Who Is The Character Revealed In Moon Knight Episode 4's Final Moments?
Spoilers for the latest episode of "Moon Knight" follow.
We're now 4 weeks into Marvel's "Moon Knight" and just when viewers may have lulled themselves into a false sense of security, settling themselves into an adventure story with supernatural elements along the lines of "The Mummy," last night's episode may have flipped the script entirely on its head. For much of the runtime, Oscar Isaac's dueling identities of Steven Grant and Marc Spector team up with May Calamawy's Layla El-Faouly to explore an ancient Egyptian tomb in a race against both time and the sinister Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke). The cult leader, bent on locating the tomb of the Egyptian god Ammit and unleashing the uncontrollable power at all costs, remains driven by an obsession far more terrifying than the standard superhero property's antagonist. All of the show's varying threads come to a head amid the sarcophagus of what's revealed to be Alexander the Great ... and then things go truly haywire.
When Harrow shoots Marc multiple times at point-blank range and it appears as if "Moon Knight" is about to kill off its lead only two thirds of the way through the season (and if you truly believed that, I have a tomb full of priceless ancient Egyptian artifacts to sell you), the series takes a turn for the bizarre when he wakes up in what appears to be a mental hospital ... with Harrow himself as the main therapist. Once he makes his frantic escape, Marc somehow comes face-to-face with Steven, trapped in a sarcophagus (naturally) in a secluded room. Together, the pair make their way down a hallway (past another sarcophagus, possibly containing the mysterious third identity) and run into the most unexpected new reveal of them all.
You likely have questions after this episode of "Moon Knight" scrambled your brain, and hopefully we'll have answers for you. Read on for all the information we could scrounge together about the surprising new character revealed at the end of "Moon Knight" episode 4.
Once again, expect nothing but spoilers (and informed speculation!) past this point.
Meet Tawaret
First of all, how many of you picked up on some extremely light foreshadowing way back in "Moon Knight" episode 1? Only a little less than 7 minutes into the story, poor put-upon Steven Grant is helping out overbearing museum manager Donna (Lucy Thackeray) with the inventory at the end of his shift as a "gift shopist." In a (seemingly) throwaway line, Donna casually tells Steven to pick up a box of hippo stuffed animals, which he mentions is meant to evoke the Egyptian goddess Taweret. And wouldn't you know it, a few episodes later and in entirely different circumstances altogether, both Steven and Marc end up encountering a giant and slightly terrifying embodiment of another hippo, bursting through the hospital door in royal Egyptian regalia and uttering a single line of dialogue ("Hi!") that sends both personalities screaming for their lives.
Though the episode subsequently cuts to black, leaving viewers to ponder this shocking cliffhanger (along with whether anything we've been watching all along actually happened) for another whole week, it seems clear that this is meant to be some sort of depiction of Tawaret herself, the Egyptian goddess of childbirth and fertility. Given that Khonshu has already been making regular appearances throughout the series to this point and that it sure seems as if we're heading towards a confrontation with Ammit in physical form, why not throw Taweret at us as well?
Eagle-eyed viewers may have already noted that half-Egyptian actor Antonia Salib has been credited on IMDb as Tawaret in "Moon Knight," leading us to believe that she is voicing this unexpected new character. Intriguingly enough, creator Jeremy Slater appears to be going way off the beaten path with this development, as Tawaret doesn't seem to have appeared at all in the annals of Marvel Comics. Traditionally, however, the Egyptian goddess has been depicted in myth as an amalgamation of a walking hippo with human breasts, limbs of a lion, and a crocodile-like tail. The incredibly brief glimpse we get of Tawaret in "Moon Knight" seems to point towards a much more straightforward design, with no inkling of how she may figure into the plot moving forward.
We're as curious as you are about the new course "Moon Knight" is set to take in the weeks ahead and, specifically, what role Tawaret may play.