Relationship Spotlight: Marc Spector, Layla El-Faouly & Steven Grant (Moon Knight)

*Spoilers.*

For me, Moon Knight is all about characters and relationships. Now, plenty of that happens within the DID system of the protagonist, and I’ve already talked at length about Steven, Marc, and their relationship. But when you add Layla into the mix, the whole thing levels up even further. These three, separately and together, are why I’m crossing my fingers that we’ll get a season 2, or some other continuation of Moon Knight’s story.

Even though Layla is Marc’s wife, we’re actually introduced to her when she’s meeting Steven for the first time. She doesn’t know that Marc has DID—she’s confused by the British accent her husband is “putting on” and is first annoyed, then alarmed, when he insists that he doesn’t know her. Their early scenes together are marked by Layla’s conviction that Marc is working undercover and refusing to drop the act even in front of her. It’s not until they have a dangerous run-in with Harrow and she sees Steven flounder that she realizes she’s dealing with something much deeper than she thought.

Steven, meanwhile, is instantly taken with Layla. They share a love of Egyptian history and antiquities, and they even have the same favorite poet. Much of what’s going on in his life is massively confusing at present—he’s only barely started to grasp the fact that he has DID—and this woman who’s come along calling him Marc and saying that they’re married confuses him too, but rather than being frightened, this is a confusion that Steven will gladly put up with to be around her.

As they get more involved in their mission against Harrow and Layla gains a greater understanding of what’s going on with Marc and Steven, she adjusts really well to this very unexpected turn of events. She and Marc do the undercover/more dangerous stuff, while she urges Marc to let Steven front during the brainy Egyptology-related stuff. It doesn’t take long before she’s treating them like separate people.

An additional complicating factor is that Marc and Layla were estranged at the start of the series. Marc has disappeared on her—unbeknownst to her, he left because he thinks Khonshu wants her for his new avatar and wants to keep him away from her—and when Layla initially comes across Steven, it’s because she has divorce papers for Marc. But Marc never stopped loving her, he just has a really clumsy/kind of paternalistic way of trying to protect her, and so it angers him to see her getting friendly with Steven. At different times when Steven is fronting, Marc warns him not to close too cozy with Layla, and after Layla and Steven share a kiss, Marc manages to take control of their hand so he can sucker-punch Steven.

But for all that Steven is falling for Layla, he’s also kind of advocating for Marc? As the more emotionally-open of the two, he’s able to bridge the communication gap between Marc and Layla. He tells Layla things that Marc has kept from her, and even though Layla is angry at Marc’s “I kept secrets for your own good” attitude, it does give her more insight into his actions and where his head is at.

I get that it’s the MCU and Disney is pretty vanilla, but honestly, the best resolution for me is for Layla to date both of them. They both like her and she likes them, and they have the same body. This seems to be the least messy way to go about it, though there’s no evidence yet on what Jake thinks of Layla, or how she’ll react when she meets him. All of this is just further proof of why we need a season 2.

Relationship Spotlight: Steven Grant & Marc Spector (Moon Knight)

*Spoilers aplenty.*

Okay, so now that we’ve laid the groundwork discussing the heroes of Moon Knight, it’s high time we start talking about them together. And at the top of the list is absolutely Marc and Steven. These two are so interesting to watch together that I sometimes get distracted from how great other things about the show are because I’m just focused on these two.

Quick note before we get started: while I have some thoughts about Jake that I’ll discuss later, this post is just going to be about Steven and Marc, for the simple reason that they don’t appear to have a relationship with Jake yet. It seems neither of them know about him, and from what little we’ve seen of him, we don’t have much context about his feelings towards either of them.

Steven’s introduction to the Moon Knight activities of his headmate, along with the fact that he even has headmates, is rough. He wakes up in a foreign country with his jaw dislocated, soon finds himself knee-deep in a crowd of cultists, and proceeds to black out several times, continuing to wake up in increasingly-frantic situations. And all the while, he has Khonshu in his head, grumbling that Steven is “an idiot” and ordering him to “surrender the body.”

It’s notable then, that when he officially meets Marc (in the middle of another incredibly-dangerous situation,) Marc is actually really gentle and patient with Steven. There’s a jackal beast trying to bust the door down and the only way for them to survive is for Marc to front and don the Moon Knight suit, so time is decidedly of the essence. But Marc doesn’t insult Steven or yell at him. He explains, as calmly and succinctly as he can, that he can protect them both.

That’s because, between the two of them, Steven’s always been the innocent one, the naïve one. While it seems Marc took their mother’s abuse when they were children, Steven got to have a happy, unfearful childhood. Many of Marc’s actions are to shield Steven, both physically and emotionally, and he doesn’t realize that that’s actually kind of patronizing.

Once Steven starts to learn about Marc, however, he’s not content to go back to ignorance. He wants to be involved. He and Marc jockey over control of the body, with Marc arguing that he has the skills and the temperament to get them through the fight with Harrow and Steven protesting that he doesn’t want Marc using the body to hurt people. They bicker and snipe at each other, and whenever one is in control of the body, he doesn’t relinquish it easily. Even though Layla is an invaluable ally in Egypt, her presence also complicates things between them further, because Steven is immediately taken with Layla and Marc doesn’t want him having anything to do with his ex-wife (shout-out to the moment in episode 4 where Marc takes control of their hand while Steven is fronting and sucker punches them, hee!)

Ultimately, though, they’re clearly better together. Marc is handier in a fight and a better strategist, but Steven’s knowledge of ancient Egypt is critical, as is his knack for solving puzzles. The both learn, albeit with Layla’s urging, that neither of them can accomplish their mission without the other, and they need to take turns with the body as the ever-evolving situation demands.

Their relationship makes its biggest leap forward when they’re shot by Harrow and wind up in the afterlife. Through their perspective, it looks like an asylum, and they’re forced to relive/witness a number of traumatic memories to get through it. I love that both of them have a body in the asylum and that the first thing they do when they find each other is hug. As painful as it is, I understand why Marc doesn’t want Steven to see all the horrors he’s suffered, and it’s beautiful when Steven gently insists to Marc that his little brother’s death wasn’t Marc’s fault. I like how they try to protect each other sailing across the Duat, and when Steven is knocked overboard and taken by the sands, I love that Marc goes back for him, saying, “You’re the only real superpower I ever had.” When they make it back to Earth and the body, they’re so much more at peace with themselves and in-sync with each other. Whereas before, Marc would walk a little apart from Layla before ceding the front to Steven, not wanting her to see, they now switch with abandon, helping each other out and having each other’s back in the final fight.

The overall plot of the show can get a little jumbled at times, but when it comes to the throughline of Marc and Steven’s relationship with each other, the series consistently knocks it right out of the park.

Favorite Characters: Marc Spector (Moon Knight)

*Spoilers.*

The other main side of the Moon Knight equation. I’ll confess that Steven is definitely my guy, but I do like Marc quite a bit as well, and both characters only grow more interesting in comparison with one another.

It takes until the end of the pilot before we get our first real look at Marc, and a good way into the second episode before we properly meet him. That’s because, at the start of the series, Steven is the main driver of the body for their DID system, although he doesn’t know about it at that time. Marc mostly just fronts after Steven goes to bed, and Steven, none the wiser, chalks any weirdness up to his “sleepwalking.”

But even though it takes a while for us to see him, Marc isn’t sitting idle. A former mercenary, Marc was in a bad way after a job gone very wrong and received an offer of help from an unexpected source. Bleeding out at an archeological site in Egypt, he met the god Khonshu, who saved his life in exchange for Marc becoming the god’s avatar on Earth. Now, Marc serves as Khonshu’s Moon Knight, protecting the travelers of the night and exacting Khonshu’s vengeance on the wicked. Marc’s nighttime activities, involving international travel, dangerous individuals, and a bit of the old ultraviolence, are why Steven sometimes wakes up with muddy feet, or in the wrong country, or on the wrong day.

Because we meet Steven first, it’s natural to view Marc in contrast to him. Where Steven is alternately excitable and jittery, Marc is stoic and wary. Where Steven is a bit guileless, Marc is suspicious (some might say paranoid, but since people actually are out to get him, that doesn’t really apply.) Where Steven gets frightened or nervous, Marc charges ahead, headfirst into danger with the confidence that his considerable abilities will get him out of it. And where Steven is openhearted, Marc is guarded, keeping his baggage bottled up until it’s impossible to hide it anymore.

But Marc isn’t just a foil for Steven. Like his fellow alter, Marc is a complete person. He’s very decisive, about his own life as well as others’—he left his wife Layla in a misguided effort to protect her, and he agreed to become Moon Knight without really taking Steven into consideration, even though they share the body that gets pummeled by baddies on the regular.

These decisions are often taken to be selfish or bullheaded, even if Marc doesn’t think of them that way. Despite what his tough exterior might suggest, he has a strong caring streak. He genuinely thinks that disappearing on Layla is in her best interest, and he tries to keep Steven sheltered and naïve so Steven won’t have to deal with the demons in their head, the regrets and the trauma he’s been running from for a long time.

Unfortunately, he just handles a lot of big issues badly. In his effort to protect others, he keeps them in the dark “for their own good,” which just disrespects their own autonomy. He’s lethally capable and can easily hold his own in the wild superhero life Khonshu’s pulled them into, but his story over the course of the season is about learning that he doesn’t always have to go it alone. By letting in Steven and Layla, by trusting them and believing in their ability to handle themselves in these situations, he’s able to let himself be a little more vulnerable as he allows them to share the load.