A truly fun ride came before it, though. For me, Moon Knight was an utterly unique experience in the MCU: one I had absolutely no knowledge or preconceptions of beforehand. I'd never heard of the Moon Knight character before the show was announced. And it being a TV show on a streaming service, there were no trailers forced on me before another movie, no commercials I ever caught a glimpse of.
I knew only two details about Moon Knight before watching it: it starred Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke. And that knowledge really did nothing to spoil secrecy or set expectations. Isaac is a chameleon-like actor who never gives the same performance twice, while Hawke's tastes for scripts range widely from shoot-em-ups to horror movies to hard science fiction to meditative drama. Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke could star in ten more projects together, and none of them would be anything like Moon Knight.
Going in dark turned the roller coaster that is an MCU experience into Space Mountain. With each new episode, I would think I'd get a sense of what I was watching, and then be surprised when some strange new element was injected into the narrative. Right now, the MCU marketing engine (which I could escape only the one time, for Moon Knight) is out there proclaiming how this weekend's Doctor Strange sequel is going to be an unpredictable thrill ride in which anything could happen. But I know that's what they're promising, and that sets expectations. Moon Knight simply was surprising.
And, of course, the casting was as wonderful as I would have hoped for. Oscar Isaac gives an outstanding performance that remains emotionally connected even as it grows increasingly technically complicated. I'd say more, but if you've watched Moon Knight, you know what I'm talking about; and if you haven't watched Moon Knight, I'd much prefer you have the same uninformed experience I had. Meanwhile, Ethan Hawke gives us one of the more compelling and nuanced villains we've had in the MCU in years and years. (As one who was utterly unimpressed by Thanos, I'll say Hawke's character is easily the best since Killmonger.) I'll also add that I enjoyed May Calamawy -- even though it was hard for her to find good moments opposite the towering performance of Oscar Isaac.
However... the final episode was utterly unsatisfying to me. The MCU often struggles to infuse their inevitable CG-on-CG action climaxes with emotional stakes, so that element here wasn't a particular disappointment. The abruptness with which everything just suddenly ended was. The conclusion feels like everyone just ran out of time, money, interest, something -- and simply decided to stop telling the story. Yes, it's another MCU trope to tease "what comes next," except in this case, there's nothing firm coming next. There's no word of whether Moon Knight will have a season two. There's no word if the character is moving on to the movies (which I think would actually annoy me, retroactively turning this whole thing into some sort of weird "prologue"). To be clear, I'm not suddenly miffed over a cliffhanger. This felt less like a cliffhanger and more like the book I was reading was missing the last 30 pages.
Indeed, the final episode of Moon Knight soured me enough that I'd have to rate the whole series a B. Which is a shame, because from just the first 5 episodes, I would have called it a B+ or even (owing to the inexhaustible charisma and skill of Oscar Isaac) an A-. I know, I know... it's supposed to be the destination, not the journey. I should have known that no matter how "square peg" Moon Knight felt to me along the way, it was eventually going to be forced into the "round hole" of its place in the MCU formula.
Though for all that, it was still pretty damn good...
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