It's been a bit since Monarch: Legacy of Monsters has made its larger-than-life presence felt on our screens. In that time, the MonsterVerse achieved new heights of success on the silver screen with 2024's Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, guaranteeing more movies from the franchise. And its future on TV is equally as bright, as the Apple TV deal brings a second season of Monarch, along with the promise of more spinoffs.
The first season relied heavily on Godzilla himself to reel viewers in, along with Kurt and Wyatt Russell playing different versions of the same character. The second brings Kong into the fray, and it wastes little time in placing the Eighth Wonder of the World at the forefront of its premiere episode. Here's everything that went down in "Cause and Effect".
Kong's Skull Island rampage continues
The season 2 premiere dives right back into the madness, picking up from where the season 1 finale left off. Keiko Miura has just reunited with her son Hiroshi while Cate has reunited with brother Kentaro, but the celebrations are cut short by the arrival of Kong. Yes, as the season 1 finale revealed, Monarch and Apex Cybernetics worked together to bring Cate home, doing so on Skull Island. Kong, however, didn't take the recent disturbances too well.
As our heroes run for their lives, Kong marches through the nearby forest and out into the open, crushing soldiers, scientists, and everyone trying to flee. Just as he did in 2017's Kong: Skull Island, he takes out a helicopter in his midst, too. The gang make it to another helicopter and watch the destruction as they lock eyes with Kong, who angrily glares at them as they fly off. It's a terrifying sight and a sequence that reminds us of just how powerful Kong is.
Keiko awakes from a sleep to find herself in a hospital room surrounded by scientists who are monitoring her. Despite their pleas for her to rest, she's uncertain and detaches herself from the machines - heading through a door to see that she's on a Monarch ship. From there, Hiroshi takes her to the control room where she learns about what Monarch became after her disappearance.
Our heroes are disorientated after the attack. Kong doesn't normally act up like this and it has everyone spooked. But Cate feels guilt for having left Lee Shaw behind in Axis Mundi during their escape and she is therefore determined to rescue him. She informs Kentaro and May of her intentions, who both agree to help her get on a ship back to the island - despite Deputy Director Natalia Verdugo's orders. Hiroshi disagrees at first, but he refuses to let her do it without him, and ultimately joins. Having turned down an offer from Brenda to be a part of Apex Cybernetics, May provides the distraction that Cate needs and joins their escapade just before they leave the ship.
Journey to the center of the Earth... again
On the island, Cate attempts to recreate the experiment that brought her back from Axis Mundi but it doesn't exactly go to plan - not at first anyway. First of all, the island is unsurprisingly crawling with creatures that they need to avoid. May and Kentaro encounter a specifically deadly one, which the latter manages to kill by driving a forklift through it.
Back on the Monarch ship, Keiko learns about what her project has grown into, with Tim telling her how much he thinks they could learn from. Verdugo fills her in on Kong's recent destruction, and Keiko notices something in the footage - something that looks eerily familiar to a sea creature that she, Lee Shaw, and Bill Randa were searching for back in 1957.
Throughout the episode, we cut back to 1957 as the flashback format returns to the show. Keiko, Bill, and Lee arrive in a seaside village in Southern Chile. The locals aren't friendly, particularly when they see Bill showing interest in a potential creature mounted on the wall. And, after a conversation with a friendly barmaid, they discover that the locals consider the creature a god and don't want anyone disturbing it. She, however, agrees to take them to a cave so that they can get answers - but only if they leave afterwards.
Meanwhile, back in the present, Monarch officials learn about Cate's escapade back to Skull Island and immediately send out a rescue party. The fog around the island is getting unsettled as a storm is imminent, meaning that they don't have long to rescue them. But when Cate sees the helicopters incoming, she initiates the portal - sending the pod they escaped in back into Axis Mundi.
Speaking of Axis Mundi, it turns out that the elder Lee Shaw is indeed still alive, and about to battle the same creature that Keiko wounded with an arrow in season 1 when the portal reopens and sends the pod in. Lee wastes little time in making his way to the pod, but he soon realizes that he and the boar aren't alone. A number of small, shelled creatures begin running towards him / the portal, crawling all over him as they do. And there, nearby the portal, an extremely large sea creature - Titan X - is disturbed by the beam. As Lee successfully exits the portal via the pod, the creatures follows.
The beam awakens Kong who quickly rushes to the source of it to try and stop it. However, as Lee comes through - to everyone's delight - Titan X arrives and begins waving its tentacles everywhere. In the melee, Natalia Verduro is seemingly killed when she is struck by one of them. The rest of them have little time to react and can only rush to the helicopter for their own safety.
Titan X manages to crawl its way to the sea as Kong pursues from afar. Unfortunately, it escapes into the sea and Kong throws his arms up in frustration. Then, he turns around and glares at the helicopter above, locking eyes with a very guilty-looking Cate.
Titan X has arrived
We knew heading into this season that its big bad was going to be the sea creature known as Titan X. This villain is new to the MonsterVerse but it's clear that it's about to make one heck of an impact - one that will likely result in it getting the attention of both Godzilla and Kong. And apparently killing off the deputy director of Monarch will do that for it.
Natalia Verdugo's apparent demise was somewhat surprising but I will admit that, the moment I saw her on the helicopter I feared she might not make it back to the ship. After all, she rarely left the comms desk in the first season and her death is a bit of a cheat as it allows Monarch to kill off a major person without actually killing off one of its main characters. It was a major death that highlights the stakes, albeit it a sadly predictable one when you really break it down.
It is a shame that the show needed to kill a deputy director of a shady organization who was actually a good person. But with Keiko back in the real world, the creative team are clearly more interested in having her and Tim work on the future of Monarch together to bring her original vision back to life.
Meanwhile, it's clear that the impact of Verdugo's death will weigh on Cate. Not only was the deputy director of Monarch apparently killed in the attack, Titan X is now loose on the world. And considering this creature has a history dating back to at least the 1950s, he won't be a monster to be trifled with.
As for Titan X, this is just the beginning as the sea creature from hell is out in the world now and Kong can't get to him. But you know who can? Of course, it's Godzilla.
Will the two Titans clash, and what will the result be? After all, this is around the time that the King of the Monsters should be getting ready for his near-world-ending showdown with King Ghidorah. How will that factor in in the MonsterVerse timeline? We'll have to wait and see, but Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season 2 is off to an edge-of-seat start!