Monarch: Legacy of Monsters finally returns to our television screens with the Season 2 premiere, “Cause and Effect.” When we last left our heroes, Cate, May, and Keiko had just been rescued from Axis Mundi by Kentaro and Hiroshi after being trapped there for two years. But not only was Shaw still trapped down there, the Apex Cybernetics facility through which they staged the rescue was also located on Skull Island, Kong’s home and birthplace.
How will our heroes escape the Kong attack? Will they be able to rescue Shaw? And what exactly is the connection between Apex Cybernetics and Monarch? All these questions and more will be answered as we dive into Season 2’s first episode. This is your final spoiler warning if you haven’t seen the episode yet, so without further ado, let’s get started.
What happens in Monarch Season 2 Episode 1, “Cause and Effect”?
Our heroes narrowly escape via helicopter as Kong destroys the Apex facility. Keiko (Mari Yamamoto) wakes up in a medical bay, demanding to know where her son is as she runs to find the nearest exit. She finds it and reunites with Hiroshi, quickly discovering that they, along with everyone else, are onboard a floating Monarch facility called Outpost 18. Keiko and the others demand to know when they will be going back to Skull Island to repair the probe and rescue Shaw, but Monarch’s Deputy Director Verdugo forbids them from doing so.
Meanwhile, back in the apparently not-done-yet 1950s storyline, a now-married Keiko and Bill Randa arrive with Young Shaw (Wyatt Russell) to the island of Santa Soledad, where they are greeted by a massive flock of birds flying away from the island and several unfriendly locals. One of them even threatens Bill with a knife after Bill attempts to take a picture of a bizarre, hollowed-out sea creature hanging on the wall of a local bar.
Returning to the present day, Cate and Kentaro reconnect while May’s mother, Brenda, offers her a job at Apex Cybernetics, which she refuses, at least for the time being. As Brenda leaves, Cate and May talk about how much they’ve been through since they first met, with Cate imploring May to help her rescue Shaw. May is hesitant at first, but soon ends up joining Cate and Kentaro, along with their father Hiroshi, in stealing a Zodiac scout ship to go to Skull Island.
Monarch’s forces, including Tim and Deputy Director Verdugo, soon learn of this and follow after them, but not before Tim shows Keiko the marvels of their modern technology. As Verdugo reviews security footage of the Kong attack to determine what provoked the Titan, who had previously left them alone, Keiko notices a small, orb-shaped creature covered in spikes and moving around with tentacles. A creature that bears a striking resemblance to the carcass she saw hanging on the bar wall in Santa Soledad back in the 1950s.
While Bill and the woman are dancing, Keiko and Shaw discuss Shaw’s relationship troubles and changing life plans. Once all three leave the bar, the woman promises to explain the secret if and only if the trio leaves Santa Soledad afterwards. She then leads them to a cave filled with carvings of a large, tentacled Titan, apparently worshipped as a god by the indigenous population.
Cutting back to the present, Cate, Kentaro, May, and Hiroshi arrive on Skull Island with six hours to find the probe, repair it, and rescue Shaw before the storm wall closes and leaves them trapped there. They wander through the forest and the wrecked Apex facility, encountering various creatures and even tiptoeing around a sleeping Kong before finally finding the probe. During the repair process, Cate asks Hiroshi why he cheated on her mother, Caroline, with Kentaro’s mother, Emiko. Hiroshi tries to explain that falling in love with two people at the same time is something that happens involuntarily, but Cate is not convinced.
The Monarch team catches up to the others as they finish repairing the probe to at least be functional, though both of Cate’s parents urge her not to turn it on due to less-than-optimal conditions and the possibility of another Titan emerging from Axis Mundi while the rift is open. Cate ignores these warnings and sends the probe into Axis Mundi, anyway. Shaw (Kurt Russell) spots it and makes a beeline for it, narrowly avoiding a whole swarm of the spiked orb creatures from the bar and the Kong attack (Let’s call them orblings for the sake of simplicity) and briefly coming face-to-face with the tentacled Titan from the carvings, Titan X.
Shaw hops into the probe as it makes its way back to the surface, though one of the orblings does manage to sneak in with him. Luckily, he manages to kill it before it causes any trouble. Unfortunately, Titan X escapes alongside the probe and heads into the water. An awakened Kong attempts to chase Titan X, wreaking havoc on Monarch’s forces and seemingly killing Verdugo, but quickly loses his path, angrily roaring at the escaping Monarch helicopters for freeing the Titan, ending the episode.
Is Monarch Season 2 Episode 1 worth watching?
A good season premiere needs to reintroduce the main characters while setting the stakes for the rest of the season, and “Cause and Effect” does exactly that. We get to see all our main characters again and get a sense of their emotional state after the previous season finale, while also introducing the Titan X storyline that will no doubt serve as the backbone of most of Season 2. There are a lot of strong character moments, particularly Hiroshi’s confession and Keiko and Shaw’s heart-to-heart in the bar, and while the Kong set pieces feel like they wrap up slightly too soon, the rest of the monster action helps make up for it.
Admittedly, some of the cuts between the two storylines can feel slightly disjointed, and the pacing can drag at points. I’m also not sure how to feel about Verdugo’s death. On the one hand, it certainly establishes the direness of the stakes, but I feel like there was a lot of potential for her character that will now go unexplored. Nevertheless, the balance between character drama and monster action that has come to define Legacy of Monsters is very much present in this premiere.
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 is now streaming on Apple TV.
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