Moon Knight Writer Clarifies Arthur Harrow's Death Scene: "That's the Way I Wrote It on the Page"

The mid-credits scene of the final episode of Moon Knight saw what looks like the death of Ethan Hawke's villainous Arthur Harrow as he was shot by Jake Lockley. While it felt pretty definitive that the character met his demise at the moment, there were debates about whether he actually died in the scene and even Hawke himself suggests that he may not have met his fate at that moment. Now, we finally have the answer that settles it.

In an interview with The Playlist, Moon Knight head writer Jeremy Slater confirmed that Arthur Harrow really died in the mid-credits scene. He also shared the reason why he decided to put Jake Lockley at the very end of the series and how he used Arthur's death to introduce the character to the audience.

"That’s the way I wrote it on the page. Again, because you don’t actually see a body, no one’s ever dead until you see the body," Slater said. "We had that teaser pretty early on in our story. I didn’t want to introduce Jake until the very end because I knew that it was going to be hard enough to make the audience care about the relationship between Marc and Steven if it was just the two of them. And I knew that if you put three personalities in there, it would just become a mess and that it would be too hard for the audience to track."

However, since Arthur's death happened off-screen, Slater did note that there is still a way for them to bring back the character if Marvel decides to have him appear in another project. However, in his mind when he wrote the script, Arthur already met his demise.

"So the goal from the very beginning was we’re going to save Jake for the teaser. He’s going to be the one who kills Harrow," he continued. "But the fact that we don’t see a body, and I think the fact that everyone loved Ethan Hawke so much and had so much fun working with him on this project, I think they’re just kind of keeping a few cards in their deck just in case the circumstances are ever right. It could have been a flesh wound. It could have been a warning shot. I don’t know. In my mind, he’s dead. But again, the person who gets to answer that is whoever kind of tells the next Moon Knight story."

As Slater noted, we didn't see Arthur's dead body so you can still argue that he may have survived the bullet. However, given that he also confirmed his demise and iterated that it is definitive on the script, we can now officially say that we have seen the last of the character unless they bring him back through a flashback or appear as a variant from another universe. Either way, at least we have the answer now and this should settle the debate for a time being.

Also Read: Marvel Writer Shares Disheartening Update About Moon Knight Season 2

All episodes of Moon Knight are available to stream on Disney+.