One of my favorite things about Godzilla projects is the sheer elasticity of their tone. For as politically-charged and vitally prescient as Ishirō Honda’s original 1954 film is, the director himself would go on to make many of the first-wave of sequels, including ones such as 1962’s King Kong vs. Godzilla. These sequels could be, often were, night-and-day from that first film, channeling a much zanier, gonzo energy that paired Honda’s walking metaphor for Hiroshima up with like-minded monsters and allowed them to duke it out in a manner that was so incredibly entertaining and satisfying.
To this day, there is perhaps no franchise in entertainment with a wider barometer for varying tones than that of Godzilla. Over the course of a span of a few short months in late 2023 and early 2024, this became comically apparent, as Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus One, the first season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and Adam Wingard’s Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire were all released, one after the other. These projects could not have been more different in tone, with something like Monarch’s first season striving to offer a much more grounded, serious take on the MonsterVerse iterations of these characters, standing in stark contrast to the neon-drenched insanity of Wingard’s sequel.
I say all of this to say, I am very much of the opinion that the tonal variety of Godzilla projects is a massive plus. However, with the latest episode of the second season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, “Trespass,” I can’t say that I’m entirely certain what kind of tone this series is even aiming for anymore. Where the best parts of the show have always come from an intricate and occasionally deft handling of interpersonal drama sewn together with monumental monster-rooted chaos, this latest episode plays far less like an effective attempt at prestige television and far more like an oddly somber Saturday morning cartoon.
To be clear, I don’t think a Saturday morning cartoon-vibe for Godzilla and his friends is a bad thing at all; I like when these characters are allowed to be kind of silly. It’s just that in “Trespass,” I’m not positive that Monarch and the creatives behind it realize that that is the kind of territory they’re sliding into, or the kind of dissonance it creates when they’re also still attempting to mine these melodramatic storylines for emotional high points.
“Trespass” is directed by Hiromi Kamata, the same helmer behind last week’s absolute dud of an episode, and I think that’s a major shame. Kamata has proven herself to be an extremely talented filmmaker in the past, even on prior episodes of this show, but has been unjustly saddled with what must be two of the weakest links in this season’s entire storyline. The director does what she can with the material, and it is certainly a leap up in quality when compared to episode three, but it is still hampered by lesser versions of many of the same problems: stagnant blocking, bizarre editing choices, and prolific use of ADR to attempt to duct tape disparate pieces together.
What makes all of this even more painful is just how befuddling the entire story for this episode is. Gone is the hallmark structure of cutting back-and-forth between the two timelines of the series, with this episode instead focusing almost exclusively on the present-day characters and action. The bulk of it revolves around the core crew of protagonists all attempting to sneak into Apex’s facility and steal back a device that could help to stop an impending attack from Titan X, this season’s new aquatic Kaiju. In order to accomplish this, the heroes decide to go about things in the most long-winded and underwhelming way imaginable.
First, they have to all be involved in staging a fake fight at a bar, in which Lee Shaw (as played by Kurt Russell) fakes a heart attack for the purposes of distracting an Apex employee. While that employee is distracted, the team steals his backpack and places a device that will be capable of triggering an alarm in Apex’s facility later. Then, May (as played by Kiersey Clemons), who is working at Apex already as a double-agent of sorts, has to hack into her boss’ computer and trigger this previously placed device, which results in everyone getting evacuated. Then, the rest of the crew arrives, disguised in hazmat suits, with the hope of ‘trespassing’ and stealing back their Titan “dog whistle” device.
If all of that sounds like paper-thin, gargled gibberish in narrative form, that’s because it is. This is one-hundred-percent the kind of plan that the Mystery Inc. gang would cook up to sneak into a villainous location, just far more needlessly convoluted and prolonged. In terms of sheer length, the whole thing starts to drag early on and just grows more egregious as the episode runs. This all seems to stem from the need to pad things out and give each of the characters something to do during the mission, even it all fails to elicit even a base-level response of vague excitement. For antics that are as objectively silly as these are, it’s kind of crazy how dull and monotonous the whole thing is.
And again, it’s completely fine if Monarch wants to swerve tones and get a bit goofy, but problems arise when you’re interweaving a story like this with somber emotional beats like Cate Randa’s (as played by Anna Sawai) entire arc here or the reveal that closes out the episode. Tellingly, these more serious beats are by far the best parts of the episode, with special praise being owed to the cold-open of Bill (as played by Anders Holm) chronicling his work through the years. Kamata captures it with such distinct impact and concentrated vision that it gets the episode off to such a great start, but things only get bumpier from there, sadly.
Overall, I would be lying if I said I’m not finding it immensely disheartening to watch Monarch seemingly fumble its more intimate interpersonal material in this way. The monster stuff is always some degree of fun, but what really powers this series for me is the emotion and passion between these core characters. These last few episodes have felt like time that was specifically carved out for the purposes of exploring these characters and their evolving relationships in the aftermath of the opening two episodes’ big shakeups, but in execution, they have fallen short time and again. “Trespass” is a notable improvement over last week’s episode, but it still manages to squander all of the goodwill and potential that it feels like the series should be capitalizing on in small-scale but impactful ways right now.