Shaw, Cate, May, and Keiko plan an escape from Hollow Earth while Kentaro, Hiroshi, and Tim try to aid them on the surface.
Tropes:
- Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Keiko runs her hand through Hiroshi's hair upon their reunion.
- Ambiguous Situation: It’s not clear if the Ion Dragon the main characters encounter in Axis Mundi is the same individual that Lee and Keiko previously encountered back in 1952 or a different member of the same species.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Verdugo pauses when Tim responds to her refusal to investigate the distress call amid the potential Titan crisis that Lee's caused by asking her, "What if the three [sending the distress call] could save the seven billion?" However, it's not enough for her to change her mind.
- Armor-Piercing Response:
- Between Kentaro and Hiroshi when they argue in the beginning over the latter's actions:Hiroshi: Would you rather that I hadn’t fallen in love with your mother? That our family never existed?
Kentaro: Our family doesn’t exist. Not anymore. - And then again when Keiko insists on wiring the emitter up to the pod and argues with Lee when he tries to take over. Lee asks what's up, and her answer stuns him and everyone else listening:Shaw: Kei. Stop. Kei, what is wrong with-?
Keiko: I'M STAYING BEHIND!
- Between Kentaro and Hiroshi when they argue in the beginning over the latter's actions:
- Attack Its Weak Point: Credit where credit is due, the Ion Dragon is very quick to target Godzilla's gills, which are an established weak spot in the MonsterVerse, at the start of their fight.
- Back for the Finale: The Ion Dragon returns as the final Titan threat of the season, and Brenda Holland from "Will the Real May Please Stand Up?" returns as the benefactor who Kentaro, Hiroshi and Tim turn to for help rescuing their loved ones.
- Behemoth Battle: We get one between the Ion Dragon and Godzilla.
- Big Damn Heroes: Just when Lee has been cornered by the Ion Dragon after he gets the lure working again, its scream in his face is cut off by a very familiar roar that heralds Godzilla's arrival through the rift, and the two Titans soon engage in a brutal fight.
- Big Damn Hug:
- Cate and May rush to hug each-other when they reunite in the Axis Mundi.
- Cate and Kentaro happily embrace the moment they see each-other after Cate's group escapes Axis Mundi.
- A very poignant embrace occurs when Keiko is reunited with the now-adult Hiroshi.
- Big Damn Reunion: The surviving main cast members' reunion on the surface world is a threefold big damn reunion. Kentaro hasn't seen either Cate or May in two years thanks to Axis Mundi's Year Outside, Hour Inside. Cate, after spending the series searching for Hiroshi, is reunited with him for the first time since he left her on G-Day barring the time that they saw each-other from a far distance in Algeria, while Hiro hasn't seen Cate in three years for the same reasons as Kentaro. Last but not least, Keiko is reunited with her now middle-aged son, and Hiroshi is reunited with the mother he hasn't seen since he was a boy 58 years ago and whose disappearance set off his family's "curse".
- Big "NO!": Keiko when Shaw sacrifices himself.
- Bittersweet Ending: Cate and May return to Earth and finally bring Keiko with them, and they all reunite with Kentaro and Hiroshi. But Lee seemingly sacrificed his life to make sure the group could return, and they find that Kentaro, Hiroshi, and Tim were forced to team up with Brenda Holland and APEX to procure the resources needed to get them back, ending things on an uncertain note.
- Curb Stomp Cushion: Cate, May, Keiko, and Shaw locate the latter's pod from the 1960s and rig the Titan lure to it intending to bait a Titan into opening a portal to the surface. Instead, they draw the attention of the now fully-grown Ion Dragon, which attempts to eat them until Godzilla shows up. The Ion Dragon manages to get a few good blows in, biting Godzilla's neck to attack his gills and spraying corrosive resin into his eyes, but Godzilla throws it into a mountainside, flambés it with a blast of Atomic Breath, and finally rips one of its wings off and hurls it into the rift.
- Deep Breath Reveals Tension: Downplayed. Emiko takes a deep breath after she's sent Hiroshi out of her apartment along with her wedding ring for him having a secret other family and letting her think he was dead for a year.
- Dramatic Thunder:
- The light and sound effects representing the Vile Vortex being disturbed by the Ion Dragon's impact look and sound like thunder and lightning amid Shaw taking Keiko's hand and his subsequent Heroic Sacrifice.
- In the final scene, the thunderstorm goes from a tame growl to crashing tumultuously in the final shot, where it's revealed that the facility who've rescued the Axis Mundi group is an Apex Cybernetics facility, while an angry-looking Kong emerges from the nearby Skull Island treeline.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Kentaro goes to the same bar he previously took May to to drink away his sorrows while grieving Cate and May's apparent deaths.
- Enemy Mine: Since Monarch won't help rescue Cate, May, and Shaw, Tim instead suggests they join up with Brenda Holland, who has access to similar resources.
- Fin Gore: When the Ion Dragon claws at his face with its three-clawed tail pincer, Godzilla chomps off one of the fingers.
- Finish Dialogue in Unison: Lee and Keiko when they're trekking across the Axis Mundi, and Cate and May take some breather time.Shaw: Hey, seriously...
Shaw & Keiko: ...don't go far! - Five-Second Foreshadowing: In the final scene, the saturated purple light filling the inside of the research facility's hangar in the background foreshadows the reveal in the last eighty seconds that it's not really a Monarch facility — it's an Apex facility.
- Foreshadowing: Tim says he knows of someone besides Monarch in the Titan business, foreshadowing the reveal at the end that they’ve joined up with APEX.
- Held Gaze: Tim and Verdugo glare each-other down during their falling-out. Old Shaw and Keiko hold each-other's gazes when they finally see each-other in person, before breaking down at the sight of one-another. Keiko and Hiroshi stare into each-other's faces in abject shock, awe, and bittersweet love and grief during the Big Damn Reunion.
- "Hell, Yes!" Moment: Lee is pretty pleased when the group make it to the Operation Hourglass pod, even more so when he finds that it's still working since only little over a month has passed for it inside Axis Mundi's Year Outside, Hour Inside.
- Heroic BSoD: After finding out she's been gone for fifty-six years, that Lee Shaw is an old man, and that her husband Bill died decades ago, Keiko has an emotional breakdown, walking away muttering "No...!" until Cate reveals that her son Hiroshi is still alive—albeit now a middle-aged man. Keiko repeatedly demands to know how Cate knows this and who she is, and is stunned to learn that Cate is her granddaughter.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Shaw leaves the pod to reattach the beacon. When the portal opens and he's left hanging for dear life to Keiko, he takes her hand off and allows himself to be left behind so she won't be dragged out with him.
- Holding Hands:
- Cate and May pointedly hold each-other's hands quite a lot throughout the episode.
- Keiko and Shaw likewise hold each-other's hands when they're inside the pod and preparing to go home.
- Cate makes a point of grasping both Keiko and May's hands on either side of her as they're hurtling inside the pod towards the rift.
- The Homeward Journey: Cate, May, Shaw and Keiko's goal in Axis Mundi is making it back to the Earth's surface and their loved ones before they spend too much longer caught up in its Year Outside, Hour Inside effect.
- Internal Reveal:
- Keiko, who was revealed in the previous episode to be alive in the Axis Mundi, finds out during this episode that she's been down there inside a Year Outside, Hour Inside effect for 56 years in the surface world's time, Lee is an old man who's only still alive in the present because he himself was caught in the same effect for two topside decades, Bill has been dead for years after his ill-fated expedition to Skull Island, and she now has two young adult grandchildren.
- Kentaro and Hiroshi are alerted by Tim to the Vile Vortices' gamma rays containing a manmade distress call from the Hollow Earth, and the possibility that Cate and the others who fell in Kazakhstan might be alive down there.
- At the episode's end, Hiroshi and Kentaro discover that Keiko also survived in the Hollow Earth and is still the same age she was in 1959.
- I Will Only Slow You Down: Shaw pries his hand out of Keiko's because he realizes that his weight will either drag her out of the pod with him or weigh the pod down enough to stop it from entering the rift altogether.
- Little "No":
- A tiny, almost inaudible "no" escapes Keiko when she realizes she's been caught in a time dilation the entire time that she's been in the Axis Mundi. When she finds out that Bill has been dead for years, she immediately utters a heart-rending string of little no's.
- Later, Cate responds with a small, defiant "no" to Keiko's intention to stay behind in Axis Mundi instead of returning to the surface.
- No Place for Me There: Keiko declares her intent to stay behind in Axis Mundi, noting that since Bill is dead and Hiroshi grew up without her she has nothing left to tie her to Earth and she doesn't want to ruin her now-adult son's life by suddenly reappearing in it after being gone for fifty-six years.Keiko: Whatever's up there... it's not my world. Not anymore.
- Oh, Crap!: When Shaw sees through the pod's porthole that the emitter, instead of luring a Titan into Axis Mundi through the nearby rift, has drawn the Ion Dragon that was already inside the realm straight to their location, all he can do is groan, "Oh, shit."
- Oppose What You Suffered: Hiroshi encourages Kentaro to take this path in the fallout of Cate's seeming death, trying to use it to convince Kentaro to help him prove the Hollow Earth is real, but a crushed Kentaro is having none of it.
- Portal Crossroad World: Kate describes Axis Mundi as existing midway between Earth and the realm of the Titans, pulling in flora and fauna from both locations. When May asks how light can be getting in when they're underground, Shaw posits they're actually in an alternate dimension—comparing it to Wonderland from Alice in Wonderland.
- Rage Breaking Point: Tim shocks his co-workers with his anger as he has a public outburst at Verdugo for refusing to investigate the distress call in the Hollow Earth, even on the off chance that whoever is transmitting it might be the key to stopping the world-threatening pressure on the Vile Vortices. He flat-out tells Verdugo to her face that she's proven Lee was right about her, and he ends up quitting Monarch.
- Rapid-Fire "No!": Keiko lets out a gut-wrenching string of little no's when Lee gets to the part of explaining that Bill has been dead for decades, to the point where it almost sounds like a Madness Mantra.
- Say My Name:
- Keiko whispers Lee's name in sadness when she sees that her friend is now an old man from the decades that have passed the Earth by while she's been inside the Axis Mundi's spacetime distortion. A few moments later, she mutters her son's name, first quietly and then loudly, in distress when she fears for his current status.
- Cate yells Shaw's name urgently when Godzilla is approaching through the rift.
- Lee's companions shout his name urgently when he endangers himself reconnecting the emitter and the Hourglass pod. Finally, Keiko is screaming Lee's name at the top of her lungs when he leaves himself behind to his possible death to save her.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Monarch refusing to save Cate and the others when they might be alive ends up being the last straw for Tim, leading him to quit and ally with Hiroshi, and by extension, Brenda Holland.
- Sequel Hook: The season ends with a whole manner questions yet to be answered, such as what has happened in the past two years, what kind of deal Tim made with Holland, what's next for Cate and the others, and how Skull Island, which is occupied by APEX at the moment, will end up being monitored by Monarch.
- Ship Tease: After reuniting, Cate and May hug each other in relief and spend the rest of the episode standing close to one another. When they finally reach Shaw's old pod, May notices Cate apprehensively listening to the growls and roars of distant wildlife and wraps an arm around her shoulder in a reassuring one-armed hug, and they later hold hands after getting strapped in.
- Single Tear: They certainly aren't the only ones in her eyes, but a lone tear falls on Keiko's cheek after she sees Old Shaw. Cate herself sheds a single tear when revealing to a distressed Keiko that she's Hiroshi's daughter.
- Take My Hand!: In a reversal of the Kazakhstan power plant, Lee takes Keiko's outstretched hand on the exterior of the pod when it's being pulled towards the rift.
- Tell Me About My Father: Inverted when Keiko asks Cate to tell her about the man that her son has grown into while she's been caught in the Year Outside, Hour Inside effect.
- This Cannot Be!: When Tim alerts Hiroshi that there's a coded message in the gamma ray emissions from Hollow Earth, Hiro, understandably unwilling to get his hopes up only to have them crushed when told based on flimsy evidence that his daughter might still be alive, tells Tim it's impossible.
- Time Skip: The brief stint in Hollow Earth translates to two years on the surface.
- Trauma Conga Line: The entire episode is one long, brutal conga of emotional anguish for Keiko. In the span of just a few hours at most, she finds out how much time has really passed in the world outside Axis Mundi, learning that Bill is long-dead and that she missed out on her son's growing up, and seeing that Lee is now an old man. And then just hours or less after Lee's gotten back to her, Keiko loses him, this time seemingly for good, when he makes a Heroic Sacrifice, truly making her the last of the 50s Monarch trio.
- Uncertain Doom: The Ion Dragon is last seen being thrown into the portal by Godzilla after he rips off its wing, but since little is known about this creature’s biology and healing abilities, it’s unclear if this was enough to kill it or just wound it and whether or not it could regrow the appendage. Likewise, Lee's death is uncertain after he released Keiko's hand while the pod was being sucked into the rift and their surrounding terrain was being torn apart by the suction.
- The Unreveal: The video made by Bill in the first episode is seen again as Hiroshi is watching his father's last words to him. Unfortunately, before we can get into what Bill said, Hiroshi is approached by Tim and Kentaro, leading him to turn the video off.
- Wham Shot: The episode and season ends on a doozy. After Cate, May, and Keiko have been saved by Brenda Holland and evacuated into a shelter, we see the sign on the side of the building: "APEX Skull Island Research Station." Then Kong himself emerges from the trees and roars.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Tim finally has enough and disparages Verdugo for not prioritizing rescuing the distress call's transmitter, Cate and May from the Hollow Earth, flat-out telling her that if Lee Shaw wasn't right about Monarch, then he was definitely right about her.
- Year Outside, Hour Inside:
- Keiko has only been in Hollow Earth for 57 days by her estimate, and is horrified to learn it's been over half a century above. She's especially devastated to learn her husband Bill passed away decades ago and that her son is now a grown man who never got to know his parents.
- The end of the episode reveals that the short time Lee, May, and Cate spent in Hollow Earth ended up being two years back on Earth itself.
- You All Meet in an Inn: Tim finds Kentaro drinking in grief at his Tokyo bar when he approaches him, looking to get his father's help tracking the gamma distress call.
