Recap / Moon Knight (2022) S1E4 "The Tomb"

"We've won."

Written by Alex Meenehan, Peter Cameron, and Sabir Pirzada, and directed by Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson.

Steven and Layla arrive at Ammit's tomb, but Harrow's cult isn't the only danger waiting for them there.

Released April 20, 2022.

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Tropes:

• Absurdly Sharp Blade: For having lain around in a tomb for 2323 years, the adze Marc throws is still razor-sharp.
• All Just a Dream: Subverted. After Marc is shot, it seems like all of the events of the series were imagined or hallucinated by Marc, who is a mental patient, and that the elements of the series were based off of his surroundings. But then, it quickly becomes clear that it is the hospital that isn't real.
• Almost Kiss: Just as Layla is about to kiss Steven, he pulls away and explains to her the truth about why Marc was trying to push her away (namely, he didn't want her to become Khonshu's new avatar). Once that conversation ends, and it becomes clear that Layla still wants to kiss him, Steven obliges.
• Ancient Tomb: Steven/Marc and Layla find the tomb of Ammit's avatar and explore it.
• And I Must Scream: Implied. When the wall of ushabtis where Khonshu and other gods are sealed away is shown, what sounds like several distant voices screaming can be heard.
• An Arm and a Leg: While fighting the Heka priest, Layla snaps one of its hands off. The priest just tries to stab her with the broken piece of bone left sticking out of its arm.
• Armor-Piercing Response: During their conversation in the truck on their way to the tomb, Layla berates Steven for making a deal with Marc about the latter leaving her life for her safety. Then Steven notes that Marc left her already before he met him, which silences Layla for a moment.
• Artistic License – History: Steven discovers that the maze is in the shape of the Eye of Horus. While this is technically correct, the eye he draws is a mirrored Eye of Horus, which is actually called the Eye of Ra.
• Ascetic Aesthetic: The asylum world is all white, including the decorations in Dr. Harrow's office, with all the employees and patients dressed in white.
• Aspect Ratio Switch: After Marc is shot, it cuts to a boxy VHS-style format where it shows a scene of the Tomb Buster movie that is implied to have inspired Marc's delusions that he is an archaeologist superhero.
• Awkward Kiss: Immediately after interrupting Layla's attempt to kiss him by revealing that Marc was pushing her away to protect her, Steven kisses her himself. Be it the information just dropped on her or a case of No Sparks, Layla is clearly not as into it as she was when she tried to initiate moments before.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Marc and Steven spend most of the episode sniping at each other, and Marc punches their shared face to punish Steven for kissing Layla; when Marc finds Steven in the asylum world, the first thing they do is hug.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • After Marc is shot, we cut to what we're led to believe is a flashback to Harrow's or possibly Layla's father's days as a swashbuckling archeologist. Then it's revealed that it's just a scene from an old adventure film being played to a drugged Marc in a mental asylum full of people with similar faces to characters from the past three episodes.
  • Marc finds someone banging on a sarcophagus, implied to be the third alter, but it opens to reveal Steven. However, shortly afterward they find a second sarcophagus (the actual third alter) shaking violently but wordlessly, which they ignore in favor of continuing to search for a way out.
  • Who encounters Marc and Steven at the end of the episode? Director Harrow? His orderlies? No, it's... a friendly hippo goddess with the voice of a young woman.
• Bat Deduction: When Layla points out that the chamber that they're in has six paths, Steven's first guess, which turns out to be correct, is to connect it to the Eye of Horus.
• Batman Gambit: Harrow reveals the circumstances of Layla's father's death, implying that Marc was responsible, gambling that she'll confront Marc about it and buy time for his forces to catch up with them. Sure enough, that's exactly what happens.
• Beast in the Maze: The tomb is a maze in the shape of the eye of Horus, populated by undead Heka priests that attack intruders.
• Behind the Black: At the end of Steven and Layla's truck ride, Steven announces "It's just you and me and the open road." Cue her braking hard in front of a huge mountain face, which Steven would have been able to see before dropping his line.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Downplayed, as most of the gore is implied, rather than shown, but the undead priests of Ammit's tomb kill several of Harrow's men in messy ways, leaving large smears of blood on the floor, and one priest is shown (mostly offscreen) gutting one of them to place his organs in canopic jars. There's also a grisly scene where one of the priests tries to stab Layla with a jagged broken bone after she breaks off its hand.
• Bottomless Pits: Layla comes across one in the Temple of Doom, and the flare she drops into it never seems to hit ground.
• Brick Joke: In episode 1, Donna tells Steven that if he doesn't stop nattering, she'll shove him into a sarcophagus. Come episode 4, Marc finds Steven locked in a sarcophagus.
• Bring My Brown Pants: Discussed. Steven, geeking out over the sphinx statues, gushes, "If they just sprang to life and asked me a riddle, I'd be thrilled. I'd shit myself, but I'd be thrilled."
• Brought Down to Badass: Even without Khonshu's powers, Marc still has his extensive mercenary experience to draw on, and he takes down a few of Harrow's men before Harrow shoots him.
• Brought Down to Normal: With Khonshu sealed away, Marc and Steven no longer have access to their armor. This means that they can't deflect — or, potentially, survive — the bullets from Arthur's revolver.
• But You Were There, and You, and You: The mental asylum sequence has people and props from the past three episodes appearing in some way, from the goldfish to the cupcake.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The flares that Layla kept on hand are used as a makeshift weapon.
  • Also, when Steven and Layla get to the entrance of Ammit's tomb, there's an ancient, bloodstained tool lying in the sand. Shortly afterward, we see the undead priest using a similar implement to kill one of Harrow's people.
• Creepy Cleanliness: Everything in the asylum where Marc finds himself is white and clean to a disturbing degree.
• Cuckoo Nest: Marc wakes up in a mental hospital with the patients and staff being comprised of past characters we've met on the show, being told that everything that has happened so far is all in his head, and main villain Harrow is his psychiatrist.
• Curse of the Pharaoh: The tomb is guarded by undead Heka priests who wake in response to the cult breaching the entrance. Steven also quips that opening Alexander the Great's sarcophagus is probably not a good idea, but nothing comes of that or defiling the corpse to get Ammit's ushabti.
• Defensive "What?": After Layla blows up the men that were shooting at them with a flare, we see that Steven has woken up and is looking in shock. Layla's reaction is dismissive "What?"
• Defiant to the End: Surrounded by Harrow's followers, Marc opts to go out fighting, attacking his nearest enemies and trying to kill Harrow before being gunned down.
• Double-Meaning Title: "The Tomb" can refer to the tomb of Alexander the Great, or the Cuckoo Nest mind asylum intended to be Marc and Steven's tomb. There are even actual sarcophagi to drive it home.
• Double Tap: Arthur's too smart to leave Marc's fate to chance, shooting him twice for good measure.
• Draw Aggro: In the opening scene, Layla lures the attackers away from Steven by lighting a flare.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Plushies of Taweret were among the toys in the gift shop in the first episode.
• Eye Scream: Layla stabs the eye of a mummy priest trying to kill her with a lit flare.
• Failed a Spot Check: The attackers in the opening scene watch Layla and Steven tumble down a dune, but only find Steven and a truck. In their search for Layla, they somehow neglect to check the truck's interior.
• Four Is Death: The fourth episode of the show is the same episode where Marc is killed.
• Freak Out: The episode ends with Marc and Steven screaming at Taweret, the hippo goddess talking to them.
• Gainax Ending: Most of the episode is dead-serious, with Steven and Layla tomb-raiding, fending off a Mummy, discovering (and desecrating) Alexander the Great's mummy, etc. The episode ends, however, with Marc and Steven finding Taweret, a hippo-headed, plus-sized, CG-rendered goddess with a cute high-pitched voice who gives them a good-natured "Hi!"
• Games of the Elderly: ... And Insane. A game of bingo is used to entertain the inmates at the asylum.
• Girls Stare at Scenery, Boys Stare at Girls: When they enter the tomb, there is a moment where Steven affectionately stares at Layla while she looks concerned at their path ahead.
• Gory Discretion Shot: When the mummy priest kills and guts one of Harrow's men, the camera keeps the shot fuzzy in the background, focusing mostly on Steven and Layla's reactions, with only brief shots of the organs being placed in a jar.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Marc gets mad at Steven for kissing his wife. He forces Steven to punch himself in the face and then jump into a hole several feet deep, landing face-first.
• Gutted Like a Fish: The undead priest guts one of Harrow's men and begins placing his innards in a canopic jar.
• Hell Is That Noise: The undead priest makes clicking sounds instead of anything resembling speech.
• Historical Domain Superperson: It turns out that the pharaoh who was Ammit's voice and avatar but eventually betrayed her was Alexander the Great.
• Honesty Aesop: Layla tells Steven that she doesn't need protection, but honesty. She heavily implies that she likes Steven so much because he is an honest person, and the conversation leads to them kissing, showing that it was mainly Marc's dishonesty to Layla that alienated the two.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: A mook in the back of a slow-moving pickup truck can't hit Layla from 20 yards away with a .50 caliber machine gun. It also never occurs to him to just shoot right through the car she hides behind. Frankly, he deserved his fate.
• Insistent Terminology: Discussed. Steven points out that as a pharaoh, Alexander the Great insisted on being called Egyptian, despite being Macedonian by birth.
• Internal Reveal: Steven telling Layla about Marc trying to protect her from becoming Khonshu's avatar, and Marc telling Layla that it was his mercenary partner that killed her father.
• Ironic Echo:
  • Steven cries out "We won!" when he holds out Ammit's ushabti figure. Later, when Marc is in the mental asylum, he sees Layla whispering "We won!" with a bingo card.
  • Before killing Marc, Harrow states that he can't save people who won't save themselves. When Marc hears Director Harrow say this in the asylum, he realizes that it is nothing more than an illusion, and he makes a break for it.
• Jump Scare: Layla being suddenly dragged into the darkness by a mummy. Even if you expect it, a jump is guaranteed.
• Kidnapped from Behind: Layla gets snatched from behind by an undead creature while she is scaling the ledge, dragging her into the darkness. It's then played with when she breaks free, as it grabs her again, and she gets free again before it chases her out into the light.
• Kid Sidekick: The "great Dr. Steven Grant" from the Tomb Buster film has one who seems to be an expy of Short Round.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Steven's psychiatrist does this in-universe. He tells Steven upfront that they don't live in a material world, but a psychic one. Then he proceeds to explain that when we interact with the world, we're only interacting with our ideas of the world.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: Downplayed. Steven goes to check out a potential alternative exit and is therefore separated from Layla when the undead priest shows up. However, they remain in the same room, as the exit is located up on a balcony-like structure.
• Lying to Protect Your Feelings: Layla is annoyed that Marc didn't tell her that he cut her off to protect her from Khonshu.
• MacGuffin-Person Reveal: Played with. Harrow tells Layla that she is the legendary scarab, rather than the golden scarab they were fighting over in the first two episodes. She did lead them to Ammit's tomb, so there's that.
• Match Cut: The light that Marc seems to fall into turns into the flashlight that a character in Tomb Buster is holding.
• Mind Screw: Marc gets shot by Harrow, falls into a pool of water behind his sarcophagus, and wakes up in an asylum. He tries to escape, find a sarcophagus containing Steven, and then they run into an Egyptian hippo goddess.
• Mind Prison: The asylum is heavily implied to be this, and Marc certainly believes this to be the case. It also contains two sarcophagi, one containing Steven and another unopened one containing an as-yet unrevealed alter, making it an actual prison for Marc and his fellow alters.
• Mistaken for Flirting: When Steven and Layla are inside the tomb, Steven exclaims "Oh, wow, look at you!" Layla thinks he said it to her and chuckles sheepishly before she realizes that he said it to the statue behind her.
• Mood Whiplash: The final ten minutes go from Marc dying, to a cheesy Indiana Jones rip-off, to subtle psychological horror in the mental asylum and the paranoia of a third alter wanting out, to Marc and Steven screaming at a hippo goddess saying hello.
• Mummy: The tomb where Ammit is imprisoned is guarded by undead Heka priests who were mummified and entombed alongside her last Avatar. Harrow's cult breaching the tomb causes them to reanimate and attack any and all intruders, sacrificing and mummifying them as well.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The backstory Marc gives about his greedy partner who killed Layla's father and left Marc for dead is nearly identical to the backstory of Raoul Bushman, Marc's partner in the comics, who killed the father of Marc's wife Marlene and shot Marc, leaving him for dead. Whether or not we'll see Bushman in the flesh is yet to be seen.
  • The scene of Marc being in an asylum and its director stating the events of the series were just something he made up in his mind comes from the 2016 run by Jeff Lemire.
  • Layla in the asylum has a bandage around one of her fingers with a red scarab drawn on it. This is another nod linking her to the comic book character Scarlet Scarab.
• Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: Marc when he picks up an axe only to realize that it's no good against Harrow's men, who show up equipped with firearms.
• Never My Fault: After shooting Marc, Harrow somberly says that he can't save people who won't save themselves, implicitly blaming Marc for Harrow having shot him.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Layla insists on confronting Marc about her father's death immediately instead of getting out of the tomb, which gives Harrow and his men the time to catch up to them... which was what Harrow had counted on when he told her about Marc's involvement in her father's murder.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: With Marc cornered and refusing to surrender, Harrow simply pulls out a revolver and shoots him twice in the chest the moment he gets an opening.
• Nothing Is Scarier:
  • Layla finds several bullet cases lying around the maze and ominously asks what they possibly could have been firing at in there. It takes a while until this question is answered, which adds to the suspense.
  • After Marc gets Steven out of the sarcophagus in the mind-asylum, they come across a second sarcophagus, rocking even more violently and noticeably lacking a yelling voice — heavily implied to be the kill-happy third alter. They wisely leave it alone.
• Not So Stoic: Harrow is visibly sweating throughout the episode, though it's unclear whether that's from the heat of Egypt or the fear of being underground with Ammit's guards (who have already killed several of his men).
• Peek-a-Boo Corpse: In the Show Within a Show, the Kid Sidekick accidentally activates a mechanism that causes a hanged skeleton to drop from a vine above.
• The Precarious Ledge: Layla has to navigate one when trying to escape the Heka priest in the Temple of Doom.
• Relative Button: Harrow gets under Layla's skin by bringing up her father's death.
• The Reveal:
  • Marc was there the day Layla's father was killed, after his partner got greedy and killed everyone, Marc nearly included.
  • The tomb of Ammit is revealed to also be the tomb of Alexander the Great, who was Ammit's last avatar.
  • Steven Grant the alter was based on Steven Grant the character in an old archaeologist film Marc was watching (the character himself, ironically, resembles Arthur Harrow).
• Riddling Sphinx: Steven references this trope when he is gushing over the sphinx statues at the tomb's entry.
  Steven: Like, if they just sprang to life right now and asked me a riddle for passage, I'd be thrilled. I'd shit myself, but I'd be thrilled.
• Run or Die: Once the undead priest discovers Layla, Steven screams at her to run.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: Steven does this when he and Marc unexpectedly come face to face with Taweret.
• Shout-Out:
  • Marc's favorite movie appears to be a mashup of archeology movies Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones, with a side of Ghostbusters.
  • The whole Cuckoo Nest situation at the asylum with the patients and orderlies being comprised of characters we've previously met and the main villain being the protagonist's main psychiatrist who also has a cane in both the real world and the hospital is heavily reminiscent of The Darkness II, which preceded the Lemire run in the comics this sequence also draws from.
  • When Harrow confronts Marc in the tomb of Alexander the Great, he says "The rest is silence", which are the last words of Hamlet before he dies.
• Show Within a Show: Marc is seen watching a movie called Tomb Buster in the asylum, which his doctor lampshades as being where he got the "Steven Grant" alter from.
• Slow-Motion Fall: Marc's fall backwards into the pool after being shot by Harrow is played in slow motion.
• So Much for Stealth: Layla accidentally knocks over one of the canopic jars while crawling away from the undead priest.
• Stock Unsolved Mysteries: This episode has the characters uncovering the location of the famously-lost tomb of Alexander the Great.
• Stop Hitting Yourself: Marc briefly takes control of the body to punch Steven in the face after Steven kisses Layla.
• Stop, or I Shoot Myself!: Marc threatens to throw them off a cliff if Steven tries anything with Layla. When he has to make good on it, it's not quite a cliff, but a fairly deep hole in the ground.
• Stylistic Suck: From what is seen of Tomb Buster, it seems to be an '80s VHS film resembling a cheap Indiana Jones knockoff, full of unconvincing sets, hammy acting, and bad special effects. Harrow jokes about its production values, doubting many people other than Marc have seen it.
• Swallow the Key: Ammit's ushabti is hidden inside Alexander the Great's throat, which, Steven reasons, was a safety measure against thieves, since they would be more likely to pilfer the valuables than tear apart the corpse looking for a specific item. It may also have symbolism to it, as Steven comes up with the idea to check there because Alexander was the voice of Ammit.
• Symbolic Serene Submersion: Marc receives what seems to be two fatal shots to his chest, falls backwards, and is slowly submerged into a pool of water sinking towards a bright light at the bottom while a One-Woman Wail plays on the soundtrack.
• Taking the Bullet: One of Harrow's followers throws himself in front of Harrow when Marc tries to throw an axe at him.
• This Way to Certain Death: When Steven sees the blood trail and skeleton at the exit of the priest chamber, he desperately looks around for another less threatening path.
• Three-Act Structure: Harrow shoots Marc 35 minutes into a 50 minute episode, which is the fourth of six in the season. It's as close to exactly two-thirds of the way through the season as they could manage.
• Throwing the Distraction: Layla throws one of the canopic jars at the wall to distract the undead priest when it notices Steven up on the balcony.
• Trapped-with-Monster Plot: Steven and Layla find themselves trapped in a room with one of the undead priests.
• The Un-Reveal: After Marc frees Steven from his sarcophagus, another sarcophagus is seen with someone trying to get out of it, presumably the third alter, but we don't get to see who it is.
• Villain Reveals the Secret: Harrow already alluded to some dark side within Marc to Layla in the last episode. Here he finally reveals to her what he saw when judging Steven with the Scales of Ammit, which is that Marc was there the day Layla's father was killed. Similarly to the previous episode, he manages to imply (falsely, as it turns out) that Marc was responsible without ever directly saying so, even pointing out, "You said it, not me," to Layla when she asks if he's saying Marc killed him.
• Visions of Another Self: After Marc is shot by Harrow, the setting suddenly shifts to a mental asylum where Marc is a patient. Layla, Donna, and other characters are portrayed as patients also, while Harrow is a psychologist, and his men are orderlies.
• Visual Pun: One of the items Marc connects to Harrow while in the mental asylum is someone wearing a pair of crocs. Ammit is an Egyptian god with the head of a crocodile.
• Vocal Dissonance: Taweret, who is shaped like a large woman with the head of a hippo, has a youthful, high-pitched voice.
  Taweret: [cheerfully] Hi!
• Was It All a Lie?: Layla is distraught by thinking that her marriage with Marc was all for him to ease his guilt for not saving her father.
• Wham Episode: Arthur Harrow shoots Marc, causing him to fall into a pool of water, and as he sinks he ends up in a mental asylum world alongside a physical Steven. As they try to escape, they come face-to-face with another Egyptian god, Taweret, who looks like an anthropomorphic hippo.
• Wham Line:
  • For history buffs out there, Steven discovering Macedonian writing in a tomb that is obviously for a great Pharaoh is a huge hint that we are dealing with Alexander the Great.
  • As Marc falls into the pool of water, it changes into an adventure in the jungle where a young boy meets an archaeologist who he calls, "Dr. Steven Grant".
  • When Marc finds a sarcophagus, he hears Steven screaming to get out.
• Wham Shot:
  • At the beginning of the episode, we see Selim place Khonshu's ushabti on a clay ledge. The camera pans out to reveal a whole wall of such ledges with ushabtis on them.
  • Everything about the mental asylum sequence could qualify actually, but the most prominent ones:
    • The switch from Marc dying to an old archaeological adventure movie that's being watched in the asylum, with the main character called Dr. Steven Grant.
    • The long, long tracking shot through the asylum common room showing almost every character of any real significance in the show (including some who are dead) as either patients or orderlies.
    • Marc finding Steven in a sarcophagus — in a separate body.
    • Shortly after Marc finds Steven in a sarcophagus, there's an ominous shot of a second sarcophagus, with no voice begging to be let out but shaking much more violently.
    • After finding and freeing Steven, both he and Marc go to escape the mental asylum, only to come face to face with Taweret — a talking hippo goddess.
• White Shirt of Death: Steven/Marc get shot to death dressed all in white, then wake in an all-white asylum.

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"Hi!"
[cue screams]

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