Warning: The following contains spoilers forMoon KnightEpisode 5 “The Asylum.”Picking up where the cliffhanger ofEpisode 4 left the audience,Moon Knight’sEpisode 5 offers up some explanations for the medical facility where Marc Spector and Steven Grant find themselves. It also takes the audience on a trip down memory lane, revealing the traumas that shaped Marc and Steven’s life. Each door in the facility provides an entry point into a different memory as the two “open up” to one another in an effort to balance their scales.
The episode has a handful of Easter eggs for the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe and for the comic books, but as was the case with the previous episode, it’s largely self-referential. There are quite a few callbacks to earlier episodes and details to connect the different aspects of Marc and Steven’s previously separate lives.
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Putnam Medical Facility
Just as many fans speculated at the inclusion of a medical facility at the end of Episode 4, this particular medical facility is directly inspired by the comics. This week, it gets a name: Putnam Medical Facility.
That’s not an exact match to the hospital that appearsin the 2016Moon Knightcomic book run, but it is close. Putnam Psychiatric Hospital is the name of the facility in which Marc Spector’s father admits his son to get him help for his Dissociative Identity Disorder. When his father dies, Marc is granted permission to leave for the funeral, but Marc runs as it’s the first time Khonshu’s voice calls to him.
The Ancestral Plain
When Tawaret explains to Marc and Steven that they are, in fact, technically dead and in the Egyptian version of the afterlife, she discusses the fact that there are many versions of the afterlife as connected spaces. She cites one of those spaces as the Ancestral Plane.
Black Pantherfans will remember that the Ancestral Plane is where T’Challa found himself after taking the purple herb to become theBlack Panther. There,it’s the deity Bast that meets travelers, as well as their ancestors.
Tawaret’s Vessel
The boat that Tawaret uses to guide Marc and Steven through the underworld is actually a design the audience will have seen before if they paid close attention to Steven’s apartment.
The boat can be seen in the fish tank along with other miniature items related to Egyptian history.
Their Hearts Are Incomplete
Though the third sarcophagus isn’t opened in Episode 5, the episode does hint at other identities in the body Marc and Steven share. Tawaret doesn’t just note that the scales of judgment don’t balance for Marc and Steven, but that their hearts appear incomplete.
A third identity has been hinted at multiple times, withmany speculating that it could be Jake Lockley.This episode offers up another possibility though as young Marc’s bedroom is full of space paraphernalia, including the action figure of an astronaut. One of Marc’s alters in the comics is an astronaut who has yet to be given a name.
QR Code
The door that leads to one of the memories Marc doesn’t want to share is a special one. That’s because there’s a QR code next to it.
QR codes have been present in episodes togive fans access to free issues ofMoon Knightcomic bookson Marvel Unlimited, and this one is no exception. It appears right around the 11:58 mark into the episode.
Bushman Is Named
Moon Knight’s origin story has been hinted at here and there throughout the first three episodes of the series. His originstory is tied to the death of Layla’s fatherin the show, and that origin story is lifted almost straight out of the comics.
Raul Bushman is the name of the former soldier that Marc was in the armed forces with. Bushman leads the raid on an Egyptian archeological site, and when he decides to violently eliminate the witnesses, Marc disagrees with his methods and Bushman attempts to kill him. The only difference is that Marc drags himself to Khonshu’s statue. In the comics,it’s his allies, Duchamp and Marlene, who do it.
Marc Spector Has A Brother
Just how Marc’s Dissociative Identity Disorder manifests in the MCU is slightly different from the comics, but both instances stem from childhood trauma. The brother that Marc loses, called Ro by their mother, is Randall in the comics. Randall actually grows up to join the military in the comics and becomes a villain named Shadowknight.
Childhood Connections To Marc And Steven
As the audience gets to relive moments from Marc’s childhood, they get to see a lot of connections to the life that Steven leads as an adult. Steven Grant, for starters, is born from a movie that Marc loves as a child. He and his brother used to pretend to be characters from the movie.
His brother also draws a goldfish with one fin, which could be why Steven insists that his goldfish has to have one fin as an adult. Marc is also the one to use the phrase “laters gators” when leaving his mother, a phrase Steven uses on the phone when he believes he’s leaving a message for his mother as an adult. When Steven follows Marc and his little brother into the cave, he steps on the bones of a bird and all that’s easily visible is the skull, which resembles aminiature version of Khonshu’s own skull.
Marc’s childhood room also has some interesting details. There are reeds right outside his door, not unlike the reeds present in the Egyptian afterlife when Marc crosses through the gate. There are also scales on a table in his room. It’s not clear if Marc actually had these as a child, or if they’re aspects of his reality bleeding into the space,much like “Dr. Harrow” has Egyptian artifactsthroughout his office.
Tomb Buster
The movie that gives Steven Grant his name and aspects of his personality is clearly well-loved by Marc. He even has a poster for it as a child. Within the poster, though they can be hard to stop without pausing, are some Easter eggs in the form of names.
“Doug Perlin” appears on the poster, which is a nod to both Doug Moench and Don Perlin, who are the credited creators of Moon Knight when he made his 1975 debut. Dylan Beck is an assistant production coordinator onMoon Knight.
Waterson Food & Liquor
When Marc stands in the street drinking because he can’t bring himself to go into the family home after his mother’s death, behind him is Waterson Food & Liquor. The name might not be familiar to a lot of Marvel fans, but Trevor Waterson is an important figure in the current chapter of the MCU.
Waterson is one of the co-executive producers bringing the Disney Plus shows to life. He’s credited for everyMCU Disney Plus seriesthat has been available to stream so far.
