Moon Knight’s head writer has opened up about that wild twist in the Marvel show’s fourth episode. Spoilers for Moon Knight follow. If you haven’t watched episode 4, look away now.
Around two-thirds of the way through this week’s Moon Knight, Marc Spector is shot by Ethan Hawke’s Arthur Harrow at Alexander the Great’s tomb and is seemingly killed. Except, it doesn’t end there – and things get very, very weird.
Marc wakes up in a psychiatric hospital and we discover that the persona of Steven Grant is actually the name of a fictional adventurer in VHS bargain bin mainstay Tomb Busters. Marc then meets Steven (who was locked in a sarcophagus) and, at the episode's end, the pair encounter a high-pitched hippo. Like I said, things get weird.
For head writer Jeremy Slater, there was never any trepidation in going all the way and ‘killing’ Moon Knight in his own show.
"I knew a show like this needs big swings and it needs to take the audience by surprise," Slater told Marvel’s official website.
For Slater, that way into the weird and wonderful scenes found in Moon Knight episode 4 found its genesis in the introduction of the mysterious hippo figure, an Egyptian god by the name of Taweret.
Slater described a moment in the writers’ room that encapsulated that approach, "I interrupted whatever we were talking about and I was like, ‘Guys, we have something much more important, which is, how do I get this hippo into the show?"
He added, "I think that was the first moment everyone realized, oh, we have permission to get weird, here. We have permission to do some things you wouldn't necessarily get to do if you weren't working at a place like Marvel Studios… This gave me my weird swing."
For more from Moon Knight, check out why the latest episode has all but confirmed the Disney Plus series’ most popular fan theory, plus all the fan reactions to the show’s deadly twist. If you're not signed up already, subscribe to Disney Plus here.
