Moon Knight “Asylum” picks back up with Marc in front of Dr. Harrow in a facility in Illinois. His mind is vacillating between sense and nonsense. But which part is the actual nonsense? In order for Marc to find out, he’s going to have to dig into his past, with a little help from Steven and an Egyptian goddess named Taweret.
Taweret is the hippo who met Steven and Marc at the end of the last episode. She tells them that they are in the Duat, the Egyptian underworld. She’s going to guide them to an afterlife. First, they must weigh their hearts on the scales of justice. If the scales balance, then Marc and Steven will spend the afterlife in a field of reeds. If they can’t balance the scales, then they will be taken overboard and frozen in sand for all eternity. So now what? How do they balance the scales?
Marc and Steven have to take a trip down memory lane to balance their scales. There can’t be any more hidden secrets among them or they’ll never get out of here. They start to follow a little boy but end up in a room with a bunch of corpses. Steven is confused, but Marc knows exactly who they are. These people have all fallen victim to Khonshu’s punishment, all at the hands of his avatar, Marc. These are the worst of the worst, and Marc said he was always hoping he would fail, and one of them would kill him.
When they continue to follow the boy, they realize that he is a young version of Marc. We also see Marc’s brother, Randall. Steven is able to follow Marc and Randall, but Marc is not interested in seeing his past and what is looking to be a very bad day. Marc and Randall go to play in a cave, but they aren’t supposed to be there when it’s raining. As kids often do, they go anyway, but only Marc makes it out. Randall dies, and it’s a terrible accident. Only, that isn’t how his mother sees it. We see flashes of Marc’s life where his mother continues to blame him for Randall’s death. She abuses Marc and spirals further and further. This is when we finally learn how Steven was introduced.
When Marc wanted to escape his life, he created Steven Grant. Steven’s life was supposed to be the charmed life. He wasn’t supposed to see the abuse. He was supposed to be normal. A few years back, Marc’s mother died, but Steven doesn’t understand. He talks to his mother every day. How could his life be such a lie? He starts to panic and ends up in front of Dr. Harrow, who is very excited to be speaking with Steven now.
Dr. Harrow tells Steven that he’s the one who brought him and Marc to the psych ward in the first place. At their mother’s funeral, we see Marc deliberately bring out Steven again. When Steven wakes up in a strange place, he calls his mom to tell her he’s lost again. He’s still happy-go-lucky Steven even though he doesn’t know where he is or why. I’m also curious what he thinks he’s hearing on the other end of the phone call.
Once Steven learns the truth of his creation, he makes a point to tell Marc that his brother’s death was not his fault. He was a child, and Randall’s death was an accident. His mother was wrong to treat him that way. And it’s a shame that his dad knew about the abuse and didn’t get her help, or at least, he didn’t know how else to help her. Just when you think this is it, the scales are not balanced. It’s time for them to be taken overboard and forever encased in sand. Even though we could all see it coming, I was still sad to see Steven sacrifice himself for Marc. He puts himself in harm’s way and ends up overboard, slowly turning to stone.
Marc is attempting to reach the land of the living, but at the end of the episode, we see him in a field. Does this mean he reached his afterlife? If so, what’s next for the real world? Will Layla have to step in as Khonshu’s avatar? Will Marc be able to get a message to her if he can’t come back to life? With only one episode left in the miniseries, I can’t wait to see how they wrap this all up. I’m loving these short series because we get just enough of a story while still keeping it contained in one season.
