Leave it to the US military to have very different ideas from scientists about how to deal with the discovery of a brand-new species of animal. Almost from the moment we first meet them in the premiere, both Keiko and Billy have been nothing but protective towards the Titans that have begun to appear with alarming frequency — even the terrifying “Ion Dragon” they tussled with at the end of episode 2. So when given the green light to lure what turns out to be Godzilla closer to shore in order to study him, well, Shaw’s superiors aren’t having any of it.
At this point in the timeline, the fledgling organization of Monarch is pretty much entirely at the mercy of the Army. Any requests for funding, mission objectives, or plans of attack must first go through Shaw. So when Keiko and Billy ask for uranium to help with their monster-hunting goals, it probably shouldn’t have been a surprise when the episode cuts to a soldier painting that familiar anti-Godzilla symbol on a nuclear device at Bikini Atoll in 1954. Yes, it’s somewhat shocking to remember that we’ve seen this exact image before in the opening credits of “Godzilla,” followed by the dawning realization that the entire setup of the Castle Bravo “test” we only glimpsed previously in the movie is about to be reenacted in “Monarch” from a much more personal point of view.
Understandably, Keiko and Billy assume that setting off the bomb will kill Godzilla and ruin their one and only chance to learn what they can from the beast. Shaw knows how the Army tends to operate with unexpected threats and resigns himself to the inevitable. And when Godzilla appears, we can only watch helplessly as this plays out.