Monarch: Legacy of Monsters reaches its penultimate chapter with the ninth episode, “Axis Mundi.” What will be our heroes’ next move after barely escaping the reactor explosion last time? Will Shaw realize the error of his ways? What really happened to Cate? And will Kurt Russell’s character looking extremely good for being 90 years old finally be explained?
All these questions and more will be answered in just a moment. Please bear in mind that there will be full spoilers for “Axis Mundi,” so tread lightly if you haven’t seen it yet. Without further ado, let’s dive right in.
Also Read: Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Episode 8 SPOILER Recap/Review – Birthright
Monarch Episode 9 Plot
Kentaro wakes up in a Tokyo hospital bed, his leg broken after the explosion. Tim and Natalia inform him that Cate, May, and Shaw did not survive the accident and encourage him to return home and live his life. He has an emotional reunion with his mother and goes back to Hiroshi’s office for answers; where he runs into his father Hiroshi. Kentaro berates Hiroshi for his actions, blaming both Hiroshi and himself for Cate’s supposed death.
However, all is not as it seems as May and Shaw wake up in a mysterious forest inside the Hollow Earth. Unstable electrical storms crackle the ground and blur May’s vision, but Shaw is able to lead her to safety and they begin searching for Cate as her vision returns. Shaw informs May that he knows all of this because he’s been here before, connecting us to the flashback storyline.
Said flashback storyline opens in 1962, where Shaw and Bill Randa are preparing for a manned reconnaissance mission to the Hollow Earth. Randa is heading Mission Control while Shaw is one of four soldiers making the trip through the portal. Unstable winds begin tearing apart the equipment as the soldiers are seemingly lost forever; with General Puckett shutting down Monarch shortly afterwards.
Shaw wakes up in a hospital bed, probed by nurses and demanding to see Bill Randa. His demand escalates into a hunger strike and eventually taking a nurse hostage before he learns that Bill Randa is dead. Because his mission was twenty years ago. A grown-up Hiroshi Randa tries to get answers out of Shaw and partially succeeds, learning that the other soldiers were killed in a Titan attack while Shaw escaped through a rift connected to a Japanese temple that represented the barrier between life and death.
Shaw proclaims that Hiroshi’s father was right about everything and pleads with Hiroshi to continue his work, but Hiroshi refuses; sending Shaw to the retirement home he was living in during Episode 3. Shaw ages into Kurt Russell and quietly resigns to his fate until he sees footage of the Godzilla attacks on the news that fill him with greater determination than ever before.
The episode ends as we finally check back in on Cate, who is alive somewhere in a deeper part of the Hollow Earth forest. She encounters a dangerous Titan and tries to stay out of sight, but is soon spotted by it. She runs until she is cornered, bracing herself for the end, but the Titan is taken out by an arrow. We then cut to the mysterious archer……. a still alive Dr. Keiko Muira.
Monarch Episode 9 Critique
Up until the end, I genuinely had no real complaints about “Axis Mundi” and even with the ending, I would still consider it one of the best episodes of the series. The emotional moments with Kentaro hit incredibly hard and represent Ren Watabe’s best acting in the series so far, especially in his confrontation with Hiroshi. And May and Shaw’s initial escape is appropriately tense and the emotional turmoil they feel in their search for Cate is incredibly palpable.
And the flashback story is also at its best here. Bill Randa’s sorrow and frustration, Shaw’s existential breakdown, it’s incredible stuff and Anders Holm and Wyatt Russell’s exceptional performances really sell it. Even the present-day Monarch stuff, as minimal as it is, serves as fairly effective set-up for the finale.
But then you get to the ending. Don’t get me wrong, Keiko as a survivalist archer is a really cool concept that works for her character. And her not aging in the Hollow Earth lines up with Shaw’s story, but something about the reveal feels off to me. I think it would’ve worked better if it happened after Cate reunited with May and Shaw; but here feels a little too much like a fanservice deus ex machina. Regardless, “Axis Mundi” is still a great episode and a near-perfect lead-in to the season finale.
9/10
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