Monarch - Legacy Of Monsters

Portal Poppers

Monarch - Legacy Of Monsters
10 Episodes
Airdate: November 2023 - January 2024
Toho/Apple

Warning: A legacy of spoilers.

Well, I have to admit I wasn’t really expecting much from Monarch - Legacy Of Monsters but I certainly got into this and am now looking forward to a second series. You’ll perhaps remember that Monarch is the mysterious organisation, mostly friendly, who monitors and tries to predict and limit damage done by the so called ‘Titans’ in the US branded Godzilla/King Kong movies... aka The Monsterverse.

Now, to just lower your expectations a little, yes, you do see them make cameos in the series, along with a few other monsters but, the actual monster scenes in these episodes are pretty fleeting. You get maybe one sighting (sometimes two) an episode for a minute or two but, that’s okay, because the story is so interestingly written and pretty brilliantly performed that you don’t need the monsters to make for an engaging show. Maybe they could have shortened the title of the show by three words though, so as not to get too many people’s expectations up.

Okay, so this is one of those shows that flip flops back in time so you have the three founding characters who started Monarch in the 1940s/50s played by the absolutely brilliant Mari Yamamoto as Keiko, Anders Holm as Bill Randa (playing the character that John Goodman played in Kong - Skull Island but as he was in the 1950s... and, yes, Goodman also turns up at the opening of the first episode) and last but by no means least, Wyatt Russell, son of actor Kurt Russell, playing a character called Lee Shaw... also played by his father in the modern sections of the show.

But you also have the modern day story with a sister played by Ana Sawai and a brother played by Ren Watabe, who find out about each other in different corners of the globe after their dad (who is the son of Keiko and Bill) is missing, presumed dead. And then they find out that he’s been living two lives of two secret and simultaneous marriages but, also, was once working for Monarch. And there are a whole bunch of other characters who are equally important but if I start listing them all this would be one long  blog entry.

What I will say is that it’s absolutely brilliant and intriguing and is set mostly in the 1950s and 2015 (after the first Monsterverse Godzilla movie) but also in the 1960s and 1980s for little snippets. And, if you’re like me and doing the maths, yes, that should mean that older Russell, Kurt, should be in his nineties by the time of the show’s setting if younger Russell, Wyatt, is playing the same character in the early 1950s. And you’d be right but, here’s the thing... that ageing difference is also built into the plot and teased very early on in the series until, in the final two episodes, everything begins to make a bit more sense. All I’m saying is it has something to do with those portals into other worlds as they were in the time of these films... the 2021 movie Godzilla VS Kong (reviewed by me here) brings more clarification to the package, if you think about it... but that’s another story.

And while there’s not an awful lot of expensive monster mayhem in the show... it’s definitely a fast paced and very globe hopping experience, with more than enough questions, intrigue and drama to keep you on your toes. The odd appearance by a monster is just icing on the cake a lot of the time... plus, of course, the main reason for having an organisation like Monarch in the first place.

The music is kinda okay too although, I have to say, I would have liked to have heard the old Akira Ifukube Godzilla themes at least once in this... it’s a shame they didn’t put in an appearance, for sure. Still, I guess you can’t have everything and, by the time the last episode of season one ends, the present day has shifted to 2017. So I’m assuming, if this runs for another few seasons, it might even catch right up to the year of broadcast.

I hope we get these and, without getting any spoilers into the mix, if one of the above actors is to return (and I hope he does) then it makes sense that some years go by for some of the other characters if they embark on a rescue mission, of sorts. Anyway, I’m not going to say too much more about this one other than I enjoyed Monarch - Legacy Of Monsters way more than I thought I would and I’m glad it’s been renewed for another series at some point.