‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ Finale Delivers On a Game-Changing Titan Reveal

Throughout much of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, the series leans into delivering the kind of iconic MonsterVerse spectacle that longtime fans crave. From Godzilla leveling Tokyo beneath his massive feet (albeit in the dream sequence) to King Kong beating his chest atop Skull Island, it consistently taps into the franchise’s most recognizable imagery.

In the finale, Season 2 Episode 10 “Where We Belong,” the series comes to a climax with a massive Titan clash orchestrated by Isabel (Amber Midthunder), pitting Kong against Titan X in a full-scale, no-holds-barred battle. A monster melee of clashing claws and tearing teeth, it is a battle MonsterVerse fans have been waiting for.

But in the final moments of the finale, there’s one last surprise: Lee (Kurt Russell) is on the hunt for something. His search leads him to a coastal country halfway around the world, seemingly on the heels of Isabel and Kentaro (Ren Watabe), who are chasing the same thing. Following a guide named A-Wut (Sahajak Boonthanakit) through the jungle, Lee is taken to a remote location, but the guide refuses to go any farther, revealing the scars he bears from his last encounter with the creature they’re tracking.

Lee presses on alone until he finds it what he is searching for, a volcano, with a massive Titan perched atop it: Rodan.

Rodan is the latest Alpha Titan to join the rogues’ gallery of kaiju in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, which already includes Godzilla and King Kong, along with creatures like the Mother Longlegs and Skullcrawlers, both seen in Kong: Skull Island. Adding the iconic Rodan not only expands the series’ Titan roster but also raises the stakes heading into whatever comes next, signaling that Monarch’s fight is about to get even bigger.

To bring Rodan to life, VFX Supervisor Sean Konrad stood on the shoulders of giants. “We just kind of stole a lot from King of the Monsters and the visual effects supervisor who worked on that for us at Rodeo FX. He actually worked on that sequence at the previous company,” explained Konrad. “So he was very familiar with angles and how we could wrap around the body to show it and show the scale. We really analyzed what he had done

“We actually went around a lot on different kinds of camera moves to sell the scene, like we completely redid that camera move 10 weeks out from delivery. And thank you to everybody who worked their butts off to get that done. But just figuring out how to, like, really sell the scale, especially in a single shot, was definitely, definitely, really hard,” explained Konrad. “A lot of it just comes out of intuitiveness and feeling, and rather than something you go into with an exact plan, because, you know, plans, laughing, and all that kind of stuff.”

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“We were really excited to be introducing new Titans. And we want to have that mystery box of where we’re going next with it,” said producer Tory Tunnell. “We feel like the setup with Kurt on that quest just feels like it’s something that I know that, as a viewer, I would be more than excited to watch. We want to keep on rolling out hero Titans, and also creating Titans along the way to keep people guessing.”

“We’re building out a world, and we have our first spinoff that will be shooting this spring,” said Tunnel. “We have big plans, and we’re going to be continuing to roll out this world, and we want to not exhaust what we have.”

“We know that we have plans for some of our hero Titans within them, not to say that they won’t also appear in the Monarch flagship show, but with Rodan, we have ideas about where that’s going, and it feels like it’s going to really allow us to do something new.”

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Season 1 – 2, Streaming now, Apple TV