Spoilers follow for Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2.
Season 2 of Apple TV’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters came to a close with a lot of revelations that further illuminated events in Legendary’s Monsterverse. In the season finale, “Where We Belong,” the disrupted Titans were at peace again, and the humans had some unique closure from past Lt. Lee Shaw (Wyatt Russell), present Col. Lee Shaw (Kurt Russell), and Dr. Keiko Miura (Mari Yamamoto). Plus, a whole dang shadow Monarch 2.0 was secretly launched to pursue “special” missions relating to Titan emergencies.
The sophomore season also moved the series arc closer to the events of 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters. As a timeline refresher: The Monsterverse Godzilla movie that centered on the catastrophic G-Day event happened in 2014. Season 1 of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters followed one year later in 2015 and ended with a two-year time jump to 2017. That was a result of the semi-successful rescue mission executed by older Shaw, Cate Randa (Anna Sawai), and May Olowe-Hewitt (Kiersey Clemons) into Axis Mundi, the pocket realm between Earth and Hollow Earth, to rescue a stuck-in-time Keiko. Season 2 then unfolded over a breakneck eight weeks in 2017, leaving about 18 months of open storytelling time until the Titan awakenings featured in Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
While Titan X, Godzilla, and Kong were duking it out to restore nature’s balance throughout Season 2, the series’ humans were making choices that strengthened the technology, science, and human motivations for what comes next in Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Some of the revelations are subtle while others are overt or even completely new, like the installation of a Monarch 2.0. We’ve assembled the various revelations here for everyone to ponder until 2027, when the Apple TV prequel spin-off series set in 1984 could be released, and the next franchise movie Godzilla x Kong: Supernova definitely smashes into theaters.
Monarch 2.0’s Shadow Mission
In the epilogue of the Season 2 finale, Monarch director Reddick Barris (Curtiss Cook) divulges that there’s a basement at Monarch for special projects. It’s very much giving The X-Files vibes, as we find out that Monarch 2.0 will operate in the shadows with Barris’ support. He confirms that Dr. Miura will get to lead it with a team that includes: Cate, her granddaughter and Titan whisperer; hacker May; and reinstated Monarch operative, Tim (Joe Tippett).
Whether Kurt Russell’s Shaw will also be involved is unknown, as he’s gone rogue again to avoid Monarch or government reprisal. We’ll spitball, however, and say that there’s a very good chance that Shaw’s pursuit of Kentaro Randa (Ren Watabe) and Isabel Simmons (Amber Midthunder) will at some point dovetail into 2.0’s mission to retrieve Kentaro.
There have been no references to Bill Randa’s (John Goodman) wife, Dr. Miura, or Monarch 2.0 in the Monsterverse films, which makes sense. To the outside world, she disappeared into an Axis Mundi portal in 1959; after her recovery, she’s come full circle working at Monarch again in a secret agency with hyper-specific Titan goals.
Monarch vs. Apex Cybernetics
Going back to its formation as a Japanese-American coalition to hunt and study “Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms” (MUTOs), Monarch’s first staff was Dr. Miura, Bill Randa (Anders Holm as Bill’s younger incarnation) and Lt. Shaw. Its U.S. military supervision started in 1955, and Season 2 shows how Monarch’s mission was expanded in 1957 after Titan X was discovered in Santa Soledad, Chile.
Over the decades, Monarch remained active until 2014’s G-Day, when their work became essential in saving humanity. After Godzilla and the MUTOs’ devastation, Monarch came out of the shadows as an official worldwide independent organization centered on Titan research, tracking, and defense. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ two seasons have made explicit how Monarch technology and resources have grown consequentially since G-Day. The Outpost 18 mobile sea command and huge Monarch compound in D.C. make it clear that there’s been plenty of growth alongside the military and in the research sectors.
Growing in parallel post G-Day is Applied Experimental Technologies, a multinational tech megacorporation founded by Walter Simmons, Isabel’s father. The series reveals how their mission to harness the potential power of Titans evolves into the rebranded company, Apex Cybernetics. They develop Cybernetic Neural-Interface Unit technology with the goal of controlling Titans, which they field test on Titan X. It’s only partially successful, but the Apex compound on Skull Island is destroyed by Titan X. Apex will continue to be portrayed in the films as an adversarial company exploiting Titans for their own gain.
Is Isabel Simmons Connected to Alan Jonah’s Terrorist Group?
In the series, Isabel Simmons makes it very clear that she is not supportive of her father’s mission with Apex; however, she doesn’t have any love for the Titans, and sees them as mindless animals that must be prevented from harming humanity. Her ultimate goal is to use Titan X to open an Axis Mundi vortex so that they can harness a stable way for people to time travel, and most crucially, profit from it. She has her own neural implant technology meant to incite Titan X, and at the end of the season, she escapes with Kentaro to continue their mission of using Titans to open up vortices.
In Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Alan Jonah (Charles Dance) is revealed to be the leader of an eco-terrorist group that is funded through the trafficking of Titan DNA. He thinks that humanity has decimated the planet, and that the Titans will restore the natural order.
On paper, Isabel and Alan’s missions don’t overlap in many places. Where they do intersect is in seeing the value of tapping the unknown potential of Titans and their DNA, as well as sharing a general apathy for the creatures. It wouldn’t be a surprise if it’s revealed in the future that they help each other out with their chaotic agendas.
Did Rodan Awaken On Its Own Or Did It Have Help?
In the coda to Season 2, Shaw travels to Southeast Asia to settle his debts with a local mercenary named A-Wut. He also asks for help in finding what’s at the end of his map – the Titan called Rodan. The last shot of the season is of an irritated Rodan screeching and sitting atop an active volcano. Was this a natural awakening, or is this the work of Isabel and Kentaro? There’s no definitive answer, but Shaw is determined to get closer to the winged Titan.
The bigger question is how Rodan gets from this location to Mexico. In Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Monarch paleobiologist Dr. Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga) will awaken Rodan from his slumber in Mexico, so if there’s a Season 3 of the series, hopefully it will include an explanation of Rodan’s movements around the globe.
Is Keiko’s Titan Language Discovery Connected to “Orca” Technology?
In the final episodes of Season 2, Dr. Miura confirms that she’s discovered the first indication of a Titan language through audio recordings; she compares it to whale song. She and Cate are attuned to the language, but they don’t know how or why.
Thematically, Miura’s discovery tracks with Dr. Russell’s “Orca” device, which is introduced approximately 18 months later in Godzilla: King of Monsters. Developed in secret with Alan Jonah, the “Orca” emits bioacoustic frequencies that attract Titans or alter their behavior. Russell is also sympathetic to the Titan’s place on Earth; she sees them as potential saviors of the planet, which is in critical condition due to climate change. Whether Miura and Russell have both made the same communication discovery remains to be seen, but it’s reasonable to assume that they’ve both tapped into similar science. What’s more, they may also have stumbled onto a gender connection.
The evidence of that theory comes in the opening minutes of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, when the “Orca” device is shown to calm Mothra into a blue state. In the series, a similar result is revealed with Cate’s ability to soothe Titan X with the recorded Titan audio; Titan X’s coloration shifts from agitated pink to calm blue, much like her fellow Titan, the female Mothra. The assumed male Godzilla, meanwhile, turns blue when he’s angered and powers up for a massive blast. Maybe we’ll learn more about this in Season 3 too.
