In Review: Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (S1 – EP8) Birthright

Synopsis: In Birthright, The team goes back to where things all began to confront Shaw. On the brink of collapse, Monarch takes drastic measures.

The Story

Picking up from where last week’s show left off. Shaw and Duvall have closed the portal in Alaska and are heading towards Kazakhstan to close another one. Meanwhile, Tim Cate and the gang have arrived at Monarch’s headquarters and wind up being recruited by Natalia Verdugo to go to Kazakhstan to figure out what Shaw and Duvall are up too. 

In the flashback segments. We see the events that led up to Shaw, Randa, and Keiko’s ill-fated mission to Kazakhstan.

The Acting

Wyatt Russell, Anders Holm, and Mari Yamamoto put in solid performances this week as we see the events that directly precede Bill Randa and Dr. Keiko Miura’s deaths as they discover the portals that the Titans are using to travel between their world and ours. These scenes are beautifully juxtaposed with events happening in 2015, which see older Shaw (Kurt Russell) trying to blow up the Kazakhstan portal. 

In the events taking place in 2015, we get solid performances from Anna Sawai and Joe Tippett as we see Cate and Tim lead the gang on their mission to Kazakhstan.

Overall

This episode is perhaps the strongest yet in terms of moving the overall plot forward. We get left with a dramatic final few minutes where the fates of at least three characters are up in the air as we see Shaw and Cate plummet through the Portal just before it gets blown up.

I loved the scenes at Monarch and the moment where Cate finds out what happened to her grandparents and Shaw’s role in that. I look forward to seeing how it all pans out next week when we’ll no doubt see Shaw and Cate try to survive while in the world that the Titans inhabit, which is in the Hollow Earth that we saw in the Godzilla Vs Kong movie.