The season finale has arrived. I have been reviewing the show since the first two episodes first premiered on Apple TV and you have seen how my opinions changed over the weeks. I will be talking about my thoughts on the first season as a whole along with my thoughts on the final episode in this one review.
Thoughts on Episode 10:
In the last episode, our protagonists found themselves in a realm that was first thought to be the Hollow Earth and Cate discovers her grandmother, Keiko Miura, inside this realm. Now, we find out that this world is not exactly the Hollow Earth, yet rather a pocket that is between the surface and the Hollow Earth as fans theorized called Axis Mundi. Cate, May, Keiko, and Lee are all able to find each other and are trying to find a way back home. Meanwhile, Kentaro makes unlikely partners out of Tim and Hiroshi to find a way to bring all of them home.
I will start off with the elephant in the room and say as short as that fight was, Godzilla was really brutal. Sure, the Ion Dragon was able to get a couple of hits in, but we see it was not enough to overpower Godzilla. The Ion Dragon was considered more of a nuisance to Godzilla than an actual threat. Godzilla kept throwing the monster to a wall or to the ground and used his atomic breath on the Ion Dragon. For those two minutes, we see what Godzilla can really do to small fries and Godzilla does not waste a moment to really give them a good pounding. To be honest, I think this fight, despite how short it was, was what made everyone like this episode. Everywhere I look all I see are people talking about this fight. Not Keiko's realization that time flew by quicker, not Lee's sacrifice, not even the fact that APEX has a base of operations on Skull Island. Everyone's focus for this climactic episode is this fight. I can't say it was the best fight because of how short it was, but it was most certainly brutal seeing that it was more Godzilla giving the Ion Dragon a very nasty beat down.
When it came to the characters, Keiko and Lee were the best in this episode. Their reunion and Keiko realizing just how much time has actually passed was emotional. It was even more sad when their story came to an end when Lee sacrificed himself to save Keiko, Cate, and May. He really went out like a true hero would. I wish I could say the same for Cate and May as they were sort of just there in this episode. Kentaro played a bigger role as he was able to form a team with Tim and Hiroshi to bring back Cate and I like how they had to turn to APEX rather than someone from Monarch to help. Tim had to quit his job at Monarch in order to get the help he needed.
So we got to learn just how APEX came into power and how APEX was able to acquire the technology like the HEAVs in Godzilla vs Kong. It was even more surprising that they have a base of operations on Skull Island. It is, as if, this company has been following Monarch around while hiding under their radar. If so, this really makes Monarch even more incompetent. We all know from Godzilla vs Kong that APEX will turn out to be the real villain, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised if APEX was able to build MechaGodzilla under a mountain in Hong Kong without being noticed by Monarch.
I was not expecting a Kong tease neither. I felt the end of this episode was abrupt. My reaction to seeing Kong pop up and then just end was the same reaction I had to the climax of The Sopranos when the final episode just cuts to a black screen for a minute before the credits rolled. I was thinking, "Wait! That was it?" I thought there would be more than that.
Because Kong has shown up in this show, it has everyone wondering if season two (if it gets green lit) will have more of a focus on Kong. There is actual no confirmation yet on a second season. Legendary Entertainment is waiting to see how Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire does in theaters before deciding on making a second season. The movie has been moved up to May 29th, which is Easter weekend. It should do just fine. The only competition the movie will have that weekend is Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. So if you do want to see a second season happen, the movie is going to need to do well first.
Thoughts on Season One:
Overall, I did like the show. It had a great start with the first three episodes and a great climax, but everything in the middle really dragged out and the characters were a hit and miss depending which time line the show was following. We had Story A, which followed Cate, Kentaro, May, Lee Shaw (Kurt Russell), Tim, and Hiroshi. Then, there is Story B, which followed Bill Randa, Keiko Muira, and Lee Shaw (Wyatt Russell). For the first three episodes, both stories were really well written and the story was flowing smoothly until we got to the fourth and fifth episodes when it fully concentrated on the characters for Story A that I started to find out these characters are not as good of characters that they were turning out to be.
Cate, May, and Kentaro were becoming very whiny and moody, all of them were not getting along as much as they should as the show progressed, Monarch was shown to be very inept under Verdugo's leadership, Kentaro was just there as a third wheel or to be May's verbal punching bag, and Hiroshi really did become a deadbeat dad that really needed some convincing that Cate and Keiko could still be alive. Tim and Lee were the only good characters. Tim took the lead when Monarch and Verdugo failed to do so and Lee had his backstory in Story B to make his story more impactful than the other characters. Lee really came off as the main character in this show than Cate and Kentaro were. Heck, I wouldn't even consider May as a good main character because she really didn't do anything that made me care about her. There was that episode that revealed she did work for a company that rebranded as APEX and how she got in trouble with this company, but despite all of that May was able to be let off without any consequence. So that whole entire thing with May going into hiding was all for nothing.
Story B is what the show should have been about, in my opinion. It focused a lot on how Monarch was first founded by Bill, Keiko, and Lee and how Godzilla and other monsters were first being discovered. The story had adventure and suspenseful moments. The characters formed a bond to each other that made them feel like an actual team. Bill, Keiko, and Lee are characters that I wished we could have followed a lot more. It would have been really cool to watch them hunting down monsters and documenting them. Instead, the show was following cry babies from a dysfunctional family.
The whole story, in general, was all over the place. It began focusing around Cate and Kentaro trying to figure out how their father, Hiroshi, was involved with Monarch. Hiroshi had two families that had no clue either one existed until after Hiroshi went missing. After finding out their father was alive and had Godzilla following him due to the device that mimicked gamma signals, all of them decided to hightail it back home because they wanted nothing to do with him. They all decided he is a deadbeat dad and that was the end of it. When that was done, the show seemed to have a hard time trying to figure out where to go next with the story. You would think they would want to go with Lee to follow Godzilla so they can grab Hiroshi and bring him home. There was also this big deal about the gamma spikes and that these were similar to the gamma spikes on G-Day and that would have some cataclysmic meaning. Yet, even that went nowhere. It just seemed like there were ideas on what the showrunners wanted to do, but did not know how to put the pieces of the puzzle together. I was thinking that maybe the Ion Dragon had something to do with the gamma spikes, but that wasn't the case either. The Ion Dragon was just hanging out in Axis Mundi doing its own thing. By the end of the show, it left me with unanswered questions as to why the show did not go in certain directions and ended the way it did. There were stakes involved until the show decided to just scrap that whole thing all together.
When the show was announced, all of us knew there had to be some monster action, but I did not expect the show to heavily focus on the monsters and that is exactly how it turned out. However, I was surprised by how good the monsters looked when they did appear on screen. They actually look really good for a TV show. The monsters also got a good amount screen time when they did appear in the show. We got a pretty good amount of monsters that appeared. There were eight monsters, including Godzilla, that appeared in total and that is a large amount for this show considering this show was supposed to focus more on the human characters. Even Godzilla shows up quite a bit, which I did not expect.
While I did like the idea for Axis Mundi, it made the whole concept of the Hollow Earth a little more complicated with all new rules of physics. I did like the idea that there are pockets in other layers. It reminded me of the idea I had when I did the "How I Would Do It: Monsterverse SpaceGodzilla" post. In that post, I explained that SpaceGodzilla would be found in a hollow pocket and that it was surrounded by crystals. So it was cool to find out that not all of these monsters came from the Hollow Earth, but the physics behind Axis Mundi was a little too much. I didn't like the whole time distortion all that much. It still makes me wonder if this was supposed to be a different dimension rather than a layer deep inside the planet. Lee did question to Cate if they really did fall into Axis Mundi or if they entered it. This was suggesting that this might not actually be taking place on Earth, after all.
According to a rumor by KdM, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters was supposed to lead into the next movie, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. While we have not seen the movie yet, the show did not really reveal anything that would lead into Godzilla x Kong. Like I said, we have not seen the movie yet and it could be something that is not in the trailer. Either way, there was no telling what this show revealed that was supposed to lead into the movie. It acted better as a lead in into Godzilla vs Kong more than the upcoming movie as we did see APEX and how they slowly acquired the technology for MechaGodzilla and the HEAVs. So until I see Godzilla x Kong, there was not really anything that suggested the show was going to lead into the movie.
Final Thoughts:
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters started and ended off strong. Kurt Russell and Wyatt Russell put on a really good performance in this show as Lee Shaw and so did Anders Holm and Mari Yamamoto as Bill Randa and Keiko Miura. They made me wish the show was more about their story over the kind of story that we got with Anna Sawai as Cate Randa, Ren Watabe as Kentaro Randa, and Kiersey Clemons as May. As much as I like the show, the story is all over the place with no real stakes other than just getting the characters back home. If a season two does happen, then I hope it explains further on stuff that were left unanswered.
What are your thoughts on the first season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters? Which character did you like most and what was your favorite part in the show? Leave a comment in the comments section of your thoughts on Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. Make sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Minds, MeWe, Gab, and TRUTH Social to stay up to date for more news, reviews, and discussions.