After three straight episodes of 50s era monster hunting, modern day conspiracy theory and a scattering of genuinely awsome appearances from Godzilla himself, it’s safe to say that Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters got itself off to something of a strong start. However, at some point the show was going to have to slow down the running and the theorizing to focus more intently on the tiny, puny humans that have found themselves trapped within a secret history of nuclear powered God-monsters. And so with Parallels And Interiors, we find Monrach taking its biggest risk yet, by ditching the 1950s flashbacks and focusing entirely on the 2015 exploits of Lee, Cate, Kentaro and May as we delve into some backstory while they try not to have the heat sucked out if them by the feeler-faced ice Titan helpfully dubbed the Frost Vark. With no Titan hunting flashbacks and no Godzilla cameos, it’s time to see if Monach is the real deal…
We rejoin the mismatched, bickering group of grizzled, ex-Monarch soldier, Lee Shaw; unwitting paternal half-siblings Cate and Kentaro and reluctantly dragged in hacker ex-girlfriend, May as their trip to Alaska was rudely interrupted by the arrival of a Titan that feeds off of heat and probably trashed their plane and froze their pilot solid. Essentially trapped within a harsh, frigid wasteland, the group manage to lose the Frost Vark while hiding in an iced over cave, but after May accidently falls through a small patch of ice and soaks her legs in below zero water, their new problem shifts the the very likely onset of hypothermia. Naturally concerned that, at the very least, she’s going lose some toes, May agrees that the group need to hot-foot it (bad term, sorry) to the nearest settlement before they all freeze to death and as the make the chilly trudge, we rewind the clock back a year to witness how Kentaro and May first met.
It’s something of a shock to see that Kentaro was an up and coming artist and after a chance meeting as his first ever show was about to begin, both he and May bond over a single night of expensive whiskey and probing discussion.
However, back in the present, there’s dissension in the ranks as the ever obstinate Kentaro insists they head in another direction as he is positive he’s spotted a man-made installation, but after a brief argument Lee, Cate and a rapidly fading May go one way while Kentaro goes another. However, after a night of walking, the trio are horrified to find that they’ve travelled on one, big circle and have merely ended up back at their camp with the Frost Vark still burrowing under the ground close by. As Lee tries to cook up a plan to outwit the heat guzzling monster and Cate bonds with a shivering May, it’s down to Kentaro to forge through driving snow to try and find salvation. However, back in civilisation, Monarch are starting to get a little edgy about some Gamma Ray flare readings that look eerily similar to once that spiked just before G-Day…
If I’m being honest, as Monarch has gone on, I’ve considered the 2015 set sections to be the lesser thread out of the two main story lines that the show bounces us between. Simply put, while the 50s set stuff is free to bounce around the decade, focusing solely on the big moments in the early days of Lee, Bill, Keiko and Monarch in general, the modern stuff has to move on a linear path, gradually unraveling stuff as it goes. On top of that, the continuing search for the truth behind the fate of Cate and Kentaro’s double-life living father (who is also Bill and Keiko’s son) and the distrusting personality of May means that none of this core group actually like each other particularly much – which isn’t something that the below zero temperatures of the Alaskan wilderness is going to help much. Another thing is the episode makes a few Titan-sized leaps of logic to get its ducks in a row, with Lee’s Vark thwarting master plan not making a hell of a lot of sense and characters willing to let other wander off in the middle of a blizzard just so they can make a point like C-3P0 and R2-D2 arguing on Tatooine.
Yet, while I would consider Parallels And Interiors to be the least of the intallments we’ve gotten so far, it’s still a rousing enough mix of adventure, backstory and raging Titans to keep the high quality of the show on the straight and level. The main thrust of the episode is, of course, the group desperately trying to save alive as the Frost Vark and the freezing temperatures jostle for position to see who can be more of a threat and director Julian Holmes manages to keep the tension high thanks to some convincing visuals and some great location shooting to make the cold feel starkly tangible. Of course, as a long time devotee to John Carpenter’s The Thing, the sight of witnessing Kurt Russell fleeing freakishly designed monsters in the snow is too cool to resist, and while the actor doesn’t really have much chance to do much more than run, bark orders and look tense as hell, it’s a welcome throwback to his action movie days. However, aside from a couple of moments with Cate showing quite a protective side, the episode mostly belongs to May and Kentaro. If you consider the 2015 sections to be the weaker of Monarch’s two time periods, then I’d have to argue that Mayband Kentaro are the two weakest main characters in it. Without Cate’s Godzilla-related PTSD (or should that be GTSD?), or Lee’s long history with Titans in general, the two just aren’t as connected to the stakes as they could be and their complicated history with one another has led to friction that’s more a hindrance than enlightening. However, this is obviously something that the episode is deliberately trying to reverse and it has a fair amount of success doing so. While avid monster-spotters may bemoan art gallery flashbacks and half conscious visions of the missing Hiroshi Randa, it’s all necessary character building and backstory that you’re just not going to get that with four people running around on the ice.
However, aside from some thrilling, Alaskan monster fighting and some character-based flashbacking, we get some intriguing world building as we occasionally swing by Monach to see what’s going on in parts of the world mercifully devoid of icicles and in Utah, a boffin stationed at Outpost 47 is discovering some worrying readings involving gamma flares centred around the area in which our heroes are currently trying survive in. The reference of a similar readings that occurred in both the Janjira Nuclear Plant and Yucca Flats in the hours before G Day are where both MUTOs both awoke in the 2014 movie and it strongly hints that something huge could be on the horizon. Elsewhere, a trail of pencil shavings gives proof that Cate and Kentaro’s father is still alive and we get a strong hint that the only other person in May’s life is her sister Lyra. How or if any of these things bear fruit as the weeks go on is anyones guess, but it does mean that now the 2015 crew are in the hands of Monarch by the episode’s end, the intrest in the modern sections of the show is fast catching up.
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