Apple TV+’s incredibly entertaining Monarch: Legacy of Monsters takes a deep dive into Legendary’s Monsterverse and reveals the roots of the mysterious Monarch organization. Told over multiple timelines, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season one serves up ample helpings of the “monster” portion of Monsterverse while also doing a considerably better job of incorporating the human drama (with a sprinkling of humor) than the feature films have managed to pull off.
Episode one, streaming on November 17, 2023, opens with a flashback to Skull Island 1973. John Goodman’s Bill Randa from 2017’s Kong: Skull Island apologizes to the camera and reveals he’s leaving a legacy so that people will realize it’s all worth it.
Bill drops his camera as he flees a massive Mother Longlegs to the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean. He removes a bag and tosses it into the sea just as Mantleclaw (a massive crab beastie) emerges from the ground to attack the Longlegs. The fight results in both creatures tumbling into the ocean as Bill’s package with Monarch markings floats by.
Fast-forward to the Sea of Japan in 2013, and Bill’s package gets caught up in a fishing net. A fisherman examines it briefly before returning to sorting his catch.
Leap forward a few more years to 2015 and Cate Randa (Anna Sawai) remains seated on a packed plane as men spray a disinfectant throughout the cabin. Their containment suits prompt a flashback to being trapped on the Golden Gate Bridge while Godzilla was attacking. (Remember the sequence in 2014’s Godzilla?) She finally disembarks and notices the “Godzilla Evacuation route” signs painted on the pathway, with large yellow arrows showing the way.
The threat of Godzilla is very real in this altered version of our world.
Cate’s an American schoolteacher from San Francisco visiting Tokyo, Japan, to investigate a set of keys that belonged to her missing and presumed dead dad. As the taxi drives her to an address she’s never visited, she spots signs indicating what to do if Godzilla returns. Giant missile launchers also signal the city’s preparedness for an eventual attack.
Her taxi driver confirms the government’s investing money on missiles and drones, even though he personally believes the attack in San Francisco was a hoax perpetrated with CGI. Obviously, Cate knows better since she was on the bridge and lived through it, but she doesn’t argue with this conspiracy theorist. (After all, what’s the point?)
Her mom calls just as she approaches her father’s apartment, and we learn that neither woman has any idea why he was keeping a place in Tokyo. Cate’s shocked the key actually works in the door and then stunned when the apartment is filled with photos of her father, Hiroshi (Takehiro Hira), with another woman and child.
The people in the photos are in the apartment and justifiably assume that she might be crazy since she just broke into their home. Cate shows them the keys she found in her father’s desk, and only then do they all realize the deceased man had two families.
The son, Kentaro (Ren Watabe), is skeptical that Cate is who she says she is. Cate shows them family photos to prove they have the same dad. She also reveals he was rarely home on weekends, even though her parents were married for 30 years.
Cate isn’t judging this other family but does wonder who he cheated on first. Her dad’s other wife, Emiko (Qyoko Kudo), begs her to help it all make sense, and Cate changes her mind and apologizes for intruding. She leaves her dad’s keys behind and takes off.
Cate’s mom calls again as she’s leaving the apartment, but they’re suddenly disconnected when the early warning system alarm sounds throughout the city. People race toward safety in shelters specifically designated for such an attack.
Kentaro and Emiko catch up with Cate in the street and escort her to the shelter. They need to remain in place until the all-clear alert sounds, and Kentaro and his mom use this opportunity to ask if Hiroshi was with her in San Francisco when Godzilla attacked.
Cate confirms he wasn’t with her as a flashback shows what happened on the school bus on the day of the attack. She tried to keep the students calm but fell out of the back of the bus while leading the way out. When she made it to her feet, she was face to face with Godzilla!
Still, she continued evacuating the bus until it plunged off the bridge. Unfortunately, some of the students were trapped inside and didn’t survive.
Cate comes out of the flashback and panics. Emiko comforts her as she pulls herself together.
The all-clear signal sounds and everyone makes their way out of the shelter. Kentaro doesn’t want anything to do with Cate, but his mom wants her to join them at home for tea. Cate has no desire to spend time with her father’s other family, but Kentaro points out she came all this way and didn’t accomplished anything. (He’s right.) She doesn’t even know what the other keys on the ring belong to.
Cate reconsiders and accompanies Kentaro to their dad’s office. She’s unimpressed but looks around while questioning whether either of them ever really knew what their father did for a living. Neither ever met anyone he worked with.
Cate’s upset at her dad and rips his work off the wall, exposing a safe. She tries a few passcodes before discovering he used a combination of their birthdays. Inside the safe is the Monarch bag Bill Randa tossed into the ocean all those years ago. She recognizes the Monarch symbol; it was on the men’s uniforms on the Golden Gate Bridge.
The bag smells like fish and contains an old data storage drive. If Kentaro helps her find out what’s on it, Cate promises to get out of his life forever.
They meet with Kentaro’s ex, May (Kiersey Clemons), who happens to be an insanely talented hacker. She’s upset he ghosted her and is now treating her like tech support. Still, she gives in just to help Kentaro determine if Cate’s really his sister.
Back at May’s place, she notes the file is encrypted but manages to work around it. Files designated as top secret open, triggering an alert at Monarch headquarters. A Monarch data culler quickly informs her boss of this development and explains that whoever opened it up quickly took it offline once they determined the software worked. All the techie can say is that the file was accessed in Tokyo. Her boss, Tim (Joe Tippett), sends her away, promising he’ll take care of it.
May, Kentaro, and Cate have no idea what they’re looking at as hundreds of files (letters, photos, charts, etc) pop up on May’s screen. Cate spots a photo of Bigfoot, and Kentaro spots a big satellite map that looks like the one Cate ripped off their dad’s office wall.
Cate reveals people from Monarch were in San Francisco during the attack, and they were taking pictures while Godzilla wreaked havoc on the Golden Gate Bridge. Since the map was in their dad’s office, Cate thinks he must be part of Monarch. Kentaro doesn’t believe their dad would be involved in something like this.
Up to this point, Cate’s pretended she can’t speak Japanese. However, she lets it be known that she can when Kentaro tries to blame her for Hiroshi being in San Francisco and not Japan.
We’re treated to another brief flashback of San Francisco in 2014 and Cate calling her dad from the temporary camp set up for those who’ve been rescued. He quickly joins her and catches her up in a big hug but then explains he can’t flee with her and her mom. He’s got passes for them to go to Reno and asks Cate to take care of her mother since he can’t go with them. He assures her they’ll be all right and says he’s sorry. He says he loves them both before taking off.
A week later, Cate learned his plane disappeared in Alaska. The wreckage was never found.
Kentaro doesn’t think their dad was a monster, and the answers must be in these files. Cate’s attention is drawn to a photo of her grandmother, Keiko, standing in a massive footprint. Kentaro also recognizes Keiko but never met her since she died when their dad was little.
Kazakhstan 1959 – Introducing Bill, Lee, and Keiko
Cryptozoologist Bill Randa (Anders Holm), soldier Lee Shaw (Wyatt Russell), and scientist Dr. Keiko Mura (Mari Yamamoto) check the radiation levels as they drive out to the middle of nowhere. (Holm is playing a younger version of John Goodman.) Their good-natured banter suggests they’ve been friends for a while, and Bill and Keiko are married with a kid. Lee compliments them on keeping their relationship alive and holding Monarch together.
Lee’s with the duo after being assigned by the Army to keep the pair of scientists alive. They arrive at their target location, and Bill reveals that their task is to confirm that the “network” is real.
They don gas masks before slipping into a restricted area. They don’t make it far before encountering a boy with a rifle who holds them at gunpoint. Keiko takes off her mask to calm the teen, and she’s able to convince him to lower his weapon. She explains that they’re scientists investigating the contamination, and the boy insists that’s a fairy tale. The truth is that the government burned a hole through the earth all the way to hell.
The closer they get to the hole to hell, the more they encounter dead trees. They stop on the edge of a small cliff, and in the near distance are industrial buildings that look deserted. Nothing is growing in the ground surrounding the complex. Keiko’s Geiger counter indicates there isn’t any radiation, even though they detected it miles away.
Keiko thinks there’s something to the boy’s story since the area isn’t cordoned off due to a radiation leak.
They walk through the industrial complex, occasionally seeing a spike on the Geiger counter. However, the spike quickly fades away. Lee believes that means the creatures are eating whatever spiked.
“It’s not like we haven’t seen it before. These things think the A in A-bombs stand for appetizers,” he says semi-jokingly.
They plant charges around the facility and watch as the sonar picks up chambers deep within the rock. It’s exactly what they’ve been looking for, but their celebration is short-lived as the ground opens all around them.
The threesome make their way down a staircase and discover hundreds of massive unidentified terrestrial organisms (MUTO) embryos scattered on the floor. Bill believes it’s a nursery, and Lee points out that means mom must be nearby. Despite the possibility of an angry mother hanging out in the chambers, Bill wants to get busy collecting samples.
As Lee and Bill argue over descending deeper into the chamber, Keiko takes matters into her own hands and climbs over the railing. Keiko’s attached to a rope, and Bill reluctantly agrees it’s the only way to get the creatures’ DNA samples. However, Lee thinks they’re both crazy and wants them to think this through before they do anything rash.
Keiko claims it will only take five minutes, and that’s enough to convince Lee to help. Bill remains on a catwalk above as Lee and Keiko make it to the embryos. Suddenly, the ground cracks again and Keiko is forced to hurry. They can see the creatures inside the eggs, and Keiko believes they’re insectoids since they have multiple appendages.
The ground continues to rumble, and there’s no time to finish withdrawing the DNA as the eggs crack open! Lee and Keiko start to climb the ropes back to safety, but the creatures (called Endoswarmers) grab Keiko’s legs. Episode one ends with the weight on the rope making it impossible for Bill to keep his grip. The rope slips out of his hands, causing Keiko to tumble back to the floor.
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Review:
The first episode effectively introduced the key players viewers will follow over the 10-episode season and dropped a few CG Titans into the mix to satisfy viewers more into creatures than flesh-and-blood characters. The writing’s terrific and the cast is first-rate, and viewers can expect to become emotionally invested in Cate, Kentaro, Max, Keiko, Bill, and Lee as the season progresses.
The casting of Wyatt Russell as a young version of his dad, Kurt, might have sounded gimmicky, but it doesn’t come across that way. It’s perfect, even if Kurt’s 20 years too young for the role.
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters has enough Easter eggs to demand multiple viewings for those who are well-versed in the Monsterverse. For everyone else, there’s no need to worry about missing a reference. The story works well for both diehard fans and casual Monsterverse viewers.
New episodes of Apple TV+’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters stream on Fridays.
- Season 1 Episode 2 “Departure” Recap
- Season 1 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 7 “Will the Real May Please Stand Up” 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
