worshipping gods, gods disappear, right? Or gods diminish in their powers and in their abilities. This is a little different in that they just, like, pieced out to the overvoid. The celestial heliopolis, as it's known in Marvel Comics.

They're like, bye. There's an incident in the comics where a guy. guy you might have heard of, King the Conqueror, goes back in time to become a pharaoh named Ramatut. We've talked about this a little bit before. And one thing he does is he convinces the residence of ancient Egypt to stop worshipping the gods and worship him, build massive statues in his honor. In the comics, this really pissed off Kanshu, for one. but what if that's the, like, do you see a version where, like, this idea of a rift between man and gods is a way to work Jonathan Majors either into this show or into this continuity?

What do you think? I love that because I would love a long Kang lead, building up to Ant Man Quantum Man. But I think more directly on our plate here, we have Thor 11 Thunder, which, is going to need some gods for purposes unknown officially because they won't show us a trailer, maybe because they need some gods. But I think this is leading somewhere. And what that is is to like the rapid expansion of the Marvel universe into doing a whole bunch of stuff. We spent, you know, over 10 years doing the Avengers on Earth for the most part with a couple little departures. But now

with the Eternals sort of opening everything up and Guardians and Thor coming down the pike while even on Earth were in a multiverse of madness, I feel like this is just rapid universe expansion from Marvel. So it's very

possible they don't know the answer to that question. They're just sort of opening it up a little bit. They're flexible to a pivot. Yeah, I do want to talk about I want to talk about that question in a second, but I do want to go back to Thor, or love and thunder because I think we can say some things without spoiling anything, which is that Christian Bill has been cast as a character named Gore the God Butcher.

This is not a spoiler. This is comics canon. But if you want to zoom ahead, you can. But we're talking about comic book canon here, which is Gore the God Butcher has a grudge against gods. And he goes around like killing gods and a various pantheon. So he might lop the head off of an Osiris or a Hathor or a Conchew. certainly maybe Russell Crow's Zeus that he's playing in Thor Love and Thunder. And of course, Thor is a god himself.

So Thor is going to be worried about someone named the god butcher out there and roaming around. So yeah, so this idea that we're introducing another pantheon for Christian Bale to possibly attack before he focuses in on Chris Hemworth and all of his pals. it could be a really easy tie-in for a movie that's coming out close to this series. Yeah, I just think there's, in my mind, there's a whole bunch of paths that the Marvel universe is trying to take simultaneously. And the multiverse path definitely has your Doctor Strange,

your Loki, your Spider-Man. There also seems to be like a slight, what I was called, like Next Avengers path, and that's the classic Avengers dealing with consequences of end game, and usually passing on their mantle to what could be like a few new new Avengers. And then this seems to be part of more of the Eternal's like future of the Marvel universe. The cosmic sort of thing.

Which is how big can it get? How weird can it get? What sort of genres can we ensconce in this particular weird world? I think this sort of the mummy meets the mummy. It's sort of the mummy riff For Moon Night Is working out really well I would be interested to see

With Werewolf by Night coming out How they just like straight up Go in a fun monster movie But also in this Moon Knight adjacent world Which is definitely part of the Eternals Which is really weird And then eventually it's gonna

You know build back to Wherever they decide to do With the Eternals characters Which had Blade at the end Like there's just so much in this path of the Marvel universe that I don't think it is connected to the multiversal line as much as it could be. You've invoked the Eternals twice, so I am now obliged to mention that a possible another

reason for all of this is to explain why the Egyptian gods did not intercede with Thanos and the snap. That's the whole crux of Eternals is like, hey, if Angelina Jolie has been here, the whole time. Where were you when the Westfold fell? Like, where were you when Thanos came to Earth? And, you know, the Eternals are like, oh, we don't get

involved. And the Egyptians are maybe like, well, we were in the overboid. I mean, we didn't hear about Thanos and the celestial Heliopolis. Sorry. Look, look, he didn't do anything to Earth's moon. So how are we to know that we wanted

to have a meeting? We meet like two, you know, there's five avatars here, but two we meet sort of in earnest. There's Hathor's Avatar Yatil. It's played by Diana Bermudas, who is a British-Columbian actress. And then there's Osiris, his avatar is Selim played by Khalid Abdallah, who's playing Dodie al-Fa-Fa-ed in the upcoming season of the Crown, by the way. But he is like a known British Egyptian actor.

And I just wanted to shout that out because we were talking about this last week with Leila, like as opposed to the mummy. There are a few actual Egyptian actors. in this production, which is nice to see. But yeah, that's the Aeneid. I've mentioned this a couple times. I have a real problem with how this whole trial thing worked out. Narratively is very frustrating for me to watch

because they just bring Harrow in. I think there's a version of this scene where Harrow weaponizes Mark's mental health against him, which is, I think, the more interesting aspect of this trial, this idea that he could use the prejudices against mental, against the idea of mental health to, you know, gaslight and dismiss Mark's claims here. I think maybe if there's a version where, like, Stephen comes out at some point, like, there's a version of this where Mark could have seemed even less together in a way that I would understand why they, the Aeneid would dismiss him without taking a second to investigate Harrow at all?

I have a lot of questions how they arrived to this conclusion so quickly. What do you think? Yeah, it does seem kind of rushed. I think it's difficult to trust a cabal of gods, mostly because they even say they aren't really that concerned with humans now that the humans haven't been praising them or they have abandoned them. say what that means. Maybe it's something weird and space dusty. But, yeah, it's hard for me to judge because I don't know what the criteria of a god are. Like for all I know, they seem very

familiar with Harrow. Obviously, by the ending scene, it seems maybe too buddy, buddy, even though they do start that scene with you were right about. But either way, it's like, why are you re-contacting the accused? So why are you hiring O.J. Simpson to find the real killer? Something like that. So it's, it's been, it's been odd to see it. And also the, it actually happening seemed somewhat poorly conceived. Because I see what they were going for, which is Stevens present, but Conschus speaking through him.

But the way it's actually portrayed is very awkward with Oscar Isaac kind of like bending backwards a little bit and yelling, just so we could do like shock dies over it. So I'm already like losing the plot because I'm another big performance choice with no, with no immediate explanation. And then, yeah, it sort of seems like they're like, let's hear from the accused and let's take him 100% at his word. I can only assume it's because they just don't like Conchew. They think he's like the boy you cried wolf of gods. Right. Which has nothing to do with Mark, which as you were saying is a split, it's a split back.

balance because we as the audience are meant to think that Harrow's arguments about Mark's mental health and about how Conchu abuses his avatars are supposed to be the focus. But my only explanation with logic is like a prejudice because of God business. I like this idea that they just like don't like Conchue. And that helps explain everything. But it's still, I still, I still declare mistrial in the pyramid. This episode is brought to by Borishead. What if we told you the taste of deep fried turkey is now available at your local deli? Well, Boar's Head just did that. Bursting with flavor, perfectly seasoned with that indulgent taste that usually means

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for those that want to be fueled up and fired up with a hundred-bound hour tropical tasting power. Ignite your taste, start your engine. Shift your flavor to high gear with new Nass Energy Grand Prix guava. Hit the street, grab a can, and get after it. Okay, so let's talk about this sort of last set piece that we have to deal with here,

which is Lila and Mark gets a tip from Hathor about this sarcophagus. One of the folks on the Empire podcast pointed out how it kind of zaps the momentum of the episode for Mark and Lela to be desperately searching for a location that Harrow finds in like the second scene of the episode.

Like he already knows where the tomb is. So the fact that they're like running to catch up is not, we know where it is. Do you know what I mean? So like narratively for us, it's a little, it's a little, tough. But they send him off, they send them off to get this star map.

And we meet Anton Mogart, a K. Midnight Man in the comics. This is some, you know, a costume criminal who steals arts and treasures and valuables and original manuscripts. And as part of his stick, he always strikes at midnight and he was an enemy of Moon Knight in the comics. Again, love an art heist. Big fan. So like, you know, this should be something really fun for me. Unfortunately, the actor,

Gaspariole passed away, actually fairly recently, in his skiing accident. And we don't know. It's recent enough that I'm not sure it had actually any impact on how the story is told in this episode. And obviously, like, the personal tragedy of this actor's death is more important than what happens to the story. But it is possible, and this happens all the time, that, like, some story stuff was shifted because an actor, is no longer available to put it in an awkward way. And like, it's possible that some of the holes in this episode are due to that. Do you have any thoughts about that?

Yeah. Things I saw were, like, when he exits, he charges at Moon Night and it's going to be a huge showdown. But what happens is he pushes Layla out of the way and then pivots and throws a moon into the back of the writer as he goes into smoke. that was not there last time we looked at that angle. CGI smoke, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which implies to me there was an ending of some sort. There's a big bunch of business that is around the episode

that seems like it doesn't go anywhere. I don't know if it was because the sequence was altered or if it was because of something that's going to happen the future episode. But right after they get off the boat, Stephen's stowing bags and they notice two guys on a boat that are watching them, and they're like, oh, maybe it's Haro's guys.

And Steve is like, yeah, maybe. And then we cut away from that location entirely to them and, like, a car in the desert. And then after they have their second conversation, we cut to inside another car that's a voiceover line that's like, yeah, I've got them. And then we never see who was in that car or hear from that car again. So I feel like there are pieces of this episode

that are either leading into the future or our leftover pieces because they had to finish that sequence in a way that made sense without being able to do any additional shooting with the actor and exiting Midnight Man as a character. And it's just you could only paper over that as much as possible without leaving little threads around that feel sort of inaccurate. Something that I loved in that sequence is the back and forth between Stephen and Mark. and this idea that Stephen tries to take over the body

and immediately relinquishes it back to Mark in the fight because it's like, oh yeah, I'm wholly ill-equipped to handle myself in this scenario. But something the Midnight Boys pointed out that I really agree with is something that I love in this episode, a huge step forward, is that Mark relinquishes the body to Stephen when it comes to,

let's put this map back together in the middle of the desert, right? Like, Mark understanding that there's something he can, can't do that Stephen can and that it is better for everyone if Stephen takes control here. Did that feel like a big step forward for you? Yeah, especially because you have Conchue there being like, he's never, the worm will never give the body back, which I don't necessarily believe that. But if the show is actually having a character tell me that, then I'm going to believe it, that that's something that Mark is weighing over.

It's like, not only is he giving it over to Stephen, but he might be giving it over for indeterminate amount of time. He could wake up judged by Amit. Like, things could go really sideways. But he does anyway. Mostly because Layla is right, but also I think because she asked. I don't think, I think, as we saw inside the horrible way to keep priceless artifact, but glass pyramid, if Mark had his druthers.

A lot of sun exposure on that sarcophagus, yeah. Yeah. If Mark had his druthers, he would judge. get Stephen to help without giving over the body. But I think now that Layla is sort of going for his heart and he had to tell her that he never knew her, whether or not that was a little bit of a, you know, leave Lassie. I never loved you for your own good or Bigfoot. Oh, yeah, big throwing rocks at Nymeria moment for sure.

Absolutely. Yeah, but then he does, he does. He gives it up to Stephen. And it sort of seems like at some point when Layla asks if it is Stephen, Stephen looks and realizes also that what Mark has actually given him. But that also means he has to hold up the sky for a long period of time, which looks like it was very painful. Okay, so let's talk about Conchu to sort of get close to wrapping up here, which is that he's been a dick, beautifully voiced by F. Murray Abraham, fantastic performance.

We have no reason to like him because he's like hurting our protagonist in many ways. However, there's a couple moments here, like when he says, I remember every night. That's like, it sounds like a really heavy burden. You know, queue up queens who wants to live forever sort of thing, right? But also, he knowingly sacrifices his freedom to stop Amit here. He knows what the other gods are going to do to him if he pulls this stuff with the sky that maybe he could have looked up on a nap. I don't know, but, you know, he moves this guy knowingly sacrifices himself for the greater good. So, Conchew, have we misjudged him?

Dave. Have we misjudged him? Again, I don't want to plead this too many times, but, like, who am I to say what the ultimate goal of, like, weird gods that don't even judge things by I do? Like, he could resurrect people, he could make people their avatars, he could manifest lots of cool healing suits that give people like Wolverine powers. So I'm not exactly sure. And the way he's like tell Mark to break me out, it's like, it's like me yelling like, call my mom to pay bail, and as I'm being like let away in handcuffs. So I feel like I will call, I will call Liz if you

ever get arrested, Dave, don't worry. Thank you. But I feel like that means that it's not super permanent. We're not meant to think it's like a total death. It is a sacrifice. And should consue have some skin in the game? Yeah. So I guess I do like him better. It's more like he's going to, he hasn't been able to walk his walk for the most part because he seems to mostly be wind for everybody else. But if he's going to have a moment where he can walk the walk and talk the talk, I'm glad he did it. More importantly, this leaves our guy Mark and Steve. and Jake depowered as they go into the back half of the season. We don't know how long that's going to last.

You know, Charles has expressed his dismay that we aren't getting more Moonnight in the series. And we may not get him for a little while because, you know, conscious locked up. However, is it possible that they did this so that Mark is now powered on the same level that Harrow is power? Like, he was way overpowered for a showdown with Harrow, right? Harrow's got his, like, stick, but not much more going for him. But now he and Marker on much more even playing field. You and I talk about this all the time when we talk about comic books. We talk about overpower people, needing to take people off the board.

Vision is too powerful. Scarlet Witch is too powerful, et cetera, et cetera. We need to even the odds here. Is this a question of evening the odds? possibly because this was really the first episode where the show was telling us the extent of things the suit would do so when it shows back up we know

it's got a cape that can absorb some bullets he could take a spear through the thing it's like a healing suit because we're told that verbally you know he's got never-ending moon boomerings so we've been given the power definition of the suit fully in this episode so it would make sense if it kind of goes away for a little bit.

I don't know if it's powering them down for a showdown though because so far Haro in general has not been a showdown character. So if there was going to be a Haro showdown, it's either going to be like Marvel-glowy magic

make CG creatures, which is a way they end a lot of their things, or it's going to be a sit-down stand-off sort of situation, like two guys on either sides of a table. of a sit-down stand-off. Sit-down stand-off.

I think the, because trailer footage is on the table for what we're allowed to talk about here, but again, skip forward if you don't want to hear about trailer footage, there's a shot from the trailers of Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawk leaping towards each other in front of the moon with, like, punching gestures. So in a way that actually makes it seem like they both have superpowers. So we'll see if, like, Ethan Hawk is, you know, running on Amit juice and, you know, you know, Mark has his contu powers back, you know, if we're headed for yet another Marvel punchy punchy finale showdown.

I don't think it's going to be a sit-down standoff at the end of the day here. That's what I think. Maybe it'll be like a Sandman sit-down standoff where they just talk about how they're fighting and we get to see it, but they're not actually doing anything. They're like, and now I'm leaping towards the moon. He's like, I'm now leaving towards the moon. Oh, wow. Well, I definitely think all the Marvel fans will be thrilled to see that.

All right. Let's talk about a few more things before we get to the mailbag. Egyptology corner really quickly this week, not much, but the star map. I just want to shout out that the Siba is the name of an ancient Egyptian symbol, star-shaped symbol, a symbol of stars, religion, time, the afterlife, and the duot. And the duot is the name of the land of the dead and the underground? So is the star map leading us to, you know, Amit is, we were discussing the terminology of Ushab. versus tomb. Like, Amit's not in a tomb necessarily.

She's in an Ushapti, which might be in someone's tomb. But she's not corporeal, really. So she's not in-tumed somewhere, except she's, looks like she's probably been shoved into a little stone Ushapti the way that Kanshu is by the end of this episode. Yeah, we're going to figure out if it's breaking case of emergency or if there is a more complicated process to those stone statues. Just have to smash it on the ground and, like, Haro, just, like Harrow just like puts the shards of it in his sandals and he's like, yeah, it's my penance now.

I'm walking on, can't you? Whoa. But the shape of the star map, I think, is sort of is an interesting little Egyptology moment. And then Theory Corner, we've already talked about sort of the Gore the God Butcher connection, which is something I want to touch on. But this is actually the perfect thing to talk to you, Dave Gonzalez, about color theory. So, okay, so Van got unjustly ridiculed on the Midnight Boys. about talking about the color of the magic here. We've already talked about that.

Jomi already came back in defense of the midnight boys, et cetera. This has been adjudicated. But the question that the purple magic means something, but does the fact that Harrow and all of his followers enjoy a certain pop of red, is that connected to chaos magic, which is what Wanda uses, right? Or is my preferred interpretation,

is this a reference to, wild, wild country and the cult that cropped up there that all wore red. What do you think? I think it's wild, wild country. I also think it's wild wild country. I mean, not the chaos magic is not on the table here, but I also feel like this series is not concerned with that. And that's part of also what I really like about Moon Night So Far is I'm the one bringing

up the blip, you know? It's like I don't have to know anything about the moment. Marvel Cinematic Universe to be enjoying Moon Night. So it would be weird to be like, oh, you wanted to see Doctor Strange a multiverse of madness? Well, too bad you weren't watching Moon Night. Like, that feels like a miss. That's not the type of connection that Marvel usually wants to make. Meanwhile, Lucasholm was like, do you want to see Groku and Din back together?

Hope you watched Book of BobaFed. Hope you watched Book of Obamette. Yeah. So for those who don't know, if you haven't much the excellent, or I think it's excellent, I think Dave has complicated feelings about it. but the Netflix documentary series, Wildwell Country, about the 1980s sort of cult that cropped up in Oregon, with Bhagwan, Sri Rajneesh,

and all of his followers wore this, like, burgundy red color. So I think that Harrow wearing burgundy red and all of his followers wearing somewhere on them, some sort of burgundy red accessory is, you know, Ethan Hawke has already talked about how real-life cult leaders informed his portrayal here. Yeah, he's a David Koresh guy. Yeah.

I remember I'm saying. So I think it's a while, I think it's a while, wild country. That's what I think is going on there. Okay. Easter egg basket. This is just like we're going to pick one thing to talk about here. There's a lot to talk about. We've already hit a few things.

I feel obliged to represent Mallory here and talk about the fact that Mark who's from Chicago put on a Cubs hat at one point. So that is your duly appointed sports reference in this podcast. Dave, what is your favorite Easter egg in this episode? I like the spy who loved me, rooftop tie grasp interrogation. Because definitely I was like, there's something in my brain when it happened where I'm like, I've seen this before.

Where have I seen this before? I was like, oh, damn, it's James Bond. Yeah, it's Roger Moore, baby. Yeah. How do you think Egypt is portrayed in that particular film? Accurately? Uh, no. I mean, the most accurate part of I think about that is in the final battle around

the pyramids for some reason. There's just, like, constantly moving spotlights all over them. And that was the first time I was like, oh, yeah, spotlights. Because, yeah, the pyramids aren't well represented in the history of cinema. All right. Also, even though Mal's not here, we're still going to do our secret scroll watch. Dave has already been briefed on what this is. But if you were just tuning in for the first time, we pick one person in the cast who we

think might be a secret scroll and might show up in Secret Wars as it comes down. the pike, Dave, who's your pick? I'm going to pick Khalid Abdallah who plays the Osiris Avatar Salim, because if you look at how his avatar taking over possession thing, most people throw

their head back or forward or at least do something with their shoulders. Instead, he just does a little chest puff that immediately caught my eye and I'm like, ah, you're not human. Scroll avatar of an Egyptian god Osiris. Love that. For us, I'm going to pick the four

only because I want my, my babe, Barbara Rosenblatt, back in the, in the MCU. So the for Forger that we meet at the beginning of this episode is my pick for Secret Scroll. That's how they're getting all their passports, of course. Let's go to the mailbag. Jomi, what's in the mailbag this week? We got a lot of great stuff, my personal life questions, notwithstanding. But I want to welcome Dave to the ring verse, man. How you doing?

Hey, Joey. How have you enjoyed it so far? It's been great. It feels like, you know, Matt left me a good butt seat in the couch to sort of settle into for a week. Oh, that's awesome, man. Glad to have you. Glad to have you with this. Our first question comes from G.J.

What do you think happened in Medripoor? All right. So, yeah, so we get this little line, this little, like, 80-yard line about what happened in Madripor. for our girl Layla. So, Dave, the big question, I think people are asking themselves over ander. Do you think they'll actually put Sharon Carter in this season of Moon Night? Or is this a breadcrumb trail for the future? Sharon Carter, the power broker who is dealing in maybe some arts and antiquities in Madrepoor.

What do you think, Dave? I think it could just be potential setup for whatever we have for Layla coming up in the future, which we've seen different spinoffs from Marvel properties. we haven't necessarily expected. I don't know what sort of slot or genre a power broker, Layla, hybrid series could be. But I'd be looking forward to it. I just more think that, like, if anything, we're thinking, like, art theft and a debate between two Marvel's very excellent female characters about where artifacts should end up. And that sounds interesting.

Are you promising me Oceans 8, but in Madrepoor? You promised me like a heist movie? Oh yeah. That's what I want. Maybe they could steal something from the 10 rings. I love it. Love it. Jomey, how are you feeling about this?

Here's the thing. My secret school for life is Sharon Carter in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Because what they did to her character was some of the most heartbreaking and disturbing things I've ever seen in my entire life. So hopefully it's not about her. And, you know, maybe it's about like rescuing the real Sharon Carter, who would never, you know, do Captain America like that. You know what I was saying?

Yeah. Like, that's my hope, but. Not to mention Steve would never do Sharon like that. Oh, my Falcon, the Winter Soldier feelings are come flooding back. We don't have time to get into it. Okay, fair enough. Let's just, hopefully the Magipore thing, you know, does come, maybe does come up. And we get to, maybe we get to go back to, you know, our favorite Disney Plus TV island.

that's only mentioned in the TV shows and never in the movies. But we'll see. There's always a room. We'll see. Are we got two questions about Jake? First one comes from Tanner. Do we think a yet unseen

third alter ego was the culprit of Layla's father's death? Obviously, Mark seems to know more than he's letting on, but I seriously doubt his personal involvement. Perhaps he came post-blackout at the end, at the scene of the crime. And a second question.

Comes from Jake. Interesting. Were the fight scenes that we skipped in the first episode, actually his third personality? Definitely super violent. I have a lot of questions. I've been going back and forth on this one about the first episode question.

Because, yeah, when Stephen comes back to in that idyllic, I don't know, Belgian village or wherever he was, Like, there's a lot of blood and bodies on the ground, you know, and there's a lot of violence. And we know that Mark is not totally opposed to violence, but it feels like whenever there's, like, a lot of blood involved, perhaps it's not him. I don't know. What do you think about, Dave, about the first episode question? I like Jake being the extremes of this character.

So it could also be, like, the bloody violent one, but I also think he could possibly be very kind to Stephen. It doesn't seem like Mark necessarily cares that Stephen's there outside of when he needs him for specific Egyptology information. But, like, maybe it was Jake who set Stephen up on that date in episode one. And maybe it's not just the extreme violence scenes that are this third personality, but also some of the kindness at the edges of the story. I definitely think is Jake scamming on some ladies in the museum? 100%. 100%.

We've been talking about that. I think that in terms of the fight in episode one, my only pushback on that, like, so in theory, whoever is running the body in Europe is after the scarab, right? Like, that's what he's there for. And the scarab winds up and Mark's storage locker in his duffel bag. So I was trying to, like, think it through. Like, if that was Jake, what's the chain of custody on the scarp? How does it get into the duffel bag in the storage locker with all of Mark's, like,

passports and stuff like that, do you know? And Mark seemed to know it was there. I don't know. Jemmy, what do you think? I think that Jake is specifically like the violent one. And but I also have, this is like, this is just a theory I'm thinking, but like Jake is aware of Mark and Stephen.

So like when Stephen was like, who's Mark? Why are you calling me Mark? Like Jake knows that these guys are both here, but he's like, I got to do what I got to do. You feel? And so when he, like, killed those two dudes in Egypt, it was just like, I need, we need to give this information, regardless of whatever these two, these two Jibronis think. So the other option, yeah, the other option there, like to yes and your thing is that is Jake the one who never says no to Kansu. Like if Kansu's like, kill everyone, crush their windpipe, whatever, Jake's like, okay.

Excellent. I don't know what Jake's accent is. Perhaps he's southern. Who knows, but like, you know, a real New York Abby, who knows, but like, whatever his accent comes out, he's like, sure thing, you know, and, like, kills a bunch of people. I don't know. Yeah, I think Mark is capable enough to, like, when people are actively trying to kill him, you know, he'll, like, do what he's got to do, but he won't, like, just kill him and it's a person for no reason, right? Which is, like, I think, the step between him and Jake. Yeah, as for Tanner's question about Jake killing Layla's dad, as opposed to like, you know, we talked, we alluded to this before, but like as opposed to how in the comics, it's a character of Bushmen who they've said that they're not doing. We talked about that last week who kills Marlene's father, the archaeologist in the comics. Maybe it's not a third person. Maybe it's not another person. Maybe it's another facet of Marx personally. And that would make the guilt and the shame even more profound for him. How do you feel about that, Dave? I feel like that's some great character work

and a show that's been focusing on these three different personalities. And it also shifts, it gives Mark and Stephen something more to team up on as their relationship with her develops. So I like this sort of idea of anchoring this six-episode series

in sort of a trilogy of personality examinations. Jomey? Did Jake do it? Are you ready to pass judgment the way that the gods in the pyramid were ready to pass judgment without any evidence? Jake definitely did that thing. He guilty as hell. Oh, yeah.

For sure. For show. But today's point, like, that would bring Mark and Stephen together because, you know, they're both like, hey, man, we don't just be whaling like this, you know? So that could be something that. We have a code, right? Right? They could commiserate in the future.

So I really like that idea. I'm going to keep an eye. I'm going to keep an eye on that. All right. That's real cool. Cool. We got some Layla as Moonnight questions as well. First one comes from Honest Abe, 16th president, the guy on our $5 bill and the penny, which by the way, who needs pennies anymore? Show me's out here canceling pennies on a Friday morning. No, but like, you know, I know we have things to get to, but like, come on.

What is Kate, what is Kate Bishop going to flick at people? Exactly. Quarters, not pennies. Huge projectile quarters. It's not helping the end. Right? It's not like called the penny flip. It's the porter flip. Now, from our old pal Abraham Lincoln, does anyone think

Layla may become Amit's avatar? This past episode suggests Layla is a capable fighter and that there are other avatars and seems to foreshadow some sort of secret regarding the death of her father that may lead to conflict between her and Mark.

Finalee Showdown? Question mark, question mark, question mark. And Peter asks, since this phase of the MCU has been so occupied with mantle passing and given how much focus we got on Layla in episode three,

the moon necklace, eye emoji, and to Charles' point on how little we're seeing Oscar Isaac in the Moon Night costume, is it conceivable that Mae Kalamauai comes Conscious Avatar in the titular character by the end of the season in an effort to save Mark,

Stephen, or the world? What makes sense why Oscar Issaid is, is it only signed on for one season? I would say no to the Amit Avatar, though I would love to see the look on Ethan Hawke's face if he got beat to Avatar to them there. But Layla has much more of a code than even Mark, I would say. So I don't think she's going to go full evil this quickly.

Anyone else feel like Amit Avatar is on the cards for Layla? I don't think it's out of the question, because think about how much some character revelations we've already speculated about could push a person towards being able to actually judge somebody. In this episode, you know, she's basically told by Mark that she doesn't know him at all. So all of a sudden your husband's like completely pushing you off and maybe confesses to potentially murdering your father. Maybe what you need is some God powers to fight your God power bad husband.

Listen, you make some good points. However, Stevens here, and he looks just like Oscar Isaac, plus he can do puzzles and read French poetry. So I'm just saying. I don't think she'll turn on the homie. I think they, like, despite like, you know, the possibility that Mark may have, like, done in her father. I think, like you said, she's got a code and she's not like a, she doesn't. she doesn't seem like a super revengeal person. We might be wrong.

Like I might be wrong. She might just be like, she might just like, go nuts. But I don't think she's like that type of person. At least she doesn't seem like it. And so really, I think the question would be like to Peter, like, does she become moon night? Like if something happens to Mark Stephen, does she take up the mantle the way that Conschie was talking about her? I'd be interested to see that, honestly. the way that

I mean the only reason I don't want that for her is only because like the relationship with conscience seems like a kind of toxic one and I want like good things only Okay It's the worst Deeply toxic so I don't want that for her Something that we have been talking about

Mal and I have been talking about that Like was this idea that Rosie Knight I think first floated on nerdist Was this idea that She might be the Scarlet Scarab instead of a Moon Knight figure. There have been a lot of hints in that direction. You can hear us talk about that in previous episodes.

But I think that the idea that they might want to superpower her feels in the cards. But to your point, I think it's a really smart thing to have in their back pocket. Should Oscar as it be like, listen, I did six episodes. People didn't love it as much as I hoped they would. I'm really enjoying Moon Night. But the general response has been, I think, a little bit more muted than some of the other Marvel TV Disney Plus shows. So, you know, if they're like, okay, but we still want to do a Moonnight story.

So we have Layla here, a character that we've introduced. Dave, what do you think? Do you think, receive Layla in a shiny white costume? I mean, I think there's a way to sort of have their cake and eat it, too, with the idea of her becoming Conchus avatar, but Mark could stay Moon Knight if he wanted to. It depends sort of like how, I don't know, it depends how easy this church. transferring of avatars actually is because we have the idea that um uh, Kanchu can transfer avatars and obviously the other person doesn't have to be dead.

And, uh, we have no idea. We know that Amit can, was betrayed by the previous avatar. So it seems like a contentious relationship. Maybe they could bounce back and forth. Ooh, shared custody, joint custody of this toxic relationship. Or because, uh, the nature of Mark Stephen. question mark. Maybe they could

not have conshu, but also not be free of conschukes. At least in the comic books, their relationship in certain iterations goes back deeper into Mark's childhood. And also in the comic books, Moon Knight doesn't have like soup powers like he does in this iteration.

So there is some precedent for a depowered Oscar Isaac coming back to show up in Werewolf by Night or something, while there's also a Layla avatar. Yeah, I just think that, like, people will, the people who are already frosty

at the fact that, like, the Mr. Knight costume shows up without the Mr. Knight personality, which we talked about last week, I think we'll be even frostier if we get a Moon Knight character without the DID storyline, which is like a huge part of why that character has been interesting to people. Do you know what I mean? So if it's Layla in the suit,

with respect to the character of Layla, who I really like, that's not as different as, what Mark Spector is. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And it would be weird, I guess, if you are going to do something

like Midnight Suns down the line to be like, and here's the Layla version and be like, oh, why would you deny us the team up that we actually want here? There you go. I was thinking the same thing, Dave. I was thinking the same thing. I mean, I think that's the logical step

for the character personally. And the only reason he signed on for like one season was just because he didn't want those, he called them golden handcuffs on. But it's like he will come back for another season if he wants to. It's like they will give him money and that money will be dependent on how popular this series is. And that's like a fine way to play it. That's how television used to be played. Also, the last guy who was Conchus Avatar now puts glass in his, you know, slippers.

So I would much rather be the avatar of Conschu than have to put glass in my shoes every morning to be quite honest with true. Fair. Fair. I can't imagine giving that up. Right. Next question comes from Fist of Marvel. Marvel Ennead seems a little suspect. Arthur shows up pretty quick and informed to meet with Morgarth, not to mention zero investigation into Conschus claims. I think one or all of the gods might be working with Arthur. Thoughts? Yeah, I mean, we talked before about the extreme miscarriage of justice in the trial that we got in the pyramid.

But this idea that Arthur knows to crash the meeting over the sarcophagus. And the fact that he's called back to like dress down the statue, which he gets to do at the end of the episode. Like, why do they call him back? I don't know. I know this is a fun theory that's going around that there's like one of the Nied is like a double agent working with Arthur. Again, to Charles's point, I don't agree with fully everything Charles said about this, but when you're looking at we're halfway through the season, how many twists and turns do we want in our back pocket

or how much do we just want to see the culmination of the story we're watching? That's the question. Dave, what are you? I definitely think you can do mole or at least gods being sympathetic because we're in the age of Marvel where you can't trust your gods. Thanos was right all along, and now we're just getting lots of reasons why, you know,

it was maybe easier to just snap away half of all life and stop Celestials from being born. Dave, coming in hot with a hashtag Thanos was right. Dave, I didn't know Dave was Tianan. That's interesting. Wow.

Okay. Dave, deep state. You know? Oh, man. Dave, where were you on January 6th? That's my question. Yeah.

I'm definitely one of the people where because I've been arguing this point for so long when the sky just suddenly goes blurry I'm like, here we go again, man. The gods, what are they going to do? What do you think, Jomey? Gods, can't trust him? How do you feel?

At the end of the episode, you guys mentioned earlier. Dude literally brings Arthur back into the, to the starry, brings him back to the pyramid to see Koshu in stone. Like obviously they've got some going on the side. Like whatever it is, they got a deal or, you know, or friendly, whatever. But that's also the same dude who laid down the verdict and said, Kansu, stop playing with me.

You know, so there's got to be some good connection there. And hopefully we'll see it in future episodes. But yeah, man, he's definitely an op. Absolutely an op. You know, so we'll see to what extent in the future. But yeah, he's police, sure. Sure. Can't trust him.

Can't trust your gods. You know? Can't trust your gods. Can't trust your gods. Especially in Marvel. Christian Bailagreys. All right. Our next question comes from Joe.

If you were an Egyptian god and had to pick one person to be your avatar, who would you choose? Real people only. Ewan would be acceptable. Cartoon Obi-1, whatnot. Jolmi, what's your answer to this one? I'm going to go with Terrence Howard. Think about it. Think about Terrence Howard.

I'd be like, listen, man. You gotta stop playing with me, man. You know, you can't do, stop playing, stop doing this, man. Is this your, did you just debut your Terrence Howard impression on this podcast? No, no. Hey, man. Hey, come on, man. Now, man.

Stop playing with me, man. Jomey said you can't be out here like this, man. That'd be fun. I'd have a lot of fun with that. Dave, who's your avatar? I think it would be somebody famous that I could jump into. And let's say I wanted to go shirtless to awards ceremony. So I'll take Timothy Shalameh and jump into a little Willy Wonka when I want to.

That whole, I don't like any of your phrasing in any of that. I mean, I'm not a battle Egyptian god that doesn't seem like I'm like one of the music and dance Egyptian gods. So Timothy Shalamee really, really fits in there for his wayfishness. I'm having a real hard time. I literally just Googled non-problematic white women because I'm having a hard time thinking of it.

Sarah Paulson is good, right? Great, great. Sarah Paulson. Done. Done and Dustin. You know, you got to work between her, you know, Ryan Murphy's schedule.

Yeah, clear the decks. My favorite member of the Oceans 8 team, Sarah Paulson, come be in my avatar. Maybe you can get Oceans Nine made. That's what the streets really need. They've been

clamoring of her a jokey. They've been crying out for Oceans 9. Me, I have. I'm streets. Next question comes from Kate. Layla seems to have a pretty sweet moon-shaped necklace that doubles as a weapon. Perhaps given to her by a certain hubby. What moon-inspired weapon jewelry would you want to be given by Mark? Okay, a couple things. Really quickly. Layla has this incredible necklace that is also knives. Amazing. We love this for her. I love jewelry that can kill people. And a bunch of people are like, oh my God, what's the significance? This is a family heirloom? This is something like blah, blah. But she just left them in the chest of some dude she stabbed, right? She stabbed a dude and just left them there.

If they mattered to her at all, she would have yoink that back out and taken them with her. So I'm going to say the necklace is not that emotionally significant to her. If I were really, even if it weren't emotionally significant, I'd take my really pretty deadly necklace with me. So a couple things. Whatever it is, it also has to be able to kill people. That feels like a must to me. And I'm not leaving it behind. So what about like some kind of flail that like a bracelet that also operates as a flail?

It's a very heavy bracelet. But like something that I can just sort of like grab my hand, like shoot out, stab someone and bring it back to me and wrap it back around the wrist. It's not leaving my side. That's how I feel. Dave. Oh, I was going to say like a bracelet as well, but it has like little movement. dangleys and then you could switch it to like some brass knuckles and the moon danglies spike out. Spikes. Spikes.

I had the same thing with the brass knuckles, but it was like a ring. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, you know, one ring, but like, you know, you press a little button in the middle and then it turns into brass knuckles. Just a snicked? Yeah, yeah. So you're all snicked out sort of thing. Also, maybe whistling burr, like whistling burr is like Mando has, but they're little like moon things. They just fuck you up.

Little Crescents. Nice. Fly guy. They want to know. I am very new to Moon Night. I have never read the comics. Conschu mentioned healing properties. What powers does the suit hold?

This is a really good thing. This is something that I really wanted to get into, which is this idea of the powers in the show versus the powers in the comic book, because they're really different. In the comic book, and correct me from wrong, Dave. But in the comic book, like, there's this suit that is great. It's like the bat suit because we all know that Moon Night is like a huge rip off of Batman, right? So it's like the bat suit essentially.

And then in some versions of the comic, he has like special healing powers during the full moon. But he doesn't have like a suit that's bulletproof or you can run him through his spears and he's fine in the comics. Like that's, that's an exact, you know, and like all the extra stuff that we see and be able to do in the show. That's not really what's going on with the suit in the comic book. And I have a follow question about that for you, Dave. But Dave, did I get that? Did I get that right? Yeah, that's correct.

I mean, the power he most seems to have in the comic books is conschue could just, like, resurrect him when he dies. But I don't think that's bound to the suit as much as I could remember. But he doesn't have, like, super speed or like, you know. Strength or anything like that. Strength or anything like that. The other thing that I wanted to ask you, Dave, about is, like, this big question out of this episode was, like, why didn't Mark call the suit when he was doing the rooftop fight? Like, why didn't he do that? And a bunch of people have asked, like, are the suits powers tied to, like, can you only call it at night?

Are they tied to the moon? There's no comics canon for this at all. But a thought that I had, I'm sure plenty of people have had, is that this is like a, this is a digital suit. The Moon Knight costume is a digital suit, as are a lot of Marvel suits. My question for you, Dave, because you know a lot about, like, CGI and rendering than I do is, like, do you think he didn't call his suit during the day because the suit would look garbage in a daylight? fight in a way that it doesn't in a nighttime fight. Possibly. I'm going to say right now, just for story reasons, he didn't feel like he needed it. He seemed like Mark was, you know, sort of in control until he very much wasn't in the daytime fights.

But in terms of like comic book lore or whatnot, he could fight at any time of the day. So it's definitely they're making their rules as we see them. It's hard to say, it seems like this is the type of show that's going to tell you something. if it needs to be important. So I haven't put as much emphasis on world building by exclusion, which is what that would be if the suit just didn't show up in the day. I really feel like he would have said if Stephen, like if someone, he would have been like,

I can't call the suit during the day. Like, I feel like we would have heard that if that were a rule. And so it feels weird to me to just assume that. So I feel like it's a visual choice. I mean, do you agree with me that during stories telling aside, digitally, this is like, you know, goes all the way back to Luke's lightsaber needing to be green so that it doesn't disappear in a blue sky and Return of the Jedi. Like what digitally, visually, what would a white CGI suit look like on the sunny rooftops of Cairo?

The only thing I could think about off the top of my head, since they did have, you know, like physical versions of the suit that they now like display. So reference wouldn't be that hard. But the nice thing, everything about Moonnight is based around, you know, mostly him appearing in Moonlight. and especially things like his glowing eyes. So when you bring things out into daylight, you're having to basically match highlights and light levels in a way that maybe moonlight just doesn't look that good in the day. I don't think it necessarily is because they don't have the capability

to digitally render the suit more. It's just like the entire design of this suit has been for night fighting, and so they're going to use it. I know that I look better in the moonlight rather than the daylight. Jomi, do you have me lots of feelings about this? Yeah, so we talked about it a little bit on the midnight boys, but there is a question of like, what does the suit do? Like, actually? And the one thing, like, we know for sure is that, like, he can't die while we're in the suit because they literally pierce him with spears.

And he's like, all right, let's, let's handle this. You know, but in terms of, like, strength or anything like that, we just have, we have no idea. They haven't explained it to us. But Mark is pretty capable, like, on his own. And so for the most part, it's really just, are there any enhancements other than the healing? They don't let us know. But I mean, bullet fruit plurroup cape at the very least. Yeah.

And multi-replicating moons. Yeah, yeah. And never-ending moonerangs. So, you know. Yeah, that's what we know so far. So, I mean, maybe, well, there's a thing. My man Conschew in stone now. He ain't got the suit no, Mo.

The suits in storage. You get stabbed by a spear this time. miss a pack, you're done, you're finished. Yeah. Our last question comes from Jack. Rank the cape's cloaks. Bad cape, moon cape, cloak of levitation, Hogwarts cloaks.

I'm glad that they called it the cloak of levitation because I got in trouble once with the costume designer for calling it a cape. Don't ever call Dr. Strange's cloak a cape you will get in trouble. for me it has to go cloak of levitation number one because that thing has a whole personality and will defend you no matter what it can punch things it's it's got it all

hoggwarks cloak number two because invisibility very key very very very key moon cape number three because I don't know if you saw but it looks so cool when it becomes a moon and then the back cape I don't I don't know what purpose the bat cape really serves. Is it occasionally bulletproof? Who knows?

Dave, what do you think? Yes, it's occasionally bulletproof. In one movie, he covers himself with it, and it becomes like a liquid metal and stops like flame. The bat cape has a lot of things. But first of all, I would like to say, Jack, I encourage you to investigate Spahn because you're missing a pretty key cape here in your list of ranked capes. But going with this, at the very bottom.

I'm going to put the Hogwarts cloaks. They don't do anything. Invisibility. That's a invisibility, that cloak, not the Hogwarts cloaks. The Hogwarts cloaks are just, they're cloaks. Oh, you're talking about when we wear to class? Oh, yeah, bottom of the list. I mean, I'm going off of what the question said.

Okay. If it said, you know, they were very specific about the cloak of levitation and what that is. Anyway, Hogwarts cloaks, just fancy colors that you wear for formal occasions, bottom of the list. then I'm going to put moon cape just because although coolly shaped I do not have the athleticism to properly jump and make it moon so it just looks like a normal cape to me

when I'm wearing and using it then bat cape because as I mentioned before tons of powers but also user operated and then that's what cloak of levitation is at the top because that thing has a personality we can hang out and watch like I Love Lucy reruns and share some popcorn or something.

Jomey made a lot of faces. Like, I really disrespected the Bat Cape. So I'm ready for your take. Your Bat takes, Joey. And Deadlast is the Bat Cate. Thank you. What the Bat Cabe doing? What's the Bat Cap going to do?

It does just there for Vibs. Right? It's there so you can jump off the roof and glide. You know, I'm saying? Like, that's really it. You know, I'm sure there are, you know, iterations where the Bat Cape does something cool. But stock back cape, nah, it's just, that's boring.

I mean, quite honest to you. You know what? How much prep time you put into that cape? You know, I don't want to get into it right now. Thirdly, the Hogwarts cloaks, like Dave said, I don't, you know, some, they might be invisible, but they, you know, for the most part, you try to clasp. So that's coming to third. Second, Moon, Moon Cape, come on. Chris and Moon.

Like, how cool is that? Come on. How cool is that? That's super cool. And if you want to, Jomi, I don't know if you want to tell any personal life stories right now, but if you got like someone you want to wrap up and protect from bullets, that's what Mark does in this episode. Layla is safe because of the moon cave.

You got to be safe. You got to be safe. Hashtag be careful, Jomey. And first, the Coker levitation, that's the homie. That's the brother. You know what I'm saying? You know, hey, man, like you can have conversations. Like, hey, man, how you doing?

It's been a tough, but a tough time, bro. That's a special cape. That's the cape. That cape does everything. And it looks great doing it most of the time. Oh,

yeah. Dave, what about the NBC series, The Cape? Cape's so notable. It is on the Mount Capemore of Cates. I mean, yeah,

six seasons in a movie. Yeah. All right. Thank you, Jomey. Of course. Hey, and Mount, we love you.

We love you. Feel better. can't wait to have you back on the Ringiverse. All right, that does it for us this week. Dave, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. If you loved what you heard from Dave, you can hear us talking every week about a variety of things

on trial by content with our friend Neil Miller. Next week in honor of a rom-com week on the ringer.com. What are we doing, Dave? Oh, we're doing the cinema's best meet cute. It is bots of romantic couples. meeting and you'll get to hear sound clips of it and we'll get to talk about ones we left out. It is a romance-a-thon this Tuesday. You know, like the meet-cut of when Jake's knives met those people on the rooftops of Cairo, stuff like that. Real romantic stuff. Real cute.

Thanks as always to our listener, Whisperer Shadow Protocol and actor Jomea Dineron. Thanks, of course, to Steve Allman and our Junea Ram Kapal for additional production work. Mallory will be back soon. She'll be back on Monday talking about Fantastic Beasts. The Midnight Boys Pew Pugh will be back next Wednesday, talk about Moonnight episode four, which I have heard is a doozy. And then Mallory and I will be there to break it down on Friday. And then a lot of other stuff is happening.

I don't know if you've heard, but there's a lot of content on the horizon. We'll be here on the Ring and Verse, breaking it all down, or you can hear Dave and and be over on trial by content. Thanks so much, and we'll see you then. Bye! Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars.

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