Long live the kings! Godzilla and Kong, the most famous giant monsters in movie history, were all over this season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Apple TV’s small-screen spinoff of the MonsterVerse series of American kaiju epics. The two legendary creatures repeatedly battled Titan X, also called Co-Cai — a massive new sea monster created for the show. Even though she’s a gentle giant by nature, the meddling of sinister tech companies and billionaires has thrown it off course and turned into a menace.

It all culminates in a showdown on Skull Island, Kong’s home. As the big ape battles the tentacle monster, our human heroes from Monarch, the organization tasked with tracking the Titans, race to prevent further carnage. They’re led by Keiko Randa, the brilliant scientist who co-founded Monarch, and her granddaughter Cate, who has some kind of psychic connection to Titan X after unleashing it from Axis Mundi, a dimensional way-station between our world and the world of the monsters.

Who wins? Who loses? Does everyone, human or otherwise, make it through? Will there be a Season 3 or a spinoff? And what’s up with the cameo from Rodan, the volcano-dwelling monster with a wingspan the size of Staten Island? We’ve got the answers below. Warning: Godzilla-sized spoilers ahead!

Who wins the big kaiju battle, Kong or Titan X? 

The battle for Skull Island is the work of Isabel Simmons (Amber Midthunder), the billionaire daughter of Apex Cybernetics CEO Walter Simmons (played by Demián Bichir in 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong). She’s less interested in the Titans than in their home dimension, Axis Mundi. She plans to market that strange place’s time-warping properties to the world as a sort of giant time machine, enabling travel to the future or glimpses of the past. 

Isabel’s newfound associate Kentaro Randa (Ren Watabe), meanwhile, hopes to use Axis Mundi to retrieve his late father, Hiroshi (Takehiro Hira), from a time before his death, effectively saving his life, or at least a version of it. Isabel wants Kentaro on the team to because his famous monster-hunting family makes him the perfect choice to be project’s poster boy.

But to access Axis Mundi, she needs to open a dimensional rift. To open a dimensional rift, she needs Titan X, which she believes she can control using stolen Apex tech running code designed by Kentaro’s ex, May (Kiersey Clemons). And she’ll need to kill Kong, Skull Island’s ruler and guardian, who’d be a constant threat to her plans. She and Kentaro jack Titan X’s aggression levels up so that she’ll do the dirty work for them.

All Titan X really wants is her recently laid egg, which was stolen from its nest by Isabel’s forces in order to lure Titan X to Skull Island in the first place. When the beast catches a glimpse of the egg, her nervous system overrides Isabel’s aggression implant. She stops fighting Kong, cradles her egg in one tentacle, and with a few wordless gestures of understanding and respect between her and the big ape, she gets out of there. 

Do Cate and Keiko survive? What about young and old Lee?

It’s pretty close there for a while! Determined to help Titan X return to its normal migratory route, Kentaro’s estranged half-sister Cate (Anna Sawai) approaches the creature on foot — and gets a bug’s eye view when the monster clashes with Kong. By now, Cate’s tie-displaced grandmother Keiko (Mari Yamamoto) and her aged lover Col. Lee Shaw (Kurt Russell) have reunited with wild-card Monarch agents Tim (Joe Tippett) and May near the battlefield. While the other three run for cover in the bunker containing Titan X’s egg, Keiko hops in a jeep and does a full action-hero speed run around the monster fight to rescue her granddaughter and run with her to safety.

But once Titan X breaks free of Isabel’s mind control and stops fighting, Cate and Keiko’s fight isn’t over. Realizing that the creature is still off course, they use Cate’s unexplained, innate connection with the monster to guide it to the site of the rift, which opens in any Titan’s presence. Cate and Titan X touch each other to say goodbye, and the creature and her egg return to Axis Mundi.

They aren’t the only ones who say goodbye, though. A young Lee Shaw (Wyatt Russell) becomes visible from within the Axis Mundi side of the rift and approaches Keiko. Though she can’t hear what he’s saying, his older self now remembers: He was telling Keiko goodbye, so that neither would have to keep yearning for a relationship that could never be. Tearfully, she parts ways with young Lee, then takes old Lee’s hands in a gesture of understanding. He, too, is saying goodbye, off on his own path.

Cate and Keiko are rewarded for both their bravery and their unique, genius-level insight into how the Titans operate. They’re welcomed back into the Monarch fold and put in charge of their own unit with their friends Tim and May — a Mindhunter/X-Files–type squad that operates out of the basement. Their mission is to track down Kentaro and Isabel before they wreak further havoc with their Axis Mundi time-travel scheme.

Wait — is that Rodan at the end?

Yes! At least, it’s a Rodan. The colossal pterosaur that made its MonsterVerse debut in 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters was shown to be living in a volcano in Mexico, not Thailand, which is where Col. Lee Shaw finds the giant firebird we see in the finale’s final shot. (Rodan’s part of a whole species of ancient Titans, so it’s certainly possible there’s more than one flying around out there.) An associate tells Lee that an American woman and a Japanese man — clearly Isabel and Kentaro — have already come inquiring about the creature. They believe Rodan is the key to their future plans, and they’re willing to play god with the big bird like they already did with Titan X and Kong. It’s rare for Lee to be the calm, rational figure in these situations, but it seems pretty vital that he harnesses Rodan’s power before they do.

What does the ending of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 mean? Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 Ending Explained:

Monarch’s finale resolves most of the season’s major conflicts, monster and human alike. After surviving fights with both Godzilla and Kong, Titan X returns to Axis Mundi where she belongs, offspring in tow. The scheme to hijack and weaponize her, first by Apex and then by Isabel’s rogue offshoot, is over. Monarch successfully avoided another mass casualty event like “G-Day,” as Godzilla’s initial San Francisco rampage is known in-universe. Keiko, Cate, Tim, and May all have job security as a result. 

However, Isabel and Kentaro are still out there, looking to use a Titan like Rodan to re-open a rift and start hopping around the spacetime continuum. Lee’s out to stop them, and he tends to be a “by any means necessary” type where Titans are concerned. And since the show is set in 2017, everything that happens in every MonsterVerse movie set after that point still awaits us, from Ghidorah to Mechagodzilla. 

What makes Monarch so engaging, however, is its emphasis on human drama, and that’s what this finale is really about. As actor Mari Yamamoto explained to Decider, it’s about the bond Keiko and Cate have formed through their shared trauma — escaping the perils of Axis Mundi, coming in contact with the terrifying Titans, and losing Hiroshi, Keiko’s son and Cate’s father. It’s about the bittersweet parting of Keiko and Lee, two people who fell in love knowing it was a love they could never pursue, then denied even the chance to try by the circumstances of their crazy lives. It’s about Kentaro clinging to the past, dreaming of resurrecting his father rather than connecting with the still-living sister and grandmother he has. 

Perhaps nowhere do the two themes connect more clearly than in the scene where Cate reaches out a hand and touches Titan X’s tentacle. Cate’s bond with the beast is reminiscent of the connection that the benevolent kaiju Mothra has had with humans in various films, a symbol of the bond between humanity and nture. Throughout the finale, actor Anna Sawai’s face conveys the awe-inspiring but fragile beauty and power of the creature. This moment uses a monster to depict Cate as a woman who is open to the world’s possibilities once again, despite her many losses. As we said in our finale review, Monarch’s heart is so big it takes Titans to convey the size of it.

Will there be a Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 3?

Apple TV has not yet renewed the show for a third season, so like the Titans themselves, this is a big unknown. But having Kurt Russell face off against one of the most iconic kaiju of all time in the final shot is a crazy cliffhanger to end on if you have no plans to follow through. Either way, Kurt’s son Wyatt is slated to star in a spinoff series, tracking his character Lee Shaw as he hunts Titans during the Cold War. Expect plenty of kaiju to come.

Sean T. Collins (@seantcollins.com on Bluesky and theseantcollins on Patreon) has written about television for The New York Times, Vulture, Rolling Stone, and elsewhere. He is the author of Pain Don’t Hurt: Meditations on Road House. He lives with his family on Long Island.