How the 'Moon Knight' team pulled off that big season finale credits reveal

The Disney+ series Moon Knight wrapped up its original six-episode run today with an episode packed with action, big mythology moments, and of course, some surprise reveals all the way up to the very last frame. It was a classic wrap-up to a run of MCU TV, and in true MCU fashion, one of its biggest reveals was something the show's creators laid the groundwork for all season long. 

**SPOILER WARNING! Spoilers below for the season finale of Moon Knight.**

For weeks now, longtime Moon Knight comic book fans have suspected that the MCU series marking the character's debut would at some point reveal that there were more than two personalities inhabiting the body of Marc Spector. We've been getting to know Steven Grant since Episode 1, and have gotten to know Marc himself pretty well along the way too, but there was always these rumblings of something else going on in there. Whether it's the mysterious third sarcophagus or simple foreshadowing with three-sided imagery, the show seemed to keep pointing the way to another big reveal. 

Finally, in the mid-credits scene of the finale, we got that reveal, as longtime Moon Knight comics fixture Jake Lockley walked into the scene to execute Arthur Harrow and reveal that, whether he likes it or not, Marc Spector is still very much in the service of Khonshu. It's a great teaser moment to set up the character's future, and the threat of a more ruthless personality taking charge of Moon Knight's powers, but it didn't just come out of the blue. In a new feature over at Marvel.com, Moon Knight creator Jeremy Slater explained that the seeds for Jake's reveal were planted throughout the show's run, and the discussions over how much to tease his presence were a big part of crafting the show. 

“It was really just a balancing act that definitely involved my team of writers, but also involved the directors, the executives, and ultimately, all the way up to Kevin Feige," Slater said, "in terms of how many breadcrumbs are we dropping? Is this a satisfying reveal? Are we telegraphing it too much? Or are we not telegraphing enough?”

The feature over at Marvel's website digs through every major piece of foreshadowing along the road to Jake, with input from many of the top creative minds who worked on the show. It's a great way to look back as a fan and confirm your own suspicions about clues, including, yes, that sarcophagus from Episode 4.

“We were intentionally planting the seed,” Episode 4 co-director Justin Benson said. “You're trying to ride this line of it being like, the mystery that may not mean a lot to people that don't know the Moon Knight canon super well. But that when you see the coffin, there’s that the movement and sound coming from it that may even feel like something supernatural or demonic. While also trying to ride this line that it's not literally going to be a creature from the descent popping out. It's going to be a person later. But trying to make it feel so dangerous; just a beat, a feeling there's something extraordinarily dangerous.”

Of course, after the breadcrumbs were all laid, it came time to shoot the Lockley reveal scene, and that meant it fell to star Oscar Isaac to make the character his own. It was Isaac's decision, in the end, to have Lockley speak Spanish during his trip to the mental hospital to retrieve Harrow, despite moments of the character's New York accent slipping out in earlier scenes. 

“I saw an opportunity to bring something of myself to it that's not just trying to pay service to some idea that was in the comics,” Isaac. “The thought of, ‘He's just going to have the one line that he speaks, it should be in Spanish.’ There's something that's ominous about him, the kind of control that he has versus, you know, both Marc and Steven that have been so off foot. It just feels like it was just a really fun chance to let the instinct of, after having played these two guys, imagining what else could be in there and the excitement of shooting that scene.”

Now that Lockley's been revealed, of course, we have to wait and see what Moon Knight's future holds. With Lockley in charge and seemingly fully committed to serving Khonshu, things could get very ugly indeed. For now, though, Slater recommends you go back and watch all of Season 1 again, to pick up on the breadcrumbs.

“The second time you watch it, everything neatly slots into place," he said. "Hopefully, you realize some of these mysteries were right in front of your eyes the whole time. That was always the goal and the ambition.”