Warning: SPOILERS for Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ Season 1 finale, titled “Beyond Logic,” are ahead!
Although the MonsterVerse made its first foray into television in summer 2023 with the animated series Skull Island (accessible to those with Netflix subscriptions), there’s no question that the franchise’s first live-action TV show, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, has received a lot more attention. Boasting the same kind of blockbuster scale as the MonsterVerse movies, this Apple TV+ subscription offering follows the scientific organization chiefly in the 1950s and the mid-2010s, and some of the key players in the Monarch cast list include Kurt Russell, Wyatt Russell, Anna Sawai and Kiersey Clemons, among others.
After 10 episodes, Monarch Season 1 has now come to an end, and while Apple TV+ hasn’t announced if Season 2 is on the way, some major groundwork was laid in “Beyond Logic” for another batch of episodes. This included a massive cameo at the end of the Season 1 finale, as well as an unusual twist that’s not only led to the return of a long-thought-gone character, but has massive implications for the MonsterVerse mythology. So let’s recap everything that went down, and here’s one more SPOILER warning to be on the safe side.
Kong Appeared In The Monarch Season 1 Finale
We’ll delve more into the craziness that is Axis Mundi in the next section, but the important thing to take away for now is that Anna Sawai’s Keiko, Kiersey Clemons’ May and Mari Yamamoto’s Keiko all managed to escape this time-twisty realm, which wouldn’t have happened if Kurt Russell’s Lee Shaw hadn’t sacrificed his life to reconnect the beacon that was integral to the escape.
The surviving trio ended back up on the grounds of a facility in a mysterious jungle being bombarded by bad weather, and were surrounded by a group that included Ren Watabe’s Kentaro Randa, Joe Tippett’s Tim, Takehiro Hira’s Hiroshi Randa and Dominique Tipper’s Brenda Holland, the latter being the executive whom May worked for at Applied Experimental Technologies, which has now been renamed Apex Cybernetics.
With Kentaro and Tim no longer trusting Monarch, they reached out to Brenda for her resources, so it’s thanks to Apex that Cate, May and Keiko’s capsule managed to successfully be brought back to Earth’s surface. However, after the returning characters barely had time to catch their breath, an alarm sounded, and all the humans evacuated to the inside of a nearby heavily fortified building. Moments later, Kong emerged from the trees, revealing that this location was Skull Island.
Although this marks the first time viewers have seen the giant gorilla since Godzilla vs. Kong, within the MonsterVerse timeline, this appearance takes place before that 2021 movie (which can be streamed with a Max subscription). Remember, the “present day” events of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters unfold in 2015, one year after Godzilla’s showdown with the MUTOs and the public learned about the existence of the Titans. “Beyond Logic” did jump forward a few years in its final minutes, but we’re still a ways off from Kong being moved off Skull Island due to the increasingly inhospitable climate.
It was certainly cool to see Kong show up at the end of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters considering that like Godzilla, he’s one of the MonsterVerse’s leading Titans. And while not a 100% sure thing, it stands to reason that if Monarch Season 2 happens, we’ll see more of Kong, although exactly how prominent a role he’d play is unclear.
After all, although it’s been established that there are various portals that lead from the surface to Hollow Earth, it doesn’t appear there’s one of those on Skull Island. Otherwise, why would Kong have needed the humans to transport him to there in Godzilla vs. Kong?
So keeping that in mind, if Kong does indeed return in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2, we’ll only see him on Skull Island. This would be a sharp contrast from the use of Godzilla in Season 1, as he popped up in numerous locations.
Keiko Is Back From Axis Mundi
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters opened in the year 1959 with Lee Shaw, Bill Randa and Keiko Miura traveling to Kazakhstan and encountering an underground cavern full of Endoswarmer eggs. Unfortunately, those little suckers hatched right then and there, and Keiko was dragged into a deep pit. For most of the season, it was understandable assumed that she died, but at the end of Season 1’s penultimate episode, titled “Axis Mundi,” Mari Yamamoto’s character was revealed to not only still be alive, but looking exactly the same all these decades later.
Although Axis Mundi, as Keiko calls it, is crawling with Titans just like Hollow Earth, this realm isn’t fully within Hollow Earth territory, but rather functions as more of an in-between place. More importantly, as teased earlier, time works differently there due to gravitation distortion.
Lee Shaw thought he was only gone for roughly a week when he and his crew fell through that rift, but when he made it back to the surface, it was 1982, 20 years after Operation Hourglass’ failure. This finally explained why despite being in his 90s during the show’s 2015 storyline, Lee looked more like he was in his 70s.
In Keiko’s case, she told Cate she estimated she’d been trapped for 57 days, but by the time those two and May made it back to the surface, it was 2017. In other words, 58 years had come and gone, and not only had Keiko’s husband Bill Randa been dead for over 40 years (as seen in Kong: Skull Island), but her son Hiroshi was now a middle-aged man. Just like when Steve Rogers was unfrozen at the end of the MCU movie Captain America: The First Avenger, Keiko now finds herself on an Earth that looks much different from the one she used to live in.
Fortunately, Keiko is finally reunited with her son and has met her grandchildren. Assuming Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 moves forward, Mari Yamamoto will likely remain a series regular, but this time she’ll be part of the “present day” storyline. What will be more interesting to learn, though, is if Season 2 will continue exploring Axis Mundi or not. Since the forthcoming Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire will continue exploring Hollow Earth, more visits to Axis Mundi would be a good way for Monarch to continue carving out its own special corner of the MonsterVerse.
On that note, given that Apex Cybernetics was behind helping draw Keiko, Cate and May back to the surface rather than Monarch, even given the show’s title, I wonder if the company will continue to be explored going into a second season. Kentaro, Hiroshi and Tim are working there now, and since Apex appears to have collapsed following Godzilla vs. Kong, this show may be the only opportunity to explore its inner workings and perhaps learn more about how its now-late CEO Walter Simmons decided to have MechaGodzilla built.
We’ll keep our ears open for any news about Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2, but MonsterVerse fans should remember that the franchise will pick back up on April 12 with the release of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, one of the bigger 2024 movie releases. Feel free to also look over the other best Apple TV+ shows if you’d like to stick around on the platform.
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