Viewer Log: Voltron ep 9

A couple of years ago, I saw a news segment about something rather… odd. The story was about families, whom had lost loved ones, that were upset that their local phone providers were deleting old messages from said dead loved one. Some people find comfort in hearing these old messages, I guess. I personally don’t get it, but to each their own. Now, imagine if instead of just one or two recorded messages of a dead person, it was a semi-sentient AI with all of that dead person’s memories and personality. Yes, like Jor-El from the Superman movies.  Gets a little creepier with the AI, doesn’t it? Let’s get to it.

It's Sendak, on ICE.

The episode opens to Allura, still recovering healing the Balmera last time, spending some quality time with her Holo-Dad. Remember him? It is a holographic, self-aware copy of King Alfore, Allura’s dad. I’m not 100% sure why, but I find this really, really messed up. It’s like talking to an imaginary friend, except it talks back. Either way, can’t be psychologically healthy. I’m getting off task. Allura pines for her dead dad and her destroyed home world. Her game of holo-graphic pretend is interrupted by Coran, who insists that she get some more rest.

Meanwhile, Pidge runs a few tests on the “evil” crystal that the Gulra had plugged into the Castle of Lions when they invaded. Her experiments are interrupted by the others prepping to interrogate Sendak. Basically, the plan is to use the Castle’s AI memory recording technology to upload Sendak’s mind so they can peruse Sendak’s memories at their leisure. Coran is a little uncomfortable about the ethical quandaries of using his people’s technology like this, but they really don’t have any other options. There’s some technobabble, a little Keith/Lance insult fighting, and then a whole lot of waiting. Apparently encoding and decrypting the entirety of a sentient organism’s mind takes a while. Everyone starts breaking off to do other stuff, Hunk goes to eat some green space mush (shocking), Keith goes to do some training, Pidge goes to do more Crystal research, and Lance is forced to help Coran do some maintenance. Shiro stays behind. Hm… leaving a former POW alone with a former capture, I’m sure that nothing could possibly go wrong.

Then things start getting weird. Well, weird for the Castle of Lions. The food dispenser goes haywire, dousing Hunk and Pidge, who’d been walking by, in green food gunk. Lance, while cleaning a cryo-pod, gets locked inside and frozen. Coran doesn’t notice as he’s busy reminiscing and the Pod descended into its container after locking Lance in. With Keith, the Gladiator Drone he’s training with goes psycho and refuses to shut down when ordered. It tries to kill him. Things aren’t going great with Shiro, either, as he seems to be going into a pretty dark place while chatting with the Sendak-cicle.

Coran finds and frees Lance, but rules the Lance freezing an accident. This seems unlikely, especially since Holo-Dad is starting to say some creepy stuff to Allura, like luring her back into the hologram room and promising to take her home again. Which would be hard, because, you know, the planet was destroyed. Lance is stalked by malfunctioning technology. Various power failures, flashing lights, and a recording of Coran begging for help gets Lance stuck in the airlock. This can only end badly for Lance.

Yeah, I wouldn't want this purple
               cat man in my head, either.

Shiro is getting really, really, really frustrated with Sendak’s mind not cooperating. He asks it all sorts of questions, Where’s your base, where are your forces, does Zarkon have exploitable weaknesses, but the recorded memories remain silent. At least to Shiro’s questions. Shiro either starts hallucinating, or, Sendak somehow actually begins communicating with him. The entire conversation can be summed up with a Darth Vader quote, “Join me. It is your destiny!” Meanwhile, Pidge and Hunk go into Pidge’s lab and the Gulra Crystal. They’d realized that the Crystal might have something to do with the malfunctions, and try to disable it. Before they can do anything to the Crystal, the lab’s gravity is turned off and Pidge and Hunk get stuck floating in the air. At the same time, Keith is just barely escaping death by the Gladiator Drone. His evading leads him to the Airlock that Lance is locked in, mere moments before he’s launched into space. Keith gets the Gladiator to smash the door open, saves Lance, and sends the Gladiator into space.

Allura is lured into the Holo-chamber, where Holo-Dad promises to take her back home to Altea. The mice are obviously creeped out, but for once, Allura isn’t paying her rodent’s any mind. Of all the times not to notice mice. Back with Hunk and Pidge, they’re still stuck floating in space. They try to work together to get the Gravity working again, but mess it up. They are saved by Lance, Keith and Coran. Lance isn’t impressed with their “harrowing” ordeal. He thinks that floating is “not scary. That’s fun!” Back with Shiro, Sendak keeps up with the “Join me,” speech, which is really freaking Shiro out. He starts having another PTSD flashback, but is aware enough to jettison Sendak into space. Dooming someone to floating forever in the void between stars, that’s pretty hardcore. The team regroups, just in time for the Castle to jump into hyperspace.

The team realizes that the evil Gulra Crystal must have corrupted the ship’s system and Holo-Dad’s AI. The corruption has turned Holo-Dad into a Nihilist, all life is meaningless and all that jazz, and plans to reunite with Allura in the afterlife. Creepy. To do this, he’s flying them to a sun that’s about to go Supernova. Allura has no idea this is going on, as Holo-Dad keeps her in a closed off simulation of Altea. Thankfully, the “good” part of Holo-Dad breaks through, and shows Allura the truth. She snaps out of it, and the team works to slow their decent into the dying star. The Voltron Lions push the Castle away from the star, while Allura goes to deactivate her Holo-Dad’s AI. “Evil” Holo-Dad tries to stop Allura, showing her memories of her Dad during happier times. Allura is able to do the hard thing and destroys her Holo-Dad’s AI. The Good part lasts long enough to say goodbye. After things have calmed down, Allura gives them a “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” speech.

This was an interesting episode. On the one hand, I do like the idea that the events of the previous arc still have some ramifications. It helps with the series continuity. Obviously, if the bad guys hack into your base, it’ll take some time to fix things. On the other, the whole death of Holo-Dad doesn’t have the weight that I think they wanted to have. It’s hard to care about a character’s ‘death’ when this is only the second time we’ve seen him. This is kind of inevitable, given that the Castle’s been disabled for the lasts couple of episodes, but, they could have tried a little more. Like many have Allura mention “What would Father do?” during the previous story and musing about how Holo-Dad would be helpful. Or something. The humor is still spot on. And seeing just how much Sendak’s presence had on Shiro’s damaged psyche is pretty interesting. He goes to some dark places. Overall, a good episode. Not the best, but a very necessary episode. Next time, episode 10. 

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