To complain that there’s too many flashback threads running through Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters may be slightly justified considering that the entire show is technically one big flashback (even the “present” moments of the show are set back in 2015), but that doesn’t mean that the gargantuan exposition dump for an entire connected movie universe has frequently been fun and intriguing. Over the weeks, I’ve repeatedly stated how much I’ve adored the exploration of Monarch’s 50s origins and the world building of a modern world where monsters now roam has been cool to see, however, far less successful are the various flashbacks that’s given us the backstories of two of our lead characters, Cate and Kentaro, that haven’t so much enriched the overarching story as slowed it down.
So you could imagine my feelings when I saw the title for this weeks episode as it pertains directly to arguably the least interesting character the show has to offer; that of constantly complaining hacker May. However, it seems that her murky past may connect to the MonsterVerse more than you’d think…
After their shock confrontation with Godzilla in the Algerian desert, Cate and Kentaro try to process all the recent developments that sprung up in the wake of the suprise emergence of the King of the Monsters. Not only have they parted ways with rogue Monarch co-founder Lee Shaw, but the fourth member of their group, May, has revealed that due to her hidden past, she’s been using them to try and worm out of some unspoken trouble.
Well, it seems that this trouble has finally caught up with her as she’s whisked away from Algeria all the way to Seattle for a face to face with Brenda Holland, a bigwig from Applied Experimental Technologies (AET) who headhunted her three years ago. After getting paid extraordinarily well to write code for a revolutionary Cybernetic Neuro-Interface Unit that could change the lives of millions all over the world. However, after finding out that AET has been experimenting on animals, May (real name Corah) launched a cyber attack on her own company and then went on the run that eventually led her to her fateful meeting with Kentaro.
While May/Corah finally faces her salty past, back in that Algerian airport, Cate and Kentaro are stunned to find that Agent Tim survived his Godzilla related helicopter crash after his dusty form staggers back into their lives. Establishing a truce, Tim agrees to help the pair track down and possibly liberate May from her predicament in return for more intel on their missing father and his link to Godzilla, but as they head off on more adventures, events are in motion that will change the world over the next few years. But while Shaw puts his own plans in motion by comendeering a Monarch outpost back in Alaska and focusing on those weird, glowing craters we saw in earlier episodes, the future face of AET proves to be rather worrisome.
For a television show set slap bang in the middle of a connected universe, it’s often tough for Monarch to forge its own path with the most consistently interesting stuff being born from the franchise looking back over its shoulder at the origins of everything we already know. As if to prove this, Episode 7 finds itself completely mired in the timeline of the entire MonsterVerse when it really should be coming up with more new revelations and surprises.
However, what we do have is still pretty cool to a MonsterVerse enthusiast such as myself as the show makes two rather huge steps towards the last two movies of the current universe. The first is Tim convincing Monarch director Natalia Verdugo that her shadowy organisation needs to drag itself out of the shadows once and for and let a terrified world know that there are specialists keeping an eye on all these giant beasties that are suddenly showing up. While admittedly this feels too sudden a twist to suddenly just happen, it does bring us neatly in line with the public friendly and ludicrously overfunded Monarch we see in Godzilla: King Of The Monsters. However, the bigger shock is that the company that May worked for is on the verge of rebranding itself as APEX and we get repeated name checks of its villainous CEO Walter Simmons and for those of you a little slow on the finer points of the MonsterVerse, it means that May was writing code for the project that will eventually lead to the creation of MechaGodzilla!
Still, the episode does leave some room for it’s own plot as the final scenes sees Lee Pace finally enacting his desire to be more proactive in the realms of Kaiju management as he takes his growing coup that’s steadily been growing within Monarch for a while. While we don’t know exactly why Shaw blows up one of those glowing craters (and a Frost Vark into the bargin), it seems to close the thing off which leads me to believe this is obviously some Hollow Earth related deal. Whether Shaw is sealing off all the holes to limit Titan movements or something more sinister, its going to be this that’ll no doubt become Monarch’s chief plot thread.
I just kind wish they’d hurry it up a little – or at least throw in some more 50s stuff – because despite us getting plenty of insight into what makes our three main protagonists tick, neither Cate, Kentaro, or May are particularly interesting characters to follow. Yes, they’ve all got their hang ups, but after seven episodes, they still haven’t gotten over many of them and they certainly haven’t formed any chemistry and it’s truly a shame that the show’s weakest point is its main characters while it’s the supporting players are the ones that prove to be far more fun to follow.
Much like we found back in episode five, Monarch tends to stumble when stripped of its 50s flashbacks, random Titan set pieces and the occasional walk-on by Godzilla, and the writers need to realise that leading with plot twists that will mean utterly nothing to casual viewers shouldn’t be more interesting than the main plot.
Still, with three episodes to go, Monarch still has plenty of time to finally focus all its energies into standing on it’s own two, giant-sized feet and causing some collateral damage of its own, rather than still paying (admittedly fun) lip service to its four surrounding feature films. Still, at least May got some backstory, eh?
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