Viewer Log: Voltron ep 20

We open to Hunk waking up. He took a three-hour siesta while the Blade of Marmora (BoM), Allura and Shiro formulate a plan of attack. Their plan, while insane, falls under the “so crazy it might just work,” category. They’re going to need to build a colossal Teladuv (wormhole generator). Using Thace’s position in the fleet, they plan to upload a virus into Zarkon’s command ship to disable it. Then, using the Mega-Teladuv, they'll transport Zarkon’s ship into the depths of space. While separated from the main fleet, they’ll use the Castle of Lions, and Voltron to put an end to Zarkon’s 10,000-year reign. The team needs to break into groups to get the necessary parts for this plan. Keith and Hunk will take Yellow Lion to gather the necessary amount of Scaultrite for the Lens their Mega-Teladuv will need. Shiro, Pidge, and Lance will take Blue Lion to a Gulra prison to collect Slav. Slav is an ‘eccentric’ alien genius, and the mad scientist behind the BoM’s cloaking technology. They need him to build a gravity generator to hide the Mega-Teladuv before they use it on Zarkon. Allura will take the Castle of Lions alone to the Balmera, to collect a crystal to power the Mega-Teladuv. They’re going to need an even bigger crystal then the one that powers the Castle of Lions. And finally, Coran is going to use one of the pods to go to Olkarion to help the Olkari construct the Mega-Teladuv. Ready? Break!

Laurel and Hardy... In SPACE!

Meanwhile, Zarkon is growing more frustrated as his connection to Black weakens by the day. Nevertheless, he keeps forcing the Gulra druids to pump him with mystical quintessence to supplement his weakening connection. It’s not helping nearly as much as it used to.

First, we follow along with Keith and Hunk. Huh, don’t think we’ve had this combination yet. On the flight in, Hunk continually pokes fun at Keith’s newly discovered Mixed Species heritage. It’s mostly good natured “I’m going to make jokes until it stops making me uncomfortable,” type stuff. Keith does make it clear that he’s a little upset that Allura is giving him the cold shoulder upon learning about his Gulra ancestry. And, again, considering the fact the Gulra destroyed her home world, killed her father, and caused the functional extinction of her race, I can’t necessarily blame her. Just saying. They reach their destination, the colossal Weblum. This giant space eel gobbles up the rubble of dead planets, and makes Scaultrite in one of its stomachs. The two play an instructional video, hosted by a younger Coran. Unfortunately, after 10,000 years the video has corroded. One of those, “It’s important to- <static>,” “Whatever you do, avoid- <static>,” “<static>, remember this, or you will die,” type gags. With nothing else really to go on, Hunk flies them towards the Weblum’s face, while Keith does his best to get something useful from the video.

It’s at this moment that the video clears up slightly, revealing that rule #1 in Scaultrite gathering is stay away from the Weblum’s face. Why? It fires a giant death beam if it feels threatened. They have to fly Yellow around several death beams before reaching the Weblum’s blind spot, behind it’s gills. I don’t know why a space eel needs gills. The video clears up enough for them to learn the next few steps in the process. They need to enter the beast through its gills, and travel through its body to its third stomach, where the Scaultrite is formed. Once there, they need to agitate the beast enough to make it fire death lasers, so they can collect the Scaultrite that forms.

Stay away from the face!
Repeat, AVOID THE FACE!

With the Gulra, the Druids are working harder to find the mole. They’ve started examining the Drones that were destroyed during the Voltron assault on the base. One of the druids discovered that the drone had been destroyed by a Luxite blade. Thace does his best to cover his nerves, and orders the druids search for Luxite. He’s obviously further agitated when he learns Haggar ordered that Thace needs to have a Druid escort until further notice. Have to keep him safe from the traitors, of course.

Inside the Weblum, Keith and Hunk are almost instantly attacked by the Weblum’s body. It’s anti-bodies, er digestive enzymes, er something, starts attacking the two Paladins in mass. Hunk and Keith are separated in the first stomach. Keith goes down the creature’s digestive tract, while Hunk is sucked into its bloodstream. In the second stomach, Keith found a crashed ship, and a living Gulra pilot. The pilot, who is either mute or just not talkative, helps Keith fight off the enzymes. He and his new companion meet up with Hunk in the third stomach. They try to figure out how to collect the Scaultrite when they’re hit with another massive enzyme attack. Thankfully, the Weblum has to pass gas. The creatures gas release clears out most of the enzymes. For the moment And its only after seeing the Weblum’s biology in action that they figure out how to get the Scaultrite. Hunk has to get outside, and get the Weblum’s attention. When it feels threatened, the Weblum will fire an energy blast. This will cause Scaultrite to build in the third stomach, because it uses the Scaultrite to make said energy blast. He flies out of the Weblum’s digestive tract as it releases the excess gas from its multiple stomachs. Yes, you read that right, saved via a space eel fart.

Meanwhile, Thace tries to get a message out to the BoM. Thace wants to warn them that he’s getting dangerously close to being exposed, so they might have to accelerate or abandon the current plan. He has enough time to plug in his secret drive to encrypt a message, but his Druid escort joins him a moment later. He’s forced to leave the drive and continue searching for the traitor. Hope that doesn’t come back to bite him in the backside.

What secrets lay behind this black mask?
Also, Awesome Armor.

Hunk and Yellow get the Weblum to shoot at them.The second it starts charging the attack, the enzymes clear out for good. Once the creature fires a few times, they have plenty of Scaultrite. Keith and the Gulra pilot collect as much Scaultrite as they can carry. Unfortunately, once the pilot has enough Scaultrite, the pilot pulls a gun on Keith and makes a break for it. Wonder if that’ll be a new loose end to tie up? On the flight home, Hunk goes back to making fun of Keith for his mixed-race biology. All’s well that ends well.

It is kind of interesting that we’ve gotten twenty episodes in, and have just now done a Keith/Hunk team up. The two do seem to work well together. Hunk making fun of Keith’s newly discovered heritage to ease the tension was kind of nice. It shows that, while we haven’t seen them together on screen very much, the two have a reasonably good friendship. You don’t make fun of someone’s ancestry, to their face, unless you know them pretty well. We also see some examples of Keith’s potential leadership skills. Like when he tries to keep Hunk calm when he’s freaking out about being in the Weblum. Those will come in handy when the team is eventually separated again. What? Teams getting scattered happens a LOT in this type of show. Just ask the Mighty Morphing Power Rangers. The Weblum was an odd but cool setting. A colossal space eel that gobbles space debris, fires giant laser beams, and makes Scaultrite in its stomach. These things and the Balmera make space even more terrifying then it already is. Sure, it’s internal defenses, digestive enzymes that melt everything they touch, was suspiciously like the innards of Dragon Ball Z’s Majin Buu. But, hey, if you’re going to copy something, copy one of the most successful Manga/Anime/fiction series of all time. The mysterious Gulra pilot was an interesting part of the story. Silent, basically faceless, and confusing. On the one hand, he saves Keith from the Weblum’s innards, and follows his orders without question. But, on the other, the pilot does steal some Scaultrite when the opportunity presents itself. So, is the pilot good, bad, or somewhere in the middle? Hard to tell given the limited screen time the pilot got. Heck, we don’t even know if the pilot is a man or woman. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see if the pilot pops again. So yeah, this is a weirdie, but a goodie.