The third episode of Marvel’s Moon Knight, “The Friendly Type”, winds up feeling like a puzzle-solving diversion for the most part, and that’s a bit frustrating considering there are only six of these bad boys in total and we’re halfway through them by the end of it, but we do get to learn some key information about Marc Spector and Layla El-Faouly during the events that play out, so it’s not a total loss.
Moon Knight continues to draw a crowd
We begin by focusing on Layla, Marc’s estranged wife and Khonshu’s preferred choice for a new Moon Knight avatar. Layla is getting ready to re-enter Egypt after a decade away, and she briefly touches on what happened before she left Egypt: her father died on an archaeological dig, but Layla has precious little information about what exactly happened on that fateful day. If you’re a fan of the Moon Knight comics, this is probably the full confirmation you needed that Layla is the MCU’s reshaped version of Marlene Alraune. You may also have some idea of what happened to her father.
Meanwhile, the golden scarab compass leads Arthur Harrow to Ammit’s tomb, and his followers begin their dig. He’s aware that Marc is tracking him, but he doesn’t really give a flying fig – Harrow is confident that the arrogant Khonshu will somehow mess it up, and sadly he’s not entirely wrong, is he?
In the city, Marc fights some punks on a rooftop for morsels of information about Harrow’s whereabouts, and we get a strong, daylit look at how Oscar Isaac’s Marvel Studios fight training has paid off – pretty good! We also establish that although Marc can be a brutal mercenary, he often stops short of being deadly with his human combatants. I suspect this information will become very important in later episodes.
Just a few more episodes left
When Marc threatens one of the men with a knife to the throat, he sees Steven begging him to stop in its reflection. He then flips into Steven and leaves the scene, with the men allowed to walk. Marc takes over again, fighting back Steven’s incursion, and resumes his pursuit. They’re naturally confused. “You just let us go, man!” they complain. “That wasn’t me,” Marc replies, before getting a nasty blow to the head.
When he awakens, Marc is covered in blood, and has killed some of the men at a remote location. He blames Steven, but Steven denies causing the bloodshed, and we believe him. We don’t get to meet the mysterious alt responsible for the carnage in this episode, but is it premature to assume that the missing Jake Lockley identity from the Moon Knight comics is already alive and kicking in the recesses of Marc Spector’s mind?
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