Apple TV's Monarch: Legacy of Monsters does such a fine job of diving into the MonsterVerse's past that it has decided to do it all over again. The second season has been streaming weekly and each one of those installments have juggled both the present day narrative and a new past narrative, which takes us back to 1957 this time. The purpose? To showcase the origins of Titan X.
After a monstrous debut that made even King Kong uneasy, Titan X showed herself in all her glory in the second installment - both in the past and the present. And Colonel Lee Shaw was outrunning the beast in both timelines, as he attempted to save his loved ones in the present while also retreating from it (along with Keiko) in the past. It created a haunting, thrill-ride of an episode - and ending - that left viewers eagerly awaiting the next installment. Now, it's upon us.
Temptation Island
Immediately picking up where the previous episode left off, "Secrets" is all about the relationship between Lee Shaw and Keiko Randa. The two just about survive Titan X's onslaught as the creature is shown bonding with the Sea Scarabs before returning to the sea. Keiko manages to get a photo of the Titan just as Santa Soledad's residents come out of their houses. They want the camera and they don't plan on letting our heroes off the island.
Lee manages to threaten their ringleader, giving him and Keiko just enough time to run away - but not before Keiko is injured by his blade. They retreat to an old cabin as the locals hunt them with flaming torches and tend to each other's wounds. Lee gets fed up as Keiko gets close to him to dab his cut and he snaps, blaming her persistence and curiosity for getting them into this mess. But as she tells him to leave, he tells her he will never leave her. And with that, they give into all of their temptations, kissing passionately and spending the night together.
The next morning, they wander the island looking for a boat to get home to safety. They can't look at each other, owning the weight of their actions the night before in their expressions. Just then, they hear Bill's voice. He's on the water across from them, arriving on a boat to take them to safety. Keiko throws her arms around him, as happy to see him as she is sad - knowing that she has just betrayed him.
When they all get home to safety, she writes a letter to Lee, telling him that she will always love him - and that in another life, they could have been together - but that Billy has her heart in this one. She then signs the letter as "Your K".
Apex vs. Monarch: The New Shady Organization
Back in the present, Monarch's Outpost 18 ship is taken over by Apex Technologies. It turned out that Monarch's director cut a deal with the rival firm to track Titan X and he didn't tell Tim about it. He also wants Monarch to bring in Keiko Randa and Lee Shaw for questioning, so Tim does the right thing and helps them get off the ship.
Kentaro and Hiroshi accompany the pair into Tokyo while Cate returns home to San Francisco. The former two, along with Lee and Keiko, return to Hiroshi's workshop so that they can use his prototype device to send out a signal that Titan X will respond to - luring it into the middle of the ocean and away from populated areas (so that the public won't find out about it yet). Unfortunately, they are being tracked by Apex, who ultimately steal the device and intentionally use it to draw Titan X to shore, resulting in mass panic as the world discovers the creature exists.
May decides to help Tim with the Apex problem, reaching out to Brenda and accepting her job offer. While there, she can spy for him and ensure that the other organization won't become too big of a problem. But as it was May who first discovered that they had been spying on them all along, we'd say it's safe to assume that they already are.
A Family Affair
Before the Apex problem, Keiko and Lee go to Hiroshi's office to find an element necessary for his prototype device. However, it prompts some interesting conversations. Keiko discovers that her son had two families based on the pictures on his desk, realizing that Cate and Kentaro are half-siblings. She asks Lee about it, but he would prefer she speak to her son directly.
Hiroshi is reluctant to open up to her about it, eventually revealing that he fell in love with two women. He tells her that he chose his heart twice - which is something she wouldn't understand. But now that we've seen the flashbacks of her relationship with Lee, we know that's not true.
Meanwhile, Cate returns to San Francisco to reunite with her mother. She blames herself for releasing Titan X into the world, so she thought the best idea would be to leave the monster life behind. However, she struggles to return to normal - ditching a reunion with her teacher friends to go out clubbing with an old flame. Things get intimate on the dancefloor, but their makeout session is interrupted by the news report that Titan X exists. Everyone gets a shelter warning to their phones about the Titan sighting.
Cate spirals due to her guilt over the creature's release and returns to the destroyed old city, seeing the broken San Francisco bridge that Godzilla tore through during his war with the MUTOs in 2014's Godzilla.
Secrets
This episode's big hook were the family struggles between Hiroshi, Keiko, and Lee. The past and present narratives mirrored each other somewhat because, while Keiko and her son talked about his love for two women in the present, she recounted her love for both Billy and Lee in the past. But that still didn't prepare us for the big shock that Hiroshi revealed in the closing moments of "Secrets".
It turns out that, when he was 11, Billy abandoned him and shipped him off to a relative's house. Keiko can't believe what she is hearing and won't consider it to be true. But then we flash back to 1962 to see why. In a private moment after Lee and Keiko's respective disappearances, Bill discovers the letter that Keiko had written Lee, learning of their affair in that moment. And with that, the episode concludes.
It's safe to say that Keiko's night of passion with Lee was too much for Billy to handle, even five years later. So, unfortunately, he decided to send Hiroshi away, because he seemingly couldn't raise the child of a woman who had been unfaithful to him. It's a harsh outcome for Hiroshi, who did nothing wrong, and it seemingly explains why the Hiroshi we know in the present struggles so much with connection.
This appears to be the beginning of the hardened researcher Bill Randa that we meet in Kong: Skull Island and, man, what a sad beginning it is.