The group heads to the Sahara to look for Hiroshi.
Tropes:
- Battle Discretion Shot: We don't see Duvall subduing her coworker. All we see is the truck carrying them shaking from the outside, while hearing the coworker grunting in pain and the sound of a tazer being used, before he's thrown out unconscious.
- Binocular Shot: Played for Drama with the POV shot of Kentaro seeing Hiroshi in Algeria through Shaw's binoculars.
- Continuity Nod: Duval reveals to Shaw that her sister Sandra died at Janjira. Sandra Brody's death during the M.U.T.O.'s attack on Janjira in Godzilla (2014) is part of what sets the movie's plot into motion, and means Duval is actually the aunt of the movie's main protagonist, Ford Brody.
- Dance of Romance: Lee and Keiko share a dance at the ball after a few drinks which only exacerbates their romantic tension.
- Doesn't Trust Those Guys: After her previous experiences with Monarch, Cate protests to Shaw recruiting the help of an ex-Monarch operative in the Algerian Desert.
- Downer Ending: The episode ends on a dour notes for both storylines. In the 50s, Lieutenant Hatch has been placed in charge of Monarch instead of Shaw because Shaw blew off his promotion, causing a rift between Shaw and Keiko. In 2015, Shaw and Duvall have split from May and the Randas to pursue Shaw's own goals, and Cate and Kentaro, hiking their way back to civilization, are furious and hurt that May sold them out to Duvall.
- Evil Wears Black: Slightly downplayed, but Duvall and the other Monarch spook assigned to dispose of Shaw are both wearing black. Likewise, Tim and Verdugo are both wearing markedly black clothing when they investigate Hiroshi's San Francisco office.
- Exposition Diagram: Tim draws a world map and circles the tac-points where relevant Monarch outposts are located when he's Spotting the Thread and explaining it to Verdugo.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: The humming device in the back of Hiroshi's pickup — very similar to the device Dr. Suzuki uses in this episode's 50s scenes which attracts Godzilla — and the way Hiroshi is pacing and scanning the surrounding landscape anxiously, foreshadows to the audience what he's doing and what's about to happen before he tries to warn his children off as Godzilla starts emerging.
- Held Gaze:
- Shaw and Keiko share a Romantic gaze during their Dance of Romance at the gala.
- In the 2015 storyline, Shaw and Duvall are holding each-other's gazes squarely throughout their discussion when Duvall cements her Hazy-Feel Turn.
- At the climax, Godzilla's eye stares directly at Shaw, Duvall, May and the Randa half-siblings by his resting site, and Cate looks right back at him. This marks a turning point where Cate fully realizes that Godzilla is an intelligent creature rather than a pure engine of destruction, and she starts to understand what her grandmother and Lee see in him.
- Hellish Copter: Tim's helicopter ends up scraping its rotors on Godzilla's dorsal fins and is forced down. Shaw claims everyone on the helicopter is dead when asked about it.
- "Hell, Yes!" Moment:
- Shaw has a shit-eating grin on his face when Michelle confirms that he's gotten her onboard with his anti-Monarch plan for saving the world.
- Tim is laughing like a maniac and shouts "Hell yeah, baby!" when he realizes that he and the Monarch goons he's with have tracked Shaw and the Randas down, right before they notice Godzilla is emerging far too close for comfort.
- Hiding Behind the Language Barrier: Duvall speaks at Shaw in French while pretending to be speaking over the phone, knowing from Shaw's dossier that he speaks the language, so that Duvall's Monarch coworker won't understand what they're saying.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Keiko downs a drink in seconds when she's forced to endure attending a gala.
- Insult Backfire: When Verdugo snarkily compares Tim to Columbo, Tim retorts, "I know you meant that as a burn, but actually love Columbo and it's maybe the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."
- Internal Reveal:
- Shaw, Bill and Keiko in this episode discover what the audience knew from the get-go: that Godzilla survived the Bikini Atoll bombing unscratched.
- May reveals to Cate and Kentaro that she took a deal with Duval to get home after Duval and Shaw head off on their own mission.
- Interrupted Intimacy: After spending time at a gala to impress the military bigwigs funding Monarch, Shaw and Keiko reveal their feelings for each other and are about to head up to the former's room to spend the night together... only to be interrupted by a courier with an urgent message from Bill Randa. Keiko teases that they may pick things up "next luau" and leaves a disappointed and annoyed Shaw to get the courier's attention.
- It Has Only Just Begun: When Shaw wants to reveal to the army that Godzilla survived, Keiko points out that they’ll just keep building bigger and bigger bombs to try to come up with a sufficient weapon to kill him - and it’ll just create a rabbit hole of increasingly deadlier weapons that humanity can use on each other.
- Meaningful Look:
- Shaw and Keiko, a U.S. Army captain and a Japanese woman dancing together at the gala, garner several looks from disapproving dancing pairs around them, though they brush them off.
- When Verdugo says that Hiroshi wasn't officially exiled from Monarch, Tim gives her an unimpressed look that says, "Come on".
- Shaw glances at Cate when they're driving in the Algerian Desert, remembering her mother Keiko.
- Duvall when walking by May shares a brief look with her, silently reminding her of their bargain, before May persuades Cate to go along with what Shaw wants them to do.
- Mirthless Laughter: Cate snorts mirthlessly when Shaw tells her that if she wants to sign out then "the consequences will be on [her] head," at least until he elaborates that the "consequences" in question are thousands to millions more people being killed in a second G-Day.
- Mythology Gag:
- When Bill and Keiko meet Doctor Suzuki, he tells them "Welcome to Monster Island." In the main Toho series, specifically the Showa continuity, Monster Island was a tropical island where Godzilla and several other kaiju eventually took up residence.
- Godzilla bursting out of the ground with sand cascading off of him is reminiscent of his entrance in Mothra vs. Godzilla.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Shaw's absence in negotiating with the military results in them taking over Monarch. Keiko is seriously pissed at him for this.
- Not Quite Dead: Shaw, Randa, and Keiko learn that Godzilla survived Castle Bravo no worse for wear.
- Oh, Crap!: Anytime this happens when Godzilla is involved.
- Past Shaw looks horrified when he sees Godzilla is still alive after Castle Bravo, muttering, "We didn't kill it."
- Hiroshi freaks out when he realizes that his children have tracked him down and they're unknowingly standing right in the midst of a slumbering Titan that's about to awaken.
- Present Shaw has this when he sees the device Hiroshi's using and realises he's trying to summon a Titan - then everyone else catches up with him when said Titan is a newly awakened Godzilla.
- Tim frantically screams at his helicopter's pilot to get them clear when he sees Godzilla's dorsal spines are hurtling straight towards the chopper as the Titan stand up from his rest.
- Ominous Crack: The ground begins splintering open in the desert when Godzilla is awakening, forcing the cast to run for cover.
- One-Eyed Shot: On Godzilla's eye when Cate holds his gaze.
- Passed-Over Promotion: When Lee Shaw crashes a backyard barbecue to ask General Puckett why he wasn't sent with Keiko and Bill to go on a Titan hunt, Puckett says that he's being eyed for a promotion and that if he plays his cards right he'll be put in charge of Monarch and be able to run it as he sees fit. Lee misses an important meeting to chase after Keiko instead, and General Puckett places Lieutenant Hatch — who intends to shut them down and appropriate their funding for his own purposes — in charge of Monarch instead.
- Properly Paranoid: Keiko ends up being correct that her and Shaw pursuing a relationship would surely lead to dilemmas where they’d have to choose between what they want and what Monarch needs. Shaw skipping a meeting to go after Keiko is what leads to Monarch falling under Hatch’s control.
- Red Shirt: The unnamed ex-Monarch friend of Lee's who's helping the main heroes ends up going the same way as Du-Ho did when Godzilla awakens, as do all the Monarch mooks aboard Tim's chopper.
- Sinister Shades: Downplayed. Although neither are portrayed as more than morally dark-gray at worst, Old Shaw and May alone among the main cast are wearing black shades in the desert, reflecting how May secretly sold the Randas out to Duvall for a chance to return to Tokyo, and how Shaw has enigmatic intentions of his own and how the others are initially horrified when he says he wants to help Godzilla.
- So Proud of You: Puckett tells Shaw that he's proud of how far he's come at the gala.
- Spotting the Thread: Tim pieces together where the map that May and the Randas took was by noting how, despite the skyline view of Hiroshi's office, his chair is turned away from the window towards the blank wall. He then notices the positioning of the thumb-tacs in the blank space on the wall where the map was, and he deduces that each cluster where the tacs are most focused corresponds to Hiroshi pinpointing a Monarch outpost on a world map. Moments later, he notices the link between Hiroshi having used satellites to scour the Earth for gamma rays, and Dr. Barnes detecting those at her outposts coming from underground. Even Verdugo is impressed enough to give Tim a curt compliment.
- Static Stun Gun: Duvall uses a tazer to incapacitate her fellow spook detaining Shaw in a truck when she busts him free.
- Weirdness Censor: It gets mentioned that some government officials in the 50s storyline are slow to accept that Titans exist even after hard proof of Godzilla's existence was captured in 1954 in the forms of his giant footprint and clear visual recordings of him at Bikini Atoll.
- Wham Line:
- Duvall reveals why she joined Monarch and why she's considering siding with Shaw's Renegade Splinter Faction: "My sister Sandra. She worked in Japan. Janjira."
- Shaw says he isn't trying to stop Godzilla, he's trying to help Godzilla. What he means by that isn't explained.
- What Is Going On?:
- Cate asks Shaw this word-for-word when she realizes Scottie is an (ex) Monarch goon.
- One of the crew on the Monarch chopper exclaims over the radio, "What the hell is that?" When the ground begins crumbling due to Godzilla being buried under it.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Keiko is none too happy at Lee when she sees he's blown off the crucial military meeting that would've seen him put in charge of Monarch so that he could selfishly be by her side on a Titan hunt, since it'll likely force General Puckett to put someone else in charge of Monarch. Sure enough, they come home to find Lieutenant Hatch is now in charge of their organization, and a distraught Keiko reminds Lee of his screw-up by rhetorically asking him what the hell he's done.
- You Are a Credit to Your Race: A decade after the end of World War II, the brainy scientist Keiko has to suffer being introduced as "one of the good [Japanese]" to high-ranking American military officers.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame:
- Hearing Puckett describe her to other U.S. military officers as "one of the good ones" does not make Keiko feel good. After Puckett says it, we cut to Keiko sitting away from the main gala for some peace, brooding over the words.
- May, remembering her deal with Duvall, is visibly squirming with remorse when Cate faithfully quips that she hasn't steered them wrong so far.
- You're Insane!: May says this to Shaw and Duval's faces after learning they want to help Godzilla.
- You Remind Me of X: Shaw admits to Cate that her driving their jeep through the Algerian Desert reminds him of the times that he and Bill drove with Keiko behind the wheel on Titan hunts.
