Diksha Sundriyal
In Apple TV+’s ‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters,’ the audience faces one curveball after another as new information about the Titans comes to light. Spread over two timelines, the show follows Bill and Keiko Randa, with their grandchildren charting a similar path decades later, with Lee Shaw being the only common factor, apart from Godzilla. Even after they part ways, Shaw and the Randa siblings find themselves back in his orbit as they try to stop him from blowing up the portals, the consequences of which might be much worse than G-Day. In trying to stop him, they all fall into the portal. Does this mean they are gone for good? We wouldn’t bet on that just yet. SPOILERS AHEAD
May, Cate, Shaw, and Kentaro Will Explore the Titan World
In the first episode of ‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters,’ one of the main characters falls to their death. Keiko had been exploring a site in Kazakstan that was presumed to be the breeding ground for monsters. Despite the danger, her curiosity got the best of her, and while she and Shaw tried to escape, only he made it out alive. She was pulled down by the monsters into the hole from which they emerged.
At the moment, it felt like the end for Keiko as the show used flashbacks to trace her, Bill Randa and Lee Shaw’s story, bringing the audience to the point where they arrive in Kazakstan. What happened after that, even to Bill and Lee, was not revealed. The ending of the eighth episode hints at the reason behind it.
Cate, May, and Kentaro follow Shaw to Kazakstan, trying to stop him from destroying the site. Shaw didn’t know that closing one site had a ripple effect which made the other sites more unstable, opening them to the possibility of exploding the point that it would call for another G-day. When Cate tells him this, he refuses to believe it. He doesn’t trust Monarch anymore and is only driven by his own knowledge and the desire to save the world, finishing what Keiko started.
By now, it’s clear that the Titans have been traveling around the world through underground portals. At first, the idea of such tunnels felt impossible because how could such a space house so many Titans? However, Bill comes to the conclusion that the Titans aren’t hiding underground. Instead, the holes that they emerge from are gateways to a whole other world, their world. The holes in the ground are merely doorways/ portals for them to travel to and fro.
Later, Shaw tells Cate that the only reason so many monsters have not used these portals to come to Earth’s surface more frequently is because of Godzilla. He is not interested in destroying the Earth or causing another G-Day. In fact, he is keeping these Titans in their world, stopping them from crossing over and destroying everything. However, Shaw also confers that Godzilla can do it for only so long and the threat of another G-Day can only be stopped by closing all of these portals once and for all. This is what he did in Alaska and what he plans to do all over the world after Kazakstan.
All the talk about the portals also subtly connects to other hints that have been dropped in the show so far. The first hint is Shaw’s mysterious age. He doesn’t look as old as he should be, and he refuses to explain the reason behind it. This further connects to something he said in Alaska about how being close to a portal can distort your sense of space and time. This means that he has much more experience with the portals than he cared to explain, and this is what leads us to the events of the eighth episode.
Now that we know that the hole in the ground is not just some hole but a portal, we know that Cate, May, Kentaro, and Shaw will not fall to their deaths. In fact, they’ll find themselves in a world completely different than their own. They’ll be in the territory of Titans, and the next episode will most likely focus on them trying to get out of it. It remains to be seen whether all of them will survive this, but what we can say for sure is when they come back to their world, it will be much different.
Going back to what Shaw said about the distorted time and space around the portal, it is clear that time moves differently there, which is how perhaps the Titans are able to live for so long. Time in our world moves faster, so when Cate, Kentaro, May, and Shaw (or less) come back to their world, it will not be 2013 anymore. In fact, we expect the show to take a time jump and land us closer to 2023, which might also help them tie in the more recent King Kong and Godzilla movies to ‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.’
This theory feels even more solid when you think about Shaw’s age. Maybe he jumped into the portal after Keiko, or he went back to it later when he was sure of what he would find on the other side, hoping to still find Keiko alive. Whatever his reasons, he jumped into the portal, and when he came out of it, time had moved on, but he stayed the same. The same is bound to happen again to him, as well as May and the Randa siblings.
Read More: Godzilla and Monarch Legacy of Monsters Timeline, Explained
