Shortly before Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness took over the MCU fandom, the franchise's sixth Disney+ show came to an end with the final episode of Oscar Isaac's Moon Knight. The finale set the stage for an interesting journey with Isaac's Marc Spector in the Marvel Studios narrative, particularly after he seemingly left Khonshu and the Moon Knight persona behind him.
In that finale, Isaac put forth everything he had in his performance, as both Marc Spector and Steven Grant, as fans celebrated Steven coming back from the dead in the Duat before the duo returned to the real world. This preceded an epic final battle between not only Marc and Arthur Harrow, but also the Egyptian gods and goddesses Ammit, Khonshu, and Taweret, as their Avatars unleashed their full power.
Although the finale came with plenty of thrilling threads to tackle, including the long-awaited reveal for Jake Lockley, the series was filled with moments of tragedy throughout almost every single episode. Now, with all six episodes available to stream on Disney+, one of the show’s directors shared some of his own favorite moments from scenes that made it into the show and scenes that didn’t.
Moon Knight's Oscar-Worthy Deleted Scene
The Hollywood Reporter spoke with Moon Knight director Mohamed Diab, who revealed details about a deleted scene that he hopes Marvel will soon release to the public.
While praising Isaac as “a genius actor,” Diab revealed that his favorite sequence of his was actually cut from the final episode - one that topped his work in Episode 5. The scene showed both Marc and Steven facing their abusive mother “in a white void," perhaps to make peace with their traumatic childhood. Diab called Isaac’s performance “Oscar-worthy:”
“I think he would say that I was just encouraging him, but I always tell him, 'You’re going to win everything,' because he is always great. He’s a genius actor. The irony is that my favorite scene of his got cut. It was in episode six. As great as everything else was, he actually topped it with something even better. He confronted his mom in a white void, and he was going back and forth between Marc and Steven. And oh my god. That scene by itself is an Oscar-worthy performance. Hopefully, Marvel releases that scene one day because Oscar was a genius.”
Diab also spoke about which moments from the last two episodes rival the steak scene from Episode 1, mentioning how "the emotional stakes increase" in the penultimate entry. While teasing that there's a longer take of the steak scene, he mentioned the scene featuring Marc's mother's sitting shiva as a key moment where Isaac embodies sadness through three different personas at once:
"Well, the emotional stakes increase in episode five. So if we’re talking about the amount of emotional intensity, everything in episode five is more intense. By the way, there was a longer version of that steak scene, which was fantastic, too. So my favorites would be the steak scene and the scene after the sitting shiva when Marc cries on the ground. And then Marc and Steven are out there talking about it. Oscar did a fantastic job feeling sad through three different people, and it was such a great, emotional scene. I just love what Oscar did there."
The director also confirmed that Steven was always meant to survive in the show when asked if there was a version where he didn't come back. Speaking with Dissociative Identity Disorder experts led this show to be about learning to live with different identities rather than canceling them out altogether:
"Never. The journey is about Marc and Steven learning to live together, so you can’t cut one of them. And by the way, this is something that we learned from understanding what DID is through the experts that we had on hand. People with DID learn to live with their identities, not cancel one or more of their identities out."
Working Through Tragic Moments in Moon Knight
Episode 5 of Moon Knight put Marc Spector into a traumatic situation where he had to face his past, which meant coming face to face with his abusive mother and remembering the mourning period after her death. While Diab wasn't able to put this scene into Episode 6, he made it clear that he wanted Marc and Steven to have the opportunity to face that horrible past and put it behind them, so they could move forward together.
This also would have tied the final two episodes into each other more closely, giving the chance for Marc to feel even more whole as he charged into battle against Arthur Harrow and the goddess Ammit. Where it would have fit into the runtime is a mystery, but Diab clearly wanted to add another emotional moment into the closing episode of Marc's first season on Disney+.
Mental health played a major role in telling Moon Knight's story within the MCU, and even though not all of it made it into the final cut, Diab was adamant that this aspect of the lead character's journey be told as fully as possible.
All six episodes of Moon Knight are now available to stream on Disney+.
