Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters was something of a breath of fresh air in an expanding Monsterverse that was getting ever more wacky and flamboyant with every subsequent entry. While audiences could watch Godzilla suplex Kong off the side of a pyramid on the big screen in Godzilla × Kong, Apple+’s show harkened back to the more serious tone of Gareth Edwards’ 2014 Godzilla that attempted to keep things vaguely real when dealing with giant, radioactive lizards and nearly 60 years of monster related conspiracy theories.
The result, while certainly flawed, was the shot of somber storytelling that the franchise was calling out for. Certainly, budget restrictions kept Godzilla strictly a side character and some of the family drama of the Randa clan tended to overwhelm the monster stuff, but thanks to some genuinely gripping flashbacks that detailed the genesis of the titular organisation back in the 50s, Monarch became a noticably more nuanced arm (or tentacle) of a franchise that’s often low on subtlety. But now that season 2 has surfaced, can the show manage to smooth down those rough edges and evolve into a more perfect form like it’s Titan subjects?
When we last saw the squabbling members of the Randa family, they has been reunited after Cate, her grandmother Keiko and May had been rescued from Axis Mundi, a halfway dimension between the surface world and the Hollow Earth. However, thanks to the time flux involved, two years have passed on the surface while Hiroshi, Kentaro and Apex have toiled to bring them back, but to make matters worse, their exit point is on Skull Island and Kong seems to be undergoing something of a tantrum as he tears up the place in a blind rage.
But while while everyone takes some much needed time to reassess their places in the world, Cate can’t help but feel pangs of jealousy that her half-brother, Kentaro, has had two whole years to re-bond with their estranged father while she still has to deal with the (relatively) new revelations that he A) had a secret family and B) faked his death. Keiko, having been trapped in Axis Mundi since 1959, has to try and deal with the years she’s been in limbo, the fact she looks younger than her own son, Hiroshi, and how much Monarch has blossomed in the years since her absence. However, as the swanky new Monarch transport, Outpost 18, steers a course away from Skull Island, Cate refuses to let fellow co-founder of Monarch, Lee Shaw, remain stuck in Axis Mundi and convinces her brother, father and May to return and attempt to avoid a raging, skyscraper-sized ape in order to power things back up and mount a rescue.
However, a flashback to 1957 reveals that there’s something rather ominous lurking in the wings that might be awoken by the rescue mission in the present day.
While I understand that this is only the first episode of the second season and we still have nine more installments to go, I genuinely believe that “Cause And Effect” is an hour long, direct reply to literally every criticism that was leveled at the first season. While the show itself was of high quality, some had a point when they complained of the modern day threads dragging due to the family drama acting like an anchor, or the fact that the show focused more on smaller, ineffectual monsters when all we wanted was a Godzilla show. Well, judging by the first salvo from the new series, someone obviously listened because it’s pretty much everything that people asked for that still manages to fulfill its own brief to the letter.
The main hurdle to leap was trying to find a way to stop the modern day family stuff from holding everything back, and while Cate still suffers from main character syndrome and Kentaro is still something of a moody sod, the fact that the show starts on Skull Island and ups the Monsterverse stuff significantly means that the day to day complaints of the Randa’s don’t manage to swamp beasts that are a thousand times their size. Similarly, while the first season had Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla to work from, as this show is now set two years before the events of 2019’s Godzilla: King Of The Monsters, the showrunners are now free to give Monarch much more of an expansive presence in the world with the swanky supership, Outpost 18, acting like that big-ass plane base the organisation operated from in Michael Dougherty’s sequel. Simply put, Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters is now free to go full Monsterverse and in some cases, this single episode proves to be more expansive and contains more connecting tissue than some of the movies.
For a start, after having Godzilla roll in and out of season 1 like a guest star demanding too big a fee to be a regular cast member, season 2 literally starts by cramming a rampaging Kong directly in our face and as the episode continues, we get another expedition on Skull Island, various Jurassic Park style action beats and even the first glimpse of this season’s impressive looking villain as it awakes in Axis Mundi, travels to the surface and scarpers into the sea before Kong can get his mitts on it. As a stand alone episode, it’s probably one of the best things that the Monsterverse has ever done and watching aspects from multiple movies (and the show itself, of course) get drawn together to work as one still proves to be one of the most rewarding aspects the TV arm provides.
Yes, I’m aware that this is only the season premiere and things will most likely slow down from here on in (Apple+ can’t have spent that much money, surely), but on the other hand, Kurt Russell’s Shaw has only just returned from Axis Mundi, there’s still no sign of Godzilla, and there’s still always the show’s secret weapon – those 1950s flashbacks.
Consistently the best part of season one, the continuing adventures of Young Shaw, pre-Axis Mundi Keiko and not John Goodman Bill Randa (sorry Anders Holm, but you still look nothing like him), not only will give us a background to the Monsterverse’s new, hulking, villain on the block, but their discovery of a creepy, Chilean village that worships the creature carries some fantastic H.P. Lovecraft, Shadow Over Innsmouth vibes that’ll keep that time period busy while we (hopefully) get more perfectly balanced monster stuff in the present.
We’ve still a ways to go, but Monarch’s second season explodes out of the blocks to provide virtually everything you’ve want in a Monsterverse show. The central family stuff blends in with the monster stuff far more fluidly, there’s a ton of world building, there’s a fairly important death (that explains why there’s always a new head of Monarch every couple of years, I guess), we get to spend more time on Skull Island and Kong’s appearance isn’t some fleeting appearance as his presence is keenly and repeatedly felt. As it stands, in a world of Godzillas, Kongs and various other beasties, Monarch proudly stands as king, claws crossed that the show can keep it up.
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