I have no doubt that in the planning process of the second season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Episode 8, “Separate Ways,” seemed like a natural nexus point; a culmination of all of the season’s hard-earned work. In theory, it is a unique kind of penultimate payoff, one that interweaves numerous character arcs and thematic strokes, wrapping them all up inside some of the most tense and large-scale action the series has ever attempted. In execution, while it’s easy to admire the ambition on display in this episode when viewed in isolation, it sadly feels a bit like trying to build a house without a proper foundation. Because the season as a whole has sped through, shorted, or drastically under-developed so many of the character arcs and motivations that come home to roost here, they feel far less satisfying than they should.
The result is an episode that feels far less like that natural, organic culmination — seeing a bunch of characters we care about follow-through on their established belief systems to their logical endpoints and finding themselves at conflict with one another as a result — and far more like a waxing-and-waning, back-and-forth kind of affair, in which allegiances and alliances shift wantonly.
One of the easiest examples of the pitfalls apparent here comes in the form Lee Shaw’s role here, as portrayed by Kurt Russell. Russell is routinely fantastic, bringing a kind of genuinely affecting world-weariness and disillusionment to the character. And yet, the show so routinely fails to provide him with the kind of coherent or fully-developed character work that he is so clearly champing at the bit for. At the end of the last episode, Shaw was determined to summon Godzilla to fight Titan X, something which he himself claimed was likely to kill him. And then the entire first half of this episode is just him slowly setting up the device necessary for such a task at an extremely leisurely pace. Shortly thereafter, the rest of the gang shows up to intervene, but he later admits that his plan was essentially just to… stick around afterwards? He has a car that he drove out here in and is mere feet away from him for most of the episode; why does he need to stick around at all once he sets up this Godzilla-calling device in the middle of a deserted area where Titan X is literally sprawled out like a buffet-in-waiting?
Well, there is no reason. There’s no reason for him to stick around or think this is some kind of suicide mission, other than for him to still be there when the rest of the crew shows up. These are narrative issues, but they’re also character problems, because it leaves Shaw feeling like a very misguided character. And yes, he’s taking actions that the show is contextualizing as extreme; as if he’s been radicalized into thinking Titans eliminating one another is the only path forward, something that characters like Keiko (as played by Mari Yamamoto) and Cate (as played by Anna Sawai) both repeatedly condemn through their dialogue and actions. But he feels misguided on a fundamental level as well, in that his actions don’t seem to align with one another, making for an experience that is more muddled and confusing for viewers than it is compelling.
If Shaw’s primary goal in life seems to be loving, protecting, and serving Keiko, so much so that he had to literally convince his younger self not to intervene in the present-tense reality he is living in during last week’s time dilation-centric episode, then why is he so adamantly opposed to her here? There’s precious little in terms of actual substance to make these actions feel authentically believable to the character and not just machinations of the plot. The Godzilla show needs to involve Godzilla somehow, and Shaw has to go kind of insane in order for that to happen, apparently.
Which is not to say that these seeming contradictions had to be uninteresting; in fact, I think the most fascinating thing they’ve done with Shaw this season is contrast his evolution over the past several decades with Keiko’s own development. As he points out in this episode, she didn’t live through the events he did, such as G-Day. So while she still holds the idealistic values they both did when they were younger, Shaw’s have been beaten down and withered away. That’s intrinsically fascinating, and I desperately wish the show could’ve committed to it in stronger fashion.
Instead, threads like this will occasionally peek their head through, but it is with little-to-no consistency or escalation. For example, one would’ve thought last week’s time dilation episode, where Shaw literally got to speak with his younger self, could’ve served as a really wonderful culminating moment for this arc, allowing him to realize how much he’s changed and for that to impact him one way or the other. But it doesn’t; they mostly get along for the sake of the mission and then present-day Shaw just continues on, mostly unfazed.
That’s a lot of in-depth analysis of a single character, but it is ultimately indicative of the show as a whole. Essentially every one of the major characters has these same issues of inconsistency in their motivations and behaviors, ultimately feeling much more like pawns being moved around to better fit whatever the larger narrative needs rather than active characters in their own right. If you’re thinking, "Well sure Will, but all of this sounds pretty par for the course for a piece of Godzilla media," you’re right! It is! But Monarch's whole deal is being a character-centric series set within this larger universe, so if the character work is ultimately going to wind up being rushed though, underdeveloped, and kind of nonsensical, what is ultimately the point here?
“Separate Ways” does feature some once again strong direction from Gandja Monteiro, which is a massive plus. Her handling of the finale in particular, which does see Godzilla rock up and start a brawl with Titan X as pretty much every single character from the ensemble cast gets involved with various antics on the same beach, is incredibly well-handled. There are some editing issues here and there, but her use of geography and staging is great, managing to keep the audience anchored in each character’s individual plights while allowing us to feel the massive scale of the skirmish as a whole; really good stuff.
Additionally, I do find Mariko Tamaki's script for this episode, as an individual work, to be quite strong. It has to grapple with a lot of the larger mechanics of the series as a whole, which is to its detriment, but through it all, she maintains a sense of focus and clarity for this individual story as it unfolds here. In addition to this, as always, the performances are quite strong all around, with Sawai in particular really doing a tremendous job of selling Cate’s connection to Titan X and the tragic implications of the final conflict.
Overall, “Separate Ways” is really a quite strong individual work that just happens to suffer from lackluster decisions and preliminary work in prior episodes. One of the downsides of so many of these prestige series’ leaning so heavily into the serialized version of television storytelling is that it becomes increasingly difficult to meaningfully separate each episode from the rest. As a result, the weaknesses of this season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters as a whole drastically impede upon the abilities of “Separate Ways” as an episode, and make it difficult to enjoy in full.
Episode Grade: C+
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