Apple TV’s sci-fi drama Monarch: Legacy of Monsters kicks things into overdrive in season two, not only giving viewers a better look at Kong and other threats on Skull Island and beyond during its premiere, but also introducing the mysterious Titan X, described as “a living cataclysm”.
Episode one delivers an epic, action-packed reintroduction, and it’s hard to imagine where the rest of the season could go from there.
“You don’t really try to top it as much as you try to make something that’s in its own right compelling and entertaining,” star Kurt Russell, who portrays Army officer Lee Shaw, offers up to Supanova.
“If you keep trying to top yourself as a goal, you’re going to run out pretty quick. The really good writers [for] streamers are the ones who find pieces of detail and go further into detail. And we’ve done that a little bit in season two.”
The film legend is sitting alongside his son, Wyatt Russell, who plays a younger version of Lee Shaw in the show’s flashback sequences. It’s recently been confirmed that Wyatt will play the character in a spin-off series too.
In season one, there was a lot of mystery surrounding Shaw and his motives. Some questions were answered towards the end of the season, but there’s still plenty to learn.
“I like exploring his self-worth,” Wyatt offers. “He really has to ask himself after he’s been through all these experiences with Monarch, who is he without Monarch? Does he have the ability to be on his own? Do they really need him? Is this something that’s necessary for his life? Is something necessary moving on? What is his purpose? Episode five really explores that and I enjoyed that part of it.”
Kurt asks, “If you take a character out of a picture, what difference would it make? And if it makes a lot of difference, then you’ve got something to work with, a character that matters.
“The question that I think we constantly ask the audience to think about is: As you’re trying to figure out how to deal with monsters, how do you avoid becoming a monster yourself? And in terms of self-examination, I think that’s a big one for Colonel Shaw.”
While the Titans pose a serious global threat, it’s some of the smaller monsters introduced in season two – ones that characters literally come face-to-face with – that seem to have the most impact.
“To me, that introduces the world of the MonsterVerse in a way where there’s now so much more to begin to explore rather than just Godzilla, just Kong, just the ones that we’ve seen,” Wyatt says.
As the show continues to expand, so does the MonsterVerse, via a growing list of TV shows and films.
“It’s always fun when you do sci-fi with monsters because you can’t help but say, ‘How does this relate to our life now?’” Kurt ponders. “And you begin to look for correlations, similarities. It’s just natural. It’s what we do as human beings.
“Once you start having fun, looking at that and saying, ‘I think that’s saying something else that we’re not quite picking up on right away.’ Comparisons. That’s fun stuff. Sci-fi is allowed to ask huge questions.”
Wyatt chimes in, “I think it also is just fun. You have had many years of superheroes. I play one. It’s fun to see people honestly deal with problems that don’t directly correlate with other people sometimes.
“Sometimes it’s a nice break from the action to be like, ‘Oh, yeah, there’s a monster. That’s insane.’ A ‘what if’. Rather than dealing with issues of terrorism or things that sort of dot your Apple News feed every day. It’s a fun thing to be able to deal with something fantastical. It’s a form of relief.”
‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ season two will premiere globally on Friday, February 27, with the first episode, followed by one episode every Friday until May 1.
