‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ Episode 4 Recap: Love in the Time of Kaiju

I can’t remember who, but someone once said that a title like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is more than a title, it’s a promise. In that light, I expect a show called Monarch: Legacy of Monsters to do certain things. So I’m really not sure where I come down on “Parallels and Interiors,” the show’s knowingly pretentiously titled fourth episode. On the one hand, you have an effectively sketched-out romance between characters with believable chemistry. On the other hand, there’s only one monster, and it’s not even a new one or a famous one. I’m not sure that’s a trade I’m comfortable making.

The episode uses the show’s now-standard Lost-derived flashback/present-day format. In 2015, we focus on the fight of our four heroes to escape that tentacle-snouted titan and find shelter after May becomes a hypothermia risk. Meanwhile, material set the year before shows us the night May and Kentaro first met. It’s a contrast made poignant by the ex-couple’s constant bickering, and by Kentaro’s ultimate decision to strike out on his own for the settlement he — and only he — saw from a distance in the plane last episode, without May’s support. 

The flashback succeeds at burnishing Kentaro as a character (up until now I’d thought he was kind of a drip) by revealing him to be an up-and-coming artist on the verge of his first big solo gallery show. Showing us Kentaro in the element recasts his shyness and standoffishness, which had made his character tough to connect with; it’s easier to enjoy a character being sullen because he’s an artist who has a hard time around other people than a character being sullen because he’s boring. 

It also shows that he’s got enough rizz almost despite himself to pull May the night they meet, after she accidentally walks into frame as he’s taking a picture of the poster for his show. Again, our primary image of Kentaro has been that of a guy who takes good care of his mom. Blowing off your first show and losing your agent so you can flirt with, ask out, and bed down a gorgeous American with some kind of mysterious hacktivist thing going on…well, that’s a side of Kentaro I didn’t expect to see. 

In a weird way, it all sets him up for being successful in his quest. In the end, it’s him, not Shaw and Cate and the ailing May, who find rescue. (Or do they??? Tune in next week, same Kong-time, same Kong-channel!) He does so by following an illusory (or is it?!?!?) trail of his lost father Hiroshi’s (Takehiro Hira) trademark pencil shavings to that now-abandoned structure, where there’s still a working radio through which he contacts Monarch. But he finds that May and Cate are now tightly bonded to each other — when you think you’re about to die and have to ask someone to survive without you, as May did with Cate, that forms a bond alright — the way May and he once were.

(Note: There’s a really nice effect I’d not seen used before during one of Kentaro’s hallucinations, where his very realistic father’s voice slowly fades away, along with the text of the subtitles telling us what his Japanese dialogue means in English. Meanwhile, his voice takes on the ghostly crackle of the radio, another lovely way to convey his absence.)

Anyway, there’s also that ice monster, who’s basically eats energy by absorbing it, leaving behind that freezing effect. (I was wrong to call it “ice breath” last time, as it’s more about sucking then blowing. Okay, I’ll see myself out.) Shaw figures out it can be distracted by fire, eventually they get away…I dunno, it’s kind of lackluster, honestly. It’s a fine creature design, and the effects are solid. But I really am gonna need kaiju of all kinds thrown at me every week for this show to keep my interest, Kiersey Clemons and Ren Watabe making goo-goo eyes at each other under colorful lights notwithstanding.

The episode ends with our heroes falling back into the clutches of Tim and Duvall, who’ve basically commandeered Monarch’s response to the Alaska anomaly. This now includes an energy signature identical to that which preceded the big attack from the 2014 Godzilla movie, referred to throughout the show as G-Day. 

Is this a good thing, because Tim knows what he’s doing and is a Bill Randa disciple? Or is it a bad thing, because he’s used police-state tactics and we’re far removed from Bill Randa’s Monarch? Is Monarch good or bad? Does it vary from movie to movie to show? From character to character? Shouldn’t the franchise kind of take a stand on whether its international intelligence agency is benevolent or malevolent as a rule? Now that I think about it, I’d like to see this answered even more than I’d like to see more monsters. Otherwise it’s a franchise with an identity issue.

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.