Viewer Log: Voltron ep 2

I’ve read a few reviews of Voltron since the show premiered. All of them have highly praised the show, which I agree with wholeheartedly. But, most of them also claim that the show is designed for binging, and that episodes don’t really end but feed into the next one. And, while it is true that Voltron doesn’t have a single standalone episode, I would argue that it does have arcs. Three of them by my count. Each has a beginning, middle, and end which involves Voltron battling a Galra monster. Two of them are “Robeasts,” giant combinations of Gulra magic and tech in the shape of alien beasts, and once against the Gulra’s big bad boss, Zarkon. Episode two of Voltron is the middle episode of the first arc. This is one of the slower episodes, as there isn’t really any Robot on Robot brawling, but it’s still very well done. Let’s get to it.

Prepare to see a lot of this.
Group shots, its a team-show thing.

We begin with alarms. Lots and lots of alarms. The Voltron ‘Paladins’ are roused from sleep or their early morning routine by Allura and Coran freaking out about a Galra attack. Everyone except Lance, that is, who somehow acquired earmuffs. When they assemble on the bridge, however, it’s revealed to be a pretty lackluster drill. If the lack of explosions, fires, and general chaos hadn’t tipped them off, Coran’s overacting about Allura’s dismembered head’s final words was probably a big tip. Allura is rather upset to see that her new Paladins are 1. Incredibly slow to assemble, 2. All out of uniform except Shiro, and 3. Not all there. She tries to impress upon them the seriousness of the situation, once Lance gets his lazy bum out of bed, and shows them a map of the known universe. Basically, after 10,000 years of war, if it is a known star system, the Galra either own it, are invading it, or planning to invade it. So yeah, not the most ideal of situations. She insists that they spend the day training so they can form Voltron whenever the need arises. Yeah her ancestor, in their infinite wisdom, decided not to just include a button or switch that they could press to form the giant Robot, and instead made it so that the pilots had to bond with their giant mechanical quazi-magical jungle cats before they can mash them all together. Kind of a major design flaw, not going to lie. Also, for my viewers that are legally able to drink, I suggest turning this episode into a drinking game. Take a shot every time they use the phrase “Form Voltron,” or any possible variations. In 22 minutes, you’ll have a pretty good buzz going.

They try several different methods to try and force their Lions to transform into a giant fighting robot. Like flying in formation, stack the Lions like a cheerleader pyramid, dodging the castle defenses, and nosediving while blindfolded and pull up before crashing by ‘seeing’ through the Lions eyes. Results, 1. Nope. 2. Nope, 3. Definitely not, and 4. Hunk and Pidge pull up too early, Keith and Lance crash because they decided to race to the bottom, and Shiro actually does get it. 1/5… not great results. They do some team building exercises outside of their Lions too, facing combat simulations, trust exercises, and finally a weird computerized simulation. The simulation is actually rather interesting, as we get to see what is on the forefront of the Paladins’ minds. For Hunk, it’s food. No surprise there. Keith’s thoughts seem to wander to his shack back on Earth. Lance can’t help but think about, not women, but his rather large looking extended family. Huh, wasn’t expecting Lance to be a sentimental dude. Shiro thinks about his old spaceship. And Pidge’s mind seems focused on a picture. The picture had appeared one or twice before, it’s of Pidge and someone else. The other Paladins assume it’s Pidge and his girlfriend, but Pidge’s shifty attitude on the subject seems a little off. This training ends when Pidge announces that he refuses to have the others digging around in his head. That’s not suspicious at all…

Seriously, would it have killed the designers to include a
push to unite button? Team work and bonding is cool and all
but this is a Legendary defender for goodness sake.

They also face off against a supercharge warrior drone called the Gladiator. It quickly disables Hunk and Pidge, then Lance and Keith. When Shiro goes up against it, he has a sort of PTSD flashback to him fighting some sort of monster in an area, causing him to freeze up. Allura’s getting pretty exasperated with her Paladins, but tries one last tactic. When they sit down to eat, she has Coran handcuff them together, so they’d be forced to feed each other. This, again, doesn’t work well and leads to a giant food fight. But, it turns out a food fight is just what they needed. They bond, laugh, and are finally able to create their giant Robot. Hooray!

Meanwhile, the Gulra are working on a means to defeat Voltron. Haggar and the other Gulra druids use their magic and Gulra tech to create a giant robot that vaguely resembles a gorilla. Haggar them convinces a giant brute of an alien to volunteer for an experiment, with the promise that Haggar will give him the power to destroy the Champion, aka Shiro. They stick the monster dude in a coffin and seem to fuse him with the mechanized gorilla’s body. The episode ends with the first Robeast being sent to battle Voltron.

So like I said, this is a slower episode. Which is kind of welcome after the break neck speed of the first one. We get to see little bits about our heroes, simple things like their morning routines. Shiro and Keith seem to be early risers that do morning work outs and/or tinkering, Pidge is more of a night owl, pun intended, and works into the night, and Hunk and Lance are more into their beauty sleep. Especially Lance, given the lengths he goes to stay asleep. I’m still wondering where he got the headphones, blindfold, and blue lion slippers. Mostly the blue lion slippers. It’s also kind of interesting to see the Lance/Keith rivalry intensify by a quite a bit. From their banter in the previous episode, it seemed like the only one that thought they were rivals was Lance. But, by this episode, they are constantly trying to prove which of them was better. Heck, they crash their Lions in that plunge of faith simply because they tried to prove who was the most “in tune” with their mecha-cats. And they fail at least two combat simulations because Keith and Lance are more interested in one upping each other than team work.

It is also interesting to see how Shiro is reacting to his memories returning. Obviously, given the scars, premature grey/white hair, and his entire right arm being replaced, his time with the Galra wasn’t peaceful. The freezing up in combat and/or stressful situations just screams of Post-Traumatic Stress. Cartoon intended for kids has a character with PTSD, let that sink in.

And the episode does at least try to show the scale of what team Voltron is up against. The Galra empire is colossal in scale, with seemingly limitless resources and weapons at their disposal. They have one castle-battle ship, and five Lions that transform into one giant Robot. The odds are most certainly not in their favor. I also like the build up with the Gulra Druids and the Robeast. In taking a chunk of an episode just to make the creature they’re sending in, it does drive home the point that this won’t be an easy battle. So, overall, a slow but good build up episode. It adds some things, and builds a little tension for what is coming next. Well done. Next time, ep 3.

http://nerdist.com/voltron-legendary-defender-is-the-space-opera-you-need-review/
http://cdn.collider.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/voltron-legendary-defender-lions.jpg