We're visiting tropical beaches, snowy plateaus and sleepy retirement homes in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters episode 3; the latest episode of this new Apple TV Plus jets us around the world as our characters continue their quests.
Set in the world of the 2014 Godzilla movie (and its many spin-offs, together called the Monsterverse), the show follows three characters in the 1950s setting up the mysterious government agency Monarch, and also a group in 2015 investigating their father's ties to the agency and how it relates to the giant monsters sweeping the world.
Episode 2 of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters saw our modern-day characters reunite with Kurt Russell, playing an older version of one of the 1950s characters, and so now the hunt for monsters and mysteries is well underway.
This Monarch: Legacy of Monsters episode 3 recap will walk you through all the key events from the latest episode, though if you haven't seen it you should use our guide to Apple TV Plus free trials to watch it.
While the show jumps between time periods, we're ordering information by time period, so it's easier to follow!
Spoilers for Monarch: Legacy of Monsters episode 3 ensue.
How Monarch was formed
It's 1954, two years after Lee Shaw (Wyatt Russell), Dr. Keiko (Mari Yamamoto) and William Randa (Anders Holm) discovered the monster in the Phillippines, and they've been busy. They're been hunting more monsters, have formally founded Monarch, and now have a big meeting.
Shaw greets his old general from the military, as he wants their assistance. Monarch has worked out that Titans, the giant monsters, eat radiation, and he wants 150lb of Uranium to lure a massive beastie out of hiding. The general offers it to them after Shaw points out how tracking these creatures is important for national security.
However, when the trio jet out to Bikini Atoll, they find the military has brought the uranium... in the form of a giant bomb. The general makes the point that, if this creature really is a threat to national security and they're going to the effort to lure it out, they should probably blow it up.
At a neighboring island, the army personnel wait on beach chairs, and eventually, the creature shows up — it's none other than Godzilla himself, ready to chow down on the big bomb before some sun lounging on the beach.
Lee begs his general not to set off the bomb, at the behest of an upset Keiko, but the explosion happens nonetheless. The fate of the creature isn't shown, but given that he's present in 2014, we can presume that the bomb lost the fight (if you've watched Godzilla, you'll know that these attempts to kill the creature are important plot points mentioned by the characters).
Sometime later, Keiko talks to William: she's very upset with Lee for letting the military bomb Godzilla, as it stops them from studying the creature. However, Lee shows up and reveals that the government has offered them a blank cheque to continue investigating titans.
The trio come to an understanding, as Randa and Keiko don't want the military to kill any more titans: if they find anything, they won't tell Lee, as that means he won't need to tell his superiors. This is an arrangement that may come to bite Lee in the back... almost literally.
The trip up north
We begin exactly where episode 2 left off: Cate (Anna Sawai), Kentaro (Ren Watabe) and May (Kiersey Clemons) have located an older Lee Shaw (Kurt Russell) at his retirement home. The veteran says that Cate and Kentaro's father Hiroshi, who he views like a son, might still be alive.
Shaw and his young cohort escape from the retirement home after a car chase around the zen estate, and decide to head to Alaska as that's where Hiroshi was flying when he disappeared.
The first step is to get a ferry to Korea. As they wait in the car, Lee maligns what Monarch has become since he stopped working for them, as it's turned from a monster-hunting crew into a covert intelligence agency with lots of secrets. Cate is upset that they knew about monsters and didn't stop the San Francisco tragedy happening.
After May admits that she digitized all the Monarch files that they found in episode 1, the group decides to dump all the physical ones into the ocean, so they can't get caught with them.
When the ferry arrives at Pohang, the group are arrested for not having passports, but the border guard is a friend of Lee who smuggles them into the city. He sets them up with a rusty old plane and sets off with them towards Alaska.
At the same time our two Monarch agents from last episode, Joe and Elisa, meet an important woman as she gets off a jet with the Monarch logo on it. We learn that Joe is going against orders by chasing Lee, because he's not that big a deal to them. However, when Elisa gets a tip from a contact that the group is in Pohang, the important lady lets them continue their pursuit.
On the rusty plane, May finds coordinates in the files that link to Alaska, so they set that as their destination. However they soon fly into a storm and Lee nearly crashes the plane into a mountain, and on the way down, Kentaro spots something mysterious in the distance.
They eventually land the plane normally and find the wreckage of another plane, however, Hiroshi's body isn't there. Nearby there's a tent, so someone clearly survived the landing, and there's evidence that it's Hiroshi. Cate and Kentaro are glad that their dad is actually alive.
While Cate, Kentaro, May and Lee poke about in the tent, the latter's security guard friend realizes that the 'crashed' plane actually touched down normally, and was only destroyed once it was on the ground. He finds a giant tear mark in the side of the vehicle.
The man runs to the plane to get out of there, and his four companions run from the tent to get in it before he takes off. However, a giant ice monster leaps out of the ice and attacks the plane, smashing it up. The creature also breathes ice which freezes the pilot, killing him. After breaking apart the plane, the monster turns its attention to our four heroes... and the episode ends.
