Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters Season Two Teaser Confirms February 2026 Return
“Nobody will ever tire of giant monsters.” This is a truism that should be inscribed in the Scripture of blockbuster filmmaking (and, by extension, TV and streaming), and certainly nobody understands it better than the people behind “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.” This Apple TV+ series is a descendant of a blockbuster movie series; like these films, it exists to satiate viewers’ Skullcrawler-like appetites for such onscreen kaiju bestiaries. Early next year, viewers will get their second course.
The Monsterverse – An Overview
“Monarch: Legacy of Monsters,” which had its first season in 2023-24, is an installment in Warner Bros.’ Monsterverse. This cinematic universe might also aptly be termed the Monarchverse, since the entire franchise’s through line has been a scientific agency that specializes in Massive Organism Neutralization Research Concealment and Holding.
This is one busy organization: over the course of five films (beginning with 2014’s “Godzilla”) and two TV series (counting “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters”), its brave scientists have had to deal with Godzilla, King Kong, Rodan, Mothra, and a slew of such original monsters as a spider so gargantuan that its legs look like stalks of bamboo, killer insects that hatch from eggs the size of exercise balls, and those two-limbed, lizard-like, perpetually ravenous Skullcrawlers. Most of these creatures dwell on the remote Skull Island and/or in the hollow regions below Earth’s surface – though they aren’t always confined to their natural habitats.
“Monarch: Legacy of Monsters,” which has had one season and ten episodes between November 2023 and January 2024, once again follows the titular organization in its quest to find, study, and neutralize assorted kaiju creatures. Most of its episodes are split between two timelines, one following Monarch scientists in the 2010s while the other provides a 1950s-set backstory for the researcher Bill Randa, first seen in the film “Kong: Skull Island,” played in the film by John Goodman, while his younger self in “Legacy of Monsters” is portrayed by Anders Holm.
Season 2’s Teaser – It Starts and Ends with Vicious Cephalopods
“Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” Season 2 teaser trailer, which dropped on YouTube on November 13, starts off on a serene note, with Jack Johnson’s “The Horizon Has Been Defeated” playing over a scene of surfers enjoying the calm waves off the coast of a tropical locale.
It takes all of six seconds for this tranquility to be shattered by the announcement that the beach is being closed because “this is a high-alert Titan area.” The surfers come ashore, but it’s already too late: a monstrous horde emerges from the sand to kill them. These creatures knock over the camera, so we have only indistinct impressions of their tentacles and rounded, spiky bodies.
Perhaps these prickly spheres of doom belong to the same species as the Titan that concludes the trailer. This huge octopoid monster rises from the ocean and engulfs a medium-sized boat with its tentacles. Giant tentacled monsters are a dime a dozen in media of this ilk, but what makes this one look particularly nasty are the serrated white spines that stand out against its purple appendages. It looks like each tentacle is lined with huge shark teeth.
Elsewhere in the trailer, there are snippets showing established “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” characters, such as the ones played by Mari Yamamoto and Kurt and Wyatt Russell. You’d better hope that nobody you cared about was on board that boat.
Ambiguous – in a Bland Way
These malevolent mollusks are really the highlight of the teaser trailer for “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.” All its other clips are pretty generic: We see crowds of people fleeing imminent destruction (once at the edge of a forest, then again in an urban setting), the three aforementioned characters staring at indeterminate causes for awe and fear, an explosion of bright energy that sends a shockwave across a Skull Island-esque landscape, and a moment of Kong roaring into the cockpit of a helicopter.
Final Thoughts
Overall, nothing in this trailer suggests that Season 2 will reinvent the kaiju wheel. But if your tastes run to giant monsters and the spectacular damage that they are wont to cause Homo sapiens – and especially if you strongly enjoyed the first season of “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” – then you certainly shouldn’t hesitate to tune in for more of that great stuff. After all, the new octopi on the block do look awesome, and I can’t recall seeing shark-toothed tentacles anywhere before. “If you can’t reinvent the wheel, then reinvent the tentacle.” I think that belongs in the blockbuster Scripture, too.
Season 2 of “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” will premiere on Apple TV+ on February 27.
