Looking back at my opinions about last week’s episode, there was a sense that I might have been a bit too harsh on the third episode of Monarch’s sophomore season. However, looking back over “Secrets”, I still maintain that the episode was a giant step back for the series in general due to the various plotlines of the characters somehow proving to be able to eclipse the presence of 600 feet of aquatic Titan. Between the legitimately self-obsessed angst of Cate, and the fact that characters like Kentaro and Hiroshi have been busted down to the equivalent of minor members of a Mission: Impossible team, the episode recalled some of the bad habits found within season one and surely should have been something the writing teams should’ve looked to have conquered by now. However, with all of the selfsame story threads channelling into episode 5, virtually no flashes back to the past and even less time dedicated to the central presence of Titan X, can the latest episode of Monarch managed to require all that lost momentum?
While Titan X continues to treat the world’s oceans as it’s own personal pool in order to get its laps in, find our clutch of main characters gradually coming back together in order to solve their various problems – both personal and global. With the world on a high Titan alert, a pair of trespassing surfers are fatally swarmed by scores of Scarabs returning to the bosom of their matriarch in American Samoa while Titan X uses its spiked tentacles to crush a Monarch ship like a beer can. But while the world girds it’s loins for the devastation of yet another G-Day, it seems that Apex Cybernetics can’t stop trying to take advantage of all the panic. While Tim attempts to lock horns with dismissive Apex representative, Jason Trissop, as he intrusively updates Monarch’s systems, Shaw, Keiko, Kentaro, Hiroshi are still trying to recover from Apex’s theft of their Titan calling device that they were hoping to lure Titan X away from populated areas.
But with May firmly lodged within the infrastructure of Apex, Shaw and the gang decide to stage a counter-heist that requires them to break into the Floria headquarters of the dodgy cybernetics company that is destined to eventually create Mechagodzilla. With only 23 hour hours to throw a plan together, they opt to pull a daring break in and steal their contraption back before Titan X makes landfall in the one place that’s not equipped to handle it – a still rebuilding San Francisco. Coincidently, that’s exactly where Cate has gone in order to mope over her multiple forms of guilt, but after receiving a form of salvation from an unexpected place, she realises she needs to get back in the game.
However, once Shaw and the gang manage to gain entry to Apex, they soon discover that Brenda Holland and Apex have special plans for Titans in order to get them and humans to co-exist. But even after experimenting with various species from Skull Island, do Apex really think they can control Titan X?
See? Was this really so hard? While “Trespass” shares a lot of potentially troublesome DNA as “Secrets” (sidelined characters, minimal Titans, Cate Randa feeling sorry for herself), all it takes is a bit of balance and a load of drive and all of a sudden, Monarch season 2 is up and running again after episode three caused the whole show to come to a shuddering stop. When it comes to human beings in Kaiju media, you really need to keep them moving in a state of constant flux, because whenever you don’t have giant monsters roundhousing major cities on screen, attention will start to wane. While season 1 managed to diffuse this with its globe hopping mystery and a menagerie of varied Titans, season 2 obviously is trying to veer more into a Mission: Impossible style heist mode as our team seems to be squaring up to evil corporation, Apex, to battle for control over how to deal with Titan X. It was a good plan, and it gave us two fantastic first episodes that spoiled us somewhat with the sheer amount of Titan time we got, but I guess that even this golden age of prestige television can’t sustain non-stop Kaiju action for three whole episodes, which led to the frustrating non-event that was last week.
Well thankfully, it seems that we’re back. Yes, some of those problems still remain and I know I’m so hard on the Cate storyline, but now that the (highly improbable) meeting with one of the kids she managed to save on G-Day has strengthened her resolve and she seems to be able to feel resonance from Titan X when she’s in touch with the ocean, she’ll finally start pulling her weight. Meanwhile, all the other threads that helped stop the show in its tracks all suddenly come alive and gives everyone something to get busy with as we slowing pick apart at Apex’s sinister infrastructure.
Apex’s delve into Outpost 18’s mainframe is ultimately revealed as a massive feint to send Monarch in the wrong direction which not only gives poor Tim another crash course in leadership, but it means that San Francisco facing another shit-kicking was only a hoax. No, it seems that the algorithm that May stole all those years ago was needed by Brenda Holland not to create Mechagodzilla like I once thought, but Apex actually want to try brainwashing tech in order to make Titans more docile and thus less destructive. Controlling Kaiju is a classic plotline almost as old as Godzilla himself as seen in classics as Destroy All Monsters and Invasion Of Astro-monster, so it’s genuinely cool to see the Monsterverse dabbling in some old school stuff, but we also get some cool, connective tissue too. Not only do we spend time in two prominent Monsterverse locations in the same episode (San Francisco was the site of G-Day and Godzilla goes on to wipe the Pensacola HQ of Apex off the map at the start of Godzilla Vs. Kong), but we see that Apex’s use of Skull Island wildlife didn’t just stop at feeding Skullcrawlers to Mechagodzilla. Not only do we get a brainwashed Leafwing, but we get some new beasties in the form of Needlewalkers (think benign Velociraptors covered in grass) and a toothy blob creature that looks worrying like something out of The Thing (good job Kurt Russell’s here then…). Obviously Apex is directing Monarch away from Titan X in order to perform some techno-whammy on its brain and the plan is sound enough to actually make May switch sides – again (girl, pick a lane). But while efforts are in place to change the mindset of a giant sea monster, the real triumph here is that Monarch has managed to once again change its momentum.
What with Lee’s old love letter about to surface and wreck everything, I’m crossing every finger I have in hope that it doesn’t draw too much attention away from the big picture. Yes, internal conflict is just as important as giant monster conflict, but now that Monarch has managed to fire up its engines and get things moving, it’ll be a shame if it stalls again so soon. Still, as long as we’ve got Apex acting like full on villains in a Jurassic World movie, Monarch can keep the traction this episode has bought it and continue to refine that regained monster/human balance.
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