Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season 1 episodes 1 & 2 recaps & review

Open Go TV / November 18, 2023 / Reviews

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In the first two episodes of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Cate meets her father’s other family and uncovers several of his secrets, while in the 1950s, her grandmother hunts MUTOS down. The episodes are now streaming on Apple TV+.

Episode 1 recap: Aftermath

In 1973, on Skull Island, William ‘Billy’ Randa throws away his bag while protecting himself from a titan. In 2013, the bag is discovered by fishermen in the Sea of Japan.

In 2015, Cate Randa lands in Tokyo, Japan, which has gone through major changes since the appearance of Godzilla. Measures are taken to ensure that Godzilla doesn’t attack, and even if the monster does appear, they are well-prepared.

Cate was in San Francisco the day Godzilla showed up and is now in Japan to settle her dead father’s affairs. Cate is surprised to see another family, comprising Kentaro and his mother, living in her father’s apartment.

It turns out that her father, Hiroshi, was cheating on her mother and living with another family in Japan. Cate, Kentaro, and Kentaro’s mother discuss what they know about Hiroshi.

Cate decides not to indulge in this further and to leave. She doesn’t like her father much, considering that he did not spend much time with them.

Alarms ring, and the city descends into chaos. Kentaro and his mother pick Cate up and take her to a safe zone. The alarm is an early warning system for Godzilla’s arrival.

While they are together, Cate learns that during Godzilla’s appearance in San Francisco, Hiroshi was not with Kentaro and his mother either. Once the emergency is called off, Kentaro takes Cate to their father’s workplace after being sick of seeing that Cate only thinks of Hiroshi as a liar.

At the workplace, Cate and Kentaro discover a secret safe that opens with all of their birthdays combined. It has the same bag discovered by the fisherman earlier with Monarch’s logo on it.

Cate recognizes the Monarch logo. In San Francisco, soldiers with that logo on their uniforms were roaming around. They weren’t helping anyone; they were just taking pictures as if they knew this was going to happen.

The bag has a form of data storage from the ’70s. Cate and Kentaro head to meet the latter’s girlfriend, May, with whom Kentaro has been having a difficult relationship.

May helps them access these files, which have information on Monarch. Elsewhere, a woman named Collins is notified about the breach, and she informs her boss, Tim, about it.

Back in Tokyo, Cate tells Kentaro that her father showed up four days after Godzilla’s appearance. Hiroshi didn’t stay with his family at a time like this. He left, and a week later, Cate and her mother learned that the plane Hiroshi was on disappeared in the storm.

Among the files that May has decrypted, Cate recognizes one picture of her grandmother, Keiko Miura. She stands right on a monster’s footprint.

In 1959, in Kazakhstan, Keiko Miura, a scientist, her partner, William Randa, and Lieutenant Leland Lafayette Shaw III, also known as Lee, chase a radiation and discover a nursery of a new species of MUTO, Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism.

Keiko and Lee climb down to take a sample. Soon, the eggs start hatching, and monsters come out of them. While Lee successfully climbs back up, Keiko ends up getting dragged down by the creatures.

Episode 2 recap: Departure

In 1952, Lee meets Keiko for the first time in Mindanao Docks, Philippines. He will be her security escort while she investigates some airborne radioisotopes over the Philippine Sea.

Back in 2014, Kentaro’s urge to know more about his father leads him to find a file on Lee and a film tape. Cate, on the other hand, at the airport, bumps into Tim, the man who received notification about Cate and Kentaro accessing Hiroshi’s files.

Tim says he works for Monarch and demands the files that Cate has. Cate tricks Tim and tries to run away. She is shoved into a car. When Tim puts a mask on her face, Cate is reminded of G-Day, the day Godzilla appeared. She fights back and causes a car accident.

Cate comes out of that accident alive and runs. Cate goes to May and learns that Tim’s team has arrived there as well. Cate and May manage to escape quietly.

Meanwhile, Kentaro learns how important Uncle Lee was to his father. Just when Kentaro receives a message from May, Tim comes knocking on his door. Kentaro’s mother stalls Tim and his team, allowing her son to escape.

Kentaro regroups with May and Cate, and he knows where they should be headed. The group finds an old Lee, who has been imprisoned by the Monarch at a resting home. Lee cuts the tracker on his leg and is ready to assist them in finding out what really happened to Hiroshi.

In 1952, during their investigation, Lee and Keiko meet William Randa, also known as Billy. They are all searching for the same thing.

Billy tells them to look at the folklore too. He talks about a dragon that carves a path of fire across the sky. Scientifically, it can be a path of ionizing radiation.

While Keiko wants to take Billy’s help, Lee is not ready to have him with them. Keiko asks Lee to leave while she continues her investigation with Billy, who further shows her the diagram of the lights in the sky that have been tracing the same path on the map. It’s like migrating birds.

The pattern matches the radiation readings that Keiko has. The two follow the map, which leads them to a ship on which Billy once was. The ship disappeared 5,000 miles away from this place nine years ago.

It hit something on the night that it sank. Only Billy survived. The two also discover bodies on the ship, wrapped in some white substance. Lee sees the lightning in the sky that Billy mentioned and heads back.

Billy and Keiko are attacked by a MUTO. Lee comes to the rescue, and the three manage to evade the attack of the MUTO.

Review

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters kicks off with a huge Titan fight that gets the viewers invested and promises that the show isn’t going to be slow with its developments.
The show takes place in two different timelines, and both of these storylines are engaging and mysterious, keeping viewers surprised and curious about the world where MUTOs exist.
The Monsterverse’s approach of connecting folklore with science continues to be fascinating. The folklore in this episode doesn’t fail to make viewers curious, and when they see it taking place right before their eyes, it’s no less of a spectacle.