Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Episode 7 Lee Shaw steps through a portal into the unknown at the start of Season 2, in Axis Mundi, 1962. On the other side, he crashes and has to fight to stay alive in a dangerous place. Days go by as he blindly sends out radio signals, and he finally realizes that he needs to get to higher ground to get a better signal. But the terrain is dangerous, and the ecosystem itself is always a threat.
Shaw finally gets a transmission after more than two weeks, but it’s from his future self.
May Suzuki is shocked to find a signal connected to the Hourglass Expedition in the present timeline. In Axis Mundi, time works differently, so delayed transmissions and timelines that overlap start to make sense. She tells the older Shaw to talk to his younger self and help him, even if it means making a paradox. Shaw promises to help his past self get away, even though it doesn’t make sense.
In another place, Keiko Miura and Cate Randa are trying to figure out what the strange Titan X signal means. Keiko thinks that Cate is the key to figuring out the creature and maybe even bringing it back to Axis Mundi. Their search takes them to a small village that Billy wrote about in his journal. There, they hope to find out more about the Titan so that they can stop others from hurting it.
At the same time, Kentaro Randa goes to Phuket, Thailand, with Isabel to keep looking for answers.
In Axis Mundi, the older Shaw comes up with a plan: he will use his younger self to find Titan X. He leads his past self toward the creature during an electrical storm. The younger Shaw finds proof that Keiko is in this world along the way. He thinks about going up to her, but his older self stops him, saying that interfering could mess up the timeline.
The two Shaw’s have a moment of reflection where they talk about their scars and how they feel about Keiko. The older Shaw thinks about changing the past, but in the end, he decides not to because he thinks Keiko’s path must stay the same for her to live.
With careful help, the younger Shaw finds Titan X and puts a tracker on it while it sleeps. The act wakes the creature up, and it breaks free from the rocks and runs away.
Tim meets Corah at Monarch headquarters in another thread. He says that her experimental neural-link device messed up Titan X’s migration pattern, which makes it much harder to find. Corah agrees to help because she knows her code might be needed to fix the problem.
In the village, Cate hears the Titan’s voice coming from a well. She is sure that it is trying to talk to her, so she insists on going down even though Keiko is hesitant. Once she gets below, Cate hears the signal more clearly and thinks that the villagers might have been listening to the Titan instead of being afraid of it. She thinks the creature isn’t dangerous; it just needs help.
As things happen, the older Shaw keeps giving advice to his younger self to keep him safe from dangerous situations. Shaw says goodbye to Suzuki after the mission is over, which suggests that his time may be running out.
In the last few seconds, Monarch’s scanners pick up Titan X, confirming that it has arrived on land.
The Review of the Episode
This episode introduces time travel mechanics more directly, but the way it’s done doesn’t feel right. It’s interesting to think about Shaw talking to his younger self, but it also raises a lot of questions. Why doesn’t the tracker change the present timeline if it was put in the past? The story isn’t as strong because there aren’t clear rules about cause and effect.
The fact that Shaw remembers—or doesn’t remember—these events makes things even more complicated. The story feels like it’s making things up as it goes along instead of building toward a satisfying ending because there aren’t any hints or consistent logic.
Character development is still a problem. Like Corah with her technical skills, Cate is once again seen as the key to solving everything. But neither character is developed enough to make their roles interesting. Cate thinks that Titan X is just misunderstood, which is a theme we’ve seen before in the series. This makes her story feel like it’s going in circles instead of moving forward.
Overall, the episode has some great character moments and big ideas, but it doesn’t live up to its full potential because it doesn’t handle time travel well and doesn’t develop its characters well enough.