‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ Season 2, Episode 6 “Requiem” Recap & Review

This article contains spoilers for Apple TV’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2, Episode 6

It’s always interesting to watch how a TV show deals with the death of a character. In Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, the death of Hiroshi Randa (Takehiro Hira) sets off a ripple effect across the cast and the story. With the Randa family so prominent in this show, many characters are emotionally affected, dealing with death in different ways. It also allows the show to go in an interesting direction, giving Episode 6, “Requiem,” a nice mix from beginning to end. 

Hiroshi’s funeral was a mix of Cate (Anna Sawai) and Keiko’s (Mari Yamamoto) sadness, Kentaro’s (Ken Watanabe) anger and Lee Shaw (Kurt Russell) pondering many things while watching at the burial site from a respectable distance. While this emotional moment was underway, Lee was approached by an older Dr. Suzuki (Leo Ashizawa), who had worked with Keiko and Bill Randa (Anders Holm) back in the 1950s.

After his shock at seeing Lee and a still young Keiko, he invites them all, including Cate, back to Hateruma Island. He would like to catch up and explain more about how he and Hiroshi kept in touch over the years.

A quick time jump back to 1958 shows us Keiko and Bill adjusting to their new offices at Monarch HQ in Arlington, Virginia. It’s not all good news, though, as Lee comes to visit only to tell them he’s leaving to take another post. However, as the episode continues to jump back to this moment, we watch Lee get a clear view of what his career might become through the eyes of family, superiors, and alcohol.

His decision to leave Bill and Keiko, driven by his feelings for Keiko and by what happened between them, is weighed against this new direction. Not liking what he might become, he returns to help the two scientists, where he feels like he belongs. 

Meanwhile, on Hateruma, two distinct but important events occur. After talking over dinner, Dr. Suzuki and Lee investigate the possibilities for Suzuki’s invention, which never worked because it lacked key information about time travel, specifically time dilation. Now, armed with this new information, Lee and Dr. Suzuki came up with a plan to test its capabilities at Mount Osore, where a rift is to Axis Mundi, the same one Lee woke up in front of in 1982.

Needless to say, Keiko is not impressed. The idea of unleashing Godzilla somewhere down the road to control him and steer him towards Titan X seems foolish, unlikely, and wrong on many moral levels. As she begins to question Lee and his motives, it’s clear he is set in his plan.

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The other important event centered around Cate and her mysterious ability to seemingly connect with Titan X. After Keiko witnesses the familiar water patterns near Cate, she gets Cate to explain everything that has happened and comes up with a plan to monitor Cate’s strange ability to try and better understand it. With equipment borrowed from Dr. Suzuki, they are able to record sounds from Titan X, sounds Cate identifies as pain, confusion, and being lost.

While they don’t come up with any real answer for how Cate is doing this, there is a possibility they can now better understand Titan X. There is hope that that knowledge will help them in some way. 

While all this is happening, a weird storyline is taking place with Kentaro. Still angry and frustrated, he agrees to get a drink with May (Kiersey Clemons). It turns into a spurned advance, with him sulking more and being approached by Walter Simmons’ daughter, Isabel, in a fumbling attempt to watch over him.

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The whole setup was just as awkward as Kentaro’s attempt to kiss May, which felt totally out of place with what was going on during the rest of this episode. Kentaro having a hard time dealing with death, nightmares, confusion, and anger is all understandable, but it could have been handled, at least in this episode, in a way other than this.

At Mount Osore, Dr. Suzuki and Lee start up the machine and trigger something in the rift, but close it in time before Lee is pulled in. Lee had never seen something like this before. While he was collecting his thoughts, he got a call on the radio he was using to talk to Dr. Suzuki. However, this wasn’t any ordinary call.

It sounded like his voice, calling for help, asking for control for an extraction. One thing fans of sci-fi have learned over the years is that messing with time in any capacity is usually not a good idea. We don’t know yet what’s going on here, but chances are it’s not good.

From start to finish, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2, Episode 6, “Requiem,” was paced very well and, except for the awkward Kentaro at the bar scene, was an enjoyable ride. Kurt Russell seems to be having the time of his life playing Lee Shaw, pushing boundaries with his reckless decisions while keeping the group focused.

A showdown between Godzilla and Titan X seems inevitable at this point, but I’d love to know how King Kong fits into this. Time will tell whether the human characters will finally be able to keep it all together and work together before anyone else dies in their efforts.