By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Photos copyright Warner Bros and others
This episode opens in 1952 with Lee Shaw being summoned sporting a black eye only to be sent to work for Doctor Mira on an undisclosed mission. He meets her and together they meet Bill Randa in the jungle. A disagreement between Shaw and Mira ends up with Shaw being dismissed. Randa’s story of dragons peeks Mira’s scientific curiosity as her readings match what he thinks are migratory patterns like birds. Things take a bizarre twist when they discover a naval battleship in the middle of the jungle. Randa recognizes it as the Lawton lost since 1943. More than that however Lawton was the only survivor when the ship went down and knowing they hit something massive that night, he has been searching ever since following the radiation traces. He believes that there is something very much alive out here that caused the ship to sink.
I love the way the story is being peeled back a bit at a time and Randa’s backstory puts Skull Island into perspective. The Titan story has been going for longer than we thought. We get a taste of true horror here aboard the decaying corridors of the Lawton. Mira and Randa find the bodies of the crew perfectly preserved in some sort of mucus. Worse still, they try to leave and fresh mucus has appeared pushing this into Alien and Predator territory as they are hunted in confined corridors by something unknown. Shaw returns just in time to get them out and they escape. Again the effects are great as the ship tumbles as a huge dragon kaiju bursts free and attacks them.
Meanwhile Kentaro goes through his father’s files discovering Shaw’s dossier. He and his mother are still coming to terms with Cate’s revelations but have more pressing matters when Monarch hits them hard. Cate is kidnapped by Tim and causes their car to crash escaping but trapped in Tokyo. Kentaro and his mother are attacked in their apartment but Kentaro escapes. Tim however now knows who Kentaro’s father is. Cate has turned to May who has seen the files and is now in danger too. Kentaro meets them and knows where to go. They find Shaw who tells them the story about their father’s death is not true. He offers to go with them to help uncover the truth and bring Monarch down. Kurt Russell as always lights up the screen and this older Shaw may not be forgiving as his younger self once was. May realises that this is a prison and Shaw cuts his tracker from his ankle. Now they are all fugitives with Monarch in pursuit.
While we get answers here to the past, all it does is open up new ones. Why is Shaw being electronically tracked as a prisoner and is Tim still a friend or lethal foe acting for Monarch? What happened that they ended up poles apart? Why has nobody seen the dragon kaiju since 1952? We know thre is another world below us, the hollow earth we saw in Godzilla versus KKong so is there breaches in that allowing these creatures access to our world? By no means are Cate and Kentaro loving siblings but will the full truth about their father destroy or unite them?
Within two episodes, we know a lot but have been left with more questions. Again great characterisation and a brand new monster and a story that keeps us here for the ride.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 