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In a captivating twist, the latest episode of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters introduces a mind-bending concept that has been subtly teased since the appearance of Axis Mundi. This enigmatic location operates on a different time scale, where time crawls compared to the world above. It’s this time anomaly that allows characters like Keiko to surface after what feels like mere months, only to find herself decades ahead in time. This same phenomenon enables Major Leland Lafayette Shaw III to engage in a surreal conversation with his younger self.
With the help of Dr. Suzuki’s cutting-edge technology, the elder Lee Shaw manages to establish radio contact with someone in Axis Mundi, while his main aim is to track down Titan X. To his astonishment, the person on the other end is none other than his younger self, marooned in Axis Mundi following the collapse of Monarch’s Project Hourglass. Seizing the opportunity, the older Lee assumes the role of Mission Control, issuing strategic orders to guide his younger self in their quest to locate the Titan.
During this mission, Young Lee stumbles upon a significant discovery: Keiko. Upon encountering a camp of humans, he immediately grasps the situation, compelling Old Lee to reveal his true identity. This shocking revelation leaves Young Lee reeling.
Despite his reservations, Old Lee persuades Young Lee that Keiko’s survival is assured, provided he refrains from interfering. He explains that any premature intervention could unpredictably alter the future for her and her descendants. Old Lee is confident he will eventually rescue her, but warns that prematurely extracting her from this timeline could have unforeseen consequences.
Old Lee imparts a deeply personal message to his younger self, emphasizing that this moment is an opportunity to relinquish their shared dreams of a future with Keiko. As the melancholic score by Leopold Ross envelops the scene, the camera lingers on actor Wyatt Russell’s poignant expression. Ultimately, Young Lee turns away, leaving Keiko behind in the forest, marking a poignant farewell to their imagined future together.
Young Lee then does what he’s told with a soldier’s grit and grumbling, attaching a tracking device to the skin of the cocooned Titan X and surviving the falling debris when it breaks out. With their connection fading, Old Lee gives Young Lee the instructions he needs to get out of Axis Mundi, though he leaves the bit about getting imprisoned in a mental hospital by Monarch for several decades out. I guess he really is that concerned about the lives of the people he cares about getting irrevocably altered by a change to the timeline.
The Lee-on-Lee action is echoed by Cate and Keiko’s storyline, which also involves a concerned person trying to stay in contact with someone important through a deep chasm. Cross-referencing their findings from Cate’s underwater connection to Titan X with Bill Randa’s old files, the Randas discover a Japanese legend about women who were possessed by a yokai that communicated with them through low vibrations.
They travel to the village, where they find ample historical evidence of the local women’s connection to Titan X. But Cate falls down the well where these women used to go to commune with the creature, while Keiko can only scream in terror. She follows a tunnel to the shore and emerges, wet and smiling. She no longer believes Titan X is lost or dangerous; “I think it just needs our help,” she tells her grandmother.
This is a show that plays with parallels all the time, of course, using dueling time frames, multiple generations of the same family, and similar relationship configurations to explore the familiar patterns of human behavior. With the Lee(s) storyline, the mirror effect is crystal clear. Even here, Keiko herself comments on how Cate’s determination to go down that well reminds her of her own foolhardy decision to descend into a rift in Kazakhstan decades earlier, costing her everything.
Even the tender and careful way the two deal with each other as Keiko ties the rope around Cate’s waist — “If I were to do this with someone,” Cate tells her grandmother, “I’m glad it’s you” — is reminiscent of the closeness between Keiko, Bill, and Lee all those years ago. Sorry if that sounds weird! The point is their emotional intimacy, not romantic interest. These two people really care about each other. This is a much smarter way to raise the stakes of a monster-hunting mission than jump scares: You’re worried about them not because you’re just kinda supposed to be, but because the show has taken the time to make them worth worrying about.
In a pair of side plots, Tim convinces May to help him make use of the mind-control device they found attached to a severed chunk of Titan X’s tentacle. His hope is that she can figure out what her code did to the creature to throw it off its migratory route in a rampage.
May’s ex-boyfriend Kentaro, meanwhile, travels to Thailand after a brusque goodbye. There he is wooed by Isabel Simmons, the Apex heiress who found him in that bar last episode. She swears she hates her father and his company as much as Kentaro hates Monarch, and that her goal is different than both entities. It’s nothing short of making it so G-Day never even happened, and she hints that Axis Mundi is the key. I can see it now: use the time dilation to stop Godzilla from ever reaching the surface world and thus erase Earth’s Titan-plagued present in favor of an entirely new timeline. (It’s like a parody of the reckless moonshot projects bored billionaires love, in lieu of the unglamorous work that can actually make an impact.)
Not everything is a parallel, though; not everything rhymes. In conversation with himself, Old Lee tells Young Lee he knows he loves Keiko. When Young Lee reflexively denies it, practically through gritted teeth, Old Lee says yes, he gets it — he hid that feeling even from himself. But it’s there, and both Lees know it.
Keiko, however, seems to think of it differently. On the way to the yokai well, Cate asks Keiko point blank if she loved Lee Shaw. “No,” she says, “it wasn’t like that with us.” That’s news to Lee, apparently.
Is she simply in denial, though? Think of how Lee apparently hid his love of Keiko away from himself. Think of how the very next thing we see after Kei’s denial is a DO NOT ENTER sign, as though the feelings, the memories are warning her to proceed no further. But maybe she’s telling the truth, and Bill Randa was her one true love, and Lee Shaw was a dear friend to whom she was attracted and with whom she shared one memorable mistake.
I’ve spent paragraph after paragraph unpacking the complexities of these relationships, and haven’t so much as mentioned the part where a gigantic insect with about 40,000 teeth the size of Louisville Sluggers pops out of the ground to eat Lee, before it gets eaten in turn by the Ion Dragon that flew around causing so much trouble in Season 1. This is really terrific Titan violence, featuring the excellent creature designs that have distinguished this show from the start. I enjoyed it a lot!
I’d just rather watch Lee Shaw’s face for thirty uninterrupted seconds of silence, while inside he says goodbye to the woman he loves, or see Keiko and Cate hold hands because it’s good to hold hands with the people you love. That’s the Monarch that lingers with me.
Sean T. Collins (@seantcollins.com on Bluesky and theseantcollins on Patreon) has written about television for The New York Times, Vulture, Rolling Stone, and elsewhere. He is the author of Pain Don’t Hurt: Meditations on Road House. He lives with his family on Long Island.