"Secrets and Lies"
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"Secrets and Lies" (秘密とウソ Himitsu to Uso) is the third episode of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. Directed by Julian Holmes and written by Andrew Colville, it premiered on Apple TV+ on November 22, 2023.
Plot
2015: Monarch security cameras at the Futaba Resting Home detect that Col. Lee Shaw has disabled his tracker. He explains to Cate Randa, Kentaro Randa, and May Olowe-Hewitt that their search for Hiroshi Randa will begin in Alaska, the last place he was known to be alive. Cate has no interest in a cross-country hunt, wanting only for Monarch to stop pursuing her, but Kentaro is ready and willing. May asks why Lee is so intent on finding him; he replies that he considers Hiroshi more son than nephew. Alarms sound and they pile into Kentaro's rental car. Lee takes the wheel, but is confused to learn the car requires a button to start. After barriers rise out of the ground to block an exit, Lee backs up, barrels through a few obstructions, and crashes through the main gate. Cate in particular is terrified.
1954: Lee, Dr. Keiko Miura, and Assist. Prof. Bill Randa meet with now-General Puckett at a hangar. The scientists are reluctant, but Lee reminds them that they need funding for more intensive studies. They show Puckett a impression of an enormous reptilian footprint taken three weeks ago in Indonesia. Randa offers teleportation as an explanation for how the creature has avoided being seen, but Lee cuts him off. They propose to the shaken general that they draw it into the open with 150 pounds of uranium. Puckett is taken aback, noting that the amount is equivalent to the two atomic bombs the U.S. dropped on Japan. After absorbing his comparison, Keiko explains that she believes the Titans feed on radiation. Lee adds that a creature of this size is an inherent danger to global security. The general approves their request, though Lee chides Bill afterwards for mentioning teleportation. Bill takes offense, uninterested in watering down his theories when the Titans already defy known science to appease "a bunch of gun-toting Neanderthals." After Bill leaves, Keiko reassures Lee that he's the only reason the two scientists have been able to reach this point in their research, though she also believes their research has no purpose if they don't share it.
2015: Lee recalls fondly how Bill would hand-write his notes until his pencils were worn down to nubs. Kentaro says Hiroshi was the same, sharpening them with a penknife and making a mess with the shavings, which Cate also remembers. Lee believes that Bill's files contain something Hiroshi wanted to keep secret from Monarch, and they'll find him if they can locate that thing before Monarch does. May shares that she digitized the files and they're on her laptop. When Lee states that Monarch was founded in the late 1940s, she realizes that he should be 90 years old, though he looks quite a bit younger; he writes it off as good genes. He describes the file as containing the hopes, dreams, and ambitions of him, Bill, and Keiko before their organization became misguided, more focused on keeping secrets than hunting monsters. He confirms that Hiroshi worked for Monarch, calling it the Randas' "family business" Cate is outraged that Monarch knew about the Titans for decades without telling the public; he replies that she should know as well as anyone that stopping the Titans is beyond humanity's means. She concludes that his death was pointless, and Monarch more of a family curse, and leaves the car, revealing that they are parked on a cargo ship. She looks out at the sea.
1954: Arriving at Bikini Atoll, Lee, Keiko, and Bill are shocked to see the military setting up a hydrogen bomb. Lee offers to talk to the general, who throws his words back at him: the monster is a threat to global security. He adds that the decision to kill the monster was made by generals higher-ranking than him.
2015: May calls an unidentified person, telling them that she "might be coming back soon" before casting her phone into the water. She tells Kentaro she doesn't trust Lee, but when he offers her the chance to leave, she angrily reminds him that coming onto Monarch's radar cost her entire life in Tokyo. After bribing the ship's captain, Lee proposes they dispose of Bill's tapes to avoid any problems when entering South Korea. Kentaro is taken aback and the idea and demands to know Lee's plan; he explains that he has an old friend in Pohang. Lee offers to let the Randas take charge of their quest once they reach land. At that, Kentaro agrees to let the tapes go. At customs, Lee so badly fumbles his interactions with security that the party is led off by two armed guards. Lee offers to bribe them, earning him a rifle to the stomach, but the same guard then locks his counterpart in their van, revealing himself to be Lee's friend, Du-Ho.
At an airfield, Monarch agents Tim and Duvall are met by Assistant Director Natalia Verdugo. She admonishes them both for carrying out an unauthorized operation in Tokyo, with Duvall claiming innocence. She's dismissive of the significance of Bill's notes until Tim points out Lee's interest in them. Before he can answer when he went rogue, Duvall receives a tip that Lee's party is in South Korea. Verdugo orders Tim on the plane with her, while Duvall is to assemble a tactical team to capture Lee, but Duvall convinces her to let Tim join her. Du-Ho drives Lee's party to an ancient plane he owns, their dubious chariot to Alaska.
1954: The soldiers at Bikini grow restless as the monster refuses to show itself. Lee worries about Monarch losing military funding, though Keiko considers it preferable to watching them execute the creature. Just then, a piece of equipment shorts out and they hear a distant roar. Godzilla's dorsal plates cut through the waves, approaching the bomb. Lee questions why such a mammoth creature would need armor; Keiko simply answers, "Us." At her urging, he tries again to call off the attack, but Puckett refuses to wait to see what Godzilla will do. The Titan surfaces, staring at the bomb. Keiko rushes towards an antenna to prevent the detonation signal from transmitting, but Lee holds her back as she tearfully screams in Japanese. The thermonuclear blast envelops Godzilla; all involved presume him to be dead.
2015: With their plane in the air, Kentaro peppers Lee with questions about Hiroshi. He shares that by the time Hiroshi joined Monarch, the job called for less field work and more numbering-crunching, and he last saw him almost 20 years ago. He had no knowledge of Hiroshi's two families, but adds that like his mother Keiko, he always went after what he wanted - and never lied to Lee. When Cate scoffs, he tries to draw a contrast between a secret and a lie, but she's unimpressed. May searches Bill's files and finds a list of coordinates in his handwriting, with each checked off except the one in Alaska. With Cate recalling that Hiroshi's lost flight was from Nome to Barrow, two cities on opposite sides of the coordinates, they have their destination.
1954: At the hangar where they showed Puckett Godzilla's footprint, Keiko is still fuming over Lee stopping her, but Bill points out that delaying the blast would only have ended her time with Monarch, and likely her life in the U.S. as well. Lee enters with good news: figuring Monarch was doomed, he proposed to Puckett an ambitious plan to expand the organization, only to be told he didn't ask for enough. After raising the prospect of the next Titan appearing in a major city instead of the middle of nowhere, he has secured Monarch a blank check from the military. Bill wants to go public, but Lee thinks they would be executed, invoking the Rosenbergs. Keiko proposes that they withhold certain details from Puckett - "a lie and a secret are two different things." Lee is reluctant, but he agrees on the grounds that the information is also kept secret from him.
2015: Cate awakens to find their plane has reached Alaska. She can't decide if she fears finding Hiroshi or not finding him more. When she alludes to her experience in San Francisco, he commiserates, having watched loved ones die too, but tells her not to hide from pain. A storm suddenly appears around them; declaring they've reached their destination, Lee takes the controls. He directs Cate to a water bottle to use an attitude indicator. Just before their rough but successful landing, which leaves both laughing hysterically, Kentaro spots a light in the distance. They quickly find the scattered remains of Hiroshi's plane - but the frozen corpse inside is not him and the other seat belt is unbuckled. Du-Ho finds a tent; though it's abandoned, Cate and Kentaro recognize their father's handwriting on a map and his signature pencil shavings. Examining the crash site further, Du-Ho discovers the plane was destroyed after it landed - by something with massive claws. He cries out a warning and rushes to taxi his plane over to the rest of the party. No sooner has he started to move than the pangolin-like Frost Vark bursts out of the ground. It swipes a wing off the plane, then sucks all the warmth out of the air in front of it, freezing the front of the plane and killing Du-Ho. It roars angrily at the others.
Cast
Actor's name on the left, character played on the right.
- Anna Sawai as Cate Randa
- Kiersey Clemons as May Olowe-Hewitt
- Ren Watabe as Kentaro Randa
- Mari Yamamoto as Dr. Keiko Miura
- Anders Holm as young Assist. Prof. Bill Randa
- Joe Tippett as Tim
- Wyatt Russell as young Lee Shaw
- Kurt Russell as Colonel Lee Shaw
- Elisa Lasowski as Duvall
- Mirelly Taylor as Assist. Dir. Natalia Verdugo
- Christopher Heyerdahl as General Puckett
- Bruce Baek as Du-Ho
- Michael Cha as scowling guard
- Scott Seol as young clerk
- Ryan Pugsley as army general #1
- Eddie Canelea as army general #2
- Michael Toney as officer
- Zachary Branch as shirtless GI
- Kevin Mundy as dead pilot
- Hojung "Kyle" Kim as Korean ship officer
- Aaron Latta-Morissette as soldier
Appearances
Titans
Other monsters
Characters
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Weapons, vehicles, and organizations
Locations
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Gallery
Production
Promotional stills
Screenshots
- LoM tundra 5.png
Trivia
- The sound effect for Godzilla's atomic breath can be briefly heard during the Castle Bravo detonation.
- This episode retcons the opening scene from Godzilla (2014), with the hydrogen bomb detonating some time after Godzilla rises out of the water, rather that the moment his head emerges. The episode also omits the ships Godzilla is mentioned to have sunk in the film, with Monarch and the U.S. military only becoming aware of his existence after the former's discovery of a footprint in Indonesia.
- The detonation also presents contradictions to the graphic novel Godzilla: Awakening, as the monster Shinomura is completely absent. Accordingly, Godzilla is simply attracted by the hydrogen bomb rather than pursuing Shinomura. However, the comic portrayed Godzilla standing fully upright during the Castle Bravo detonation in a similar fashion to this episode.
- Cate mentions the Alaskan city formerly known as Barrow, which was renamed Utqiagvik in 2016.
References
This is a list of references for Secrets and Lies. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]
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