Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 Episode 8 SPOILER Recap: “Separate Ways”

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 officially enters its climax with the eighth episode, “Separate Ways.” Will Cate and Keiko be able to save Titan X in time? Will Shaw successfully summon Godzilla? And will Kentaro continue his downward spiral into being kind of a terrible person? All this and more in our full spoiler breakdown of “Separate Ways.” This is your final warning if you haven’t seen the episode yet, so let’s get on with the show.

What happens in Monarch Season 2 Episode 8 “Separate Ways”?

We open on Shaw driving a truck through the Australian desert before coming face to face with a marooned Titan X and a swarm of surrounding Scarabs. After the title sequence, we head back to Outpost 18, where the US Secretary of Defense has just informed Monarch Director Barris that they plan to fire nuclear missiles at the creature in a matter of hours. Tim, Cate, and Keiko beg Director Barris to let them try to communicate with Titan X and get it back on its migratory route, as Bill Randa’s notes suggest the Titan did not attack anyone for millennia until Apex interfered in Santa Soledad.

Deciding that Titan X destroying a boat with its tentacles earlier in the season doesn’t count as an attack, Barris agrees and allows Cate and Keiko the chance to peacefully resolve matters with Titan X, though they only have three hours to do so before the nuclear missiles are fired. Meanwhile, Kentaro confesses to May that his trip to Thailand was to meet with Isabel Simmons, but he assures her that nothing bad is happening and she shouldn’t worry about it.

May, being a rational human being, is obviously worried about this and gets permission from Tim to talk to Brenda Holland in Monarch Asset Management, essentially an extrajudicial holding prison that they’re allowed to have for some reason. However, Brenda states that she is cooperating with Monarch and that she was wrong about what Apex was doing. May doesn’t believe this, but Brenda leaves for her supposedly final Monarch meeting before she can question her further.

While all this has been happening, Cate, Keiko, and a somewhat reluctant Kentaro who insists that everything is totally fine between him and Cate when it clearly is not, meet up with Shaw in the desert, who has already set up the equipment necessary to replicate a gamma energy signature and summon Godzilla. Shaw begs the Randa family to get as far away from Titan X as possible, but they insist that Cate should at least be allowed to try.

Cate manages to form a connection with Titan X, discovering that the large hole the Titan is resting in is actually a nest for her egg. Kentaro is decidedly not impressed by the miracle of birth and is instead horrified by the notion that more of these creatures will soon start wreaking havoc. He steps aside and calls Isabel about their own secret plans for Titan X. She asks if the Scarabs are there, and after initially hesitating over whether or not to move forward with the plan, he tells her to tell Jason Trissop (Remember him?) to “forget the Scarabs, there’s an egg.”

Chaos erupts as Godzilla finally emerges and goes head-to-head with Titan X. As the two Titans fight, Trissop’s team arrives to steal the egg for themselves, as Kentaro joins their ranks. Cate is heartbroken and infuriated by Kentaro’s betrayal, but he insists “it’s the only way” as Cate, Keiko, and Shaw attempt to escape the ongoing kaiju carnage. Trissop’s team flies up with the egg as Godzilla has Titan X wrapped around him. She attempts to escape, reaching out for her baby, but is sadly unable to stop them.

Is Monarch Season 2 Episode 8 worth watching?

Credit: Apple TV

At just under 40 minutes, this is the shortest episode of both Season 2 and Monarch: Legacy of Monsters as a whole, but it utilizes that time very effectively. With the exception of the May/Brenda stuff, which may or may not have more payoff than it seems in the final two episodes, the entire story is focused on Shaw and the Randas trying to deal with Titan X through various methods and how their differing perspectives end up clashing throughout the story.

There’s great character drama, Kentaro’s final fall is very well-handled, and the long-awaited Godzilla vs. Titan X battle is suitably epic, showcasing each monster’s unique abilities while giving a sense of scale through the humans running away. This fight also continues an interesting trend for the series, namely the characterization of Godzilla as an actively malicious force. MonsterVerse Godzilla, especially recently, tends to be a morally neutral at worst creature whose path of destruction is almost always pointed at something far worse than him.

But in Monarch, aside from his battle with the Ion Dragon allowing our heroes to escape in the Season 1 finale, Godzilla’s actions are often framed as directly hostile to the protagonists in an atypical manner for the franchise. In the first season’s G-Day flashback, the Godzilla attack serves as the final nail in the coffin for Cate and Dani’s relationship (possibly literally since we do not know if Dani survived) and here, he attacks a sympathetically framed, non-aggressive Titan unprovoked, a single mom doing her best no less.

I feel like I tend to prefer Godzilla as either an entirely morally neutral force akin to a walking natural disaster or the aforementioned “Big Cat We Can Point at the Bad Guys” seen in the MonsterVerse films. But there is precedent for Villain Godzilla in films such as Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack and the way they use him here is pretty fun, an excellent bookend to the season’s best episode so far.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 is now streaming on Apple TV.