Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Episode 1.02: Departure

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters: Departure

In its second episode, half of "Monarch's" two-pronged story line moves forward while the other goes backwards. In 2015, Cate is pursued through Tokyo by Monarch agents determined to reclaim her late father's secret documents. Teaming again with her half-brother Kentaro and his hacker friend May, they hunt down a retired government agent named Lee Shaw. Shaw assures them that there is more to their father's story than they are being told. Meanwhile, in 1952, we see how the young Shaw first met Monarch scientist Dr. Keiko and cryptozoologist Bill Randa. While escorting Keiko through the Philippines, on the trail of a mysterious radioactive signature, the trio will come face-to-face with an enormous monster out of local legend.

With “Departure,” it becomes apparent what the motivating plot point of the 2015 storyline will be. Cate and Kentaro believe their father to be dead, all the secrets he took with him never being resolved. Instead, upon meeting Lee, the possibility that dad is still alive and just in hiding rears its head. It seems the sins of their father – in the form of aggressive Monarch agents pursuing them – will be revisited upon the children. Hunting Hiroshi down and confronting him allows his kids a chance that people rarely get in real life: An opportunity to make an absentee father reap what he sowed. And anybody with a shitty dad, and years of unresolved issues along with one, can relate to that.

Yet the simple fact of the matter is I don't really care about Cate, Kentaro, and their daddy drama that much. Hiroshi (seemingly) exited the story before the show even began, making it difficult for the viewer to be invested in him. The show leaped right into Cate going on this journey, uncovering all her father's secrets, without establishing anything about her first. This also makes it hard to care about how all this stuff effects her. Meanwhile, Kentaro is characterized as a belligerent jerk. What ever the lingering tension between him and May is interests me not at all. You can see the show desperately trying to make this storyline compelling. There's a chase through a train station and a car crash afterwards. Kurt Russell appears in the final scene as the modern day Shaw, as an obvious plea to viewers to keep watching. But, as of this moment, I'm really having trouble caring.

This is a snag seemingly all “Godzilla” adjacent media must grapple with: The viewer is always going to be more interested in the monsters than the people. There's a simple solution to this and it's one “Monarch” is already doing. In the 1952 scenes, our human heroes are actively pursuing the kaiju. See, that piques our interest. That's a dynamic scenario, casting the protagonists as cryptozoologists one step behind these mysterious beasts. It also doesn't hurt that Wyatt Russell's take on Lee Shaw is by far the closest thing this show has to a likable protagonist at this moment. I also like the chemistry he has with Mari Yamamoto as Keiko and Anders Holm as Bill Randa. (Even if it seems improbable to me that the latter ages into John Goodman only twenty years after the events portrayed here.)

There is another problem facing even this half of “Monarch” however. Ya know, I don't know what it is about modern kaiju shows but they simply cannot feature more than a little bit of monster action every episode. The most recent “Godzilla” anime really had this problem, constantly teasing the viewer with a proper appearance from the titular monster without ever really delivering on it. At least “Monarch's” premise of a government organization tracking Titans – not all that dissimilar to the concept of the 1998 “Godzilla” Saturday morning cartoon, somehow still the best “Godzilla” TV show – is more compelling than the unending avalanche of pseudo-scientific technobabble bullshit that occupied most of “Singular Point.” At least “Monarch” has the excuse of being a live action show, which presumably has to balance its budget and be more discerning with its monster action than an animated series should have to be. This is probably why Godzilla himself only has a cameo in a flashback here, while another monster – a dragon-like entity – doesn't appear until the final sequence of the episode.

As disappointing – if understandable – that “Monarch” is so stingy with its giant monsters, it must be said that “Monarch” is doing the kaiju action extremely well so far. The final set piece of “Departure” sees the show embracing a horror atmosphere. Bill and Keiko crawl through a battleship abandoned in the middle of the Filipino jungle. It's caked with slime, making us wonder what the hell kind of monster is responsible for this mess. When the ship starts shaking and massive claws start breaking through the wall, our curiosity is even more piqued. There's a certain claustrophobia to people trying to escape a very tight setting as a monster rips it apart. Cool shit! If “Monarch” can summon that kind of intensity every episode, this might turn into a decent show after all. [6/10]