Netflix Retrospective: Voltron Legendary Defender Season 1 Episodes 5-7

Tears of the Balmera

Sendak isn’t pleased with the sabotage but Haxus has some good news, he’s intercepted communications and knows that Pidge is trying to shut down the castle’s particle barrier. Sendak sends his troops to deal with it, whilst they work on fixing the engine

Turns out the creatures in the mine are friendly-ish, the male one, who we don’t know the name of yet, tells his sister, Shay to leave as there’s a Galra patrol incoming. Coran begs for their help in the way only he can, but Shay insists they help, they drag the ship out of the patrol’s sight. The male one is Rax.

Pidge has a flashback of her last meal with her father and brother, and the father gives a speech that really doesn’t work in the context of what we know about Earth right now. Her initial reaction to his disappearance was to try and hack the Galaxy Garrison, the Commander was not impressed when he found out. As Allura is about to talk her through shutting down the particle barrier, she’s attacked by the Galra sentries.

She uses a hologram to buy her time to escape into a shaft, whilst Allura contacts the mice for help. Pidge ends up in the training room and uses the invisible maze programme to buy more time. 

Hunk and Coran are given some bug food and they're told that whilst they are enslaved, they’re at least together as a family, as are thousands of others. Rax warns them that their family would be torn asunder if the Coran and Hunk were spotted.

The Balmera used to be replenished with energy when a crystal is taken, but the Galra haven’t done this and the Balmera is suffering, they’re able to communicate with it by touching the ground or walls. The kind of crystal needed is heavily guarded and as Rax mentions, even if they got it, they still have to get out with it through the Galra fleet. There’s also a mention of the mineral scaultrite, which is a hint for something in season 2

Hunk is to fix the ship whilst Coran scouts to come up with a plan. We flash back to Pidge getting her hair cut and entering the Galaxy Garrison, ignoring attempts by Lance and Hunk to bond whilst busy with her own mission.

Back on the Balmera, Hunk and Shay bond, it’s nice. Rax interrupts and pours water over Hunk’s inspirational bonfire. Pidge manages to stop an energy transfer and gets into a fight with Haxus, she pushes him over an edge but he takes Rover with him. For some reason, she decides to make contact with Sendak, who threatens Shiro in order to get her to surrender.

Meanwhile, Coran has come up with a crazy idea to get the crystal, dressing up a sentry, it works kind of. Coran communicates with the Balmera who releases the crystal to them, but they’re soon surrounded by Galra soldiers and Coran pulled his back trying to lift the crystal. They’re locked up but Shay manages to rescue them, and she manages to move the crystal to their pod. She’s risking everything to freedom for her world but Rax has reported them. Shay communicates with the Balmera to buy them time but as they make their escape, she’s captured. For the safety of everyone, they have to leave, but Hunk promises to come back for them.

The mice manage to take down the particle barrier, Pidge uses a hologram to lure Sendak away but it doesn’t work for long, Allura and Keith join the fight, helped by a shot from a briefly conscious Lance. Keith and Pidge keep Sendak occupied long enough for Allura to put a particle barrier around him and the Galra crystal. Hunk uses the ship’s potentially lethal booster to outrun the Galra patrol so they can return to the castle.

Lance is placed in a healing tube, and Pidge has now changed her mind about leaving the team.

It’s a great episode, with a lot of content

Rating 8/10

Taking Flight

The team are waiting for Lance to be healed but get distracted by comparison of time and yes, Coran knew what days were in the first episode, just forget that because just everything is quintents, ticks and vagas now, I don’t know what any of those mean, but that’s just fine.

Lance 'can’t remember' some of the bonding moments between him and Keith. Yeah, I know Lance is annoying this season, and some of his attitudes don’t go away but we get to know him beneath the surface, particularly in the most recent seasons. Sendak has now been frozen in a cryo-pod, he’s too dangerous to be set free but he could have valuable information they can use.

First order of business is to head back to the Balmera and free Shay and her people. But Pidge reveals a secret I revealed to you in the first episode. Don’t get me wrong, the themes of identity are poignant and if it helps Transgender individuals deal with their problems in society, all the better but being honest I’m with Coran, we were supposed to think she was a boy? Lance is a bit shook by it all, but he’s not exactly the brightest tool in the shed.

And so after 10,000 years the castle finally launches into space, to the delight of the mostly static citizens of Arus. Back at Galra HQ, one of the Galra commanders suggests moving the fleet to intercept Voltron, but Haggar’s project is near completion and needs to be tested before the fleet is moved. The Commander then tells his lieutenant to extend a bounty across that region.

The crew receive a distress beacon from a nearby ship that’s lost power, despite Hunk’s objections they decide to deal with that first. They land on the moon where the ship lost power and we’re introduced to some more new characters who’ll be important later, Rolo, Nyma and Beezer. Lance fawns over Nyma and Pidge is fascinated by Beezer.

Hunk insists that they don’t enter the castle, reminding everyone of the bomb attack, and Shiro concurs, Beezer provides a list of parts for him to Coran to find, whilst the others begin discussing Galra tactics in front of a fire. Hunk brings out the parts and insists Rolo try to fix it, warning Shiro that he doesn’t trust them

Nyma manipulates Lance into taking her onto the castle and taking her into the Blue Lion, and taking her for a ride. Haggar begins her experiment, her and her fellow druids use their magic on a planet to draw away its quintessence, leaving it a lifeless husk. Nyma cuffs Lance to a tree as Rolo, having left the others, kidnaps his Lion. Lance struggles to reach his helmet but eventually manages to send word to the others. Lance reveals that when he found the thermal pipe, the cracks in it would normally cause massive damage but then was none to be seen.

The other lions head into space after them. Rolo and Nyma contact the Galra who put out the bounty, he promises them a pardon also, but sends out ships to intercept it. With the Lions in pursuit, Rolo heads into a nearby asteroid belt, Keith is able to pilot through and eventually disables their craft and drags them out of the asteroids.

Without a working ship, they’re being stranded awaiting rescue. How nice of team Voltron, to basically give them a death sentence. Fortunately they somehow survive this. Rolo says he hopes they do stop Zarkon. Meanwhile, Haggar is infusing a creature with quintessence, saying it’ll become a weapon even Voltron can’t defeat.

It’s a bit of a filler episode, honestly not that great

Rating 6/10

Return to the Balmera

Team Voltron arrive at the Balmera, but the problem is putting up a massive fight in the tunnels would only further endanger the Balmera, so they need to lure them to the surface first by attacking the mining equipment. Allura shows them some tech that can monitor positions of enemy troops, BLIP tech, I don’t think this has been used since. But they need to drop the sensors in first. Thankfully, Pidge has worked out how to cloak her Lion so she’s up to doing these.

The Lions are launched and split up for their objectives. Shiro gets a jaw blade for his Lion despite not having a bayard. Keith finds out his Lion has heat breath, and Lance has freeze breath. There’s a Hanger full of ships ahead that needs to be dealt with, so Lance and tasked with that, whilst Shiro and Pidge deal with any Galra soldiers and Hunk rescues the inhabitants.

The commander, Prorok, receives word about the Lions on the Balmera and decides to handle the matter himself, contacting sub-commander Ylvic to lead the attack. Lance and Shiro see the fighters which are not heavily guarded. Lance comes up with a plan to lock down the bay doors rather than blowing anything up and harming the Balmera.

Hunk is informed the prison is very heavily guarded, as Keith is able to shut down the hangar despite not knowing how the computer works, more on this next season. Hunk defeats the suddenly only 2 guards and watches as more head deeper into the tunnels. Hunk rescues a few, including Hax to my irritation as of course he’s an ungrateful sod, but does tell him that Shay is being taken to the core of the Balmera, where all the Galra troops are going.

Keith and Lance prove they can work pretty well as a team when they’re not sniping at each other but the core is ultimately a trap and they’re all locked it. And it seems sub-commander Ylvic has arrived with his fleet and is attacking the castle. Shay sends a message to her people through the Balmera, trying to get help.

Upon getting the message and realising what a douche he’s being, Rax has a change of heart, also it might be that the Balmera has pretty much been drained and their lives are now worthless to the Galra. Prorok reports to Zarkon, but he isn’t that impressed. Rax and his family manage to crush open the door and allow everyone to escape to their Lions. They begin taking out the Galra ships like they’re flying Ants. Unfortunately, the main ship fires its ion canon, and the particle barrier is only barely holding up.

Cue stock transformation, which makes less sense when you realise that happened on the planet, and not in space. Voltron lifts the ship, allowing Allura to fire a beam that destroys it. Unfortunately, it’s not over and Haggar’s monster touches down.

It’s an improvement on the last episode, but I feel the Galra were a little too easily defeated this episode

Rating 8/10