The new season of Monarch dropped last week and I am thrilled. I have seen people online speculating that the new season will finally give us what we’ve wanted forever: Godzilla vs Cthulhu! But those people are wrong. What we are getting is even better.
It is Dagon.
Dagon as a kaiju is something that has already been done. In Lovecraft’s story of the same name, In the narrative, a sailor comes across a strange monolith on a strange plain that depicts some gigantic fish man eating a whale. Shortly thereafter, said whale eater (aka Dagon) slips and slithers its way up the monolith:. Here’s how Lovecraft wrote it: “With only a slight churning to mark its rise to the surface, the thing slid into view above the dark waters. Vast, Polyphemus-like, and loathsome, it darted like a stupendous monster of nightmares to the monolith, about which it flung its gigantic scaly arms, the while it bowed its hideous head and gave vent to certain measured sounds.” and Dagon is worshipped by these horrifying fish people and strange abyssal crustaceous things that drove the narrator mad. Here’s Lovecraft again: “I cannot think of the deep sea without shuddering at the nameless things that may at this very moment be crawling and floundering on its slimy bed, worshipping their ancient stone idols and carving their own detestable likenesses on submarine obelisks of water-soaked granite. I dream of a day when they may rise above the billows to drag down in their reeking talons the remnants of puny, war-exhausted mankind—of a day when the land shall sink, and the dark ocean floor shall ascend amidst universal pandemonium.” The idea of this happening is so dreadful to the narrator that he decides that as soon as the opium wears off, he’s killing himself. The story ends on a bit of a ridiculous cliffhanger as the narrator writes about a monster trying to break in as the monster is trying to break in, kind of like the live tweeting your own murder sequence in Scream Queens.
Fast forward and Lovecraft revisits the idea of Dagon in the Shadow Over Innsmouth only this time we are treated to a rotting, downtrodden fishing town full of fish folk hybrids because the townsfolk worship—you guessed it—Dagon and the women folk of Innsmouth love themselves some ichthyomorphic peen. There’s a cult in the town, and that cult worships Dagon, and fornicates and cavorts with Dagon, and in return Dagon lavishes the town with gold and nets full of bountiful catches, riches in equal measure. The story tells us about a guy on a journey who stops at Innsmouth, finds out about the cult, and is summarily chased out of town by said cult. It later turns out that our narrator is actually part fishman himself! WOW!
Now take this idea and move it to Spain and you have Stuart Gordon’s take on the tale, a film called Dagon. Gordon tweaks the tale though and we get some good old fashioned giant monster doing giant monster stuff including dragging a beautiful woman into the depths to be his unwilling bride. But still in this film we get a group of Spanish fisherfolk who worship a giant monster, this will become relevant in a moment.
In the new season of Monarch, the group discovers a Spanish fishing village that worships a giant monster that “brings the bounty of the sea” to the village as reward for their faith, which includes hints of human sacrifice. This cult runs the town and keeps their god a secret. Our team has yet to be chased out and hunted by irate fisherfolk but it sure seems headed that way. Meanwhile our introduction to the new big bad kaiju for season two takes place in that weird between place where kaiju come and go and a day is a year on the surface. Shaw witnesses the emergence of this kaiju and what he sees is a mountain walking. Literally, the kaiju was inside a mountain and it shook the majority of the mount off of it when it woke up and head back to Earth. In the Call of Cthulhu Lovecraft describes Cthulhu as a mountain that walks. So there is a clear correlation and homage to Lovecraft and Gordon and Dagon. Even the design of the kaiju itself is clearly Dagon-esque and the beast is accompanied by a host of giant trilobite beasties, much as described by the suicidal narrator of Dagon the story. There is even a cave with a story depicting the god-kaiju and the villagers doing their worship thing! All things point to Monarch doing a Dagon!
So yeah, viewers are about to get a dose of Godzilla vs Dagon and it promises to be the heavy weight match up of the year.
Stay tuned for updates as the season progresses, but here’s hoping this post holds true!
Friday awaits…
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