This article contains spoilers for Apple TV’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 Premiere
Having a watchdog agency like Monarch, which keeps an eye on all things involving Titans, is not a new idea. The late Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe has the Talamasca, for instance, watching over the vampires, witches, and other assorted creatures of the night. However, building a timeline for Monarch and then connecting it to movie lore has been tricky, to say the least. However, season one of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters gave us enough intriguing ideas and story to make a second season something worth waiting for.
It’s been over two years since Monarch: Legacy of Monsters left us hanging with its season one finale. The premiere wastes no time in jumping right into where we left off. It is 2017 on Skull Island, and everyone is on the run, trying to get away from the island’s protector, King Kong.
Those who escaped the Axis Mundi, the chaotic dimension buffering Earth’s surface and Hollow Earth, are still in shock at the loss of Lee Shaw (Kurt Russell). He stayed behind so they could escape, and no one knows if he’s still alive. The group escapes in helicopters to Outpost 18, Monarch’s seaborne control platform, where they begin to recover mentally and physically while everyone plans their next moves.
With Monarch busy, Hishori (Takehiro Hira), Cate (Anna Sawai), Kentaro (Ren Watabe), and May (Kiersey Clemons) steal a small boat from Outpost 18 and head back to Skull Island in hopes of going back to Axis Mundi and rescuing Lee. There is still a lot of family drama going on here, especially between Hishori and Cate. While it’s a distraction at times, it also helps raise the tension in certain moments, adding to it as they put their plan in motion.
Back on Outpost 18, Keiko (Mari Yamamoto) is still trying to get her bearings after being away so long. Time moves differently in Axis Mundi, so while she hasn’t aged much at all, many, many years have gone by on Earth.
The show continues its jumping back and forth through time, and we head back to 1957 to watch a young Lee Shaw (Wyatt Russell), Keiko, and a young Bill Randa (Anders Holm) investigate a village in Santa Soledad, located in Southern Chile.
To say the locals don’t welcome them with open arms would be an understatement, but they discover many curious things there, including the legend of a mysterious monster. While Keiko pursues her scientific curiosity, Bill leaves to track the beast, leaving Keiko and Lee at the mercy of the villagers and the still-unsolved mysteries there.
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The constant jumping back and forth in time was pretty jarring at times in the first season, and not always successful. The necessary backstories, and there were a lot of them, took up a lot of time and sometimes dragged the story down. However, in “Cause and Effect,” it’s pretty seamless, and the story is tight, making the back-and-forth much more enjoyable and interesting.
We begin to see parallels in the two storylines. Even with so many years separating them, it’s a fun ride waiting to see what is uncovered next.
The group on Skull Island manages to get the pod back to Axis Mundi, bringing Lee back to the island in one piece. However, the successful rescue had its downside, and then some. First of all, they brought a Titan back with the pod, and not just any Titan. This one, Titan X, is something no one has seen before, except Keiko, and now it is here on Earth.
To make matters worse, Monarch arrives in helicopters, chasing the rescue team down to this location, only to have disaster strike when, with a whip of its tail, it seemingly kills one of the rescue party, that being the director-deputy of Monarch, Natalia Verdugo (Mirelly Taylor). Things keep getting worse from there.
The Titan X escapes the island, and Kong, and heads out into the open ocean. Meanwhile, the Monarch team returns with the rescue team intact (minus the director) and one of the little scarab creatures from the island, which is what Lee battles when in the pod, trying to get back to Earth.
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There is a lot less backstory in the Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 premiere. However, it makes up for it with more action and consequences, and the beginnings of what may or may not be lurking in the village in Southern Chile. There is little time wasted here, and we get right to it, moving quickly between characters and monsters alike.
It’s not an easy thing to do; there are a lot of characters and always more story to be told, given Monarch’s nature. “Cause and Effect” was a great jumping-off point for Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2, which looks to have many mysteries ahead.
