WILHELM WATCH / HOUSE PODCASTICA - Monarch: Legacy of Monsters S01E09 "Axis Mundi"

[00:00:00] Oh finale and the finale is going to most likely probably give us a cliffhanger. And I think you've been saying that since like the third episode that we cover, like the third podcast. Yeah, it's, you know, I mean, while we've been predicting K being alive for a while.

[00:01:40] Yeah.

[00:01:41] And I think we were getting this season's going to end. I really, really do. All right, let's just dive head on into this. This is the penultimate episode of the season. We got a lot of stuff to the.

[00:03:02] I say a lot, but I don't know if it really is.

[00:03:05] We got a lot.

[00:03:06] We got some questions answered for sure. The Titan phone. Titan phone. Yes. They use what looks like something out of contact, the movie contact, when they drop a ball with the astronauts in it, strapped together very much, almost like an astronaut thing that you mentioned before.

[00:04:21] I kind of referenced it as like Flash Gordon.

[00:04:24] Yes. that Lee is on Hiroshi during that time. And there's a lot of trepidation going into the mission itself. Well, you mentioned, you know, you can see how important Hiroshi is to Lee at that point. And we've kind of already, this is the first time we're seeing that because he does say at one point

[00:05:41] in the past episode that he looked at Hiroshi like a Sun.

[00:05:45] Yes. outside of an area that was very rural. I don't wanna say religious, but it was a place where locals had considered it to be the boundary between the living and the dead. And that was also where they found another vortex.

[00:07:01] So apparently, so whatever this vortex was in Japan,

[00:07:06] that is where Lee exited from.

[00:08:08] airliners, which is what he sees. So, you know, I mean, obviously, planes did exist in the 1960s and because they used them to get to the other countries they were going to. But I don't think

[00:08:13] commercial airliners, I don't think the plane, the way I saw that was, I don't think that plane was

[00:08:21] a reveal that he was out of time. To me is going on. Yeah. It's pretty much. And also it's color TV. Oh, yeah. And even think about that. It's a color image of a shuttle launching. Yeah.

[00:09:41] And so holy crap.

[00:09:48] So yeah. So, you know, but yeah, it's, so yeah, so. Or is it? Yeah, 1973 was the skull. I don't like expeditions. So. So it's been nine years that bill has been gone. Yeah, man, which means that it was 11 years from the time Bill

[00:11:03] ran to saw Lee disappear till the time he became John Goodman.

[00:12:05] stuff. He liked his McDonald's and Burger King a lot.

[00:12:11] Well, you know, like, look, I'm not saying that could be the case. I mean, he, he probably shut himself in.

[00:12:15] Yeah. You know, you look at the fact that he lost, he lost Lee.

[00:12:20] He lost K. Yep.

[00:12:23] He's a father to a kid that he's only Monarch Test Site in Kansas in 1962. So, that's 20 years that Lee has begun, if so if it's 1962 to 1982, that's 20 years that he has been gone. So it depends on. I don't even think it was days because they didn't have rations to survive. They're still in the same spot. Lee talks about the story of, you know, when he's telling Hiroshi everything that happened,

[00:15:00] he says that, you know, Ben didn't survive the trip.

[00:15:03] We went out, we started going to save it to the end of this conversation because I'm curious. I don't want to bring the questions up next episode because we'll have the answers to them. They won't be questions anymore. Yeah, exactly. I want to bring them up. I want to talk about this episode first and then we'll talk about questions that we might feel we need answered going into the finale.

[00:16:20] So so yeah, I don't think that was any more than a couple of hours that they

[00:17:23] He's not 92. He's actually only 72.

[00:17:31] Yeah, but this is typical younger people adding more age to people who are older.

[00:17:37] That's like, look, just because Lee was gone for 20 years to us, it wasn't 20 years to him. So he didn't age.

[00:17:40] It's not like he lived 20 years without aging and then started aging again, which is what would make him 90.

[00:17:45] No, he's legitimately only in his 70s.

[00:17:48] Yeah. because as Puckett explains, and they do a really good job in that whole dialogue in the beginning of the episode, kind of explaining a lot of different things that have been lingering. And the big question was, how do they travel and survive? Well, it's because Suzuki was using the Titan phone to, it's because only a Titan can go through,

[00:19:02] like a Titan going through the vortex will on the inside. Yeah. So you wait for someone to leave the store so that the door opens and then you go through that door. Correct. Yeah. Okay. See, I told you it would make sense. That works better. Yeah. I told you it would make sense. But that's sort of what it's like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is definitely it.

[00:20:21] You know, yeah, drafting a Titan into Hollow Earth

[00:20:24] is the way to do it and to do it safely. thousands of years I had in the future, but in reverse. Okay. Just my radical thinking and a disparate and you set my humor into it. Look, I made a reference about a supermarket door. You can make a reference about and fast and furious.

[00:21:40] You can make a plan under the Apes reference.

[00:21:42] Oh yeah, they didn't put a rocket to a car

[00:21:45] and blessed it into space.

[00:21:46] Look, it was a lot of it was like, and a lot of it was Hiroshi crying and being upset for the

[00:23:00] fact that, you know, oh, wow, Ken knows about his sister and I'm a terrible father.

[00:24:08] in the scene with Lee in the hospital after realizing that, you know, he's in the future, or to his future. And Hiroshi talking to him, you know, and Lee saying, like, let's work together,

[00:24:17] and Hiroshi's like, no, like I buried three empty coffins Now that's not to say things weren't in a escalated eventually on their own. And the research they were doing was still for good because they would have had knowledge of things that were eventually going to happen. But they in essence at the time really did exacerbate things.

[00:25:40] And going back to the point I was making

[00:25:43] with Hiroshi saying that, you know,

[00:25:45] I don't want anything to do with this. He's in a breakdown moment because he's realizing his actions now cost him both of his families, his son's trust. And in that moment, the loss of Kate. Yeah. So he unwillingly is carrying on his family legacy at this point.

[00:27:01] Well, he was poking the bear just like his parents did

[00:27:05] and Uncle Lee did. suffering the same consequences in that it is costing him personal parts of his life. Yeah, some people would think of it as like he's crying over his parents making mistakes, but he also has made mistakes himself that he is not even fessing up to.

[00:28:21] In avoiding making his parents mistakes, he's making all new ones. Exactly. That's the best way to put it. So I, again, in rewatching that scene the second time, I definitely took more from that and I was like, holy shit, this is really, I apologize if I'm swearing more than any other episode I've done. I'm just, I'm really into this show now that we're getting close to the end of the season.

[00:29:43] You know, so it been in that retirement home 32 years, I think at this point.

[00:31:00] Yeah.

[00:31:01] Yeah.

[00:31:02] So, and it seems like just kind of drugged out and...

[00:31:06] Yeah, because the look and expressions on we see, we see in that moment in 1982 that Lee tries to escape and he, by doing it, to do that, he, he unplugs his, his life support machine, and then the nurse kind of bats at it, and then he ends up taking the nurse hostage. A little bit later on, we see Heroshi return to the hospital and gives the flowers to the phylogeny, I think that's Kentaro's one. Same here. Okay. Yeah, I had it backwards. It's my dyslexia in my head going, so I knew where you were going with it.

[00:33:40] And I thought the same thing too, because they were in Japan.

[00:33:43] That's where he was being treated. Centaro and May and you mean possibly finale yeah Yeah, I agree with that. I think I think we're gonna get a lot of Hollow Earth in The finale yeah, and if they if they do Do something we haven't we still don't know if there's a season two

[00:35:02] They could always follow up with all this stuff and this season two

[00:36:04] And we see them at the beginning of this episode as well. And we see that Tim and Duvall survived as well as Kentaro, obviously,

[00:36:09] because we mentioned last week that there was going to be some kind of plot armor that they all survived.

[00:36:13] And there was.

[00:36:15] But the conversation with Verdugo and Kentaro is interesting,

[00:36:21] because Verdugo is saying that, like, hey, they didn't survive. was a terrorist and he took over, he took things from people and we were the ones that put an end to his reign. And we capped it off, we stopped everything that he was planning. He is the perfect scapegoat to put the blame on everything that happened and make monarch look like the heroes

[00:38:43] Is it in essence a lie?

[00:38:47] You know, I mean, it's exaggerated,

[00:38:50] but they're technically not lying

[00:38:55] to make him the scapegoat of the entire situation. True.

[00:38:56] So I don't know, we'll see.

[00:39:00] I have another question.

[00:39:02] So in 1982, we see Puckett shutdown monarch.

[00:40:06] At that point, he was dealing with the military because he was brought in based upon his expertise of what was going on, but it was privately funded to go out there with the military to

[00:40:12] do these excavations of this island, quote unquote, which woke up the skull crawlers could follow the continuity within the movies, as well as understand this company that's out there. That's literally what the whole point of the show was. But gave us a great drama and gave us a great story to follow along with it and then feel for these characters. Yeah, it's one of those things that we,

[00:41:42] as you kind of put in,

[00:41:45] as you kind of mentioned,

[00:41:46] there's a big gap now between 1962 timeframe. So we could continue the story with an older Lee Shaw, but the role that Wyatt Russell plays is kind of done with. It's kind of finished. As far as that role goes, at this point in time,

[00:43:00] even at the end of this episode, young Lee Shaw was kind of finished. That story has been told

[00:44:08] going to see him return for season two. So let's see. So looking at my notes here, I know they're still so there's we'll say I'll save that for when we're getting rid of talk about the finale.

[00:44:17] Let's see to do saving that for the end. Okay, so we have at some point, we see that.

[00:45:24] that I think that gamma signal is coming from the Titan phone that was attached to their vessel.

[00:45:26] It's constantly, it's still active, but yeah,

[00:45:31] if you're correct in stating that they were only there

[00:45:34] for two hours.

[00:45:37] A couple, a couple.

[00:45:39] All right, so let's say a couple hours.

[00:45:42] By this time, it's only about, with the battery life,

[00:45:47] quote unquote, based upon how it's worth, see the ion dragging flying through the portal. We see the Titan phone kind of being sucked that way too. Yeah. The one thing I noticed the second time I watched it is that the Titan phone being drug writes the ship when they crashed because the opening of their ship

[00:47:00] is in the top.

[00:47:02] So when they crashed, they crawled out the side,

[00:47:04] they crawled out the side because that ship to bring them home. Well, how are they going to get out there? All right. Spoilers, everybody. And we already know, Kiko, she is there. She didn't get out.

[00:48:22] She didn't crawl out. She looks the same age. So she has we know she hasn't been down there too long. No, but she's definitely been there longer than Shaw was because she's had enough time to make a bow and arrows. Yeah, she acclimated to she basically became Robl Williams from Jibongi.

[00:49:44] I said Jibongi last week.

[00:49:47] I love it.

[00:50:45] And so when she meets Shaw,

[00:50:48] because I'm assuming there's gonna be a reunion, you have to assume there's gonna be a reunion at some point,

[00:50:51] which is to them.

[00:50:52] It's gotta be.

[00:50:53] It's going to be, it's gonna be a shock to see,

[00:50:58] one, to see how much older Lee has gotten

[00:51:02] to realize how long on earth she's been gone

[00:52:04] It's my final note. It just says Kate, the Bramblebore, and K is alive.

[00:52:08] It's my final note. And you know what's funny too? Young isn't from since 1959.

[00:52:10] Well, it's only been a couple weeks, you know. No, we're assuming.

[00:52:13] That we're assuming. Yeah, for her.

[00:52:16] But it's funny too, because I had the same kind of, I mentioned a couple episodes ago

[00:52:22] when Brenda turns the screen and we see the forming of apex.

[00:53:27] is once she gets out of Hollworth, we know about Lee. Did Lee exponentially grow older to some degree because he was only down there for a couple of hours or in time or did, you

[00:53:35] know, did time catch up slightly a little bit more because he came from Hollworth to above

[00:53:41] ground?

[00:53:42] No, he aged normally. if she comes out, she's going to be the same age she was that she when she left Hollow Earth. All right. I think if she returns home? Yeah. Like that's just weird. That's more drama that Apple plus could do with. Yeah, that's not. No, there. That's that's that's not go there. There's a part of me in all honesty.

[00:56:22] Because of the fact that young Lee Shaw story has been told.

[00:56:26] Yeah.

[00:57:24] adds to the whole, this is what we've been trying to learn. This is what we've been trying to do this entire time.

[00:57:27] And now that we're together again,

[00:57:29] we can continue this research

[00:57:31] and what better way to do it than to stay here.

[00:57:34] Yeah.

[00:57:37] So I feel like one of two things has to happen.

[00:57:40] Like you said, I feel like one Lee and Keko

[00:57:45] are gonna stay behind. He's dead. Oh, yeah. He's dead. Or, I mean, or like he returns home and he just retires. You know, because what else does he really, I mean, he could join back into monarch. But then he would just become a background character at that point.

[00:59:01] So I don't know. We're going to have to see how the finale plays out.

[00:59:05] Yeah, we have blames his family. Shawhaloer, yeah, that's pretty much everything I have. Any quotes on your end that you captured for this episode? Just one and that would be from Puckett to a nuclear device, and he just walked away and then showed up again later on when they called them. I kind of wish Puckett got sucked into the vortex. Same here. He was hanging on, but he didn't go. That's all right.

[01:01:40] All right, so then with no other notes up to this like mediocre way that I'm sort of viewing the series with a few standout episodes and thanks to thanks to last week's podcast. I am dreading Keiko getting an update on how her family is doing. Yeah, no. So Bill, yeah, no, he died a sad lonely death on an island where he was eaten by a monster and

[01:03:04] Shaw just in case you held out hope that he was doing well. Well, he went to Hollow and amazing. And he didn't want to be a very good man who thought that you all abandoned him by choice to go after the Titans. And even though he is a great husband to both of his families that don't know about each other and to both of his kids that don't know each other.

[01:04:20] Yeah, that was kind of a thing that he did.

[01:04:23] So yeah, and he was constantly like, you know, moving around and otherwise I'm a pretty good

[01:04:28] dad. Like, I know he has survivors, guilt and everything, but like, he was so openly hostile to his parents. Like, what is happening? Like, when he talked like that to his mom, I was like, sir, lower that tone. Your mother is a delightful, delightful woman, both in the past and in the present. And also your dad, like, oh my gosh, like he was on the floor crying

[01:05:41] because he'd just been informed that his daughter

[01:05:43] was dead in the truck.

[01:05:44] It was just like stabbing the metaphorical knife right into him. And then Monarch, I think that was when he kind of, because that was when he was truly on his own. Yeah. And that's enough to make somebody go crazy. At least before that, he had lead to help support and to help research and I'm wondering if this was brought up already or not, but there's a part of me that thinks that I think Hiroshi was even abandoned by Bill. I think Hiroshi was probably raised by his grandparents because of Bill. I think that too.

[01:08:21] Yeah. Yeah.

[01:08:22] I think that because he even Kako said that she would have

[01:09:21] Yeah. So, but Sam, thank you.

[01:09:23] And we hope you recover from COVID.

[01:09:25] Yeah, I feel better soon.

[01:09:27] Please feel better very, very soon, which leads us, of course, to our feedback from

[01:09:33] our friend Steve, which I can't wait to hear his reaction to Kay being alive.

[01:09:38] I really can't.

[01:09:39] We'll see if he's as excited about it as we got.

[01:09:44] Hello, Mark and Ben.

[01:09:46] This is Steve.

[01:09:47] And this is going to be for monarchs season one. year. Those subtitles for the Japanese went by way too fast. I couldn't even read them. Okay, so now we know what year Operation Hourglass happened in 1962 and now here it is 1982. So, yeah, I guess Bill Reiner because right Kong's skyline was like 73. So he was gone 20 years. And so for the people who can't do the math that 20 years from 1962 to 1982,

[01:11:03] they had to show us with a graphic on the screen. Right. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum,

[01:12:21] bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum,

[01:12:24] bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum,

[01:12:26] bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, won't get into that. No, no, no. So yeah, but thank you, Steve and Sam for your feedback.

[01:13:40] Going into the finale, if you have feedback, now is the time to leave it, especially whether

[01:13:44] it's for any other previous episodes or play it on the finale next week. And a reminder, Paik and Daphne from the Run for Your Lives podcast are joining us for the finale next week. So that should be a lot of fun having those two one because we haven't talked to them at all about this series. So we don't know their thoughts, nothing.

[01:15:00] Yeah, I'm assuming it's good.

[01:15:03] Yeah.

[01:15:04] I'm assuming they're enjoying it.

[01:15:06] I'm really enjoying the show. I'm like, you need to watch the Godzilla movies. Hmm. Yeah. You need to watch them. He's like, no, he's like, I still follow along. I get everything that's happening, even though I haven't seen them. I'm like, well, all right, fair enough.

[01:16:22] So before we head out, Mark, let the people know where they can find you.

[01:17:23] panelist pixels podcast. You could actually find me on a Journal and Cinema podcast. We just released the losers, which

[01:17:28] is also, you know, another thing that was on panelist pixels

[01:17:32] podcast because it's a comic book movie, but it's actually

[01:17:35] based. Really cool. Rob and myself break that down. Pretty

[01:17:39] cool. And awesome. You could hear me here, as well as

[01:17:44] eventually on the Buffyverse podcast on podcastica. So,

[01:18:45] As for Wilhelm, you can follow me over on Wilhelm,

[01:18:46] Wilhelm podcast, excuse me, Wilhelmpodcast.com, Facebook.com slash Wilhelm podcast.

[01:18:51] I'm gonna be going back into new episodes,

[01:18:53] new top five episodes,

[01:18:55] starting with the best of 2023 episode,

[01:18:57] which is gonna be coming up soon.

[01:18:58] I'm gonna be releasing audio of my panel

[01:19:00] with the legendary Peter Cullen,

[01:19:02] aka the voice of Optimus Prime

[01:19:05] from the Transformers universe. next week. I'm going to be releasing that. We have the finale of Monarch coming up next week, so much happening on Wilhelm. In addition to that, I'm relaunching my Twitch channel. So you're going to see me gaming over there. You're going to see me, you're going to see video of panels that I've done. You're going to see other videos of

[01:20:20] podcasts that I've done over there. Twitch.tv slash Wilhelm gaming is where you can find that.

[01:21:28] episodes, over 200 celebrity guests, multiple movies, television shows that even count talked about and mentioned. But you know what, I wouldn't trade it for anything. I wouldn't trade it

[01:21:34] for anything at all.

[01:21:35] It's fun.

[01:21:37] Any final notes before we get out of here?

[01:21:41] I don't have any final notes.