TV Show review
November 16, 2023 · TV-14 · Returning Series
Woke Score
Lower is better
Review
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is an Apple TV+ MonsterVerse series that follows half-siblings Cate and Kentaro Randa as they uncover their family's connection to the secretive Titan-monitoring organization Monarch. It interweaves a 2015 timeline after Godzilla's San Francisco attack with 1950s flashbacks to the group's founding, blending globetrotting adventure, conspiracy, kaiju threats, and multi-generational family drama focused on secrets, trauma, and consequences. The show features a lesbian protagonist whose past same-sex relationship and related guilt receive dedicated emotional focus in one episode, a diverse core cast with prominent Asian and Black female characters in lead adventurous and technical roles, and some audience-noted patterns of female characters in leadership or highly competent positions within the organization.
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.
Woke representation / casting
The series features a diverse lead ensemble with Asian-American actress Anna Sawai as protagonist Cate Randa, Black actress Kiersey Clemons as tech specialist May, and Japanese actor Ren Watabe as Kentaro, alongside prominent Japanese female scientist Keiko in the 1950s timeline. Modern characters include women in deputy director and operative roles at Monarch. While the international US-Japan focus and family connections provide story logic, the casting patterns and emphasis on competent female characters in key adventurous and technical positions have drawn viewer complaints about DEI priorities.
Woke political dialogue
The dialogue centers on personal family conflicts, trauma, trust, and practical responses to monster threats. There are no prominent scenes of characters delivering explicit lectures on systemic issues, identity politics, privilege, or contemporary activist causes.
Identity-driven story themes
The primary narrative explores family legacy, generational trauma, secrets, and the personal costs of discovery and action across dual timelines, with kaiju events as backdrop. However, the protagonist Cate's lesbian identity and past same-sex relationship receive focused emotional exploration in a dedicated Season 1 episode written by Amanda Overton, with ongoing close bonds and tensions involving other female characters like May, plus additional queer elements in Season 2. This representation is given narrative weight beyond incidental status, consistent with elevated scoring for confirmed LGBTQ+ content.
Western institutional / cultural critique
Monarch operates as a secretive, sometimes duplicitous organization with ties to government and military, and past episodes depict military decisions like nuclear tests with cover stories. Corporate entity Apex engages in unethical experiments. These elements function as standard conspiracy thriller and monster genre tropes involving institutional secrecy and overreach in a historical and fantastical context, without explicit reframing as critiques of patriarchy, whiteness, capitalism, or current Western cultural institutions.
Woke character or canon changes
Not relevant. The show creates new characters and expands the MonsterVerse lore without identity-driven alterations to pre-existing canon characters, source material, or real historical figures.
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
Niche but recurring complaints appear in social media posts, Reddit threads, Metacritic user reviews, and conservative review sites. Critics have pointed to "forced diversity" in casting and leadership, "girlboss" dynamics with strong or unlikeable female leads, a gratuitous lesbian subplot, and perceived prioritization of representation over story or historical accuracy in the Monarch founding narrative. A detailed "woke checklist" post on X scored it highly on several identity and diversity metrics and advised avoidance. The volume remains limited compared to larger cultural flashpoints, with the series maintaining positive aggregate critic scores.
Creator track record context
Co-creator Matt Fraction carries a moderate cached score of 36 with noted political themes in some comics work. Writer Amanda Overton has a cached score of 69 reflecting advocacy for multi-dimensional LGBTQ+ representation and intentional centering of queer romances in projects like Arcane. Co-creator Chris Black and most other listed directors, producers, and writers have low cached scores with no significant activist records. The involvement of Overton on queer-focused content elevates the overall context modestly above the low baseline of the broader team.
Production
