The following contains spoilers for Moon Knight Episode 3, “The Friendly Type,” available now on Disney+.
Moon Knight‘s third episode is here, and the Marvel series has continued with its theme of leaving its viewers in the dark, literally and figuratively, when it comes to main character Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac) and the different personalities inhabiting his body. Based on the Marvel Comics storyline of the same name, Moon Knight follows Steven Grant, a museum gift shop employee, as he lives with the daily struggles of someone with Disassociative Identity Disorder (DID), juggling multiple identities with separate lives that Steven himself is unaware of. One identity Marvel fans have already been introduced to in the first two episodes of Moon Knight is Marc Spector, an American mercenary currently serving as the human Avatar for the Egyptian god of the moon, Khonshu (F. Murray Abraham). However, in the first few moments of Moon Knight Episode 3, fans may have gotten their first glimpse at an additional identity residing within Steven’s psyche.
The official definition of dissociation states that it is “a disconnection between one’s conscious awareness and one’s environment,” whereas DID is described as a “disorder characterized by the presence of two or more distinct personality states.” This means that Marc and Khonshu are not fantastical identities created by Steven but rather fully-realized identities living alongside Steven’s psyche — though not necessarily in harmony. Throughout the first two episodes of Moon Knight, Steven often struggles to maintain control over his and Marc’s shared body. Mirrors and any kind of reflective surface offer the key for one identity to fully take over control of the other and operate the shared body solo, reducing the other identity to merely a conscious voice in the background.
While struggling with who is currently in control at any given moment, Steven often exhibits blackouts when Marc takes over, and this is reflected in quick cinematic cuts in between action sequences in Moon Knight. Whenever Steven gets into a tricky situation and Marc resumes control, all of the bloody violence is skimmed over for the viewer, much like it is for Steven before he is the present identity once again. In the opening sequence of Moon Knight‘s third episode, this same phenomenon happens while Marc is in control, interrogating a few men on a rooftop in Cairo. While, at first, Marc assumes Steven is the one who caused him to blackout in the middle of interrogating Arthur Harrow’s (Ethan Hawke) accomplices and put himself in a cab back to the airport, Steven is adamant that it wasn’t him. So this of course sets off the question for viewers: who took over control from Marc if it wasn’t Steven?
The camera work reflects the same jump-cut style from the first two episodes, making it nearly impossible to infer what exactly happened with Harrow’s accomplices on the roof, but by the time this new third identity is done playing around with control, all but one of the men Marc was pursuing are dead, and neither Marc nor Steven has any idea which of them was responsible. This reveal of a third identity has Marvel fans pointing to Jake Lockley, another prominent identity of Steven Grant in the Moon Knight comics.
The identity of Lockley in Marvel Comics is that of a rough and tough cab driver who developed an arsenal of underground informants to help with information on some of Moon Knight’s cases. While the Moon Knight series hasn’t outright confirmed that Lockley will be a featured identity along with Steven Grant and Marc Spector, his inclusion in this triad of identities may be helpful to the overall plot of the Moon Knight series. Many have also noted that Steven’s reflections tend to come in threes, hinting at a third personality.
Having an identity like Lockley, who specializes in gathering information, take control of the shared body while Marc was in the middle of getting information about Harrow’s whereabouts makes a lot of sense. Could Lockley have already been working behind the scenes while Steven was sleeping, much like Marc and how he set up his alternate bunker housing, to gather information for Khonshu about Arthur Harrow’s plans to raise Ammit? It will be interesting to see how this third identity plays into the remaining three episodes of Moon Knight and how imperative this additional identity is to the two very different personalities already making up Steven Grant.
The first three episodes of Moon Knight are now streaming on Disney+, with new episodes premiering on Wednesdays.
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