For me, waking up every single Saturday morning was about two things: watching wrestling and catching the monster creature feature. And not since those days as a child have I seen as many monsters as I saw today.
The first two episodes of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters have dropped, and they are intense. I’ve loved the Godzilla movies. I didn’t like the one back in the ’90s, but I’ve absolutely loved the ones that have come out since, and when I heard about this series I was excited.
These two episodes do a wonderful job of painting a picture and getting us jumped right in. They don’t waste time. Apple’s doing the Lord’s work. If you’re bored or tired of anything anywhere else, come check this show out. And if you don’t have Apple TV+, get it. This alone is worth it, I’m telling you.
Father and Son, One Character
The entire series focuses around the character of Cate Randa, played by Anna Sawai. You also get a really cool combo in both Wyatt Russell and Kurt Russell. One of the fun things I caught immediately in the opening intro was that it showed Wyatt Russell playing Lee Shaw, and then the letters change and it becomes Kurt Russell, also playing Lee Shaw. Father and son play the same character at two different points in time.
This show takes place across several different time frames. Every time you go to a new one, they’ll tell you where you are, and then they won’t tell you again until they move you away from a time frame you’re already familiar with. So this is one of those shows that does a really good job of letting you constantly know where you are, because it’s part of the narrative they’re telling.
The Illusion of Safety
The show starts with Cate Randa showing up in Japan. She’s on an airplane, some guys come in to disinfect and whatever else, and somebody tells her it’s all part of the illusion of safety. It’s literally their version of the TSA. After 9/11 we set up the TSA and all these other things that are supposed to make you feel safe. Same thing here. They have all these efforts to make you feel safe. There’s even a cab driver who asks her, oh, are you in the industry? What industry? The prepare for a monster industry, or whatever. And it’s like, what?
So she shows up in Japan, her father’s dead, and that’s all we know at present. She’s got the keys to an apartment. She goes to the apartment and finds out her father had another family. “Who are you?” Oh yeah. So she meets her half brother, and apparently her father’s other wife. And that’s not even the craziest thing to happen in this episode.
All of that is before you see monster number one. Actually, that’s not true, because you also get a flashback. Cate was apparently in San Francisco during the events of the 2014 Godzilla movie, the one with the Breaking Bad guy and all those guys. She was on that bridge, the one Godzilla comes up and breaks through, on one of the school buses. You get to see a little bit of that, and it’s traumatizing. Very traumatizing for her. Not long after that she finds out her father had died.
A Safe, a Bag, and a Ping
When she’s in Japan, her new brother takes her to her father’s office, where he had a private office. He’s got this map, and the map has lines on it and all kinds of stuff. She finds a secret safe, and in the safe is a bag with Monarch’s logo on it.
There’s an entire story at work here, and I could literally go step by step like I normally do, but we’d be here for an hour.
They uncover some old style data tapes. Kentaro goes to May, played by Kiersey Clemons, and she hacks it. In order to do that she has to test a piece of software online, and that’s all it takes to ping Monarch. Monarch, in their offices, is like, what’s going on? And they send Joe Tippett and Elisa Lasowski, who play Tim and Duvall respectively, after them.
Then there’s the other time frame, in the past, where Wyatt Russell is playing Lee Shaw alongside Keiko and William Randa. Apparently Keiko and William Randa got together in the past and had children, and that’s what brings forth the Randa children. Suffice to say, a lot’s happening.
The entire first episode is about that whole exchange. There’s chases and running, fencing, fighting, torture, revenge. And you get to see what looks like an early version of John Goodman’s character from the King Kong movie, Kong: Skull Island.
“But maybe I could leave something for the future. A legacy. And you’ll realize it was all worth it.”
I don’t remember if that scene was in the movie or not, because I didn’t actually watch that movie in preparation for this. I guess I didn’t expect them to go this far back. It’s funny, I watched the Godzilla movies. I love those. Of course I watched those.
So you get this moment where John Goodman’s talking and he explains, I’ve left you this thing, I’m sorry, I’ve left you this legacy. Roll credits. There’s two monsters that show up, they’re fighting over him, and he throws this thing into the ocean. Eventually a fisherman finds it. I can’t tell if the fisherman is Cate and Kentaro’s father or not. I’m a little confused, especially because he ends up being Keiko’s son. Characters, names, whatever.
Also, did anybody else know this show was coming out at all? I know I didn’t.
Three Kids on the Run
Through it all, the characters are so nuanced. You watch Cate and her brother try to solve this thing, only for her to decide, I want nothing to do with this.
I’m going to bleed into the second episode here, I’m sure. It’s hard to tell where one episode ends and the other one begins. But in the second episode Cate almost gets kidnapped. That’s where Joe comes in, the two Monarch agents. She’s running, she escapes, she goes to try to tell the police, and the police aren’t really hearing it.
Back in the present, May has finished decrypting all the files. Monarch just wants these files. Apparently they’re ridiculously important and they want them back. So now all three kids, Cate, Kentaro and May, are on the run. And Kentaro’s mother, God love her, does a great job of distracting the two agents long enough for her son to get away. She gives him a photo of young Lee Shaw, Wyatt Russell, and she’s like, go find him. That’s his godfather, his uncle, whatever you want to call him.
The story loops back around at the end, and the kids have discovered where he is. He’s in the equivalent of a Monarch holding facility. It looks like just a retirement community, but he’s got a thing on his foot and there’s cameras in the bushes. It’s one of those moments where you’re like, where is he?
Monsters Like You’ve Never Seen
Overall the story is so cohesive and works really well together, and you get monsters like you’ve never seen before. They’re what they call MUTOs, same thing they called them in the original.
They go back even further than where we were. In the first episode I think it’s 1957 or something like that. Or not 1957, 1970 something. Who knows. But they end up going to this place where they’re finding radiation, which is actually where Keiko and William met, and they find this old Navy ship.
“USS Lawton went down 200 miles west of Pearl in 1943.”
Pearl Harbor. He served on this ship. So they go in, and it’s all tore up, and all of a sudden something starts attacking them. By this point Lee had left, because he didn’t trust William. Then he begins to see this radiation, aurora borealis type thing in the sky, and it was enough to make him turn around and go back. That’s when he catches them getting attacked by one of these MUTOs. We get to see this really cool bat looking MUTO monster thing. It’s the first time they see one, and it’s really what drives this whole thing.
The Kurt Russell Impersonation
The other thing I love about this is you get to see Kurt Russell. It’s funny, I thought for sure, and I even said this to Mrs. Know-It-All, I think it’s great that Kurt Russell’s like, you know what, I don’t need top billing, give my kid top billing, he’s earned it.
Because the script called for us to see Wyatt first, to see young Lee Shaw, I believe Kurt Russell’s essentially doing an impersonation of his son. I think he’s playing the same character his son played, because his son’s clearly the first version of the guy. I’m not sure how that all works out. The point is, I liked it. It felt very much like he was being an older version of the character his kid plays. It’s great.
There’s a feature where the two of them are being interviewed, and Wyatt says, yeah, normally my dad and I get hired to be father and son, and this is the first time we get to play the same character at two different points in time. I thought it was really clever.
Running in the Streets
There’s a lot of nuance here. Anybody who knows anything about Godzilla knows where that all came from. It was a product of the era, a post-nuclear war era, and I like the fact they played into that in this.
I thought it was hilarious the first time Kentaro and his mom find Cate in the streets after she comes to visit them. All of a sudden the alarm goes out, the monster alert, the whole bit, and everybody’s running.
“What’s happening?” “Early warning system.” “Warning for what?”
And I’m like, you had to give us a stereotypical Godzilla moment with Japanese people running in the streets. Stop it. No, but it was great. Especially when you have the likes of Godzilla Minus One, which just came out, really strong from Toho and all those people. I like seeing this series pay homage and respect.
I don’t know if it’s reused footage or brand new footage of Godzilla in those moments, but it is dope. This feels like it’s a movie. They’re doing amazing cinematic work in this entire show, and the first two episodes do not shy away from it. The story is intense but good. You get to see all kinds of new MUTOs and new monsters, and they’re really building on the lore that’s been established in these movies. I’m hoping at some point we might get some characters from the films, but I’m okay if we end up not.
Where in the Lore Are We?
I also wish I could understand where in time this story takes place. By that I don’t mean the year, because they do tell you the year. I mean, is this before the events discussed in Godzilla: King of the Monsters? In that movie they actually talk about the post attack, or something or other, and some experiments that were being done. So I wonder where all this takes place in the storyline, in the lore they’re establishing.
The Verdict
The two-episode premiere of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters lands at a solid 8 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index.
This is excellent. I’m blown away. I would give it a 10, but I want somewhere to go, and I want to know that there’s got to be more. So far they’re doing a really great job. These first two episodes are great, and I’m going to be here for the third episode. I hope you will too.
If you know where this story sits in the timeline, I’d love to hear it. Are you a fan of Godzilla like I am? What did you think of the premiere, and which MUTOs from the trailers are you excited to see? The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
