In Moon Knight, Aaron Moorhead says that Marc and Steven’s hug in episode 4 was based on how they said goodbye in the comic books.
Warning! Episode 4 of Moon Knight is coming up, and there will be spoilers in this text.
During episode 4, Marc Spector and Steven Grant hugged. Aaron Moorhead, the Moon Knight director, says that it was inspired by a comic book moment. The new live-action series from the Marvel Cinematic Universe premiered on Disney+ on March 30. Oscar Isaac stars in a six-episode limited series about a man who has dissociative identity disorder and has to live with it (DID). One of his alters is Steven Grant, a mild-mannered employee at a gift shop who doesn’t know about the DID system. In turn, his other personas include the mercenary Marc Spector, who became the avatar for the Egyptian moon god Khonshu (voiced by F. Murray Abraham). With Isaac in the lead role, Moon Knight also features Ethan Hawke as Arthur Harrow, May Calamawy as Layla El-Faouly, and the late Gaspard Ulliel as Anton Mogart,
Episode 4, “The Tomb,” looked like a typical tomb-robbing episode until the last part. It then surprised viewers by pulling the rug out from under them. Arthur comes and shoots Marc/Steven and Layla twice in the chest after they find Alexander the Great’s tomb. Marc then wakes up in a psychiatric hospital where he sees a lot of people he knows. People like Layla and Marc have the same doctor, Harrow. As he tries to get away, Marc finds his other personality in a box. After freeing Steven, the two embrace. Then, to their surprise, a friendly hippopotamus shows up. Now, the director of Moon Knight has said that the touching moment between Steven and Marc was inspired by Marvel Comics.
Michael Moorhead, who is part of Mohamed Diab’s directorial team with Justin Benson, talked about having Marc and Steven meet. The director said the characters’ instinct to “hug” was inspired by writer Jeff Lemire’s run on Moon Knight, and that they’re really proud of the moment. The full quote is below.
“It’s a little weird, but it makes sense because of the relationship they’ve been having with each other.” It’s like taking a breath of fresh air. Besides, the reason for the hug is based on the end of Jeff Lemire’s run on Moon Knight. At the end, he hugs himself. It’s so cute! As a group, we were in love with the idea of someone hugging another part of themselves and saying things that made them feel better. We really, really wanted that hug moment to be in one of our episodes, and the time was right.
He does this in Moon Knight #9 (2016), which is written by Lemire and drawn by Francesco Francavilla, Wilfredo Torres, James Stokoe, and Greg Smallwood. Afterward, Marc has a heartfelt talk with Steve, in which the tells Marc to “look for something happy.” On the next page, the two are shown hugging as they say good-bye to each other. Marc also had a fight with his other alter, Jake Lockley, who was a cab driver who knew about the criminal underworld. Moon Knight, on the other hand, has done a great job of hinting at this third identity.
Another shaking sarcophagus is seen by Marc and Steven in episode 4. However, they don’t open it and walk right by. There are many times when Moon Knight plays with the number three, as well as when he makes the audience wonder about blackouts that neither Marc nor Steven can explain. In episode 3, “The Friendly Type,” Marc wakes up and finds that he’s killed a group of Harrow’s followers in a brutal way. Steven says that wasn’t him. In Moon Knight, there are only two more episodes left, so Jake will show up soon rather than later. It’s not likely that he’ll be hugged by Layla, especially if he had anything to do with her father’s death.
