Apple TV+’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters episode three picks up seconds after the end of episode two, with the elderly Lee Shaw (Kurt Russell, a spry 72 playing 91) warning Cate (Anna Sawai), May (Kiersey Clemons), and Kentaro (Ren Watabe) they have one minute to decide if they’re going to break him out of the “retirement” community. Kentaro and Cate are desperate to know what happened to their dad, and Lee’s their only hope.
The foursome make a run for the van, and Lee’s totally confused when the van doesn’t need a key to start. Still, he’s the designated driver since he’s got experience fighting his way out of trouble.
Lee rams the front gates and Kentaro realizes he’ll never get his rental car deposit back.
And after just a few minutes with Kurt Russell, his son Wyatt takes over as Lee Shaw for a flashback to an airplane hangar. Dr. Keiko Miura (Mari Yamamoto) and Bill Randa (Anders Holm) aren’t as convinced as Lee that they need to bring the military into their recently formed Monarch operation investigating Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms (MUTOs), but Lee reminds them the government has money and material they desperately need.
General Puckett (Christopher Heyerdahl) and his men arrive, and Puckett can’t believe Lee’s really embraced what started out as just a babysitting assignment. The hangar contains a giant impression of a creature’s foot that they took in Indonesia three weeks earlier. Puckett’s confused why something this huge hasn’t been spotted in the wild.
Puckett’s impressed, but this is just a footprint. Lee and Bill suggest there’s a way to lure the creature into the open; all it takes is 150 pounds of uranium. Keiko describes radiation trails she discovered, trails that indicate the creature’s path.
Puckett isn’t buying it because the military needs all its uranium for national defense. Lee points out this massive creature is a threat to global security. That warning works, and the military is on board.
And once more to Kurt as Lee we go, with Lee convinced that if they figure out what’s in Hiroshi’s files, they can beat Monarch to finding Hiroshi. May confesses she already digitized the files, so they don’t need to risk being caught by returning to her apartment. Lee asks her to search for anything mentioning Alaska and confirms Monarch was founded in the late 1940s. And it’s at this point that Russell’s age and the age his character is supposed to be is finally brought up.
“What can I say? Good genes,” says Lee.
Monarch was built on hopes, dreams, and ambitions, but now they’ve lost their way. Lee can’t believe that instead of chasing monsters, they’re hunting May, Cate, and Kentaro. Lee also breaks the news that Hiroshi worked for the family business – Monarch – and knew monsters existed. Cate’s furious no one issued a warning that what happened in San Francisco was a possibility. Lee says no one could have stopped the attack.
“It’s not our family business; it’s the family curse,” says Cate.
They’re traveling on a massive ferry en route to Korea and Lee warns that if they run into an inquisitive border guard who discovers the Monarch files, they’ll be in huge trouble. Lee wants to toss them overboard, but Kentaro stops him. Also, why are they heading to Korea when Hiroshi is in Alaska?
Lee explains they need to meet up with his last old friend for help – that’s why they’re off to Korea. Kentaro gives in and tosses the Monarch files over the side of the ship.
They arrive in Pohang, South Korea, and Lee stumbles through an excuse as to why he doesn’t have a passport. It doesn’t fly, and they’re taken into custody and escorted to a waiting police vehicle. It turns out one of the guards is Lee’s friend, and it’s all a setup to get them past the checkpoint.
Meanwhile, Monarch’s Tim (Joe Tippett) and Duvall (Elisa Lasowski) meet with a Monarch bigwig who’s upset to have been drawn into Tim’s unauthorized operation. She orders them to return to Monarch’s headquarters and cease their pursuit of Cate, Kentaro, and May and the return of Bill Randa’s field notes – a pursuit that led to Lee Shaw escaping Monarch’s control at the retirement center.
Tim’s convinced Lee’s working on a way to avert another G-Day. The Monarch official doesn’t care but when news arrives that Shaw’s in South Korea, she changes her mind and orders Duvall to get on it with help from a tactical team. Duvall requests that Tim be allowed to join her, and the bigwig reluctantly agrees. After all, crazy knows crazy.
Speaking of Lee, his buddy takes them to a plane that looks incapable of lifting off the ground, insisting it’ll make it to Alaska just fine. Lee fills in missing pieces in Hiroshi’s history, explaining by the time that Hiroshi became involved, Monarch was more about bean-counting than monster-hunting. It’s been 20 years since Lee saw Hiroshi, and Lee doesn’t have any real insight into the man he became. Hiroshi took after his mom and Lee insists he wasn’t a liar. He kept secrets but he didn’t lie.
May discovers geocoordinates in Bill’s handwriting in the files. The notes – and Cate’s memory of where Hiroshi was heading – help Lee to pinpoint Hiroshi’s probable location. He was headed toward Barrow, Alaska but that isn’t where he was going.
Cate confesses she’s not sure whether she’s more afraid of finding her dad or not finding him.
The plane’s instruments start going crazy, and Lee takes over as pilot, positive they’re about to find whatever Hiroshi was after. Lee’s apparently the best pilot around when flying by the seat of his pants. They head straight down and then level out at the last minute. Lee spots a place to land in the snow and puts it down – without crashing. Cate bursts into nervous laughter while May and Kentaro look relieved.
They get out and walk a short way before they come across a plane crash. Parts are strewn around the area of impact, but the dead pilot still strapped into the cockpit isn’t Hiroshi. The other seatbelt is unbuckled, and Lee thinks maybe Hiroshi was thrown free.
A campsite is set up nearby and inside are supplies, cameras, maps, and equipment to record readings. Cate and Kentaro recognize their dad’s handwriting and the pencil shavings he’d always leave wherever he was working.
They hug when they realize their dad survived.
Lee’s pilot buddy finds a rope that snagged the landing gear and figures out Hiroshi’s plane didn’t crash. He does a bit more looking around and finds huge claw marks in the plane’s hull. It was ripped apart by a creature sometime after it had safely landed!
He runs toward his plane and screams for Lee, May, Cate, and Kentaro to join him. He starts the engine as they race toward the plane but before he gets far, a Frost Vark Titan emerges from under the snow and stops the plane. It sucks all the heat and energy from both the pilot and the airplane, and Lee’s buddy dies frozen stiff behind the wheel.
The creature turns toward the foursome.
Bikini Atoll 1954
Lee, Keiko, and Bill arrive and witness the military’s set up a huge bomb (complete with a drawing of Godzilla with a slash through it). Lee speaks with General Puckett and explains they didn’t ask for a uranium bomb. Puckett puts Lee in his place and says that he was ordered to destroy the creature if they managed to draw it out of hiding. They never had any intention of capturing it, and this is what Lee, Keiko, and Bill brought on when they asked for the military’s support.
Beach chairs are set up around base camp to witness what the military hopes will be the destruction of a titan.
Lee knows that if the creature fails to show up, the military will pull its funding. Keiko’s okay with that; she’s upset they just want to blow it up rather than study it.
A camera rolls as suddenly sonar readings spike, indicating there’s something’s out there. Godzilla appears in the water, moving at incredible speed toward the island.
Lee tries one more time to convince General Puckett to stand down. Puckett refuses, unwilling to allow the “enemy” to get the upper hand.
Godzilla rises out of the ocean, lets out a mighty roar, and heads toward where the uranium bomb has been set up. A countdown begins as it approaches, and Lee’s forced to chase after Keiko as she attempts to stop the signal from reaching the bomb.
The bomb ignites and the massive explosion appears to have done its job. Keiko sobs in anger and frustration and cries, “What have we done?!”
Later, Keiko’s still upset and Bill attempts to comfort her while Lee reveals his latest conversation with Puckett. Lee submitted their proposal of multiple Monarch outposts/monitoring stations and more staff, and Puckett rejected it…because they didn’t ask for enough. It turns out Monarch will get a blank check to find more MUTOs!
However, they’ll have to keep all of this top secret. Keiko wonders if they can keep the next discovery secret from General Puckett, but Lee doesn’t want to get court-martialed. Still, he trusts Keiko and replies, “All that I can tell him is what you tell me. And I trust that you will tell me everything that I need to know.”
Keiko’s fine with that, and so is Bill.
- Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Episode 1 “Aftermath” Recap
- Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Episode 2 “Departure” 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
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New episodes of Apple TV+’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters stream on Fridays.
