Viewer Log: Voltron ep 31

The road to hell is paved with the best intentions.

Who’s ready for a flashback? Doesn’t matter, you’re getting one anyway. It’s not just any flashback, though. No, this time, we’re going way back. Ten thousand+ years back, to the origins of Voltron, and of the dark Emperor Zarkon. The basic set up is, that while Haggar uses her magics to peak into Zarkon’s mind in an attempt to revive him, Allura is enlightening the Paladins as to what she knew of Voltron’s history. Her hope is that knowing about Voltron’s origins might help them puzzle out what Lotor’s plan might be. The end result, for the viewer anyway, is an abridged history of the Legendary Defender, and its first Black Paladin.

The old school team.

Turns out, the Paladin’s of Voltron began as a group of friends. Zarkon was the young but respected king of the Gulra. Allura’s father, Alfor, was the equally young and equally respected king of the Alteans. And the two had three other friends named Gyrgan, Trigel, and Blaytez. Whom were all leaders of their respective peoples. Except Blaytez, whom I believe was some kind of space pirate king. Huh. And yeah, they seem to have oddly similar personality traits as Hunk, Pidge, and Lance respectively. The group was having a feast together when a massive Comet struck the planet. I erroneous believed in an earlier post that said Comet had hit Altea, Allura’s homeworld. Turns out, I was wrong, it hit the Gulra homeworld of Dybazal. My bad.

Zarkon and Alfor, along with their legions of subjects, are able to quickly set up a perimeter around the impact site. The Comet is giving off a weird bit of extra dimensional energy that baffles Alfor and the Gulra scientists. So, Alfor sends for a specialist from back on Altea. Enter Honerva, the best Alchemist of Altea, and her weird alien cat Kova. She’s extremely excited to be working on the project, and learning more about the Comet and its energies.

Zarkon, an alien monster wrecked a hug portion of your planet
You shouldn't have to be persuaded to shut the portal it used.

We skip forward a few years. In that time, Allura is born, Honerva’s made progress in her research, and even found time to marry a certain Gulra monarch. Huh, funny how we’ve never seen an Empress Honerva hanging around Zarkon, isn’t it? Anyway, Honerva had learned through meticulous study that the Comet puts out a massive amount of energy that could be used to power, well, anything. Which is good. And she discovered some sort of extra dimensional organism that tried to slip into their universe via the wormhole that the Comet seems to generate. This is less good, shifting to full on bad when a power surge hits, and thousands of the buggers spill out into their world. They’re able to get the Comet free, imprison the creatures in a sort of force field for a while, and, somehow, Alfor is able to use the metal to forge the five giant, color coordinated Lions that we all know and love. The two kings grab their other three friends, and pilot the beasts in a bid to send the invaders home. This proves difficult, as the thousands of smaller creatures act as one massive entity that swats at them like they were flies. While the five individuals put up a good fight, the monster is too strong, over powering them. Thankfully, they form Voltron for the first time, and use the Leo Saber to smash it to a pile of goo.

Now Alfor, being a smart guy, wants to seal the breach left over from the monster’s invasion. Honerva, on the other hand, wants the portal left open for research. Zarkon, being a doting husband, agrees with Honerva, and tells Alfor to back off and follow Zarkon’s commands. Seems weird that he assumed that would work, given his friend is also a King. But whatever. They all continue to work together, although Alfor and Zarkon are much more distant with each other thereafter.

Skip forward a few more years, and things haven’t improved. Zarkon’s planet, Dybazal, is pretty much rotting from the damage the still open wormhole is causing to the surface. Honerva isn’t doing much better, visibly aging far beyond her actual years. Creepily, her cat is still alive and looking like a haggard skeletal beast. I have no idea how long alien cat’s live, but from the way Alfor acts, this fur ball should have been dead at least a decade ago. Alfor rightly deduces that Honerva has been experimenting with the Quintessence that the portal has created to keep her cat alive. Alfor basically says ‘screw this’ to the whole situation and leaves. Zarkon tries to order him to stay, but Alfor is so beyond done.

Wow, Honerva could use some sun. If she get's any grayer she'll
start looking like Hagga-Ohhh...

To make things worse for Zarkon, his wife is dying. I guess exposure to all that raw energy has slowly poisoned her. It’s not stated out loud, but I reason that Quintessence works a little like radiation and a little like a drug. It’s pure life energy, so it has the ability to heal wounds and extend lives, but like any drug you need more and more of it just get back to functioning normally. Honerva, having spent over a decade being exposed, can’t get the same effect as she used to, and thus is slowly dying. She begs Zarkon to take her to the Rift, to the purest Quintessence to save her.

Zarkon calls out to Alfor again. He tells his friend that he wants to use Voltron to seal the Rift once and for all. Alfor agrees, rather too quickly in this humble blogger’s opinion. The team assembles, forms Voltron, and summons the Leo Saber. So, the plan is to use the sword to cut a bigger hole into the Rift, absorb as much energy as them can, and then use Voltron to force the hole shut. I would have several problems with this idea, but unfortunately, none of the other original Paladins have my thought process. They rip the Rift open further, and fly in. Once inside, Zarkon executes his actual plan. He exit’s his cockpit, cradling Honerva in his arms, and the two of them are exposed to the pure energy of the Rift. It doesn’t go well, as the two are seemingly killed by the energies, and their presence summons a horde of the aliens from before. Despite the Black Paladin being absent, the other Paladins can work Voltron well enough to recover their friends’ bodies, escape the beasts and then the rift. Once at a safe distance, and hopefully after a planet wide evacuation, they bomb the heck out of Dybazal to seal the Rift for good.

Alfor planned a funeral for Zarkon and Honerva, but things didn’t quite play out that way. The Quintessence that he was exposed to had a somewhat delayed effect on Zarkon, or so it seems. Zarkon rose from the dead, and has become the being we know today. His eyes glow, his voice is deeper, and he wants Voltron back. He gets control of some transmitting equipment and sends a message to the Gulra. He claimed his friend had betrayed him, and destroyed Dybazal as an act of war. He is able to rally his people into the full-scale war with the Alteans and the universe as a whole. Alfor, fearing the monster that seemed to be wearing his friend’s skin, scattered the Lions of Voltron. Zarkon killed Alfor in a rage, and destroyed Altea as a part of his further vengeance.

Back in the present, the group realize Lotor’s plan. He’s going to try to open a new Rift and harvest as much of that pure Quintessence as he can.

And Haggar? Well, turns out scanning Zarkon’s mind cleared out the cobwebs in her own mind. She had apparently forgotten most, if not all, of her past as the scientist Honerva. Considering the 10,000 years she’s been Haggar, I think we can forgive her forgetfulness. But, now armed with her old memories, she uses her powers to call out to Zarkon again, and asks her beloved to do the impossible again and return to her. Something very wicked this way comes.

Well... crap. The Emperor is back.

So, yeah, I think I can talk about this now. Haggar was once Honerva, Zarkon’s wife. This puts into perspective why he trusted her so implicitly, and never even once questioned her loyalty, even when another king might be at least slightly distrustful of his witch. It doesn’t make sense if she’s always been a creepy witch. I don’t know about you, but I’m always distrustful of creepy old witches, ever since I read Macbeth. It DOES make sense when you know that Haggar is the last bit of his wife. She might not have remembered anything, but he did. You might think I’m making a lot of assumptions here. But then, the whole “I’ll sacrifice my friendship and my own life on the OFF chance I can save your life,” makes it seem pretty likely that Zarkon would still have feelings for who she was. Just saying. Flip side, this raises SO many questions about Lotor. Haggar is clearly Lotor’s mother, as I just can’t see Zarkon moving on and Lotor’s clearly half Altean, but that doesn’t explain WHEN he was conceived. He doesn’t seem to have the glowing, pupil-less eyes of his parents, that I attribute to Quintessence exposure. So, odds are he wasn’t born ten thousand years ago. Then when did it happen? Twenty years ago? Fifty? I don’t know how quickly Gulra age. Seems odd. And does Lotor know that his father’s favorite witch is also his mama? If so, he doesn’t seem to acknowledge it. Which seems out of character for him. I think back to when he presented the general’s arm to Haggar. No “Mommy I don’t need a babysitter,” or “Oh you’re going to be a concerned parent now?” seems odd from the prince of snark. Sure, she might not remember, but I doubt anything in Lotor’s past could make him forget who bore him. Some might say, “what if no one told him?” to which I say, “you think that not one servant noticed a pregnant Haggar right about when Lotor became a thing?” Sure, I don’t know Altean anatomy, but, if they’re as like human females as they appear, it would be INSANELY hard to hide the baby bump. Just sayin.

Okay, so this once again didn’t sound like a season finale. It felt like a mid-season finale. But, considering that they released season 4 in the same calendar year, I think I can be more forgiving this time. Learning about the history of Voltron is kind of important, and as mentioned above, learning about Zarkon’s past made a lot of his actions make a more sense retroactively. It wasn’t about power, as the Gulra empire can make weapons on par with Voltron, it’s about the Quintessence. Voltron’s unique composition allows it to manipulate the fabric of reality in such a way that it can harvest that purest Quintessence. That Quintessence that Honerva was obsessed with. So yeah, now I kind of get why he wants Black Lion back so bad that he nearly destroyed himself. So yeah, another good episode. Next time, who’s ready for some Punishment?

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Viewer Log: Voltron ep 30

Villains try stabbing each other in the back, Paladins stuck in the middle.

So, if you’ll remember, not too long ago Lotor and his team stole a Comet from the Paladins. Said Comet is made of the same material as the Voltron Lions. So, yeah, the baddies have their hands on the very substance that made the Legendary defender. Something to keep in mind as we move forward. Let’s get to it.

The whole band is back together. God, I've missed seeing all
of them in one shot.

We open to the Paladins attacking a Gulra Outpost. They demolish the Outpost, shutting down the facilities power, and routing the last of their enemies. This is a big deal, as this is the last Gulra base in this particular quadrant of space. The Paladins return to base. There, Shiro is being debriefed by Keith. They try to figure out what exactly happened to Shiro, post battle with Zarkon. They’ve only got speculation, but the going theory was that the Black Lion might have tried to use its own power to transport Shiro from danger. But, Zarkon used his atrophied connection to Black to mess with the teleportation. It’s not clear that’s what happened, but it’s the best theory they’ve got right now. Keith leaves Shiro a minute later, to give him time to recover.

Shiro cleans himself up, and then meets with the others. Pidge, using that marvelous brain and hacking skills of hers, had been able to decrypt some Gulra data, and found the general area of the universe that Lotor’s been popping in and out of. Then, Lance and Hunk have a few ideas that help them figure out a way to detect the Comet. Basically, they’re going to supercharge the detector that Hunk had originally designed ALL the way back in episode one that lead the fledgling team to the Blue Lion. He and Pidge get to work on it.

Lance and Keith have a quick private chat. Lance makes it clear that, should Shiro take his place back in Black Lion, he’ll bow out and let Keith reclaim Red. The two have another moment, that Lance can’t deny later, as he’s clearly conscious now and not suffering from a head injury. Hunk and Pidge, with just a little help from Allura’s Mice, get their tracker up and running. They’re able to quickly track down the Comet, and the team start trailing the signal. Interestingly, when they get the ship into visual range, they learn that it isn’t Lotor’s usual warship. This ship, that doesn’t seem to have any distinguishing marks, starts bombing a Gulra outpost. How odd? Keith and Shiro have a moment of tension over who’s in charge, but it passes quickly. Apparently, the reluctant leader has grown used to his spot. Keith offers Black back to Shiro, who gladly tries to take up the Lion again. Unfortunately, he can’t get Black to react to. Apparently, accepting Keith as its new master has severed or at least greatly weakened Shiro’s connection to it. Considering Zarkon kept his bond after ten thousand years and a new Paladin stepping up, I’m calling shenanigans! Shiro elects to stay behind in an advisory position on the Castle. You know, what Allura used to do.

As it turns out, the base is the one operated by Thrak, the attempted mutineer from the first episode of the season. He’s pretty furious at being attacked, but while the outpost is a frozen heck-hole, it’s his frozen heck-hole. Imagine the unbridled rage he must have felt when Lotor’s Generals revealed themselves. Lotor’s team over powers Thrak’s troops, and disable the security around the ship. Meanwhile, the Paladins are frantically searching the ship for the missing Comet. But, they’re interrupted when the roof of the facility opens up. What could be so interesting? Well, as it turns out, the Gulra seemed to have recovered at least a fraction of the Mega-Teladuv that the team used during their assault on Zarkon’s warship. Well crap. And, they do find the Comet, or more precisely, what’s left of it. Turns out, Lotor had enough time to have the ore of the Comet processed and transformed into a fighter ship of his own. Double crap.

I can't be the only one who see's this thing turning into a giant
pair of robot legs, can I?

Allura realizes that Haggar might be planning on using the Mega-Teladuv piece for her own plots. And, considering she’s Altean, Haggar can probably accomplish said plots. Shiro and Keith buttheads over tactics via the radio. Shiro thinks it’s better to stick together, while Keith thinks dividing and conquering would work better. Their bickering doesn’t get them anywhere, though, as they’re attacked by Lotor’s Generals. Keith and Acxa cross blades, for the first time confirming that she was the Gulra that Keith saved in the Weblum back in season 2. They break apart, and make for their respective team ships. The Paladins take off, just as Team Lotor steal the Mega-Teladuv piece.

Coran and Shiro move the Castle of Lions to intercept, but Lotor sends out Acxa and the new Attack Ship to counter them. The Attack Ship is much like Voltron, much stronger and faster then it’s size should allow. It probably would have blown the Castle away, but Voltron flies in at the nick of time. And, while Voltron has a better time of it than the Castle, Acxa is able to fly circles around them.  

There are few things in this world quite like earning praise
from ones mentor.

So, here’s the situation. The Paladins can’t take their eyes off Acxa, because she’ll blow them to pieces. And at the same time, they can’t focus entirely on her, as the cargo ship with the Mega-Teladuv piece is getting away. Sort of a rock and hard place situation. But then, Keith has a plan. The team forms the Heavy Cannon and take aim. Shiro shouts that they need to do something about the cargo ship. Acxa targets them and fires. At the last second, Voltron flies out of the way. Acxa’s blast obliterates the cargo ship, and the Mega-Teladuv piece.

The Paladins fall back and they escape. Afterwards, Shiro and Keith have a conversation about leadership. Shiro scolds Keith, a little, but does compliment him on using his head. Rather then getting tunnel vision with their mission, Keith kept his eyes open and figured out a win to a no-win situation. He’s not the leader Shiro was, but that doesn’t mean he’s inept at it.

Meanwhile, Thrak is being tortured for his failings. Lotor must be feeling pretty smug at this point, just saying.

I think the stakes have sufficiently raised with this episode. The distrust between Lotor and Haggar is pretty clear at this point, with both sides making moves against each other. Though, I wonder why Lotor wanted the piece. Haggar has access to Altean power, so she could potentially power something on the scale of the Mega-Teladuv. Lotor, on the other hand, hasn’t shown any potential for magic thus far. So, I wonder if he just wanted the piece so that Haggar wouldn’t have it. While personality wise this kind of fits, but then, he’s usually more strategic then “ha, this’ll really piss her off.” Or so I’ve gotten. I like the way that they did Shiro and Keith’s growing pains in regards to their changed roles. Keith has grown to be a competent leader, and thus tries to direct whenever he can, where Shiro hasn’t lost his own leadership impulses. Their arguments are legitimate disagreements, not petty bickering. I’m actually shocked by the number of shows that don’t do this kind of thing very well. Next time, the season finale. 

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Viewer Log: Voltron ep 29

Shiro's life on the run is far from fun.

You know who I’ve been missing? Shiro. The Paladins just aren’t the same without their leader/dad. While his disappearance was really important during the two episodes of this season, it kind of seems like the team has put finding it’s field commander on the back burner. Which, when you consider the stuff that they’ve been dealing with, is understandable. That all being said, you know who’s about to make a comeback?

Shiro wakes up suddenly in some sort of Gulra medical bay. He’s about as shaggy as I am, which is saying something. Shiro is able to get off the table with some difficulty, and starts stumbling down the halls of the ship. His trip causes, you guessed it, a minor flashback. He remembered the last time he was stuck on a Gulra ship, where they, you know, replaced his arm with a robotic prosthetic. Note that they never expressly state WHY he needed the mechanical replacement. Too subtle? Fine, I think the Gulra chopped off his arm. For science. Maybe. Or torture and entertainment, which seems just as likely. They reference something called Operation Corrone. I think I spelt that right…

There's a face that says "I'm so DONE with crashing."

As he moves, Shiro’s strength seems to return to him. In a matter of minutes, he’s got the strength and stamina he needs to over power several robotic guards and makes a break for it via an escape pod. Wonder if this is giving any of the Gulra soldiers déjà vu. What, it’s a big galaxy, but it seems entirely possible that at least one soldier served on this ship, and the one Shiro escaped from last time.  His pod is shot down, though, and he crashes onto the nearest planet. The captain/admiral/commanding officer rather cryptically mentions that Operation Corrone has hit Stage 3. Oh, that can’t possibly be good.

Shiro must have passed out during the crash, since he wakes up just barely hanging over a ravine. He’s able to escape his pod before it drops, mostly thanks to his robot arm and his hitherto unexplained parkour skills. So now he’s stranded on a planet that’s eerily similar to Hoth, and he doesn’t have Jedi powers like Luke. Oh, this blows chunks.

You know who else I haven’t seen for a while? Haggar. Not too surprising, since she’s probably pretty busy looking after her comatose liege. I guess she’s been paying attention to Prince Lotor’s actions, and she hasn’t been impressed with her temporary Emperor. Which seems odd, since, you know, putting him in charge was her idea in the first place. It almost seems like she didn’t think about what would happen when she put an exiled prince on the throne, even temporarily. She has another of her Generals, a hulking cyborg named Rott, to discretely follow Lotor and report back on his activities.

Shiro is able to survive on Not-Hoth for several days. He even copies Han and Luke and hides out in an animal carcass for warmth. He uses his robot hand’s energy mode to cauterize a wound on his leg, and muses on what could have possibly killed such a large beast. He finds water the next day, and, like an idiot, plunges face first into it. Shiro, what if that’d been salt water? Thankfully, it’s fresh, and relatively clean. I say relatively, because it is infested with a giant crab monster. He’s able to hold his own, but, a lone dude against a predatory animal, that just doesn’t work. Unless you’re Tarzan, which Shiro is not. Thankfully, a group of local hunters come in and save him. But then take him prisoner. Shoot.

While unconscious, again, Shiro remembers being examined for Operation Corrone. Considering he was the one soldier with a pair of scientists, it really isn’t too surprising that he was taken for super soldier tests. Just saying. He wakes up, and discovers that the hunters have slapped a clamp onto his arm, disabling his robot arm’s attack functions. The hunters are some kind of rebel fighters, the Star Wars parallels are everywhere today, but don’t believe that Shiro is a Voltron Paladin, or if Voltron is even really a thing. He basically begs them to try to contact the Paladins, or the Blade of Marmora, but they’re not listening.

Oh, what a surprise, the old witch has trust issues.

Back with the bad guys, Lotor’s team notices an anomaly in space following them. It’s not a huge leap of logic for them to figure out that they’re being followed. Lotor orders the ship shot down, and the pilot captured. Things aren’t looking good for Rott.

The hunters monitor communications from nearby rebel groups and Gulra. Shiro escapes his prison, and starts making a break for it. But then he hears the deep space radio mention Voltron. He changes his mind about leaving, and instead focuses on getting to that radio. He separates the Hunters from each other and takes them down. He proves that he’s not all bad, by not shooting them. The Hunters tell Shiro all about what they heard about Voltron. The last they heard was that the super machine was last seen around Thayserics. You know, the gas planet where they played Wolf and Bobcat with Lotor. So, here’s the rub, the Hunters do have a ship, but it doesn’t have engines capable of interstellar flight. But, there is a Gulra warship nearby that’s scheduled to jump into deep space.  Shiro’s plan, use the freighter to get close, and then stow away on the ship. It’s insane, but it just might work.

His freighter gets shot down, but Shiro is able to sneak aboard the Gulra ship. The Gulra ship warps, arriving during the battle with Voltron. Shiro is able to sneak aboard a Fighter jet, but has to smash is way free when the launch is aborted. He flies after Voltron, dodging the other Gulra fighters, but shockingly, a single fighter can’t keep pace with Voltron, or the Castle of Lions. He keeps flying after them, despite the fact he has like 0% chance of catching them.

Lotor, meanwhile, presents Rott’s cybernetic arm to Haggar. He’s rather annoyed by being stalked by his mystic’s goons. He claims that he’s the leader, now, but he refuses to be like his father. Keep this interaction in mind, I’ll be getting back to it later.

Hope isn't really hope until it is all you have.

Shiro spends a week flying around aimlessly in space. He’s running out of air, supplies, and time. He’s pretty much doomed to die in deep space. Rather then focus on his hopeless situation, Shiro spends his last few minutes of consciousness remembering his friends. It’s this mindset, assumedly, that calls out to Black Lion. The mechanical cat leaps into action, taking Keith and the others to save Shiro.

Shame that Shiro’s time away from the team wasn’t at least a little relaxing. Instead, he spends nearly the entire time almost dying, so it’s like his normal routine but lonelier. These kind of back to basics survival episodes are always kind of nice. Especially in tech heavy scifi. Force the hero to fight for basic survival, it always makes for great entertainment. The moment where he’s passing out, and choosing to think of his friends rather than moping about his hopeless situation was really sweet. Lotor and Haggar’s little story is also rather interesting. It’s clear that there’s a lot of disharmony between the two. It seems like Haggar was somehow under the impression that Lotor would be willing to ‘play ball’ when she brought him back in. But given the guy’s personality, it kind of should have been obvious that wouldn’t happen. Again, remember their interactions here for a later episode. Let’s just say, Lotor should have had a much, much snider comment for the old witch. 

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Viewer Log: Voltron ep 28

Time to cross the dimensional divide.

Who’s ready for some multi-verse stuff? You probably knew that this was coming, if a scifi story lasts long enough, they always seem to go to parallel universes. I wonder why that is? A discussion for another day. Let’s get to it.

I wonder if any of the Paladins remember when this scene
would have seen odd...

We open to something completely impossible. Or, at least, what should be impossible. The Castle of Lions has picked up on a distress beacon. This isn’t too unusual, I have to imagine with the current state of their universe it’d be weird if they weren’t picking up one distress beacon or another. No, it’s unusual because it’s Altean. You know, what Allura and Coran are, the alien species of peace keepers and ambassadors that are now, functionally, extinct? Yeah, getting a distress signal from a species whose entire surviving population is on the Castle is weird. Unsurprisingly, Coran and Allura are quite excited to see if their species might not be completely gone.

They find the ship. This task was made all the easier thanks to the fact that the ship is stick out of a giant hole in space/time. Kind of hard to miss that. They try a few things, before their scanners figure out that the ship is radiating pure quintessence. Now, half a ship sticking out off a hole that is irradiating pure energy might be something to approach slowly with caution, Allura simply refuses to leave the ship even for a moment. Pidge can’t figure out what the portal is, other then kind of freaking. The group fly around the ship, through said portal. Coran loses visual and audio contact with the group as they fly into the vortex. As they fly out, they find the front of the ship. The portal they flew through is pretty obviously a wormhole, as the other side is a completely different section of space, complete with a giant planet floating not too far away. On the other side, they’re now detecting several life signs. The team boards the ship, but can’t find anything.

They are able to restart the ship’s power. After finding a few corpses floating around, they’re able to find a recording. The video reveals that the crew of the ship had found some kind of strange comet. It was giving off a weird energy reading. The crew, who were in fact Altean, were bringing it back to Altea… just before the ship exploded. Yeah, that would definitely put me behind the delivery schedule. A couple of seconds after seeing that, they’re attacked by some fellas in green, one humanoid, another looking like a…giant…centipede… What the heck is Slav doing here? And why is he suddenly a competent fighter? Though, that’s not the biggest question, as Not-Slav’s human buddy is Shiro! Who is now a swordsman. And he speaks in a Swedish Accent. That’s not Shiro. No, this Shiro look alike is named Sven. The two not-quite right characters cause some havoc but are scared off by the arrival of the Altean empire. Oh no.

The Alt-Alteans, upon entering the ship, see Allura, realize who she is… was… will be? And bow to her. Allura is brought to the Commander, Hera, who explains how history went down in this universe. Instead of being frozen for 10,000 years, Allura was able to rally her people and put down the Gulra Empire before it could take hold of the universe. They have since spread across the galaxy as the Altean Empire.

Back in their home dimension, Lotor and his crew arrive and watch the portal as well. Rather then do anything, Lotor opts to wait and see. It’s a win-win for them. Either, Voltron ends up trapped in the other dimension, ridding him of his biggest headache, or Voltron comes back with the Comet, in which case they’ll attack and steal it.

Shiro, now in Swedish.

The others examine the Comet in the cargo bay. It’s a bizarre metal that is the same material that make up Voltron. Just based on a few vaguely creepy things the head scientist says, it’s pretty clear that the Alt-Alteans have a few things in common with the Gulra of the Paladin’s home dimension. Outside, Sven and Slav plant a bomb on the ship. We then get the first bit of concrete evidence that these Alt-Alteans are kind of monsters. Science guy explains that his muscular companion is a Non-Cog, a former dissident that was given a brain implant to keep them calm and compliant. You read that right, Non-Cog’s get their brains rewired to make them nice and docile. Can’t get eviler then that. Hera, meanwhile, give’s Allura a…censored version of these events, to make them sound more palatable. She mentions putting down the Gulra before they had a foothold in the galaxy, the generations of prosperity, and all the other good things the Alt-Alteans have done over the centuries. But seems to gloss over the brain rewiring. Funny that.

The Paladins have a team meeting and agree that these Alt-Alteans probably aren’t the good guys in this reality. They are joined by Sven and Not-Slav, and the two groups agree to keep the Alt-Alteans from the comet at any cost. Unfortunately, the Alt-Altean troopers jump them a moment later. Really lousy timing for that. While the Paladins are getting corralled, Hera convinces Allura to help her and the Altean empire. Using her psychic powers, Allura is able to reactivate the ship and begins flying forward through the breach.

No one should smile when pointing out
extensive brain modifications.

Coran, back on their home turf, is desperately trying to figure out what the bloody hell is going on. He’s even talking to Allura’s mice, trying to get an idea of what he can do. He obviously freaks out at losing the ship.

The Paladins, and the “Guns of Gamara,” as Sven and Not-Slav are known, are brought to Hera and Allura. Seeing her friends in bondage is all Allura needs to realize that she may have made a terrible mistake in helping Hera. While, normally, escaping heavily armed soldiers would prove difficult, things are made significantly easier once Not-Slav’s bomb goes off. The Paladins over power their captors and make a break for it. During the escape, Sven takes a shot for Lance, saving his life and wounding the alt-universe Shiro. The Paladins get to their Lions, form Voltron, slice the ship open and steal the Comet. Not-Slav helps them out by disabling the Alt-Altean ship once again. Pidge does some magic science stuff and is able to get them back to their home dimension. Hooray! But they take a shot from the largely disabled Alt-Altean cruiser as they go. Boo! It’s this blow that disorientates the Paladins long enough for Lotor and his team to swoop in and steal the Comet. Oh that can’t possibly be good.

While I’ll say this episode is very good, it’s also kind of depressing. I mean, the fact that even in a reality where the Gulra are defeated, there’s still an evil empire flying around and causing trouble is just disheartening. It’s like the show is saying that, when a space government grows unchecked, it will inevitably become evil. Even if it was 100% good to start with. And, yeah, the Non-Cog concept is a pretty evil place to go. Not completely sure why, but the thought of forcibly taking someone’s free will, even if it could be argued that it’s for the best, just makes me uncomfortable. And that’s probably why the show runners included that plot point. If you want to make someone eviler then the bad guys, make them someone who screws with brains. This story is also rather sad for Allura. She gets drawn in, believing that she will get to see her people again, see a universe where her kind are flourishing, only to learn that her kind her are as bad as the Gulra back home. It’s a dream to nightmare situation, plain and simple. And Lotor stealing the comet, you know, the comet made of the same material as Voltron, is probably the single worst thing that could happen to said comet. With someone as intelligent and dangerous as Lotor with it, things are probably about to get a lot worse. 

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Twitter: @BasicSuperhero

Viewer Log: Voltron ep 27

It's a game of Wolves and Bobcats. It's like cat and mouse but both animals have a chance at winning.

Sorry this took a while; my day job has me working 14-hour days right now. Since December 3^rd I’ve been up at 4 am to get to work by 5, and mostly haven’t left until 6 or 7. I hope you can understand that, when one has at best two hours of free time in a day, that pleasure projects like their blog suffer. Got to love Christmas time. As such, I haven’t gotten Justice League ready yet. I know, I’m terrible. The good news is that I should have seen it, written it up and posted it by Sunday or Tuesday of this week. Fingers crossed. Until then, let’s enjoy a little more Voltron.

How does he get all that hair in his helmet?

Okay, so when we last left the Voltron Paladins, not only had they been able to drive off Prince Lotor and his forces, but they were also able to slap a tracer onto his ship and are now tracking them down. The group warp to the latest location of Lotor’s ship, but at about an hour’s distance away. They want to fly in and hopefully surprise him. Hunk is the first one to point out that going in guns blazing might not be the best idea. Why? Well, he and Pidge are the only two pilots that don’t need to make any adjustments. Both Keith and Lance are flying two completely different Lions at this point, and Allura is just learning to pilot period. When 3/5ths of your team isn’t use to the machine they’re in, odds are not in your favor. But, Keith disagrees. He seems to be under the impression that if they can take out Lotor, then anything is worth the risk. Which, I can kind of get, cutting down another Gulra leader so soon after the last one might cripple the empire beyond recovery. But, on the other hand, Lotor isn’t one to go down easily.

Case in point, Lotor and his crew were able to detect the Lions tailing them, and is already planning a counter measure. Rather than attack the group with the main warship and risk damaging it, Lotor opts to take his own personal vehicle to deter the Paladins while his ship preps for a warp. He flies out to meet them. Keith, seeing Lotor’s ship, orders a charge. And things pretty much immediately start going haywire. Black Lion is too slow, both in movement speed and reaction time, for Keith’s liking, Red Lion is too fast, with too sensitive controls for Lance to operate effectively, and Allura is pretty much pressing buttons and pulling levers at random. Lotor easily out maneuvers everyone, and smacks the lions around for a while, while the team flounders. The Paladins try to form Voltron, but the disharmony between the Paladins and their Lion’s kind of makes that impossible. Unfortunately, Lotor notices this and decides to capitalize on it.

He flies off, trying to lead the Paladins to the planet Thayseriks. Thayseriks has a completely uninhabitable terrain, an atmosphere of 90% poison gases that are difficult to see through, and a weird magnetic field that makes tracking difficult. Lotor, who knew all of this, prepped his ship for the conditions and used the unique conditions of Thayseriks to his advantage. The Paladins follow, and are easily split up thanks to the death planet’s atmosphere and Lotor’s piloting.

Keith and Lance end up in ear shot of each other, while the other three are scattered. As per usual, Keith and Lance start fighting. I feel like I should make some sort of crass comment about the two of them getting a room, but that’s beneath me. The arguing finally stops when Keith actually listens to Lance, hell having finally frozen over, and realizing that his leadership qualities haven’t really been up to snuff today. They decide to regroup with the others.

Outside the planet’s atmosphere, Lotor’s generals have called in their closest fleet as back up. The main reason why they’re still sitting things out, though, is that Thayseriks’ atmosphere is REALLY unstable in places, as in massive explosions can be caused if the wrong pocket of gas is ignited. So, the four Half-Gulra elect to wait for an opportune moment to strike.

First days are hard enough without laser fire or death threats.

The Paladins have been able to regroup by this point, but they’re still dealing with a highly maneuverable enemy on hostile ground. Lotor continues to outfly them despite their best efforts, tricks them into firing their weapons, causes a massive explosion to separate them again, and ultimately targets the weakest link, Allura. The princess has got a lot of skill, but she’s still only been a Paladin for like two days, so that designation is kind of understandable. Allura is able to shake off Lotor, but is clearly on her last frayed nerve by the time she finds cover.

Keith and Lance end up finding each other, again, fight again, and Lance motivates Keith to do better, again. There’s a fair amount of rinse and repeat with these two. Meanwhile, Hunk and Pidge link up again. Hunk asks the obvious question of their tech guru, can she do something to level the playing field. Unfortunately, the single worst place to ask for tech modifications is when a psycho alien is liable to leap out of nowhere and pepper your ship with holes. Yeah, Pidge is good, but her hands are pretty much tied right now.

Allura, having hidden out in a crevice on the planet’s surface, is trying desperately to get Blue to work with her. She tries to use the Lance approach, which comes across as her hitting on the giant robot, but I guess Blue isn’t impressed. She ultimately swallows her pride and flat out begs Blue to help her out, which causes the mecha-cat to finally sync with its new pilot. Just in time for Lotor to find them. Allura flies off. Thankfully, bonding with Blue let her access the Lion’s more advanced arsenal, namely its sonic weaponry. Using the big sonic blaster as a sonar device, Allura is finally able to outfly Lotor. She leads him into a pocket of the explosive gas, then circles around and uses Blue’s Freezing cannon to coat his ship’s left wing in ice. Lotor bails, just in time for his fleet to arrive.

Victory is Voltron's, for now.

The Paladins are able to meet up. They form Voltron, summon the Leo Saber, and smash the heck out of the bulk of Lotor’s minions. They elect to allow Lotor to escape, so that they can prep and train for another fight. Unfortunately, Lotor has a similar plan. He puts it best, the Paladins bringing Voltron back again isn’t a problem, it’s “an opportunity.” How sinister.

This episode does a lot with a relatively simple premise. The team spends most of the episode flying around an alien planet that is forcing them to adjust to their new roles. Keith gets several painful examples of his lone wolf, shoot first ask questions later, mentality not working when he’s coordinating a team. Lance is forced to repeatedly, and loudly, both berate his teammate (which he’s used to and enjoys) and add moral support when he can (which is new to him and he doesn’t enjoy as much). Allura has the worst of it, as she has to do inn an episode what the others took most of two seasons to accomplish, learning to fly and bonding with her beast. It’s a tall order, but she’s able to figure it out. I get the sense that Lotor is little more hands on then his father was. Don’t get me wrong, Zarkon wasn’t above getting his hands dirty, but that was typically when his goal was within sight. Otherwise, he seemed content with sending warships and soldiers to do the day to day battling. Lotor, on the other hand, decided to be the distraction rather than leave the job to anyone else. Granted, he probably had the best small fighter piloting skills of any of his minions, but nobody said he HAD to fight the Paladins. He’s an incredibly clever fighter, perfectly willing to force the paladins to fight the environment as much as himself. His plan might have worked too, if Keith, Lance and Allura hadn’t worked out their personal issues in such a timely manner. Just saying. The next time we visit the Paladins, things get weird… weirder. 

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Viewer Log: Voltron ep 26

Change begets more change.

This next episode opens on the planet Puiga, the planet that had just liberate itself from the Gulra last time. They seem to be in the process of rebuilding their planet after all of the smashing that just took place… just in time for the Gulra Fleet to warp in. Shoot. The commander of said fleet is Lotor himself. Double shoot. Rather than dispatch a full invasion force, Lotor instead elects to send his generals, whom are under orders to take their enemies alive whenever possible. Each of these four alien hybrids have a specialized skill set that makes them a force to be reckoned with. We have Ezor, the primarily orange one that can camouflage herself and specializes in ambush tactics; Zethrid, a beefy blue half-Gulra that is the muscle for the group; Narti, she looks like a lizard, doesn’t have eyes, but uses some kind of telepathy to see the world around her; and Acxa, probably the most Gulra looking of the group who seems to prefer long ranged weaponry. You may remember Acxa from Belly of the Weblum, where Keith saved a helmeted Gulra soldier from within the bowels of a massive space eel. She pulled a gun on him and fled with a bag of Scaultrite, a crystal material that the Weblum produces in its stomach.  The four generals plow through the Puigan defenses, and capture their chieftain. Lotor lands and speaks with the chieftain. He mocks the Puigan’s faith in Voltron, and offers him a job.

Narti, the one without eyes, freaks me out the most.
Then there's her space-cat.

Back at the Castle of Lions, the group is trying to figure out the best way to replace the Black Paladin. The Paladins ask Allura if she can’t just use whatever psychic powers she used to match the original five with their respective Lion. She says that, while she had been able to do it then, it was because doable because the five were in front of her. It’d be a lot harder to mentally scan the known universe for someone who has what it takes to pilot Black Lion. Keith offhandedly mentions that Shiro had wanted him to take the top spot in his stead, but he doesn’t want it, and it just leads to everybody arguing over why they think they should be Black’s pilot. Coran calms them down, and Allura tells them the plan. Basically, they’re all going to sit in the pilot’s seat and see who Black reacts to. Sound plan.

Allura goes first. Then Pidge, Hunk, and Lance in turn, but Black doesn’t even twitch. Then Keith steps up. He basically prays from the moment he sat down for the machine to not react. His prayers are, unfortunately for him, not answered. Black starts reacting, and the group needs to focus on the new pilot problem. Namely, that if Keith is piloting Black, he really can’t be expected to pilot Red too. Keith tries to turn down the position, but Lance, of all people, puts his confidence in Keith and tells him to do it. Keith, knowing Lance is his biggest critic bar-none, nods and takes the responsibility. With that taken care of, Allura gets into Red and tries to get him to react. She starts tearing up at this, but Red is unmoved. Mild spoiler, but her father, King Alfor, was the original Red Paladin, so not getting to pilot his machine, again, probably stung pretty bad.

Not sure if I'm okay with seeing a member of the Gulra royal
family smile so much. It's unnatural.

Lotor and his people are in the process of reclaiming Puiga. While going over data that the empire has gathered over the last few weeks, he notices that Black Lion hasn’t been seen in a fight since the battle with Zarkon. He order Narti to act. She uses her psychic mind control powers to force the chieftain to activate his special Voltron Alliance distress beacon. The Paladins pick up the signal and make for Puiga. Before taking off, Allura lets Keith know that she’s behind him 100% as the new leader. This seems to give him an emotional pick-me-up on par with Lance’s comment, and he announces that “This one’s for you, Shiro.” Three of the lions take off. Why only three? Because Lance can’t get Blue to drop his shield.

Once in range, Lotor hails the Paladins and announces himself. He gives them the whole “surrender or die” speech before firing on them. Lotor wants to see the full capabilities of the Paladins and so launches his armada’s full strength at the paladins.

Now here's a face that says, "Ow, my pride."

Lance tries desperately to get Blue to react, but the big lion isn’t moving. Allura joins him to find out what the heck is going on. Just when things start looking grim for the others, Red roars, drawing Lance and Allura’s attention. Allura gives Lance a little speech about her dad. Despite being the guy that designed the lions, Alfor realized that Zarkon was the overall better leader in combat. He bowed to him, but served as Zarkon, and Voltron’s, right hand. And Lance, by metaphorically bowing to Keith, showed a similar quality. As Alfor was Zarkon’s right hand, and Keith was Shiro’s, it looks like Lance has to be Keith’s. He takes Red and flies out. Once alone, Blue bows his head and deactivates his shield for Allura. Looks like the princess is getting a chance to get her hands dirty.

Lotor orders his troops to focus on Black, but only enough to keep the pressure on. He wants to draw out all the Paladins if he can. Lance flies in at high speed with Red, running over any ship that get’s in the way. The Castle follows and unleashes a powerful blast on the opposing force. Lotor turns his attention to the Castle, and scores several hits on it. Allura flies in a moment later. The team preps to form Voltron, but Lotor suddenly orders a full retreat. He’d “seen enough.”

After the fight, Lance takes a moment to say goodbye to Blue. He tells the might machine that he’d have piloted Blue to the end, if it were up to him. Allura comes in, showing off her Voltron Paladin armor. It’s pink. She gives a rather silly sounding explanation that Pink is the Altean color of honoring fallen warrions, but come on, she’s in pink because Allura wore pink in the old Voltron. Lance smiles and admits that, if he had to give Blue to anyone, he’s glad it’s her. They gather with the others. Keith, rather smugly, reveals he was able to plant a tracer on Lotor’s ship. They’re going after it.

This was a good introduction into the difference between Zarkon and Lotor. The younger despot is perfectly willing to bid a tactical retreat, to ensure that he can use any information gleamed from an encounter to its fullest. Whereas Zarkon would have just kept hitting them until they broke, or he did. His minions are also of a higher class then his Father seems to work with. Each has a unique skillset that they use to great effect. Zarkon would probably rely on one skilled commander and a thousand robotic drones. It’s your classic quality vs. quantity debate. As for the paladins, the changing of roles was very well done also. Keith is extremely hesitant about taking up the responsibility that is being Voltron’s leader, and it’s really through Lance stepping up and encouraging him that allows Keith to move forward. And, in doing that, Lance effectively severed that bond he had with his original partner, in order to forge a new one. Bet you weren’t expecting this kind of metaphysical stuff from a cartoon, were you? It’ll be interesting how the paladins adapt as they chase after Lotor. The prince is not an opponent to be taken lightly, and yet, the Paladins should never be underestimated either. Here’s hoping for a good fight. 

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Twitter: @BasicSuperhero

Viewer Log: Voltron ep 25

Change is hard. Especially when you need to save the universe.

I’d like to start out by saying that I will be doing reviews of Thor 3 and Justice League, as soon as I find the time to see a movie in theaters. We’ve already hit the busy season in the Post Office, so it’s kind of hard to find the time or energy to see a movie after working a 12 to 13-hour shift. So, I politely ask for just a little more patience. As of writing this post, I hope to have Thor: Ragnarok out by 11/30. Justice League will hopefully be finished by the end of the first full week of December.  While I’m working on that, I figured it’s high time to get a little more caught up with one of the series that really put me on the map, Voltron. Let’s get to it/

At the end of last season, the Voltron Paladins had delivered a decisive blow to the Gulra empire. They had destroyed the Gulra’s Komar (the mystical crystal they used to drain pure life energy, Quintessence, from planets), Destroyed the very expensive and dangerous weapon that was Zarkon’s Armor, and also dealt a near fatal blow to Emperor Zarkon himself. Hooray! But, in the aftermath of the battle, it was discovered that Shiro, the lead Paladin, had somehow disappeared from Black Lion’s cockpit, less hooray.

Really starting to wonder if Kolivan can do other
expressions then sullen.

We open the season onto Keith using Red Lion to search the debris field created by their battle with Zarkon. Keith searches desperately for Shiro, but sees neither hide nor hair of his commander. Which, to be fair, is probably a good thing given that they’re in space. Hide and hair don’t fare well in a vacuum, all I’m saying. Keith eventually gives up, returning to the Castle of Lions, dejected.

Back on the Castle, Coran meets with Allura as the princess preps for a diplomatic meeting. They’re trying to create a formal alliance between themselves, and several planets that had recently rebelled against the Gulra Empire. Apparently, crippling the big bad of the galaxy was all a lot of folks needed to fight back. Who knew? Allura admits that she’s not real confident in how this bit of diplomacy will work out, especially given that Shiro is gone and that without him, Voltron is pretty thoroughly benched. Kind of hard to form the giant robot without the guy who pilots like 2/3 of it. Coran is confident that things will work out, though.

Meanwhile, Hunk and Lance, in the Yellow and Blue Lions, and with a squad of Blade of Marmora (BoM) members attack a Gulra base. The Paladins run as heavy artillery while the BoM act as infantry. The BoM guys show off some crazy Naruto-Ninja moves on the Gulra machines, running at high speed, jumping and slashing at their opponents. While that’s going on, Hunk and Lance try to take out the Gulra’s heavy artillery weapon. The thing is implanted on the underside of a cliff. Lance can’t charge it directly, so Hunk decides to attack creatively. Using Yellow’s massive claws and digging prowess, he burrows into the cliff above the cannon, and smashes it. After that, the Gulra are thoroughly routed. Both Lance and Hunk enjoy their usual vices from the populace, Lance ogles some local ladies, and Hunk enjoys some local cuisine. Ah, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The BoM, however, and its leader Kolivan, unfortunately are given mostly dirty looks. Can’t necessarily blame the folks for mistrusting Gulra, but that’s racial profiling. Just saying. Kolivan mentions to Lance and Hunk that he believes Voltron just existing and fighting has motivated the people as much, if not more, then defeating Zarkon. He advises that things “cannot stand” without Voltron. I get the sense he’s been making this argument a lot lately. The local elder/chieftain/boss guy thanks the Paladins, gives the BoM a dirty look and asks to see Voltron. The boys play it off and invite him to the meeting Allura is planning.

You know, with the way the guys on the right side of the table
are talking, it seems like they think Voltron can fit in the
conference room with them.

In her room, Pidge is watching the video of her brother’s escape from space prison. Probably for the hundredth time, as this girl is obsessed. She’s using the Castle’s computers to test, scan, and analyze the video, looking for anything to help her find Matt. She even has the computer try to figure out the type of explosive used. She puts her search on pause, though, to meet with the others.

The Paladins and Allura meet. There are lots of good things to talk about. Lots of rebellions on Gulra worlds, the Gulra Empire is in shambles without its supreme leader, and it looks like the Voltron Alliance will be victorious. Unfortunately, there is the huge negative of Shiro being gone, and thus Voltron being disabled. No one is happy about that. Allura tentatively suggests that they start looking for a new Black Paladin, but Keith isn’t having it. As far as he’s concerned, if Shiro isn’t piloting Black Lion, no one should. He refuses to give up looking for Shiro, he storms off in a huff after stating that.

We then jump to the Gulra. Zarkon, while still alive, is severely injured and in a coma. He’s being kept alive on some sort of life support. Haggar seems to be the only one who knows how bad of a situation he’s currently in. I guess she’s pretending that he’s hurt, but conscious and making decisions that he relays to her. She orders that no one can see Zarkon but her. While this isn’t the best strategy, it’s probably the only thing keeping the Gulra from falling to utter chaos. One commander, Thrac all but demands to speak to Zarkon, but Haggar tells him to back off. She advices him that if he wants to talk to the guy in charge, Zarkon’s son, Lotor, has arrived to take control of the empire for now. Lotor has been named Emperor Pro tempore until his father recovers. Thrac isn’t pleased with this and storms off. Once Haggar follows, an oddly colored alien in Gulra armor un-cloaks herself and smiles evilly. How ominous.

On the Castle of Lion’s, the New Voltron Coalitions meets. They point out that, while their opponent is cosmic in scale, the fringes of the Gulra empire is beginning to crack. Allura proposes that they gather together all the forces of their group together into a united army of some kind. The gathered delegates, while interested, are more interested in seeing Voltron. Keith kind of flips out, and tells these folks in no uncertain terms that Voltron is out of commission, possibly forever. Kolivan tries to rally everyone together, but the non-Paladins are feeling pretty distrustful of Gulra. Even the Gulra that are fighting the rest of the Gulra. Keith storms off. He does that a lot lately.

Really questioning how Zarkon could have possibly sired
someone with a face like that.

Back with the Gulra, Commander Thrac is watching a gladiatorial match with other Gulra. He and an ally are disgusted with Zarkon’s defeat, and that Lotor is taking over for his father. They take issues with Lotor’s policies, his top lieutenants, and with Lotor himself. They don’t fancy the idea of being led by a filthy half-breed Gulra. They’re pretty much planning a coup. They’re plans are slightly interrupted by the match. A smaller warrior completely trounced a massive opponent. The commanders are impressed, until it’s revealed that the smaller warrior is Lotor.

Lotor challenges Thrac to a duel. Rather than performing a coup, Lotor promises that if he is defeated, he’ll bow out and return to the far reaches of space. Lotor’s generals appear, encircling Thrac. FYI, Lotor’s top four generals are all women, and, like him, are half-Gulra. Given few other options, Thrac agrees.

The two warriors duel. Thrac is incredibly fast, but Lotor is significantly faster. He continually taunts his opponent until Thrac starts getting sloppy. He hits Thrac’s sword with enough force to shatter it. After Thrac yields, Lotor actually lets him live. Lotor gives the Gulra his manifesto, of sorts. He explains he essentially wants to do the opposite of what his dad did. He wants to inspire loyalty in the lesser species of the Empire, not fear, and even allow the most loyal of non-Gulra to be able to attain status in their military. All of the assembled Gulra salute their Emperor Pro temp, swearing fealty. Lotor leaves the ring and confers with his minions. He has Thrak transferred to the far reaches of the empire, as punishment for plotting a coup.

Got to love the crowd's collective "Oh crap, are we going
to die?" face here.

Back with the Paladins, Keith looks wistfully at the Black Lion. He’s joined by the others a moment later. The group talk about Shiro, they agree that they miss him and that Shiro is irreplaceable, but they also know that the universe needs Voltron. Keith begrudgingly agrees.

This is a good start to the season. I like the symmetry between what’s happening with the Paladins and the Gulra empire. Both are reeling from the loss of their respective commanders. One could argue that the Gulra have it slightly more together then the Paladins do, though. They’ve already gotten their new boss all broken in at this point, while the obvious choice for new Black Lion Paladin is just now accepting that they need a new Black Lion Paladin. Need to catch up with everyone else, Keith. Lotor is an interesting choice for replacing Zarkon, as he seems to be the polar opposite of his father in nearly every regard. Zarkon was a war ax; big, intimidating, destructive as heck, and kills with relative ease. Lotor is much more like a dagger; no less lethal then the ax, but smaller, subtler, and more exact with its hits. I especially liked how he bested Thrac. He gets the best of both worlds, he was able to publicly humiliate a rival, show off his way of thinking, win the loyalty of many of his soldiers, and have the continued enjoyment of knowing that Thrac is miserable somewhere in the far reaches of space. Lotor won big, no two ways about it. I also really like the look of Lotor and his Generals. It’s a nice blending of the Gulra Purple with some really interesting new physical traits that Lotor and his Generals got from their non-Gulra parent. It’ll be interesting to see how this series progresses. 

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Viewer Log: Voltron ep 24

When we left our heroes, they had finally gotten Zarkon up against a wall. The evil Emperor’s warship is dead in space, no weapons, no communications, no robotic drones, and the entirety of the Gulra fleet is somewhere on the other side of the universe. And since the Gulra don't have access to a Teladuv or similar super-faster then light means of travel, the fleet won't be meeting up with their Emperor any time soon. So, this will be a quick clean up mission, right? Ah ha haha haha ha. Of course, not. Let’s get to it.

Yep, that's a bad guy entrance.
Purple lighting, evil music, and all!

The Paladins have 20 minutes to completely cripple the warship, by destroying the ship’s bridge, engines, main weapons, and shield generator. If they can do that, then they’ll have taken out the biggest threat to peace in the known universe. If they can’t, the Warship, and all of Zarkon’s drone army, will come back online. I probably don’t have to say this, but it is much, much harder to destroy an active warship then a disabled one. So they need to work fast. They form the supersized Leo Saber, and get to work on the engines.

Within the ship, Zarkon is kind of flipping out. He orders his minions get the ship up and running as quickly as possible. I’m guessing that Haggar and her Druids are biting their tongues to avoid shouting ‘I told you so!’ Haggar, instead, suggests that they use the Komar on Voltron. Remember that thing, Haggar and four Druids float in a circle, and use their magic powers to suck planets dry of quintessence, the life-energy of this universe.  It was kind of important in season 1 when they were draining planets, but for whatever reason they haven't talked about it for a while. I don’t think I used the name before, but it’s called the Komar.. Not sure if that’s the ritual, or the giant crystals the Druids use for the energy sucking. Apparently, she and the Druids can use the Komar to drain Voltron of power. Zarkon isn’t interested, probably due to the risk it might posse to Voltron, and orders her stay out of it. He plans to fight Voltron personally. Unlike the last season finale, however, he wants to go toe to toe with the big Lion-Bot and decides to unveil a new toy. An engineer argues against it, as Zarkon’s ‘Armor’ hasn’t been tested yet. He doesn’t care, smacks the engineer, and tells them to finish prepping it. This alien-emperor has an almost pathological need to avoid advice, doesn't he? While Zarkon prepares to fight, Haggar, who has noticed that her boss’s decision making skills have been poor of late, prepares to drain Zarkon.

If Sci-Fi has taught me anything, it's stay
away from black balls of energy.

The Paladins are able to destroy the Warship’s engines while the villains prep. They go for Bridge, where Haggar is waiting. She and the Druids activate the Komar. It forms a giant black vortex and hits Voltron. The giant fighting robot is completely drained of quintessence, and the Paladins are knocked unconscious as well. In the Castle, Kolivan, the leader of the Blade of Marmora, explains what happened to the assembled group. Allura and Coran understandably freak out with the prospect that their team/friends might have just had the life sucked out of them. Thankfully, Allura is able to make contact with the Paladins a moment later. While physically exhausted and their Lions without power, the team is alright. That is until they see Zarkon’s Armor. The Armor is a colossal version of Zarkon. They’re really driving the Lucifer/Fallen Angel motif with him. What? His custom built Robeast has giant bat-like wings. The first three things that jump to mind when I see wings like that are Bats, Dragons and Demons. Just saying. When Zarkon activates it, he releases a psychic wave that cause Shiro physical pain. Wow, this bad situation is only made worse by the Lions still being down. Allura, realizing how dire the situation is, orders Coran to divert all available power to the Castle’s main laser. She encourages the Paladins to use their bond with their Lions to revive them, as she hits Zarkon with a full power blast. It knocks the despot back, but the defenses of his Armor his impressive, he’s able to take the full power blast and refract it back at the Castle. The Castle-ship is critically damaged. After witnessing the possible deaths of all their allies, Shiro gives an impassioned speech, the team is able to reawake Voltron, and they charge. Zarkon also charges, announcing that he will now “Take back what is mine!”

The team fights an elaborate duel with Zarkon, using all their weapons on the mad Emperor. Unfortunately, Zarkon’s Armor is able to take each hit and keep swinging. Even more unfortunately, Haggar and her Druids have recovered and reactivated the Komar. So now the team has to fight Zarkon while simultaneously dogging the black-energy sucking tendrils. Not a great situation.

Unstoppable force, meet immovable object.

In the Castle, Allura, Coran and co reawaken. The Castle has taken some serious damage, but Coran is hopeful he can get things running again. Being forced to watch Voltron fight two major opponents on two fronts, Allura decides to do something about it. Allura orders Coran and Slav do what they can to repair the ship, and that Kolivan and his lieutenant Antok come with her. While Voltron fights Zarkon, Allura plans to fight Haggar. You go, Princess. The Paladins barely keep Zarkon at bay while Allura and co make their raid. They quickly disable the Komar, and go about taking out each Druid, to make sure they can’t reenergize it later. I’d argue disabling/killing one Druid was probably enough, given that four lesser Druids and Haggar are necessary to activate it, but I suppose this is a better safe than sorry situation.

Zarkon is able to get the upper hand, and uses his extendable chain-blade to break Voltron into its individual lions. Shiro is also knocked out. The other four Paladins are forced to fight Zarkon to keep him at bay. Shiro, for goodness sake, stay conscious during a fight! Allura and her raiding party are able to take out three of the five assembled Druids, and only suffer the loss of Antok. They treat it like a major loss, but seriously, I think he’s in like two scenes. Antok was the one that noticed Keith’s BoM, and then just really stood behind Kolivan, looking intimidating. Can’t really feel emotional weight with this one. Now, if they killed off Coran… no, no, no, not going to put that out into the universe. Nobody touch Coran.

In your eyes. The light, the heat. In your eyes. I am complete.
Probably not what Peter Gabriel meant when he wrote that...

In space, Shiro awakens, sees his friends battling, and that Black has revealed his Bayard port. This helps Shiro rally. He charges, remembering every moment he spent with Black Lion, fully connecting with Lion. It allows him to fully extend Black Lion’s wings, and somehow snatch his Bayard from Zarkon when they collide. The team forms Voltron, and prepares for their last assault.

Allura fights Haggar personally. Allura shows off some impressive staff skills as she trades blows with Haggar. Despite the witch’s speed and magic purple lightning, Allura’s able to get several good hits in. She’s able to knock the witch aside, revealing her full head for the first time. Allura’s shocked to see that Haggar is in fact Altean. The pointy ears, and purple marks on her cheeks are kind of a dead giveaway. Though she’s not as shocked as Haggar is when, somehow, the Princess is able to suck up the magic energy that Haggar fires at her. It’s not expressly stated, but since previous episodes have implied that Allura has mystic powers even surpassing her legendary father, I guess that potential is what let her absorb and purify the evil energies that Haggar commands. Or something. Either way, she channels these new powers to destroy the Komar. Haggar flees. Teleportation is such a useful power.

Haggar, you're about to get rocked by a Princess.

Power returns to both ships, the Paladins are down to the wire. The slam into Zarkon, sticking him with the Leo Saber, but the evil Emperor isn’t out yet. He grabs Voltron’s head and starts electrocuting them. At that moment, Black’s Bayard port starts flashing. Shiro slams his Bayard in, supercharging the Leo Saber. Zarkon’s Armor is blow to smithereens, but Voltron is caught in the blast and forcibly separated. The team recovers in a few seconds, except for Shiro. Makes sense since 90% of the explosion was focused on him. The others grab Shiro, make for the ship, and they all warp away. Hooray!

For those who don’t want the cliffhanger portion spoiled, I’m going to gray out the next paragraph. Just highlight it if you want to know what happens in the last minute. Once inside the Castle, the team runs to the Black Lion. They all climb aboard to find… nothing. The cockpit is empty, with absolutely no sign of Shiro. Where has their steadfast leader gone? With the bad guys, Zarkon is revealed to be alive. Kind of. He suffered major injuries in the explosion, is apparently in a coma, and hooked up to life support. So, really, just alive in the most technical of senses. Since he can’t 1. Sit up, or 2. Take nourishment, being alive isn’t all that great. At least, I wouldn’t want to be in that state. Haggar leaves her Emperor to his treatment, and Haggar orders that someone summon Price Lotor. Had to reveal that last one, since I’ll be discussing it in the conclusion.

Yeah, that's the face of someone down, but far from out.

Well, that was a heck of a ride. The tension is high from the beginning to the end, the music is perfect, and the visuals stunning. I’m not usually a fan of mixing more traditional animation with CGI, but the Dreamswork’s team did a great job with it. My complaint of the last season finale was that it felt like any other episode in terms of the ending. It just kind of stopped, with few if any resolutions. This time, it actually feels like a proper resolution. The team takes on the ultimate big bad, fights hard and is finally able to stop him. Zarkon really pulled out all the stops with this one. His Armor is an intimidating final boss for the team to take on. The combination of the demonic/fallen angel motif with Zarkon’s apparent preferred weapon, his extendable chain-blade, makes for a great fight. Though, personally, I do find myself wondering why he needs Voltron back when his Armor is so impressive. Just saying. And, this is a minor victory considering the losses they’ve incurred, and with the audience learning that while the Gulra are down they are most certainly not out. I shouldn’t sell them too short. Taking the Black Bayard and defeating Zarkon in battle is important. Losing their 10,000-year-old, apparently invincible Emperor will be a major blow to the moral of the majority of the Gulra empire. I imagine Varkon is sobbing at the Space Mall. But, Haggar is still active, which is a major plus for the baddies, and whomever this Lotor is, he’ll most likely serve as a figure head if nothing else. But, if he’s anything like his, I’m assuming, father, I imagine Lotor will be a challenge all on his own. FYI, I’m only confident enough to ‘assume’ that Lotor is Zarkon’s son. Sure, if he’s the Prince then it implies he’s Zarkon’s son. But, given Zarkon’s 10,000 year-long reign, I somehow doubt that Zarkon’s direct children could still be alive. Unless Lotor has also gotten vague Immortality from Quintessence-injections, too. I suppose that could work, but ol Zarky didn't strike me as the type to share such gifts, even with his own children. I know it sounds nuts, but I think Zarkon might be very selfish. Oh, it's been a while since Sarcasm hurt like that.

They also revealed some interesting new plot threads, like the bit I mentioned in the greyed-out paragraph, and the reveal of Haggar’s race. That second point certainly puts Prorock’s comments last season into context. He didn’t just hate Haggar for being a witch, and being Zarkon’s preferred advisor, but for not even being a Gulra. I imagine it’d be as hard for Prorock as a Gulra to trust an Altean as it was for Allure to trust Keith after his Gulra heritage was revealed. It does make me wonder a little more about the crazy old gal’s past, and what lead her to ally with the people that wiped out her species. Plot points for season three.  Finally, I will say, while it doesn’t completely make up for the missed opportunity of episode 22, watching Allura personally take on Haggar was pretty awesome. Sure, Zarkon is the primary threat, but Haggar is easily the second biggest threat in the universe. And Allura is more-or-less taking her one with a bo-staff. That’s about as awesome a character moment that someone can get. So, with all of that in mind, it’s very safe to say the fight is far from over. In summation, my goodness gracious I love this series and hope that season 3 comes out as fast as season 2. Fingers and toes crossed. High fives, thumbs up, and A+’s all around. Now that we’ve finished up Voltron season 2, we’ll cover the end of an Era. Next time, Logan. Cue Johnny Cash music.