Monarch: Legacy of Monsters – Season 1 Episode 4 Recap & Review

Episode 4

In Utah, a woman is lying in the sun when she hears a beeping from her trailer. She enters it and checks many monitors. The data worries her, and she calls someone. We find out she is Dr. Barnes, a member of Monarch.

Back with the protagonists, Kentaro tries to fire a flare on the monsters, but he misses and only distracts it briefly. Everyone runs away until they find a small cave to hide in. However, the monster’s steps shake the floor and break part of the ice May’s standing in. She falls into the cold water and manages to get out holding a scream.  She starts shouting as soon as they’re in the clear, but Shaw shuts her up. After that, she also argues with Kentaro, asking if he’s happy they’re there.

Kentaro remembers a night one year earlier when he was holding his first presentation in an art gallery. He didn’t know how to describe his art and himself, which made him feel bad. He stepped out and ended up meeting May. After a bit of flirting, they went on a date.

Back in the present, Kentaro says he saw something that looked like a building. Even though he insists, no one wants to risk his idea, and they decide to go in a different direction, in which there’s a higher possibility of finding people. He thinks May is disagreeing with him because she’s angry.

On their date, May didn’t talk much about herself, she just said she worked with computers. She is surprised to hear it’s Kentaro’s first job as an artist, but he was with her instead of being in the gallery. They went to his house after that, where Kentaro explained he doesn’t use all the pieces he wants in the show because it isn’t his gallery. His cell phone rang, but instead of answering it, he kissed May.

Even though no one has seen the building Kentaro is talking about, they follow his plan. As far as they walk, they don’t see any kind of structure though. Suddenly, Cate sees a light far away from them, and everyone but Kentaro agrees they need to go to it. Kentaro says he’s right and goes on his way to the building he saw before. Cate doesn’t want that, but he still goes alone.

Barnes says to Monarch’s boss the data shows spikes only found in pulsars, supermassive black holes. However, this one comes from Alaska. And that isn’t the surprising thing. The last time anyone saw readings like those was right before G-Day.

While Kentaro walks alone in a blizzard, Cate says they shouldn’t have let him go. May gets delirious and talks nonsense. Cate tries to make her feel better, and it appears to work. Unfortunately, things are about to get worse for everyone.

Kentaro loses his strength and falls. The others get back to Hiroshi’s tent. Shaw says Titans affect their environment in strange and unpredictable ways, so the light they see is probably part of that. Kentaro hallucinates with May, and the story goes back to their first date again. After he went to the gallery, May stayed in his room and received a call. She lied about what she was doing in Japan and said she’ll be back soon.

We find out that person is Lyra, her sister, as May tells Cate about her. If anything happens, Cate must explain everything to Lyra. They burn Hiroshi’s papers to make a stronger fire and stay warm, but the monster appears. It starts sucking the heat, freezing everything. That gives Shaw an idea. 

Shaw tells them the Titan is attracted to heat, so they’ll use the airplane’s fuel to distract it. May calls Cate and quietly says she needs to make it out of there alive, even if she’s the only one.

Kentaro’s hallucination continues and he sees his father. They have a talk, which gives him the strength to walk more. He finds the building he was looking for, but it’s a rundown place. He has almost no hope, but then he finds a radio and contacts someone.

Shaw is almost done with his plan, but the Titan gets to them before everything is set into motion. It attacks May, who uses the bag with Hiroshi’s files to protect herself. The airplane fuel is burnt and the monster leaves her alone. Then, a helicopter shows up and rescues them. Hiroshi is already inside and they thank him. 

May thanks Cate for saving her, and they are much closer now. Shaw gets frustrated when he sees the notebook with Hiroshi’s files is frozen. However, again, things will get worse. When they land, the person who greets them is Tim from Monarch.

The Episode Review

Unfortunately, this episode shows focusing on the characters’ lives before the current events, and trying to be emotional might not work for this series. In episode 2, we got a very sweet and sincere moment between Kentaro and his mother. Maybe, this kind of plot stays better that way, as isolated scenes.

Episode 4 tries to go into who Kenaro is and explore his previous relationship with May. Probably one of its biggest problems is that it doesn’t really dive deep into their relationship. They meet, flirt, go on a date, talk about Kentaro’s art and that’s it. We don’t get to see them talking about almost anything else and we don’t feel closer to May, a relevant part of the episode.

Their scenes in the present are almost as uninteresting. Kentaro is incredibly annoying and stubborn. The episode could at least try to explain more why he needs to prove himself to be useful or something similar. May suffers from a similar problem, but it’s more understandable as she’s nearly dying.

The irony of it all is that despite the focus of the episode being Kentaro and May’s relationship, what they nail is May and Cate’s friendship. It’s nice to see them trying to help each other out throughout the episode. When May thanks Cate by the end, it kind of gets to you. So at least we got something good from this. Not to mention, it’s something important, as they will be our protagonists for the rest of the season.

Another thing it handles well is the fear that they will die. When Kentaro is hallucinating alone in the blizzard and the rest of the characters are still running away from the monster, you think some of them might die. An episode with only Cate and Shaw seems possible. Even though it doesn’t happen, the fear is still there.