Monarch Legacy of Monsters review: Hollywood’s best Godzilla returns for Season 2

Thunderous footsteps aren’t easy to follow in. When Monarch: Legacy of Monsters arrived in 2023, adding a live-action TV series to the Godzilla and King Kong-filled Monsterverse – and adding the father-son duo of Kurt and Wyatt Russell as stars too – it faced an unenviable task.

Since 1954, the Godzilla franchise has ranked among cinema’s towering favourites. Since 1933, King Kong has similarly enthralled audiences. While neither franchise has been immune to lacklustre instalments, at their best they’ve both helped define the creature-feature genre – for almost a century in the case of ‘the eighth wonder of the world’, and across more than seven decades for the mammoth reptile-like animal first sighted emerging from the Pacific Ocean.

In deciding how to proceed, perhaps Monarch creators Chris Black (Severance) and Matt Fraction (Hawkeye) asked themselves a simple question then: what would Godzilla do?

Note the italics: although bursting forward regardless of any obstacles is classic behaviour for Godzilla, the oversized critter, understanding that we’re all shaped by what we can’t forget has been core to the kaiju’s screen appearances since long before a gripping Apple TV show began tussling with the beloved beast on the small screen, let alone returned for an also-engaging, Australia-shot second season.

Slotting into the Monsterverse

As so much gracing cinemas and streaming now does, Monarch comes with a lengthy list of connections (you could also call it viewing homework).

When a new American-made take on Godzilla hit picture palaces in 2014, it sparked a fresh saga that’s now spanned four other movies – Kong: Skull Island (2017), Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), Godzilla vs Kong (2021) and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024) – with another on the way for 2027, Godzilla x Kong: Supernova, plus the animated Skull Island television series in 2023.

Slotting in Monarch’s monster mash was a matter of literally slotting in-between the existing plot, at least for the show’s 21st century segments, which took place in 2015 in Season 1 and leap to 2017 in Season 2. That’s where the elder Russell (The Rivals of Amziah King) features as now-retired US Army Colonel Lee Shaw, and where grappling with the repercussions of G-Day – Godzilla’s attack of San Francisco, as seen in 2014’s Godzilla – is front and centre.

Nodding to the kaiju’s mid-20th century roots, Monarch also jumps back to that era, to its titular monster-monitoring organisation at its nascent stage, and to the younger Russell (Thunderbolts*) as Shaw.

A shrewd exploration

Titans, epic pairings and the reality that history will echo: that’s the Monarch story. For its sophomore spin, the series picks up where its prior season left off, so with the older Shaw stranded in Axis Mundi, the realm between Earth and the Hollow Earth where the franchise’s beasts usually dwell.

That someone is frequently stuck between worlds throughout the narrative – be it Keiko Miura (Mari Yamamoto, Rental Family), the scientist that Shaw first met in the 1950s; her son Hiroshi Randa (Takehiro Hira, also Rental Family); his daughter Cate Randa (Anna Sawai, Shogun); or Shaw – is a canny way of demonstrating the impact of living with the uncertainty that Godzilla or one of its fellow creatures can upend your existence at any moment.

With Axis Mundi also ticking on its own clock, given that time moves more slowly there, marooning characters in its midst equally reinforces Monarch’s knowledge that we’re all always caught between the past and the future.

This is also a series about emotional dichotomies, the heart being torn in two directions, competing options and being forced to make difficult choices. Under sole showrunner Black in Season 2, it mightn’t always be subtle at finding methods to stress such points, but they still land. While a giant monster is hardly understated, after all, it still leaves a firm imprint.

Stellar stars

For all of the emphasis on chasms and clashes, both figuratively and metaphorically, Monarch makes a key move in its second season: more often than not, the bulk of its main players are together.

Season 1 was divided across years and also needed to assemble its teams in each period, including cryptozoologist Bill Randa (Anders Holm, The Muppets Mayhem) with Keiko and the youthful Shaw, plus Cate, her brother Kentaro (Ren Watabe, 461 Lunchboxes) and hacker May (Kiersey Clemons, For Worse) with the veteran Shaw. With Keiko’s return from Axis Mundi, Season 2 gets her chasing a new octopus-like critter, dubbed Titan X, in flashbacks and in 2017 with her current-day family.

The primary appeal of the series when it premiered came down to Godzilla and Kong on TV, alongside the two Russells portraying the same figure. Now, the broader cast is as much of a drawcard. That’s a testament to their talents here. Sawai, who won Emmy, Golden Globe and Actor awards between seasons for her exceptional performance in Shogun, is diving into Cate’s connection to Titan X. Watabe is following Kentaro’s own path with a mysterious newcomer played by Amber Midthunder (Novocaine). Yamamoto remains haunted by missing decades and Kurt Russell proves commanding in every scene he’s in.

As for Wyatt Russell, any feeling that the charismatic yet conflicted younger Shaw doesn’t receive enough of Monarch’s attention is offset by the welcome news late in 2025 that a spinoff series dedicated to the character is in the works.

Compelling human stories

Whenever a Godzilla film or King Kong movie of old (or a Monsterverse entry of today) puts people and a massive organism within its frames – impressive CGI-enhanced imagery that’s of cinema quality in Monarch – a thought lingers: can humanity co-exist with these creatures, and how?

The one downside to Monarch’s second season is that it has its audience wondering too often if and when the show will give its monsters the spotlight.

Unlike some Monsterverse features, that query isn’t a reflection of Shaw, Keiko, Cate, Kentaro and company lacking interest, or the battle between Monarch and its rival Apex Cybernetics doing the same. Rather, the kaijus, even new creation Titan X, are used sparingly in Season 2. Kong fares slightly better.

What a problem to have, though, after the Monsterverse long struggled to make its human stories compelling on the big screen.

Japan will always be home to the greatest Godzilla fare, with the original film a behemoth of the genre, its many sequels rarely dull, 2016’s Shin Godzilla marking a spectacular return and 2023’s stunning Godzilla Minus One a well-deserved Oscar-winner (follow-up Godzilla Minus Zero arrives this year), but Monarch is Hollywood’s finest effort.

Season 2 of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is now streaming on Apple TV.

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