In each episode of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, the themes of legacy and monsters are prominently featured. While some episodes strike a perfect balance between the two, others lean more heavily on one theme. This week’s episode leans more towards legacy than monsters.

However, that doesn’t mean it’s devoid of kaiju or eerie creatures. Two naive surfers, ignoring a Titan warning with the logic that “Godzilla doesn’t surf,” find themselves in trouble when Titan X’s Scarabs burst from the ground. Meanwhile, a group of spiky, bipedal dinosaur-like creatures are unleashed on Apex’s corporate grounds, creating a diversion so our protagonists can complete their mission. Additionally, Apex has smuggled numerous other creatures from Skull Island, hiding them deep within their research facility, reminiscent of Alien: Earth.

The most dramatic moment comes when Titan X emerges from the ocean, using its tentacles to envelop a Monarch patrol vessel, crushing it and taking everyone aboard down with it. This thrilling giant sea monster encounter is exactly the kind of spectacle I enjoy!

Equally compelling is the exploration of legacy. This episode makes me reflect on the Randa family—Bill and Keiko, their son Hiroshi, Hiroshi’s children Cate and Kentaro, Keiko’s partner Lee Shaw, along with Kentaro’s ex-girlfriend and Cate’s possible future partner May/Cora. They resemble any family with its share of issues, passing challenges down through generations.

Years earlier, Bill Randa, having lost both his wife Kei and his best friend Lee to the Axis Mundi portals, leaves his son Hiroshi to pursue an endless quest for Titans. Just like his mother and Uncle Lee, Hiroshi will never see his father again, as Bill meets his fate during the events of Kong: Skull Island.

It’s not hard to see Hiroshi’s resultant abandonment issues as a root cause of his bigamy. He could never leave people he loves behind just because he’s fallen in love with someone else. Better to live a life divided, starting two separate families in two separate countries and leading two separate lives with them, than to inflict upon one of his two children what Bill inflicted on him.

Those abandonment issues appear poised to intensify. Hiroshi has grown close with his (pardoxically younger) mother Kei during their adventures; there’s one moment when she snaps at Kentaro not to speak disrespectfully to his father, and you can see the rush of emotion Hiroshi feels now that he finally has a mother around to defend him. Here’s a guy who grew up having convinced himself that his mom and dad disappeared while trying to save the world, and now he’s found out this is in fact the case. Her very presence vindicates his most deeply cherished beliefs about her.

Imagine how all that will come crashing down now that he’s found her Dear John letter to Lee Shaw. We’ve already seen its contents, how it explains that despite their love for one another and their night of passion, she must stay with Bill, whom she loves just as deeply and could not bear to hurt any more than she knows Lee could. That simply won’t fit his idealized version of his mother, the selfless hero.

Hiroshi comes by the letter when our heroes infiltrate Apex headquarters, with the help of a barfight picked by Lee, some stolen tech from a pilfered backpack, and a fake radiation scare. They find Hiroshi’s Titan decoy, but discover it’s been completely dismantled and rendered useless. Now they’ll never be able to lure Titan X away from its collision course with San Francisco.

Fortunately (?), that path for the creature was a put-on. After commandeering the Monarch vessel Outpost 18 and loading their own tech into the system, Apex’s goons created a fake Titan landfall scare, presumably to get the creature somewhere only they can track it while Monarch is scrambling to pick up its scent once again.

It’s Bill Randa’s legacy that may save them. Elsewhere in Apex’s HQ, they find a room full of Bill’s old ephemera, from family photos to a fully charted map of Titan X’s migratory route. Now our heroes know that the monster is bound for that same creepy town where Lee and Keiko nearly bought it all those years ago. I’m sure the locals will be just as happy to see them this time around. 

May/Cora, meanwhile, is off on a quest of her own. As their woman inside Apex, she plays a crucial role in creating the distraction and sneaking them in and around the building. But she doesn’t rejoin them, because her boss, Brenda, has let her in on a little secret. They’re working on some kind of nerve implant that turns the hostile Titans and other beasts docile and harmless. We don’t get to see everything Brenda shows Cora, but whatever she sees, it’s enough to convince her to stay at Apex and see if their way of stopping Titan X can work.

Almost no sooner does May depart the group than Cate returns to it. She wakes up on the beach the morning after her wild, borderline suicidal night out, and is beset by those strange pulsing headaches, the waves of which intensify when she submerges herself.

From there, she trudges through town evacuating along with everyone else when the bogus Titan warning is sounded. On her way, though, she bumps into the mother of one of the few students she was able to save from the school bus that fell when Godzilla first came ashore and destroyed the Golden Gate bridge years earlier. “You could have run,” the woman says, “but you did something.” 

That renews Cate’s resolve. Saying goodbye to her mother, she rejoins our heroes in their quest to stop Titan X, which she unleashed in her attempt to save Lee Shaw. The fates of the Randas, their friends and lovers, and the entire world seem inextricably intertwined.

Monarch is hardly the first franchise effort to use its genre elements to explore family, but the absence of any kind of superheroic or chosen-one mantle to be passed from one generation to the next allows the show to focus more on what matters. Few of us are going to view what our families bequeath to us as a cape and cowl or a mighty ancestral sword, even if we are generally happy with them. It’s more likely that it’s like the Randas — setting an fine example in some ways and a poor one in others, passing on their genius and their dedication to others, but also their fixations and obsessions and hubris. 

In your case or mine, we might inherit heart disease, or a likelihood of cancer, or a treatment-resistant mental illness, or outright abuse. In the Randas’ case, they inherit the ability to set loose the beasts of the apocalypse. But when you’re there in the heat of the moment, dealing with your own family fallout, it really can feel like the world is ending.

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.