Apple TVOne of the sneakiest and smartest aspects of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is the way it pays homage to some of its source materials, without being obvious or dull. As with Season 1, the big-name monsters — like Godzilla and Kong — are used sparingly, while the humans continue to take center stage against a new threat. This season is very much all about the mega-sea monster known as Titan X, and in unlocking the mythology of that monster, Monarch is going very much back to the beginning.Here’s how Monarch Season 2, Episode 2, “Resonance” has a sneaky callback to the original 1933 classic, King Kong, but not in the way you might think. Spoilers ahead.Although Episode 2 has plenty of action in the quasi-present day (technically, the modern aspects of the show take place in 2017 at this point), the most interesting developments in this episode occur in the past, specifically, in 1957. As in the previous episode, Lee Shaw (Wyatt Russell), Bill Randa (Anders Holm), and Keiko (Mari Yamamoto) are exploring a remote island near Chile, chasing rumors of a strange creature. Episode 1 already revealed that the locals were urging the trio to leave, but in Episode 2, after Bill heads off to check out a nearby cave, the village folks suddenly have a change of heart.Why do the people in the village actually encourage Lee and Keiko to stay? Short answer: they’re getting ready to sacrifice our heroes to the monster, which is probably some version of TitanX, or at least one of the smaller creatures that we’ve seen associated with it. Remote island? Human sacrifice? Does this ring any bells?Kong approaches the sacrificial altar in the 1933 classic, King Kong. | United Archives/Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesIn the original King Kong, while scouting Skull Island for the titular monster, Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) is taken captive by the island dwellers and offered up as a sacrifice to Kong. This iconic scene finds Ann nearly devoured by Kong, before Kong takes her away from the sacrificial altar and then absconds to his lair, propelling much of the second act of the classic film. In fact, the revelation that Kong is a massive ape is revealed in the moments when Ann is presented to Kong by the locals. This scene was later recreated in the 1976 King Kong, in which Ann was played by Jessica Lange, and later, in 2005, by Naomi Watts.Monarch doesn’t duplicate these plot beats exactly, and in this case, it’s not Kong who the villagers are trying to appease with a sacrifice, but instead Titan X, or perhaps the small bug-like creatures that are associated with it. In the present, Lee Shaw is trying to release one of the small creatures to distract Titan X, while in the past, one of the villagers even has a costume that seems to resemble Titan X, and foreheads are marked with a double-eye symbol, mirroring the creepy eye of the new monster.Lee and Keiko will survive their human sacrifice moment in 1957. But how? | Apple TVThe episode ends with a cliffhanger, though we know that Keiko and Lee can’t succumb to this grisly ritual in 1957, because they’re both alive in the present. That said, nobody was really worried that Kong would eat Fay Ray back when these monsters were in black-and-white. The purpose of this kind of scene isn’t to make us think these humans are about to be monster lunch. Instead, like Kong in 1933, the monsters of Monarch aren’t just scary because they’re monstrous, but because entire cultures have been built around the fear of these monsters. And when that happens, you’ve got humans basically turning into monsters themselves.Monarch streams on Apple TV.