I have been catching up on movies and series recently and ppl starting to ask me if MONARCH is so good and the short answer is YES, well thats if you like the MONSTERVERS although the drama is not bad but again Kate can be annoying most of the time so its a very niche series considering that all you are expecting are tons of creatures and titans to fight each other because different than the movies here humans have no chance. Episode 4 got things back on track after that slow not so say boring, third episode that had zero kaiju action and I am not even kidding when I say the Randa family needs a therapist because everyone is a damn cheater, especially with Bill Randa finding out Keiko was stepping out on him with Shaw. The episode opens with a flashback showing Bill Randa getting his life together in 1962 while trying to map out the migration path of Titan X, at the time he didnt know what exactly it was because only Keiko and Shaw saw it back on Chile, but then everything goes to shit when Apex Cybernetics swoops in to steal his files years after the guy is gone after he was eaten by a skull crawler, which felt cold, but it set up a legit spy movie vibe for the rest of the hour. I loved the cheesy energy of Shaw playing an old man in a bar to snatch a bag while May was inside extracting data and Kentaro was out there messing with Brenda car, it was a dope sequence that showed the group finally doing something useful instead of just sitting around talking about their feelings, funny too was when Keiko told Hiroshi to be more supportive and then he does that the moment Kentaro comes back and look like an idiot, in a good way, in the parent way lol. The production quality is legit because the Apex campus looks like a high tech fortress and seeing the team infiltrate the place made the amount of danger that is stacking up creates a lot of tension that feel real, even if MONARCH as a business looks incompetent as hell because they keep getting tricked by Apex equipment at every turn.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17220216/
- Platform: APPLETV
[Source](https://tv.apple.com/us/show/monarch-legacy-of-monsters/umc.cmc.62l8x0ixrhyq3yaqa5y8yo7ew)
The best part of the whole trip was the total Jurassic Park vibe when they released those needle walkers to create a diversion, which is a dope new monster design we have not seen in the monster verse before, and seeing those things swarming the Apex security team was such a banger. These needle walkers are basically small predators that Apex is smuggling into tiny cells to run experiments, trying to act like they want coexistence when it is clearly about total control and power, and I gotta say the special effects on these creatures look really good and even though they look like dangerous they doesn't seem to be as Kentario mention they are not predatory but are territorial so probably were just scare more of humans than humans from them, just look as how Shaw kick their ass the moment they were let loose, giant titan chickens I would say. Kentaro and the crew had to go through the vents while these things were loose and you could see how dangerous these small kaiju are when they are hunting in a pack, thats when they turn dangerous and the tension just keeps building up, not much action but its that sense of getting caught or kill by one of this scared titans. Apex is clearly the new big bad in this world and seeing their secret lab filled with different species was a wake up call for MONARCH, who seem to be losing the race to understand not only the Hollow Earth but also Titans, its just that APEX is not afraid of taking the risk of things to happen because they probably think its better happen to them and learn from it. The action in the hallways was fast just like real combat and it made me realize how much I missed seeing actual monsters on the screen because usually we dont get this many kind of monsters in a single episode neither on the movies. This show is at its best when it focuses on the wonder and the terror of these creatures.
Kate finally stopped being eaten up by guilt after running into a mom that she saved her son from the school bus on the bridge on G Day, and she is finally ready to help the group instead of running away, which is a nice change because her moping around was starting to get a bit old. The series so far builds the story of her character through this chance encounter at a shelter, and it gives her the push she needs to join the mission at Apex, proving she is more than just a survivor. It was cool to see her taking charge and using her knowledge of MONARCH to help May and Kentaro, even if she is still pissed at her dad for all the lies he told over the years but it makes contrast with her understanding she also fucked up. Speaking of Hiroshi, the guy is still a total mystery but seeing him pop up in the Apex files suggests he might be deeper into this conspiracy than we thought because he is not too too happy with MONARCH after his conversation with her mom about how he basically hates MONARCh, made me felt bad for Keiko because I bet she never intend for her work end up hurting her own son this much, I am curious to see if he is actually working with Brenda or just using them to find his own answers. The sisterhood thing between Kate and May also feels more real now, like they are starting to trust each other because they have no one else to turn to in this crazy world of titans and shadow government agencies. It is nice to see the human side finally catching up to the monster action, even if the Randa family history is still a complete train wreck that makes me want to scream at the screen.
MONARCH as a the top agency in charge looks like a total mess because they are getting played by APEX, who have better tech and more money to throw at the titan problem, and seeing all of Bill Randa completed maps on that bulletin board shows his work lives on even if the enemy has the keys. Bill was a genius who saw the truth before anyone else but the way APEX just raided MOARCH archives and took his legacy was kind of a cheap shot and it makes you root for the kids to solve the mistery of Titan X before APEX. Brenda is a cocksucker for how she treats her employees and the way she talks about the monsters as their pets or assets, but she is a legit villain who knows how to move all sneaky even though she doesnt look menacing or terrifying she is an opportunist. The heist inside the APEX data center was intense because May had to bypass these high level security protocols while the needle walkers were literally outside the door, Im not into this hacker bs but over the years you just have to stop carrying about it, the tech side look very simple and not that complicated although I would always prever if they just dont show the screens and have things done instead of the fake cli custom systems that May "hacked". We also get to see more of the history between Shaw and Keiko, which is just messy because it turns out their affair was the reason the whole Randa legacy is built on a lie. It is a legacy of cheaters more than a legacy of monsters at this point, because not even MONARCh saw all this even having all Bill data, it was APEX who got it clear for some reason.
The episode ends on such a shitty scene for the family because Hiroshi found that pesky letter Keiko wrote to Shaw and reads it and she was like Oh shit!! and thats it. This makes this whole thing feel more like a mess of broken hearts than a hunt for titans and I am not even sure how they are going to fix that, I mean when are we going to have a fight, four episodes already in!!. Kentaro looks like he is about to snap because he finally sees that his parents were not the people he thought they were besides everyone gets on his back when find out he also cheated and that kind of trauma is going to stay with him long after the monsters are gone. When you look back on this episode I feel disappointed that MONARCH is so far behind the curve, but I am hyped to see what happens when Godzilla finally shows up to wreck the APEX party because you know it is coming but Im sure at first Godzilla will get his ass kicked.
As most episodes even with their annoying moments from humans drama Im still giving this an 8/10 because the needle walkers were dope, they showing up with tons of other creatures that we dont know how they could be when bigger, for example what about all those little squids with Titan X?? are you telling me those are hundreds of potential Titan X? TF!! and the heist was a lot of fun to watch. I am ready to watch episode 5 with a solution of this massive drama cliffhanger and potentially see some sort of confrontation either humans and the Titan X or some other titan.
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