The Reel Rejects - MONARCH! Legacy Of Monsters 1x9 Breakdown & Review

Episode Date: January 5, 2024

THE BEST EPISODE YET?! Monarch Legacy Of Monsters 1x09 Full Reaction Watch Along: https://www.patreon.com/thereelrejects Monarch Ep 9 Reaction, Recap, Breakdown, Theories, Analysis, Commentary, Spoiler Review, & Ending Explained where more secrets from the past are uncovered that connect us into the monster verse. The Apple TV series features Kong & is directly connected to the Monsterverse with Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, Kong: Skull Island, Godzilla King Of The Monsters, Godzilla Vs Kong & is debuting alongside Godzilla Minus One. The cast consists of Kurt Russell, Wyatt Russell, John Goodman, Anna Sawaii, Ren Watabe, Aners Holm, Kiersey Clemons, & MORE.   #Monarch #Godzilla #Kong #KingKong #GodzillaVsKong #Monster #MonsterVerse #Kaiju #monarchlegacyofmonsters #godzillaminusone Support The Channel By Getting Some REEL REJECTS Aparrel! https://www.rejectnationshop.com/ Music Used In Manscaped Ad:  Hat the Jazz by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ POWERED BY @GFUEL Visit https://gfuel.ly/3wD5Ygo and use code REJECTNATION for 20% off select tubs!! Head Editor: https://www.instagram.com/praperhq/?hl=en Co-Editor: Greg Alba Music In Video: Airport Lounge - Disco Ultralounge by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ask Us A QUESTION On CAMEO: https://www.cameo.com/thereelrejects Follow TheReelRejects On FACEBOOK, TWITTER, & INSTAGRAM:  FB: https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/thereelrejects Follow GREG On INSTAGRAM & TWITTER: INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/thegregalba/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/thegregalba Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Top story. The flavor merger of the century between the peanut butter group and Chocolatty Corp. Joining me is a BBC executive. Thanks for having me, Barry. Now, how did you know the merger and the byproduct of it, JIF peanut butter and chocolate-flavored spread, would be a success? You know, it was a gut feeling, a rumbling, if you will. Besides, there are two titans of taste. Very true. Goes great with pretzels. And pancakes. Apples, too, I bet. Try Jif BBC today. Do do do do do do do Kankank and Tara

Karo Kankai Kintara Taro Kate and Kintara Kira Kate and Kada And Kada And Kada And Kira And Kinta Rada

And Kate And Kintaro Kate and Kintaro Kira Kate And Kutaro The Ice one The wing one Kintaro and Kate.

Kate and Kattaro, Kate and Ketaro, Kentaro, Ket and Ketaro, Ketaro, Ketaro and Ketaro. Citizens of the Reject Nation, it is time for monarch, legacy of Kentaro. Hey, John, are you ready? I'm ready to watch the show. To get to the hollower. I'm so excited.

It's about time. Guys, leave a like on this video. Also, subscribe and click that notification belt to get notified when our reaction for, I think, the finale is up. Thank you to Prepper for helping to set it down these highlights. I'm trying not to do my Johnny Dad, but I feel myself descending into it. And, uh, full length, we know how to make the audience really. You want to sync up with your own copy of Monarch are available at Patriot. I feel like he does a few words at a time.

This is his cadence. And now we cover several things over there. We have some watch logs included or either. No one of wasting time. Let's unpack this hollow earth. Well, I tell you. Damn, I didn't want that episode to end for once. That was surprisingly.

This might be the best since legacy of Tim. Oh, it's easily the best And so I can see it, Tim. It's, yeah. It's a real close one. Yeah, it's hard to be legacy of Tim. But this was, yeah, quality-ass episode. It takes a lot to eclipse the beauty of Tim and his presence overall.

Like a Tim episode automatically shoots you to the top. But with everything else firing on all cylinders and no Tim, this is the best it could possibly be. Not bad. I'm happy. Wow, it just took forever to get to. I'm all for buildup, but I feel like we could have got in here to a couple episodes. You got out of episode four or something or hinted at some of this earlier. Yeah.

Now I'm going to do is complain about the show for getting a great-ass episode and all I'm going to do is complain about how. Why wasn't the greatness here sooner? Yeah, he's going to yell at the show for not to get it to the point faster. Even greatness is negative. on this show. Yeah, that was excellent. That was extremely gripping from beginning and end.

That was extremely gripping. For starters, Kentaro, man. We make a lot of jokes about his one-no performance. And boy, did he give variations. At first I was like, all right, okay. He gave a crying. Okay, he cried.

Good. Good job, that is good, good. And then it's just like he kept going throughout the episodes. Like, oh, my God, he's like still doing variations. it's not just repetitive and I believe the trauma that he's currently experiencing yeah yeah no there's a variety here a lot of anguish and um I don't know I'm beginning to wonder is it is it just is he I don't know who the actor is he like actually from Japan is he Japanese and is it like just the handling of the I mean

maybe we're alone in the opinion here I think it's just like it just kind of seems a little monotone him and and uh one note did when he's but I noticed like most of this episode he was speaking primary but then again that first scene was in English yeah so maybe it is just the maybe it's the actual scenes they gave him to work with and being directed

here yeah yeah I mean his accent when he speaks English suggests to me that he's been speaking it for all of his life probably like it sounds to me just off face value from watching the show like he's probably an American actor

who speaks Japanese you know but but maybe Like, I don't feel as much like, oh, this is a guy who's probably got a whole other career in Japan who is being brought over here. Doesn't matter. He's excellent. He was excellent. Either right, he was excellent. Kudos. All the flavors, all the shades. The scenes with Hiroshi and him at the end, I thought that was like, that was the kind of, again, it's the kind of trauma you want from the show, man. I was like, God damn, I'm not going to cry, but I feel it. But I feel it. And it ties in well to everything we've seen of the past. We understand exactly how it. why Hiroshi and Kintaro would be the way that they are and respond to all this, the way that they do.

And yeah, you see what's easy to fix about their situation, but also you understand intimately like the weird messed up, you know, role models and family lives, they all have to go on to form all this. And yeah, just it felt tangible. And how trauma begets trauma and not dealing with it. Yeah, it's scared people, you know. Yeah, the lie. that the mom has yeah um yeah it was it was quite poignant but um so that and then you know just

getting to this aspect of what i'm assuming is hollow earth uh just another element to it or another section yeah it's like it's the waiting room of hollow earth no it's like the world like you're in different parts of countries and continents yeah so there's a different geography yeah yeah environment and different foliage and all that stuff yeah yeah so uh going to that side of it and And I think like the way that's captured is really mysterious and neat. It still feels big, but again, like how we said during the, by the way, if you listen to Apple and Spotify, we just watch Mark and read this video. Yeah, we, we really like this one. And when we went to the Hall of Work, I liked how it separated itself from what we've seen from Godzilla versus Kong, nor does it feel like it's, it still feels like it's connected.

It doesn't feel like a completely separate entity. you know like i love the the lighting the different shades of the colors and then even from going to where kate is to where shaw and kirstie clemens are you you get a sense of like the variations and also getting a little bit of the creatures like i actually like that horn creature the one that was like made out of bark and tree and stuff yeah that was real all over yeah that was really cool it felt very it felt very mystical and uh different yeah and it It feels like primordial, but of the earth. It still feels like prehistoric, you know?

Yeah, yeah. And it feels like akin to various things that you would see on the surface. But, yeah, Circa, the fantastical nature of, you know, kaiju and, yeah, everything that we've seen of the hollow earth thus far. But more foreignly, man, like, it was just a, it knew its tone this time. Yeah, really knew its tone. And I know there's a lot of people who've been really loving the show. And for us, it's been a real up and down journey. from fine to

this is really good to a bored to what's going on like come on just get it going to yeah yeah it's it's been a and I know there's a lot of people who feel the same way we do too and all we can do is express our honest opinion here

but to me I'm like this is more of the show that I never saw a trailer for this show so I didn't know what to walk into but seeing what they had on their hands of what to play with this is exactly like the marriage between past and present 50s to present world mystery solving that I'm like yeah this is the marriage I'm looking for yeah it has that twilight zone quality or that um there's something there's a better touchstone but yeah it has that quality of like something is off and strange and and mind bending and foreboding about all these things happening it's like it's got a cloverfield-esque I feel like he's say what you will about the various installments but cloverfield always has that thing of like there's a lurking ominous presence or even lost has that where yeah there's just you want to feel in a show like this

like there's mystery lurking around every corner and like someone's always watching this episode had that where it's like you they've used pov very nicely and i think they handled the stuff even though like at times when they jump around in the past it can be a little bit of a moment to recalibrate your brain and go like, okay, wait, where are we in the linear timeline? But yeah, when they show them disappear into the earth and this lightning storm happens and then we don't really see him until he gets back and there's all that stuff to wonder about.

I thought they actually brought back the like PTSD flash motif in a way that worked again in a sense of you're getting these intense, brief images of what happened when he was sent down there during his first encounter with this so it would be more fragmented and overwhelming in your mind. And, yeah, when they bring him back and you're not even quite sure what year it is,

but hero has aged beyond, you know, Sean now. Like, all that stuff was like a, was the right kind of disconcerting. And yeah, you have all these people and these hazmat suits and stuff. And it's, it had all the aesthetic, cool, sci-fi stuff that you want out of that. And it actually managed to grab and sell the tone. And it had drama or, you know, character beats. Again, like, this is mostly a plot oriented. episode but the character beats they chose made impact and they felt proportionate and they felt

like at least for this episode appropriate to compliment everything else is going on there's suspense and fear and dread underneath the plot lines being delivered yeah so they even though but you know they just have so straight up character scenes you know the same between cataro and his mom and the living room was just about grief every scene with a mom is just about emotions to see how people are you know and she's so natural which is great yeah uh but the strained relationship side of like when shaw and doctor what is uh hiroshi uh when when leishah and hiroshi meet up with each other and talk like i felt the the distance and the tent like i thought it was it was placed nicely where you in the beginning you establish the relationship between uncle and

him and you really get a sense of like the little boy and his uncle who we like gloves and then it cut to years later and how fragmented and how fragile this whole thing is. I thought it was excellently illustrated and just the fear of like when he's like grabbing him. Like this is your legacy. I'm like, oh my God, this whole all this shit about this is your legacy kiddick guitar. It always felt a little bit cheesy and a little forced. Yeah. And then here I'm like, I get it now. Yeah. Here it makes sense. Yeah. Completely made sense. Especially because it all starts here and it's like this big gap of where everything's changed for Shaw. Yeah, well, and when you see Hiroshi, you at first think, like, you know, he's with monarch, so clearly he must have arisen the ranks. But I thought that, yeah, you could, I thought they really nicely drew. When he's talking about, like, you know, that family, I buried them in three empty boxes. Everyone told me they'd come back and they didn't. And like, and that's a human thing, like, it's cool because it's a human thing of like, these people were clearly more married to their work than married to looking after you, you know. And there's been that sort of detached with Rand's.

with Bill, you know, where it's like, you didn't really care about having a family dude? But like, you know, with Kay and with Shaw, they seem very kind of more intent on the kid. And I felt the weight of that here where it's like, yeah, you would feel abandoned. And even though it's like Monarch probably is this thing for you where it's like the only way to get any answers about why your life is what it is. But at the same time, I can totally imagine you not being happy to be here. And this being kind of a traumatic thing to do that you just feel like. like you just have to do because it's yeah it is it is your legacy but i felt the harsh side of that

from just the body language and the performance from the actor who plays hiroshi especially um and and yeah like it again it was a nice intermingling of sci-fi cool shit but also you know actual drama that's appropriate for again the universe that we're in yeah a shot really cool too i think like every single shot felt composed based off of the emotion of the scene yeah and the POV and how to accentuate, you know, the chaos and the, you know, discovery of it all. They did drag out the reveal of how Shaw came and kind of piece it together. He went to Hollow Earth and then he came back. Yeah, that's how he decelerated is.

But they kept filling a mystery and then it solves it, but they explained it in like 15 minutes. Yeah, the more, the more interesting. You're really dragged out to get to this answer. Sure. I get for narrative placement to get to the point to reveal it. But I do feel that as a whole, if this show does get picked up for a season two, you can do some less beating around the bush. Yeah, of course. There has been some beating around the bush where it's like it's pretty obvious from, even for those who really like the show,

just like going through at least like feedback and comments of what really works. Yeah, yeah, yeah. all across the board for everyone. Yeah. And like this was a perfect encapsulation of like, no, this is what the show had, should have gotten,

could have got into a lot quicker. Because this actually feels like we are expanding on the world instead of just filling in some gaps. Like in terms of like, where does it place in the monster verse? Yeah. Whilst being focused on characters that like the psychological intrigue and mystery built like and the mystery building

and the world building of like, like hollow earth and I'm not just more like yeah oh that's how apex came to be uh you know or or just like why is monarchs like I did it was funny and I appreciated this episode but there is a quality with monarch as an organization where their their whole story is sort of like all right we we did this experiment and the army is like we got to cut your funding and no more of this but we're going to do one more experiment and the army is like nah we got to cut the funding man no more of this and it's always like oh you guys are still here how that that happened.

It's sort of like the most that a lot of the episodes have given you about Monarch is sort of like, well, I guess you're just good at sticking it out. But yeah, it has felt like very small scale expansion and like curiosity expansion

rather than this episode. Yeah, feeling like the that side of Monarch was actually kind of neat and intriguing to me here because it was complimented then by a bunch of rewarding answers and glimpses. intense moments and things that yeah feel like you're getting a broader picture rather than just like an interesting artist rendering of a piece of the map you've already seen and i think what's cool about what they've done with monarch is we have essentially focused on its founders yeah you know um oh my god i'm like on her name what is uh k uh k uh it's like keiko i think or something like that i need to get her full name but they call her k uh yeah her and then of course

Billy Rands Bill Rand Jesus Christ yeah Bill Randa Yeah Bill Randa Yeah, Bill Randa How did you forget these classic characters

Bill Randa and Lee Shaw And you watch How they were pushed out And it's become some other Weird secret military Hub thing of Blackop

Yeah Weird side Off the book agency It's like Ray Cross and the McDonald's. Yeah. That's what it is, man.

It's all about real estate. That's right. Yeah. But you are watching just how, what became of them and the tragedy that befell them. Yeah. Like, she's lost and Lee Shaw has just been like, you're sticking you on retire. Like, he experiments is this phenomenon. The experience is an immaculate thing.

And it's like, oh, we got buried this. Just put him in a fucking retirement home. Discard this guy, put him in a box. I study him, but yeah. Yeah, give him some pill. It's tragic. It's tragic. And I felt the weight of that.

Like that transition from him just being like ejected and sunk it into that chair or then feeling a sense of hope with the monsters coming out. I'm not crazy. So his plan, though, is to shut it down, right? Like, that is his plan is to conceal and shut it down. I guess, yeah, seal the barriers so that their world is their world. Oh, it is. It's going to get all kinds of awoken once he sees, mama.

Oh, yeah. Oh, everything will change. Yeah, and then he's going to be like, I have to stay down here. There's so many grandkids. Yes. Yeah, man, they got a whole other families to find down there. Kate's going to have like two daughter-in-laws. Yes.

You've got so many other families down here now. Yeah, you can take, he can follow in Hiroshi's footsteps in the future past while never aging. And that's fun, like, that's a fun. I guess just time, just humans just probably seem like they. don't age at all or you age so slow I guess time doesn't I don't think time happens time yeah just doesn't seem to apply down

there because and I thought that was neat like he's only gone for what seems like a very small amount of time from his perspective and like 20 years go by see and that's what I mean by an expansion on the monster verse world yeah of explaining what hollow earth because like in like

Godzilla like monster versus so separate from like Japanese Godzilla yeah where it's like Very much. Nuclear radiation and atomic bomb shit, you know? Yeah. And then here it's like, there's a mother world.

There's a hollow earth. I like that the Japanese side of Godzilla has become very much like, let's take a uniquely, like, grounded view on what this could be and what commentary we can make. And the American side is like, let's make this as fantastical and spectacular and mystery boxy as we can. Yeah. Which are cool. They're two good flavors. It's great.

So one doesn't just, they don't just feel like they're completely aping it. Yeah, I like. But the, but, but, but this expands on like the hollow earth side of things. Yeah. And a way that is truly interesting. And I want to go back to and I want to see more of it. And I feel like you could do a lot with. Yeah.

Yeah. This was a great episode. This is generally. Never too late. This is genuinely a great episode. I was invested in every character scene. Yeah. I was invested in the entire mystery.

Yeah. The past and present storylines were both awesome to look at the visuals were dynamite I felt the suspense

I felt the dread I felt the unnervingness I thought it was the music was great the every frame was excellent yeah this was like a truly

great episode yeah only thing missing was Tim not much Tim and if lack of Tim and if next time we could get

an episode for Kate like we just had for Hiroshi I mean not Hiroshi Cantaro, then that would be legit. I think we're going to get. We probably will, yeah.

The two of them together. Explained how she survived. Yeah. And then neither of them have to age. She survived amongst the monsters. Yeah, she's Katnus Everdeen now. She's out here with a couple of arrows. That woman is the ultimate woman.

She's the ultimate badass. Japanese scientist woman worries to America. Get, manages to get her kid over here. shunned by a bunch of Caucasians and government but still manages to start crazy top secret agency

it's slung into all the earth manages to become a surviving for however long it feels like she's probably been down there for like two hours but like in her time but yeah for 40 years for the rest of us or however many you've seen 50, 60 years

the hell is she yeah I'm excited to find Find out like as much as that that does happen at the end and you're like, okay, like this, this, I could see this being cartoony. I'm still excited because she is one of my favorite characters on the show. And yeah, I'm excited to see her. Second arrow showed up. I was like, come here. Yeah, it's time. Yeah. And it's good. There's Lee and Cora are together separated. And then the two of her is like, I love Kate. Kate. For some reason, I need to find her. I love her. That one time we bonded. I love her. I love her. I love her so much. Yeah. It was good. She put her in the thumbnail. Yes. Yes, we should.

Put everybody who only had like a minute's worth of screen time. You think we can't go that spoiler. We can go even more spoiler. There's no center image. There's just a description in text of what happened in the most exciting moments. Yeah, yeah. Great design work. Great, you know.

Yeah, I love this. Through time. I love this. It just felt like what I've, heard severances. I haven't seen severance from like, this feels like what I hear

Apple TV is like like this great compelling television. A little bit mind bending, some imagination, good production values, quality acting, some decent writing as well.

Oh gosh, yeah, because I've just felt like so much of this has been not singing. It's not been as mind as you would hope. Yeah,

this was great. This was a bit mind bending a good way. That fucking time. Yeah. man, we got there eventually. And hey, maybe the finale is going to be Dino-Mite. I'm sorry, because nothing can

beat. Tim. There's a reason legacy of Tim will always be the top episode. This is definitely a better episode by a lot. This is for sure

a better episode. Yes. But Tim is just my favorite. It's my personal favorite. I want to give my favorite moment. In terms of character, flavors. Tim is the character you want. He has all the qualities that are the most enjoyable and appealing and the performances in line with all that. So like the strength of just him solely. But yes, if we're talking everything else, this is a better episode.

Nothing meets that Tim moment for me. Well, because I don't love anything as much as I loved Tim, but like I didn't, I wasn't sad or feeling slighted that we didn't spend any time with in this episode. Yeah, I love the sci-fi horror of this. Yes, yeah,

I like that. We're a monster show, but we can't really afford that. So we're going to cut the clips of that one movie and we're going to do a lot of wheels spinning in the meantime.

Do your sci-fi horror show then? Yeah, man. That's what you want from a show like this. Your, yeah, black beer adjacent in your, yeah,

it's a genre bet. Be a genre. Be a genre. Yeah. To be a genre. Be a genre. Instead of some weird, ambiguous, they could be a genre. Yeah, if you're not going to commit to being the drama that you've tried to be,

at least commit to being a genre or two. Yeah, man, that was great. And maybe do all three, and that'll be great. I think they did it at this time. I think they did. All right, guys, well, what did you think about it? We got, oh, my God. Oh, we got like a minute left on this.

So much time to fill up on this car. No, we don't. All righty, guys. Well, we're going to end this. And thank you for being here. leave your thoughts down below. Legacy of Cantaro continues. Peace.