Viewer Log: Voltron ep 21

After Keith and Hunk’s adventure inside the space eel, the Weblum, we shift our focus onto the prison break adventure of Shiro, Lance and Pidge. We hit the ground running with Shiro and Pidge being launched from Blue Lion at the high security Gulra Prison, Beta Traz. Side note, with such an obvious name, I’m surprised that none of the three point out the obvious homage to Alcatraz. I really was expecting a Doctor Who moment. You know, “You look human.” “You look Time Lord, we came first.” But no, we have a prison to break into.

After sneaking onto the bridge of the Prison, Pidge and Lance use their hacking skills and sonic cannon respectively to get a 3D map of the facility and sneak Blue Lion into the space prison’s hanger. They’re breaking into Beta Traz to free Slav. Slav is the scientist behind the Blade of Marmora’s special cloaking technology, the special pockets of space time that allow them to hide entire space stations. They need him to build an even bigger one for their Mega-Teladuv.

I think ol' Zarkon is starting to lose it
              Those are not the eyes of someone who's all there upstairs.

Meanwhile, Zarkon is continuing his search for the Black Lion. Unfortunately, for him anyway, his fight with Shiro has weakened his connection to Black nearly to the point of completely severing it. Even with the usual four Gulra Druid power boost, he’s basically just staring across the endless void of space. When the Druids attempt to stop the ritual, for fear of overtaxing their master, Zarkon smacks them around and forces them to continue. For anyone who is ever planning on being in a position of authority, LISTEN to your ADVISORS. Otherwise, what’s the point of hiring them?

After checking their new map, the team learns that security in this place is boarding on insane, and that for some reason there are two cells inside instead of just one. Lance calls dibs on the closer of the two cells, because, you know, goofball. We get a brief glimpse at the Warden, torturing Slav. We don’t get a clear image of Slav, because reasons. The Gulra are using some sort of brain scanning tech to get information out of Slav. Weapon schematics, ship designs, solutions to complex equations, that sort of thing. The heroes separate. Shiro and Lance going for the two cells, while Pidge remains in the control room. She multitasks helping Shiro and Lance avoid the security measures, while also sifting through the Gulra database to find information about her brother or father. When they get to their respective high security door, they find a major stumbling block. Namely, Pidge can’t hack the locks, and the only thing that can unlock the door is a facial recognition scan of the Warden. Lance is able to get a scan of the Warden’s face as he leaves the cell. How convenient. Once the Warden is far enough away, Lance and Shiro open their respective door.

Looks like a dog, sounds like a dog, probably smells like a dog
but still, Lance does not get it.

Shiro finds Slav, a disturbing looking furry centipede like alien. I honestly can’t tell if his mouth is supposed to be like a beak or something. He’s incredibly pessimistic, and more than a little insane. He’s constantly spouting off about multiple universes and how in alternate universes he’s dying in bizarre ways. Shiro is in for a headache. Lance, on the other hand, frees what he thinks is Slav, a colossal purple monster creature that only answers with Yep. Is there any doubt in anyone’s mind who has the real Slav? Good, moving on.

The Warden arrives at the control center. Pidge is just barely able to escape notice. This is of course the major down side of staving these places with only one living individual. They tend to miss things. He’s quite upset to hear the alert that Slav has escaped his cell, but even more angry to hear that Lika escaped the other.

Shiro has his hands full with Slav. As stated above, he’s a little nutty. He refuses to leave his room until his bed is made, wants to avoid cracks in the floor tiles because physical cracks can create cracks in space-time creating more parallel worlds, and puddles, because in some parallel worlds, he’s drowning in the puddles. Even though there’s only like an inch of water on the ground. Somehow, I think he’s less drowning, and more being drowned, by an infuriated Shiro in these parallel worlds. Shiro, who’s mere moments away from an aneurism of sheer fury, is forced to carry the bizarre creature through the halls. Lance has an easier time with his Slav, obviously the escaped Lika, who rips through anything that tries to stop them.

Bizarre brain, bizarre look, yep, Alien Scientist.

Pidge is able to help Lance and Shiro make their way back to the hanger. She is also able to get a few second video of her brother, Matt, being broken out of another prison facility. The group is able to reconvene in the hanger, but the Warden arrives a moment later. He takes a shot of Venom, or some similar fictional super steroid, growing several times his regular size. He also has some robotic arms to help him fight. The group is able to outmaneuver the hulking Warden, get to Blue Lion, and fly off. The Warden is surprisingly cool with losing his only prisoner, since he still has his precious Lika. Hooray? Pidge is able to learn from the vids she stole that another rebel group freed Matt some time ago, and he’s most likely still in hiding with them. Actual hooray.

Meanwhile, Haggar is clearly frustrated by her master’s fixation on getting Black Lion. His obsession is clearly blinding him, and, while Haggar tells him this at every opportunity, he’s pretty much tuning her out. Despite this, she is a loyal old gal, and is preparing Zarkon’s “Armor.” How vague, how dangerous, how awesome!

I will say again, I’ve yet to see a truly bad Voltron: Legendary Defender, but this is an episode on the weaker side. Not to say that this prison break isn’t good, it’s just hard to top the other prison break/stealth mission stories that they’ve done. Like freeing Allura in episode 11, or breaking into the Gulra’s Quintessence refinery in episode 10, or diving into the trap within the Balmera in episode 7. Huh, for a show based on a team fighting/semi-superhero/mecha anime, they’re doing a lot of stealth missions. But, given the side of their enemy’s empire, that’s not 100% surprising. It also doesn’t really help that this one has a couple of pointless subplots, like the two Slavs, and this weird bit about Lance wondering what his place in the group is. For the former, it’s pretty flipping obvious upon meeting the two potential Slav’s who is the ‘real’ one. The only reason Lance doesn’t figure it out is because he’s not all that bright. If someone only answers with a “Yep” that sounds suspiciously like a bark, odds are they’re not a super genius. And, as to Lance’s little arc, it’s kind of rushed. At the start of the episode, Lance claims to be the “sharpshooter” of the group, Pidge points out no one calls him that, he starts wondering what his ‘job’ is, questioning what he does best, performs a near impossible shot to save Slav, and then gets called the Sharpshooter by Shiro. All in 20 minutes. That’s a lot of stuff to cover. Granted, I do love Lance, and his voice actor Jeremy Shada. He’s Finn the Human in Adventure Time. But to just kind of make up an issue for him to have and tie it up all in the span of one episode just isn’t my favorite way of giving a character an arc. Just saying. But, a point in the episode’s favor, I did laugh pretty hard when the Warden more or less said, “shoot, they got away. Well at least I still have you, Lika.” He had literally one job to do, but is okay with failing since he still has his purple dog-bear. Wonder if he’ll feel the same when Zarkon finds out. IF he notices, he’ll probably order Lika turned into a handsome throw rug. I’m not saying, I’m just saying. So, not a great episode, but still good.