Warning: SPOILERS for the Monarch: Legacy of Monsters episode “Terrifying Miracles” are ahead!
Up until the release of “Terrifying Miracles,” the latest episode of the Apple TV+ show Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Elisa Lasowski’s Duvall had been a loyal employee of the Monarch scientific organization, working alongside Joe Tippett’s Tim to track down Anna Sawai’s Cate Randa and the other main protagonists looking into Hiroshi Randa’s disappearance. However, this episode’s 2015 storyline kicked off with Duvall breaking Kurt Russell’s Lee Shaw out of custody and joining him in his quest to stop another Titan emergence. Lasowski opened up to CinemaBlend about this twist concerning her character, as well as discussed why it was “absolutely amazing” working with Russell.
Duvall and Lee are now tied quite closely together within the Monarch: Legacy of Monsters cast, as the former decided to free the latter from his Monarch transport because she feels the organization is failing in its efforts to prevent more Titan attacks around the world. . Sadly, this means that Duvall and her partner Tim have now gone their separate ways, and when I asked how it was for her and Tippett shifting from the ally dynamic to being on opposite sides, she answered:
Whatever happens in the episodes, I don’t really see it as different sides. It can be perceived that way. The way that I see it is that there’s just different people having different approaches to just surviving and saving lives essentially in that world.
Duvall has a personal stake in the Titans beyond working for Monarch, as she revealed to Lee Shaw before they hightailed it out of the convoy that her late sister Sandra worked in at Janjira, i.e. the nuclear power plant in Japan that collapsed in 1999, as depicted in 2014’s Godzilla. While Duvall didn’t clarify if Sandra worked at the plant before it collapsed or at the facility set up in its wreckage to monitor a gigantic, mysterious chrysalis, it’s likely the latter given the former’s age and the fact that it was one of the MUTOs that destroyed the facility once it’s hatched. In any case, Duvall and others within Monarch feel it’s time to adopt a change in tactics with these giant monsters, and she believes Lee is the one to guide them.
Tim, on the other hand, decided to remain with Monarch, and when I inquired with Joe Tippett about his feelings on Tim and Duvall’s partnership fracturing, in addition to expressing his sadness about spending less time with Elisa Lasowski, he said he found himself “legitimately sad” that these characters “were pulling away from each other.” The silver lining is that Lasowski got to spend a lot of time with Kurt Russell, and she described her experience working with him as follows:
As for working with Kurt Russell, absolutely amazing. He’s a legend, and he’s a very generous actor. I think he cares so much about scenes being as good as they can be. He has a very incredible understanding of what makes a good scene and will make suggestions within the scene that make transitioning from A to B a lot smoother. And so he’ll suggest a few things, and you go, ‘Ok, let me ride with this.’ And suddenly you just have a much, much better scene. I was just very humbled and felt super fortunate to get to experience that. And obviously it makes you better because you’re like, ‘Ok, I can’t drop the ball. C’mon, just… keep working.’ [A] very generous actor.
Duvall and Lee later reconnected with Cate, Kentaro and May and traveled to the Algerian desert, which is where Hiroshi Randa was believed to be located. That was true, but our old friend Godzilla was also in the area, so naturally that ignited a wave of pandemonium that resulted in the helicopter Joe was aboard crashing and Hiroshi disappearing again. Now Lee and Duvall are on a new mission to somehow “help” Godzilla, and and Cate, Kentaro and May want nothing to do with their plans. So now we have wait to see just what these two and their followers have cooking.
New episodes of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters premiere Fridays to Apple TV+ subscribers. With just a few weeks to go until 2023 is over, look through our 2024 TV schedule to figure out what shows you’ll watching in the coming year. Also remember that the MonsterVerse will pick back up with the release of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire April 12 on the 2024 movies calendar.
