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The latest episode of Monarch is a thrilling spectacle that kicks off with an impressive scene of King Kong dominating Skull Island. It wraps up with a dramatic entrance by a newly introduced kaiju, Titan X, emerging from the ocean, demanding human sacrifices. In between, the audience is treated to a riveting chase sequence against the clock, a budding romance between Wyatt Russell and Mari Yamamoto’s characters, and Anna Sawai delivering a fierce line to a giant insect. With an array of creatures on display, it’s safe to say this episode of Monarch is exceptional—and it deserves to be acknowledged as such.
In the current timeline, the protagonists and the Monarch organization are grappling with the consequences of the previous episode. During their rescue mission of Lee Shaw from the mysterious “Axis Mundi” dimension, Cate, May, Kentaro, and Hiroshi inadvertently released a menacing Titan. This new beast, named Titan X, is now rapidly approaching a crucial fishing passage. Contrary to some expectations, Titan X is a completely new aquatic threat, distinct from the Heisei-era Godzilla films’ Biollante.
Historically, this creature has been known by different names. In 1957, the residents of Santa Soledad revered it as “The Great God of the Sea,” celebrating it with a festival reminiscent of Wicker Man and Midsommar, complete with dance circles and eerie masks. This artistic choice, though more northern European in vibe than Latin American, adds a unique twist to the narrative.
As events unfold, Bill Randa departs, convinced he’s uncovered the migration path of the island’s sacred “MUTO” (massive unidentified terrestrial organism, an old term for Titans). His decision proves questionable for two reasons: it isolates Lee and Kei, allowing their bond to strengthen—something Bill seems oblivious to.
Kei shares a poignant moment with Lee, revealing her past tragedy of losing Hiroshi’s father to cancer in Nagasaki. Their connection deepens under the influence of a hallucinogenic concoction provided by Augustin (Camilo Jimenez Varon) and Lucía (Camila Ponte Alvarez), the local religious leaders locked in conflict. While Augustin has been hostile towards the outsiders, Lucía has been urging their departure. However, their efforts are now rendered moot as events have spiraled beyond their control.
A subsonic frequency from deep within the earth heralds the cicada-like emergence of thousands of those little trilobite critters, apparently known as Scarabs, from the hidden cave where Bill found the map engraved on the wall. Lee and Kei snap out of their drugged stupor and run from the altar where the locals sacrificed a massive fish as part of the summoning ritual, dodging the fastest of the Scarabs as they race toward the shore. Lee unwisely kicks one, and Titan X, which has arisen from the sea like Cthulhu or Dagon, attacks our heroes with one of its long tail-tentacles.
And it’s a damn good thing, too! Obviously they survive and live into the future, where their knowledge of Titan X’s behavior helps them figure out how to stop it. If they stumble across the right low-frequency sound and beam it at the beast using a drone, it will theoretically reverse course and the fishing boats will be spared. Until this point Lee has been giving good advice to Tim, the acting commander of the big Monarch ship now that Verdugo is dead. But Lee’s recklessness now costs them the drone, which gets walloped by a tentacle.
Luck intervenes in the form of a critter, as it so often does. Down on one of the lower decks, Cate comes face to face with a Scarab and tries fending it off with a fire extinguisher, leading to her extremely cool comment above. Kentaro winds up saving the day with a flare gun, but even after he shoots it twice and Cate beats it with the extinguisher, it’s still alive — and it emits a low-frequency distress call that calls Titan X right back around. (I can’t tell what this means, but Kei and Cate have an easier time hearing certain Titan X–related vibrations than Lee or any of the other men do.)
It’s the Scarab that Titan X wants, not the ship. Lee darts off in a speedboat with the critter as cargo, tossing it into the sea after luring the kaiju off its crash course with Monarch. The monster’s comings and goings generate a wave that nearly swamps Col. Shaw — but he shoots through the pipe of the enormous wave like a surfer to safety instead. This is the kind of moment you hire Kurt Russell for.
This is the kind of episode you make Monarch for. The herky-jerky plotting of the premiere is a thing of the past now. Whatever was up with those transitional hiccups from one season to the next, it’s clear what the new mission is, and the show is pursuing it as directly as the Monarch ship chased that kaiju.
Which is a really cool kaiju, by the way, a sea monster on a grand scale. In one wonderful shot from below, we watch Titan X’s massive bulk eclipse a whale as it swims above it. The Scarabs are symbiotes of some sort, or maybe some stage in the creature’s life cycle, but whatever they are they cling to the monster’s carapace like barnacles. Creatures from Cloverfield and The Mist served similar functions, for a similar reason: It’s memorably gross. It always helps to have a fast-moving, ground-level monster on hand for instant creepy-crawly thrills if needed, too.
If the monsters are Monarch’s muscle and its chance to show off its imaginative mind, the characters’ relationships are the show’s big soft heart. It’s beating loud and clear here. Takehiro Hira is a quiet MVP as Hiroshi Randa, a man forced to justify to his children why they come from two separate families he kept secret from one another — one where his wife was a coworker and confidante and one where he could leave that world behind. Meanwhile, he’s able to reunite with his mother, who’s barely aged since he last saw her when he was a boy. His life is…complicated.
Equally complicated are the feelings of young Lee Shaw when he hears Kei describe her relationship with his best friend, Billy. She says he’s a far better husband to her even than her son Hiroshi’s father, the sainted doctor who died treating victims of the atomic bomb. Lee knows he shouldn’t begrudge his friends that kind of love, but one look at his face is all it takes to know it hurts him badly all the same.
It makes you appreciate the effort that went into ensuring that the human elements of the show could hold your interest between monster attacks. If both remain exactly as good all season long as they are this episode, then the Great God of the Sea has truly blessed us with a bountiful catch.
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.