Apple TV+’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters episode seven opens with a creature emerging from the dirt. Check that…it’s not a creature, it’s Tim (Joe Tippett). He survived the helicopter crash without any major noticeable injuries.

Tindouf, Algeria: Cate (Anna Sawai) is trying to work through why her dad was out there. Kentaro (Ren Watabe) is done worrying about his dad, certain Hiroshi just ran away and left them to die at the feet/claws/jaws of Godzilla.

Meanwhile, May (Kiersey Clemons) waits in the airport bathroom to be kidnapped. Yes, kidnapped. By the time Cate checks on her, she’s gone. Her passport and phone have been left behind.

So, where is May? On board a private jet. A flashback to three years prior in Seattle fills in a few of the May blanks. She’s having a nice business dinner and discussing how much she loves writing code. Brenda Holland (Dominique Tipper), her dinner companion, believes she’s wasting her talent and can work anywhere she chooses. “But I think the future looks better if you created with me,” says Brenda, promising tons of money if she signs on with AET.

Cate and Kentaro are frantically searching for May when Tim walks into the airport. Cate attacks him, but Tim, for once, isn’t responsible for May’s disappearance. Tim was only in the area trying to track down Shaw and had no idea Cate, Kentaro, and May didn’t go home like they were supposed to.

Tim provides a history lesson on Monarch and how Hiroshi personally opened his eyes to the world of Titans. And now it’s Tim’s turn for a lesson. Cate and Kentaro reveal that their dad was there using some sort of machine right before Godzilla woke up. Tim’s certain Hiroshi’s trying to prevent the next G-Day.

Cate grudgingly admits she thinks they need Tim’s help.

Tim checks in with Verdugo and confirms everyone on the helicopter died except him. Verdugo and the team at Monarch are shocked to learn Godzilla put in an appearance. Tim refuses to follow orders and instead is going to stick with Cate and Kentaro, a choice which earns him a suspension from Monarch.

Tim knows the truth about May. Her name is actually Corah.

Another flashback, this time to 30 months ago at the AET Headquarters, puts more pieces of the May puzzle together. May/Corah wonders why Brenda hired her because after being there for six months, she hasn’t accomplished anything. Her coding work was sent to the company’s Cybernetic Neuro-Interface Unit, but May has no idea why it’s there or what it’s being used for.

Brenda reminds her it’s no longer her code; she signed an exclusive contract, which means all her work belongs to AET.

Monarch Outpost 88 in Fairbanks, Alaska: Gamma-ray signatures have been wonky over the Alaskan rift, and Dr. Barnes (Jess Salgueiro) has been called into the outpost to dig into why. Just as Barnes takes a bathroom break, the outpost’s electricity shuts down. It comes back on in less than a minute as Lee Shaw (Kurt Russell) walks in, backed by Duvall (Elisa Lasowski) and her Monarch team. Shaw announces he’s now in control of the base, but everyone’s free to leave after they hear him out.

Lee delivers a speech, asking if they’re ready to stand with him on the right side of history.

Barnes peers through a door, sees what’s going down, and runs off while calling Monarch to alert them to the situation. Duvall chases her but Barnes makes it outside the facility before it’s put on lockdown.

Barnes makes it to a gas station and tells Deputy Director of Monarch Natalia Verdugo she doesn’t know who took over Outpost 88, but they had guns.

Lee has Duvall’s team load up the outpost’s huge explosives stockpile.

Tacoma, Washington: Cate, Kentaro, and Tim arrive at May’s last known address. Tim suggests they keep what they know to themselves since they have no idea how much her family knows about May’s current situation.

While chatting with May’s mom and sister, Cate lies and says they met Corah in Japan through an online manga group. Corah’s mom admits she didn’t really know what her daughter was up to recently, but Corah’s sister’s not buying the threesome’s cover story.

It’s been two years since Corah was home.

As they’re leaving, they notice the sister drive off. They decide to follow her, certain she knows more than she claims. They’re absolutely horrible at tracking, and the sister gets the jump on them inside a parking garage. She demands to know the truth and warns them to leave her family alone.

Kentaro comes through in the clutch, disclosing details about Corah that only a friend would know. The sister admits Corah’s in trouble with Applied Experimental Technologies.

A flashback shows Corah receiving texts from her coworkers frantically trying to reach her because the system’s crashing. Her boss sends a text saying she knows Corah’s responsible. Corah hurriedly packs her belongings and asks her sister to get her cash and allow her to take her passport. Corah tells her she loves her, but she has to disappear.

Back to current events, the sister reveals she’s been in contact by phone with Corah. She also describes Corah as telling her she made a deal and might be able to come back soon.

The kidnapped Corah meets with Brenda, and yet another flashback confirms that she did take the system down after hacking into the Cybernetic Neuro-Interface Unit. She discovered they were secretly experimenting on animals, and that’s definitely not what she signed up for.

Corah wiped out years of research and millions of dollars of investments before disappearing.

Meanwhile, Tim calls in a favor and learns May’s whereabouts. Since she’s in the secure AET building, Tim activates a “massive organism approaching” text alert to clear the building. Tim confesses this is the first time he’s tried the alert in the U.S., although Japan already has a successful system.

Given the mass exodus from nearby buildings, it’s safe to say the system works.

Brenda asks what Corah knows about monsters and refuses to believe it when she says nothing. Brenda thinks they can learn how to make the paralyzed individuals walk from creatures like Godzilla’s nervous systems. That’s the work Corah destroyed.

Brenda’s one smart cookie and knows the alert is just a cover to free Corah. Brenda offers a deal: she’ll let Corah go if she spies on Monarch’s work and tells her everything she learns. That would mean Corah still lives a lie, but at least she won’t be in jail.

Corah refuses the deal.

Corah briefly reunites with Cate, Kentaro, and Tim, catching Cate up in a big hug. She confesses her name isn’t May and that she used to work at AET as a programmer. She apologizes and admits she was using them to save herself, believing she could use Hiroshi’s files to get AET off her back.

She sends them away, insisting they need to leave her alone and forget about her.

Natalia Verdugo and her men snatch the threesome as they exit AET. Verdugo orders Cate and Kentaro to return home and stop hunting for Hiroshi or meddling in Monarch’s business. Cate reminds Verdugo that they found Hiroshi’s map, found Shaw, and ultimately found Godzilla without any help from Monarch. She proposes that if Verdugo helps get May back, they’ll help find Shaw.

Verdugo apparently agrees, as her next stop is Brenda’s office.

Later that day, Corah returns home, and her family’s overjoyed to see her safe and sound.

Tim and Verdugo are now back on the same page, and their next step is to head to Washington to get the DoD’s help containing Shaw. Tim believes they need to alert the public to Monarch’s existence rather than continue to work from the shadows.

May is all-in on getting the gang back together now that she can contact her family whenever she wants. She also insists they continue to call her May instead of Corah.

Verdugo does as Tim suggested and makes a public statement, describing Monarch as a global collaboration that studies massive unidentified terrestrial organisms, including Godzilla. She says the early warning signal triggered in Seattle was a mistake, but at least it showed that the system works.

Verdugo and Monarch believe that together we can survive in this world in which monsters are a real and present danger.

Brenda’s on the phone, delighted with their deal with Monarch. The cybernetic unit’s new name and logo flashes on the screen – Apex Cybernetics. (Apex first appeared in Godzilla vs. Kong.)

The Alaska Rift: Lee oversees all the explosives being set up around the rift. He orders the roof to be brought down on the Titans once and for all, and the massive explosion causes the Frost Vark Titan to appear. The explosions continue and cause a whirlwind to form and swirl over the rift. Suddenly, a white ball of energy is formed and explodes.

The result is a gigantic burned-out hole in the ground. Episode seven ends with Lee raising his fists in the air and screaming, “Yes!”

• Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Episode 1 “Aftermath” Recap
• Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Episode 2 “Departure” Recap
• Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Episode 3 “Secrets and Lies” Recap
• Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Episode 4 “Parallels and Interiors” Recap
• Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Episode 5 “The Way Out” Recap
• Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Episode 6 “Terrifying Miracles” Recap
• Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Episode 8 “Birthright” Recap
• Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Episode 9 “Axis Mundi” Recap
• Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Episode 10 “Beyond Logic” Finale Recap

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New episodes of Apple TV+’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters stream on Fridays.