TL;DR – This is the first week where we have an almost restrained jump around the timeline.  

Disclosure – I paid for the Apple TV+ service that viewed this series.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Review –

After racing forward, you need to consolidate your gains or at least reveal some of the cards you are working with. For Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, that time is now, because things are starting to hit the fan.  

So to set the scene, we open in on Utah, 2015, where Barnes is sitting watch at Outpost 47, and some weird beeping comes from her equipment, a piece of equipment that should not be getting set off. Coincidently, at the end of Secrets and Lies, Cate Randa (Anna Sawai), Kentaro Randa (Ren Watabe), May (Kiersey Clemons), and an old Lee Shaw (Kurt Russell) come face to face with a monster that breathes cold air, and it is not happy they just landed on its mountain. We will be looking at the episode as a whole from here, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

What I found interesting about this episode is how contained it is. At this point in time, we are used to the show jumping through multiple timelines during the course of an episode. But today, we are just in 2015 and one year earlier. This gives us a chance to ground the show and explore two of the characters we have not spent much time with. There is the looming threat of the titan, and things would have been bad even if May hadn’t fallen into the water. But there was just enough peril there, as long you don’t have a vague understanding of how hyperthermia works.

While a lot is happening, this week’s episode is about Kentaro and May, giving Ren Watabe and Kiersey Clemons time to shine. In this episode, they have to play strangers, lovers falling into an embrace, and stifled exes trying to survive. You can feel each level of that history in their performances, which is a credit to the actors. We also get more of Kurt Russell swinging around, having fun while pretending he knows what he is doing.

The wrinkle in the plan this week is the titan. I was not a fan of the design last week, but it has grown on me once we see more of it in action. Their messing around in Alaska triggers all the same signs they saw just before the incident in Godzilla. We still don’t know what Monarch is as an organisation in 2015 other than knowing where it ends up in Godzilla: King of the Monsters. This creates an odd vacuum of knowledge we are seeing take shape.

In the end, do we recommend Monarch: Legacy of Monsters – Parallels and Interiors? There was a lot of internal exploration and escaping a monster this week. I am not sure it hits as hard as some of the other episodes we have had, but it was an interesting character work, and it felt like the end of the chase portion of the series was the jumping-off point for the next part of the series.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen Monarch: Legacy of Monsters yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters
Directed by – Julian Holmes
Written by – Milla Bell-Hart
Created by – Chris Black & Matt Fraction
Based On – Godzilla by Toho Co., Ltd.
Production/Distribution Companies – Legendary Television, Safehouse Pictures, Toho, Milkfed Criminal Masterminds, Chris Black Broadcasting System, Warner Brothers Television, Legendary & Apple TV+
Starring – Anna Sawai, Kiersey Clemons, Ren Watabe, Joe Tippett, Elisa Lasowski, Wyatt Russell & Kurt Russell with Takehiro Hira, Mirelly Taylor, Qyoko Kudo, Bruce Baek & Jess Salgueiro and Shota Tsuji, Kamilyn Kaneko, Camille Legg, Sheyi Ryane & Babak Haleky