How Monarch Connects To 2014's Godzilla And Kong: Skull Island
This post contains spoilers for "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters."
Apple TV+ is getting into the kaiju business with the new Legendary MonsterVerse series "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters," and we couldn't be more excited. The new show isn't the first TV series in the long-running Godzilla franchise, but it's the first big-budget live-action American show, and as such, it's got plenty to prove to fans of big creatures that love to stomp all over humankind.
The first two episodes of "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters" just dropped on the streamer, and while they're plenty intriguing on their own merits, they also tie directly into previous movies in the American saga that started with 2014's "Godzilla." That movie came out nearly a decade ago, though, and the multiple timelines and new cast members in "Monarch" mean even the most loyal fans will be downloading a lot of new information while trying to keep track of the old stuff. Here's a quick refresher on how exactly the new puzzle box series ties into some of the franchise's semi-recent blockbusters.
A paranoid post-MUTO world
From the beginning, "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters" splits its time between at least two different decades, with the more mysterious but less monster-filled plotline taking place in April 2015 — not long after the monster (or MUTO, Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism) fight that ravaged San Francisco in 2014's "Godzilla." Signs of a post-Godzilla world are everywhere, starting when G-Day survivor Cate (Anna Sawai) and her fellow passengers have to sit through a decontamination process on an international flight — as if kaiju might grow from everyday parasites. It's a gesture that shows right off the bat how much fear and confusion the whole world feels after finding out big-ass monsters exist, and it's not the only indicator.
Godzilla evacuation routes are set up all around Tokyo, as are missile defense systems and drones. As anyone watching "Monarch" will know all too well, major global crises often lead to an influx of conspiratorial thinking, and the MUTO attack was no exception; early in the first episode, Cate's taxi driver claims the whole San Francisco disaster was a hoax pulled off with CGI. In his review of the series, /Film's Chris Evangelista also notes that some 1-percenters in this world even live in decked-out bunkers in case of another attack. You can rewatch "Godzilla" to prepare for "Monarch" — or you can simply look at the world around us.
The show's first two episodes tie back directly to 2014's "Godzilla" because they take place directly after the world-shaking events of the film. "Monarch" is set, as executive producer Matt Fraction put it in a new interview with /Film's Ryan Scott, "In a world where everyone knows Godzilla is real," and where the natural follow-up question is: "Now what?"
By the way, Randa is back
The writers of "Monarch" clearly weren't satisfied with just one deep dive into a MonsterVerse world, so they made the show focused on two. When we're not following Cate down the rabbit hole as she figures out what her father's secret second family might have to do with big monsters, we're watching a group of scientists and explorers traverse the globe looking for MUTOs back in the 1950s. The most direct link to 2017's "Kong: Skull Island" comes via this plotline, as one of the central trio of scientists is Bill Randa (Anders Holm), who appears in "Skull Island" played by John Goodman.
The '50s plot serves as an origin story for Monarch, the secret-keeping government organization that seems to keep tabs on all things giant and potentially world-crushing. As Vulture's Roxana Hadadi points out, though, the series "is ostensibly about the same-named organization that studies and villainizes Godzilla, but the series is openly skeptical of the extra-governmental regulation and paramilitary force Monarch stands for."
The series actually begins with a John Goodman cameo, as the actor returns during a cold open that sees him filming an ambiguous video message in case a humongous spider on Skull Island kills him. In the video, he talks to someone who he says may never forgive him for what he "took from" them, but promises to leave a legacy to make everything worth it. Is this person who he addresses as "buddy" a colleague? A family member? Maybe a future child? We don't know yet.
The show works fairly well even without MonsterVerse context
Randa died in "Kong: Skull Island," but in the opening "Monarch" scene, which is obviously set earlier in 1973, he drops a canvas bag into the sea that's fished out by a fishing crew decades later. Though the Randa character ties back to "Kong: Skull Island," that movie doesn't mention or explain the canvas bundle, so newbies and Godzilla purists alike are equally in the dark — for now — about what to expect from Randa's mysterious promised legacy.
It's helpful to watch previous MonsterVerse movies before checking out "Monarch," but it's not necessarily essential. The show features enough new settings, mysteries, and ensembles to work as a starting point for anyone joining the franchise late. If you do want to catch up on those two movies, though, both are currently available for rental and purchase on VOD. New episodes of "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters," meanwhile, drop Fridays on Apple TV+.