Much like the first season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, the second season started off proceedings by oscillating between two time periods: the 1950s and the 2010s. In 1957, Billy, Keiko, and Lee traveled to Santa Soledad in search of monsters, and all they found was a bunch of angry villagers who wanted them to leave. Why? Because they didn’t want these foreigners to meddle with their god. Eventually, the trio convinced the local bartender, Lucia, that if she gave them some proof about the existence of this god they were talking about, then they’d promptly leave the village. So, Lucia took them to a cave that had these cave paintings of what looked like MUTO, which obviously meant that Billy, Keiko, and Lee would extend their stay there. In 2017, Cate, May, Kentaro, Keiko, Hiroshi, Verdugo, Brenda, and Tim were shifted from the Monarch-Apex facility on Skull Island to a massive Monarch ship that doubled as a research and monitoring outpost for the organization. Cate wanted to reopen the portal to Axis Mundi because she wanted to rescue Lee as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Verdugo was strictly against it, since the portal was the reason why Kong had gone berserk and destroyed the billion-dollar facility. Despite everybody’s warnings, Cate went ahead and unlocked the door to Axis Mundi and brought Lee to Skull Island. However, along with Lee, the El Gran Dios Del Mar, or the Great God of the Sea, also entered the realm of the mortals, along with its minions or maybe kids. That act not only angered Kong, it also led to Verdugo’s death. What happened next? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Monarch Pursues the Titan
While flying back to the Monarch ship, Lee and Keiko confirmed to Hiroshi that they had encountered the seafaring Titan before. As they proceed to share their findings with the new deputy director of Monarch, Tim (who totally doesn’t want the job and wants Director Barris to take care of this situation), one of El Gran Dios Del Mar’s minions is spotted making its way onto the ship. Blind to that developing situation, Lee asks Tim why the ship isn’t en route to intercept the Titan and send it back to Axis Mundi, which is where it was all this while. Tim is too feckless to take charge, and he brings up Lee’s old run-ins with Monarch to prevent him from voicing his opinions on what the organization should do about the Titan. Lee underscores the fact that while they can go back and forth all day about who’s wrong and who’s right, that Titan is going to reach some city and wreak havoc. So, they need to focus on controlling it, and then they can go back to bickering about whether or not Lee should be on any vessel associated with Monarch. Tim might be feckless, but he’s self-aware enough to know when he’s being an idiot; hence, he accepts Lee’s suggestion and tells his crew to follow the Titan. Later on, it’s revealed that Barris has signed off on Tim’s decision to pursue the Titan, because it’s the right thing to do given the circumstances.
Tim thanks Lee for pushing him in the correct direction in a time when he’s trying to grapple with the responsibilities that have suddenly been thrust upon him. And he says that even though Barris has ordered him to detain Lee, he’s not going to do that, because he needs Lee by his side, and not in a cell. That turns out to be a good call because, moments later, Monarch spots the El Gran Dios Del Mar moving towards the vessels on the Strait of Malacca with the intention of destroying them, and Tim needs Lee’s help to stop the MUTO from doing so. Of course, Tim doesn’t immediately agree with Lee’s opinion that they should risk overheating the engines of the ship just so that they can catch up to the Titan, but after some persuasion from Keiko, he caves in. Next, Lee wonders if they have any weapons to subdue the creature with, and Tim straight-up says that they don’t. After a brief brainstorming session, which also involves Hiroshi, they decide that they’re going to use the only available drone’s sonar transducer to emit an infrasonic signal and hope to at least distract the Titan away from all those commercial and civilian vessels. This allows Keiko and Hiroshi to connect because they haven’t seen each other for a very long time. That said, when Keiko brings up Billy, Hiroshi climbs back into his shell, because he doesn’t really want to talk about his fraught relationship with Billy. Keiko is clearly surprised by Monarch’s technological innovations, but I think what’s going to shock her the most is the fact that Billy didn’t really take care of Hiroshi while she was gone. What’s done is done, though, and maybe Keiko is going to make amends by putting an end to her association with Monarch, which would probably prompt Hiroshi to do the same, which would then allow both of them to give Kentaro and Cate the attention they deserve.
Lee and Keiko Almost Get Killed by the Titan
Lee, Billy, and Keiko reach a bit of an impasse because Keiko wants to stay in the village in Santa Soledad and examine what’s enriching its waters, while Billy wants to hit the open seas again because he has figured out the “migratory route” of the El Gran Dios Del Mar, and he wants to get to where the MUTO is headed to before it shows up there. Lee simply wants everyone to stick together, and he wants to get out of that village because he doesn’t really feel welcome there. Eventually, the trio arrives at the conclusion that Lee is going to stay with Keiko as she examines the village’s land and waters, and Billy is going to take off and hunt for El Gran Dios del Mar in the ocean. As Billy leaves, Augustin tells Lucia that things aren’t going to end well for Keiko and Lee, and even though Lucia assures him that she’s going to help them understand the “customs” of their village, Augustin says that the situation isn’t in their hands anymore. Speaking of Keiko and Lee, they are in the caves with the drawings. As Keiko is planting these devices into the floor of the cave, they have a little chat about Hiroshi’s biological father, who died of cancer, and how well Billy is faring as Hiroshi’s stepfather.
That’s cut short by Keiko hearing these strange murmurs emanating from the ground beneath their feet, which is something that Lee doesn’t perceive, probably because he isn’t as sensitive as Keiko. Before they can get to the source of these sounds, Lucia and Augustin appear in the cave, inviting both of them to the festival where they’ll be celebrating “their god.” Keiko accepts the invitation on both of their behalf, and they go to the party that’s being held by the villagers to show how grateful they are to the El Gran Dios Del Mar for providing them with so much food every single season. There, they get drunk and start enjoying themselves. For a second, it even seems like Keiko and Lee are going to get romantically involved, but that’s when the party takes a dark turn as Tomas arrives, guts a giant fish, and uses its blood to draw that double helix–like symbol (which resembles the Titan’s eye) on Lucia’s forehead. Moments later, the El Gran Dios Del Mar bursts out of the waters and wreaks havoc upon the village. Lee and Keiko almost get crushed by that Titan, but they have that plot armor on, and it saves them from getting killed by a giant sea-faring monster.
The Great God of the Sea Wants Its Child Back
Hiroshi is seen going through the data he has acquired from the recent portal opening sequence because he wants to know why they ended up waking up the El Gran Dios del Mar. Kentaro tells him to focus on the fact that they got Lee back, but it seems like Hiroshi is just too pressed about bringing yet another Titan into the planet, while humanity can’t deal with the ones that are already roaming around, to see the other side of this situation. Cate overhears this conversation, and it exacerbates the negative feelings she is already experiencing for pressing the button that ushered that Titan into this world. Hiroshi tries to pacify his daughter, but it doesn’t really work. While Cate is sulking, May shows up and essentially tells her to stop beating herself up over “pushing that button” and saving Shaw, thereby unleashing the El Gran Dios Del Mar upon the world (again), because she’s not the only person who took that step. Kentaro, Hiroshi, and May went all the way to Skull Island to help Cate rescue Lee. Hence, it’s annoying that Cate is trying to portray herself as a martyr instead of actually doing anything to help catch El Gran Dios Del Mar, probably because she wants to be babied at all times. Well, Cate’s depressive phase is cut short by El Gran Dios Del Mar’s minion, who has been going about the Monarch ship and killing its staff.
Cate tries to alert the crew of the ship regarding the creature’s presence, but she realizes that by the time Monarch reacts to this threat, it’s going to wreak even more havoc, which is why Cate takes matters into her own hands and tackles the creature all by herself. In the meantime, Lee, Keiko, Tim, Hiroshi, and the Monarch operatives can be seen trying to get the El Gran Dios Del Mar’s attention with their custom drone, but to no avail. However, when Cate, May, and Kentaro take down that minion, and it sets off this sonic blast, the Titan turns away from that fleet of ships on the Strait of Malacca and starts heading towards the Monarch ship. To make matters worse, since the ship isn’t built for high-speed pursuit or anything remotely combative, its engines give up, and it gets stranded in those open waters. Once everyone figures out that they can return that minion to the Titan and prevent it from attacking the ship and killing everyone, in the ending of episode 2, Lee boards a speedboat with the creature in the backseat and drives away from the ship so as to take the Titan away from the vessel. That maneuver does work out, and even though Lee almost gets killed by the El Gran Dios Del Mar, the Monarch crew lives to continue their mission to understand these MUTOs. That said, what does El Gran Dios Del Mar actually want? Well, I don’t know if it’s intelligent enough to have an agenda. It probably just wants to roam around the planet, birthing babies, and if some humans benefit off of it, that’s fine by it. But if they disrespect it or harm any of its babies, then it’s going to respond with violence. There’s a good chance that this season of the show is going to end with Kong killing the Titan, but, before that happens, hopefully everyone understands that the Titan isn’t inherently evil and it just wants to live peacefully with its children in its home.
