Moon Knight Episode 4 Explained: Heka Priests, The Scarlet Scarab, and Psychiatric Hospitals

Moon Knight Episode 4 has secured its spot in the genre of Egyptian Archeological Adventure with Heka Priests, the scarlet scarab, and Psychiatric hospital.

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From Raiders of the Lost Ark, Tomb Raider, and The Mummy, Moon Knight Episode 4, “The Tomb,” has secured its spot in the niche genre of Egyptian Archeological Adventure. This episode brought the show full circle, answering many questions while leaving us with many more. 

Heka Priests

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The show starts where episode three left off, with Khonshu trapped in his ushabti and Steven/Marc unconscious as Layla tries to get him to safety. After using a flare to blow up the jeep shooting at them, Layla and Steven make their way towards Ammit’s tomb, where we see the two become closer. Steven, who calls himself “honesty,” tells Layla that Marc left her to protect her from Khonshu. The two kiss, much to Marc’s dislike, causing Marc to punch his face to hurt Steven.  

After entering the tomb, Layla makes a mark on a statue of Bast (the same goddess worshiped by Wakandans) in honor of her father, whose death plays a central theme in this episode. Moving towards the center, the duo encounters a Heka Priest who has captured and murdered Billy Fitzgerald, the cop who works for Harrow in episode 2.  After being noticed, the two split up, leading Layla to confront and kill the Heka Priest and Steven to find Ammit’s Avatar, who turns out to be Alexander the Great.

The Heka Priest is another nod towards the comics. Known as Heka-Nut, a sorcerer who worked for Ogdad, Egyptians’ first generation of gods, he sought the four Cornerstones of Creation, one of which is the Darkhold from WandaVision. This hints that Moon Knight might play into Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness, with the series finale aligning with the film’s release.

Scarlet Scarab

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After fighting off the Heka Priest, Layla encounters Harrow, who again mentions her father’s death—describing her relationship with her father in great detail. Harrow comments on her late father’s red scarf with beetle embroidery and his connection to the Egyptian gods. Through this, one thing becomes apparent; Abdullah El-Faouley is Abdul Faul, the Scarlet Scarab, an Egyptian superhero who fought against the British colonization of Egypt during World War II. 

Harrow continues to tell the story of Abdullah’s death, including Marc’s presence and active role.  Layla then meets up with Marc, who confirms that it is true, but it was his partner who killed Abdullah and attempted to kill Marc.  In the comics, the partner mentioned is Raul Bushman, but the previous hints of a third more deadly personality may suggest Marvel is taking a different path. 

Once again, Harrow catches up to them and, after asking Marc for the ushabti, which Steven fished out of the mummified Alexander the Great, shoots him twice upon rejection.

Moon Knight Lands Himself In A Psychiatric Hospital

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After being shot, Marc wakes up in Putnam Psychiatric Hospital, changing the show’s tone from Raiders of the Lost Arc to One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.  Here we are met with a cast of familiar faces, such as Donna, Steven’s Supervisor, Crawley, the street performer, Bill Fitgerald, who now takes place as an orderly, and Gus the Goldfish.  Layla also acts as a patient in the hospital, while Arthur Harrow takes form as the resident Psychiatrist. We also see several objects symbolic of various episodes, such as cupcakes, postcards, and plush beetles from episode one, to Layla’s Turkish delights and a red scarab painted on her band-aid.  

This begs the question, is this real? Will Moon Knight follow the footsteps of WandaVision, suggesting the first three episodes were entirely made up? The answer is no. In Jeff Lemire and Greg Smallwood’s Welcome To New Egypt arc, Khonshu creates an illusion in Marc’s brain with the help of Ammut to gain full access to his body.  He does so by making him think everything he accomplished was a hallucination by including familiar faces and objects into the illusion. Sound familiar?

In the show, it’s unlikely for Harrow to cause the hallucination unless he has already made himself Ammit’s Avatar.  More likely, Marc’s body is going into shock, causing him to reconcile with his Dissociative Identity Disorder as he does in the comics. As Marc runs away from the orderlies, he corner’s himself in a room with a sarcophagus that opens up to be Steven inside. We later see one more sarcophagus as the pair run towards the exit. This may be the answer we all have been looking forward to; who is the third identity — the one who killed a bunch of people in episode three. Although many fans still hope to see Jake Lockley, no one truly knows Marvel’s next step. 

Finally, we come to the shocking ending. Greeted at the exit is non-other than the goddess Taweret, one of the Enneads and the goddess of childbirth and fertility; she takes the form of a hippo. Although she has not been given any notable attention in the comics, if at all, she was mentioned in episode one when Donna asks Steven to pass the hippos, and he corrects her, identifying them as Taweret. Although we don’t know how Taweret fits into everything, we know Marvel has something big planned out for the penultimate episode, which can’t come soon enough. 

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