Viewer Log: Voltron ep 15

We find our heroes working on repairing the Castle of Lions after their recent fight with the Pro-Beast. This is probably on ongoing chore, to be perfectly honest. There’s a slight self-destruct scare when Lance doesn’t understand Coran and Allura’s Altean technobabble, but Pidge is able to correct it pretty quick. Not sure why they didn’t just leave the shield fixing up to her in the first place, to be honest. The team is then bombarded with space debris. Squishy space debris. Shiro initially advises the group to be wary, but after Lance lobs one at him (Lance was aiming for Keith) they start having a space snowball fight. Good times had by all. The goo balls are revealed to be hyper-resilient spores. Pidge, using that wonderful brain of hers, notices that the spores’ bio-luminescence isn’t natural and seems to be flashing something in code.

Plant-Mech joyride, anyone?

After being decontaminated, Pidge runs off to try and decode the spore-signals. While that is going on, Keith inspects his dagger. The one that has the Blade of Marmora symbol on it. He asks Coran some subtle questions about the Gulra, and if they’d ever come to Earth before that one time they stopped by to grab the Blue Lion. Coran laughs that off and points out that if the Gulra had been to Earth before, Keith would probably know. Since they’d strip mine the place. Touché, Coran.

Pidge is able to decode the Spore’s message. Shockingly, it’s a distress call from a planet called Olkarion. Both Allura and Coran recognize the name, as in their time the Olkari were technological engineers without rival. Coran even has an old Olkari souvenir, it’s like a floating cube that can play back what he says. Cool? The Paladins fly to Olkarion, and find the once thriving capital city is more or less in ruins, with a lot of Gulra running around. They search the surrounding area, and are pulled out of the sky by some arrows. The Olkari have spent the last few years… adapting. They can use their techno-enhancing powers on plants. Like they can slide their hands into a flower and turn it into a blaster, or turn these giant nuts into wooden mech-suits. Insane? Yes. Do I still love it? You bet I do.  An Olkari spokesmen explains that they’ve lived in the forest since the Gulra took over. They have the Olkari king, Lubos, and are using him and an army of enslaved Olkari to build a super weapon. He offers the Paladins a deal, free Lubos and the slaves, and they’ll join the Voltron Alliance. Sounds like a plan.

Evil never looked so geometric... or generic.

The Olkari outfit the Paladins with some nature tech, and it’s noted that Pidge has a talent for using said nature-tech. How convenient. We flash over to the local Gulra commander, who is pretty much there to just say that they’ve nearly finished the weapon and that the non-slave Olkari are going to be blown to smithereens as a show of force. Using Green’s stealth tech, she’s so useful, the boys are dropped into the castle. They quickly scout the castle, using that really convenient scanner technology, and make it to Lubos’ cell. Well, cell is a little too harsh a world. It’s really a posh apartment. Yeah, it turns out Lubos willingly turned his people over for slave labor, in exchange for a bunch of creature comforts. Dumb Imbecilic Crazy Kook. I realize those were mostly redundant, but I needed a good D.I.C.K. acronym. They still take him, anyway, to fulfill their deal to the Olkari at large.

Unfortunately, the weapon was completed right then. The Gulra Commander sends the new weapon at them, but thankfully Green gets them out at the last second. Go Pidge. Back with the Olkari, while they’re depressed that their king is a colossal DICK, rally to save their lives. The Paladins form Voltron and blast the Cube with laser fire. The Cube absorbs the attack, and fires back. They up the ante, using Hunk’s mega-sized blaster, but again, it absorbs and fires back. As the fighting continues, the Cube adapts and seems to upgrade its weaponry. When blasters don’t work, they summon the Voltron Leo-Saber, and slash it into pieces. They’re excited for about 15 seconds before the Cube recovers. There are four of them now. They decide to divide and conquer, literally, and attack as the five individual lions. Lance’s Ice Beam stops them for a few seconds, but it burst free, knocking Pidge and Green into the forest. The Olkari quickly assemble, and use their mojo to repair Green. An encouraging speech from the Olkari help Pidge form a deeper connection with Green, unlocking Green’s personal weapon.

Green loves the upgrades, too.

Pidge and Green use their new weapon, a plant blaster, to disable the Cube. They’re consumed in vines, crushing them. After they kick the Gulra off Olkaria, there is much rejoicing, Pidge celebrates bonding with Green, and the Paladins hyperspeed off into deep space. The euphoria wears off a few moments later when Zarkon and the main Gulra fleet lightspeed in. Well… shoot.

This was kind of weird episode. Good, but weird. Something about the nature tech was just a little too odd for my admittedly odd brain. Like… are they inserting nano-bots into the trees and flowers and turning them into weapons? Or something? So odd. But, seeing Pidge bond with Green was pretty nice. Interesting how Blue got his weapon upgrade while he was submerged, and how Green got her upgrade while surrounded by trees, isn’t it? The elemental connection of the various Lions is fairly obvious, Red=Fire, Blue=Water, Green=Plants/Forests, and Yellow=Earth/Soil/Ground, so… what is Black’s element? Something that I hope the answer at some point. Destroying the Cube with plant life was a nice touch. Just saying. Next time, Episode 15, the chase begins… or continues.