Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters Season 2 Episode 3 Sets Up A Big Showdown (With No Monsters)
by Ryan Scott · /FilmThis article contains major spoilers for "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters" season 2, episode 3, "Secrets."
One of the most anticipated showdowns is finally happening on "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters." No, we're not talking about Godzilla and/or Kong coming face-to-face with Titan X. Heck, we're not even talking about another fight between the long-feuding Godzilla and Kong. Rather, season 2, episode 3 of the MonsterVerse series, which is titled "Secrets," set up a clash between Bill Randa (Anders Holm) and younger Lee Shaw (Wyatt Russell).
"Secrets" has diverging plotlines, with the older Shaw (Kurt Russell), Keiko (Mari Yamamoto), Hiroshi (Takehiro Hira), and Kentaro (Ren Watabe) going rogue in an attempt to track down Titan X. Meanwhile, Cate (Anna Sawai) struggles with feelings of guilt after unleashing Titan X upon the world at the end of the "Monarch" season 2 premiere, which mirrored a jarring moment from the "Jurassic World" movies. Most importantly, though, at the very end of the aptly-titled "Secrets," a long hidden secret gets exposed.
During most of the flashbacks in the episode, Keiko and the younger Shaw are left alone in a mysterious seaside town after Bill departs. This leads to some tension, which ultimately boils over into romance between them. This is problematic because, as we know, Keiko and Bill are together. Their love triangle is once again boiling over.
Later on in the episode, Keiko writes Shaw a letter, informing him that she loves him but that her heart belongs to Bill. That's seemingly all there is to that. However, the very end of the episode then sees a young Hiroshi unearth the letter in 1962, which Bill subsequently finds, leaving us on a tense, emotional cliffhanger.
Bill Randa and Lee Shaw are finally going to have it out on Monarch
It's pretty clear where "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters" season 2's present-day storyline takes place on the MonsterVerse timeline (between 2014's "Godzilla: and 2019's "Godzilla: King of the Monsters"), but the stuff in the past is less straightforward. Recall that Keiko fell into Axis Mundi in 1959, with younger Shaw and Keiko's recent escapade taking place in 1957. So, when Bill discovers that letter in 1962, Keiko has already been gone for years, and he still had no idea what was going on between her and Shaw, one of his best friends.
We don't get to see Bill's reaction to the letter in "Secrets," but one imagines it's not going to go over well. This, in turn, sets the stage for a major confrontation in the next episode. Let them fight, as it were.
"Monarch" has plenty of connective tissue to other MonsterVerse projects, with the fleshing out of Bill being one of its biggest contributions to the franchise thus far. Played by John Goodman in 2017's "Kong: Skull Island," the character met an unceremonious demise in that film, but he's proved to be wildly important when it comes to humanity's history with Titans. Now, we're poised to see him deal with something hugely emotional, and it's hard to predict how that's going to go.
Shaw, meanwhile, is one of the most interesting human characters in the MonsterVerse, but he's no saint. He and Keiko are still alive in the present, but Bill isn't, so whatever transpired between these two in the past could have major ramifications when it comes to how viewers perceive them in the present. We'll see how it all shakes out.
"Monarch: Legacy of Monsters" is streaming now on Apple TV.