Netflix Retrospective - Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 2 episodes 7-9

We continue our look at Voltron: Legendary Defender

Space Mall

It’s been a series of pretty dark stories, time for a light-hearted episode, I guess…

So, the team splits up thusly. Shiro heads out on his own to try and forge a new bond with his Lion and prevent Zarkon from tracking it, everyone else except Allura head to a ‘swap moon’ to get some new teludav lenses, so they can travel via wormhole. The swap moons were run by the Unuli, fierce traders who are also kinda sneaky, space pirates basically. Allura is left kinda bored but the mice, who’ve barely been present since the first episode show up to offer her dinner and a show. Food baked by mice, I hope it turns out like Ratatouie.

So, the Black Lion takes Shiro out on a joyride as the others head to the swap moon. Because of the way swap moons were, weapons and com-links are forbidden and Coran has brought disguises. Of course 10,000 years is a long time, and now they look like filthy traders in a regular mall. When Coran leaves, they ditch the costumes but the Galra security guard thinks they’re actually pirates in human disguise. His name is Varkon.

The Black Lion arrives at the ruins of the Galra homeworld, Shiro sees through the Black Lion’s eyes and sees the ground incoming. Hunk meanwhile has arrived at the food table. He begins snacking and doesn’t realise that they’re not free samples and he has to pay for them. The owner is Vrepit Sal, similar to the Galra’s motto/war chant thing ‘Vrepit sa.’ Hunk is chained to a wall and forced to do dishes, finding on old lady there who’s been doing it since she was a child, purportedly.

Keith meanwhile is being a moron and displaying his knife in public. You know one of these blades was affiliated with the Blade of Marmora. Anyway, he shows it to one of those demo things, I see them occasionally shelling the Mr Whipster (or as MikeJ called it – the wanky whisk) anyway, of course the guy wants to buy it, and when Keith says no, he’s gonna want to steal it. Keith, you’re a moron.

The guy sets off the alarm, alerting Varkon, so he sets off on his slow moving hoverbike. Shiro sees a meteor hit the Galra home-world, I’ll skip the details until we get the full origin next season, but Zarkon is tracking the Lion again. The Mice are performing a circus routine for Allura. Pidge is struggling to work out which bathroom to use. Pidge spent half the first season fooling most of the team into thinking she was a boy, it really doesn’t matter that much.

So after deciding to hold it, she finds Lance at an Earth shop, where did an alien get this sh*t. They find a games console that they’re both interested in. But of course they have no money, or anything to trade with so how the f*ck were they ever gonna get the teludav lenses if they find them. The Earth shop doesn’t often sell anything. He also has a cow called Kaltenecker, because…

Coran spots one of the Unalu and tries to be sneaky but times have moved on and she doesn’t care. Meanwhile Vrepit Sal is creating slime for the guys to eat, despite the fact he was making perfectly good food earlier. His robot chef breaks down so you can guess where this is going. Hunk takes his place and immediately makes things better.

Back to the Black Lion we see he has wings that Shiro hasn’t unlocked, possibly because he doesn’t have his bayard to do it. Shiro is thrown onto the Astral plane with Zarkon, they begin to fight and Zarkon is really strong here.

Varkon discovers the massive crowd of people enjoying Hunk’s food, Hunk has basically turned into Gordon Ramsay, without the swearing. But when confronted by Varkon, he escapes because he’s no longer chained up. Funny that, unfortunately Vrepit Sal now wants him back.

Back at the fight, it’s not going any better for Shiro, but some tough words about how Zarkon sees only power and reaps only destruction and doesn’t see the bond as mutual, convinces Black Lion to save Shiro. Zarkon is blasted back, and remarks his connection is growing weaker. As it turns out they never left the castle, and it was all just an illusion through the Lion’s eyes.

Shiro and Pidge have stooped to pinching pennies from the wish fountain, gaining the money the need for the games console. Hunk meets up with Keith as Lance and Pidge are given the cow with their console, Keith and Hunk run past them, and soon Varkon has all of them in their sights. Coran finds an Unalu swap shop, he eyes the teludav lenses, which the shopkeeper doesn’t recognise, he trades for one of those cubes we saw a few weeks back, eh, Coran has a few of them now.

Anyway, it’s not exactly an epic chase, as soon as they leave, Varkon can’t follow. I don’t really know why. Also, Lance is an idiot and hits his head. So much so that he addresses Kaltenecker as a boy, she has teets, she is clearly a girl, she’ll show up when some comic relief is required. With the bond with the Black Lion now strengthened, they’re heading straight to the Blade of Marmora. Lance and Pidge prepare to hook up the game but find the castle doesn’t have the sockets.

It’s fine, nothing offensive just largely filler. Even Shiro’s arc doesn’t feel particularly epic.

Rating 6/10

The Blade of Marmora

The group are close to the Blade of Marmora’s base, Pidge and Hunk are excited about what the base will be like, in their own unique ways. They find it, between two black holes and in front of a blue star. They really like it well defended. Allura considers that it might also be a trap, and on the suggestion that they don’t go in at all, Keith loses it

They’re soon greeted by a computer asking for their identity, Shiro gives the answer, the computer replies that only two can enter and they must come unarmed. Because of the particularly tight flying required to get into that base and the heat, the Red Lion is best suited to enter the base, which means Keith and Shiro are heading in.

En-route Keith and Shiro discuss that little outburst and Shiro reaffirms his desire that he lead the group if anything ever happened to him, guess what’s gonna happen in the season finale. They only barely make it to the base and because of solar flares, it’s closed off for 2 days. They land and are greeted by the Blade of Marmora, two of their members escort them in.

Meanwhile one of the Galra is taken to Haggar for questioning. Shiro and Keith are taken deep into the base and they meet Kolivan, the blade’s leader. Kolivan operates the Blade of Marmora with the upmost secrecy so isn’t exactly pleased that Ulaz divulged his location; or sacrificed his life. Kolivan then remarks that they were told to come unarmed, and it’s revealed that Keith has brought his blade, because he’s being a bit of an idiot of late.

It’s definitely a Marmora blade, they ask who it was stolen from but Keith says he had it all his life. They ask Shiro to corroborate but since Keith has been secretive about it, he can’t. Kolivan asks them to leave but Keith is adamant on getting answers. There’s only one way to do that here, face the trials of Marmora. If he survives the blade is his, and its true power unveiled.

Keith faces his first trial: an arena, he fights a Blade soldier, and as we know they’re quite formidable. He has Keith on the ropes but Keith won’t quit, he stands down and tells Keith not to head through the door. Keith heads through the door and ends up back in the arena, now up against 2 Blade soldiers.

Again, Keith is beaten but doesn’t quit, heads through the door and now faces 3, he keeps going, with more and more Blade soldiers coming in each time. Allura’s getting concerned, but the path isn’t open for a while longer, and because of the sun and black holes, they can’t get any reading on it. Hunk has an idea to try and connect to the Lion’s sensors. 

Meanwhile Thace inserts a chip into the computer systems and begins typing, he’s interrupted by a Galra soldier, who says Haggar wishes to speak with him.  Keith notices a the hole where the Blade soldiers rose from is closing, he jams it open with his blade and slips through. But he’s badly beaten from the experience and faints from exhaustion. He sees Shiro come to save him, it’s an illusion from the suit, but driven by his desires and Shiro is who Keith wants to see.

Unfortunately, illusion Shiro is a bit of a dick, something which is gonna crop up again later, we’ll get to it. When he decides to keep the knife the illusion moves onto him seeing his father, he says he got the blade from his wife, Keith’s mother. He also sees Earth being invaded by the Galra outside, but he’s really just lying where he fell unconscious. The Red Lion wakes up this.

Thace undergoes Haggar’s interrogation and seemingly comes out unscathed, Haggar demands his help in rooting out the traitor. The Red Lion begins attacking the base, sensing Keith’s predicament, Shiro rushes to help but the Blade soldiers won’t let them leave with the blade since it hasn’t been awakened.

Keith has a realisation and surrenders the knife, their alliance is more important than answers for him. But this act is enough to awaken the blade, turning it into a sword. This is only possible if Galra blood runs in his veins. He is part Galra. Coran and the others are about to mount a rescue but Shiro contacts them form the Red Lion, they’re bringing Kolivan aboard. He’s just been informed about the Galra trying to root out the spy. They need to begin their attack plan now.

I really like this episode, the Blade are interesting both as allies and antagonists different to the Galra and that ties nicely into Keith’s personal arc.

Rating 8.5/10

The Belly of the Weblum

Ah, you remember the hint back in season 1 about the Weblum, well time to pay that off. We open with Hunk sleeping, he’s been asleep for 3 hours and in that time the others have a plan to defeat Zarkon. Allura’s sceptic, the plan should work, if they all stick to it. The Blade say that when it works, she’ll learn that not all Galra are as bad as Zarkon, she looks at Keith.

So, the plan goeth thusly, Thace will upload a virus into Zarkon’s ship, shutting off its power, they’ll then wormhole the ship away from the fleet and form Voltron. Look, we’re at season 2, we know this plan won’t work perfectly but they’re dedicating 3 episodes to planning the attack, it had better be something is what I’m saying. Anyway, they’re gonna need a lot of stuff to conduct this attack. Including the scaultrite to create lenses for their giant teludav.

For the plan to proceed on schedule the team needs to split up. Keith and Hunk will be getting the scaultrite. As they leave, we see Allura is having trouble even looking at Keith. How did she find out about his Galra blood again? It’s not like Keith would prance around telling everyone that and Shiro can keep a secret.

Anyway, they head off first with Shiro, Lance and Pidge heading off in a different direction. Coran has a mission of his own and heads off on his own, leaving Allura to head to the Balmera to get a crystal. Zarkon is having trouble connecting to the Black Lion, Haggar asks if he needs rest but he insists on trying again.

So Hunk has a lot of vaguely irritating questions for Keith about his Galra heritage… I repeat my earlier question as to how he even knows. They watch the tutorial from a much younger Coran, but the file is corrupted and certain bits of information are missing. They come across some dead planets, likely destroyed in one of Haggar’s quintessence rituals. Since the Weblum feeds on dead planets, well, guess where it is.

After much scrolling, they’re told to stay away from the Weblum’s face. Guess where they are when they hear that. It fires a giant blue laser that Hunk is barely able to evade, but they find the creature has a blindspot just behind its eyes which is also an entry point. They have a vague idea of what do whilst inside, find its third stomach and activate the Weblum’s natural defences that produces the scaultrite.

They find their way inside. But there’s bad news in the ship, one of Haggar’s druids has analysed the destroyed sentry and found trace elements of Luxite, the material of the Blade of Marmora’s blades. He asks Thace to help him find any more of it. Unfortunately the druid has also been instructed to stay by Thace’s side until the staff are cleared or the spy is found.

Hunk is initially disgusted by the Weblum but Keith calms him down, then cracks a joke about Hunk throwing up a lot, something I’ve rather glanced over in these retrospectives, Hunk is amused that Keith made a joke. They’re soon attacked by digesters (they don’t have a name, so that’s what I’m calling them) Hunk somehow ends up in the bloodstream as Keith dives through the stomach acid and ends somewhere else. He finds someone trapped in a pod, a Galra. Keith frees her (and yes, it is her) she turns her ship into a bomb so they can avoid the digesters, she and Keith meet Hunk at the third stomach.

The digesters attack again but they’re being excreted from the rear of the Weblum. Hunk realises to produce the scaultrite he needs to get excreted out and attack the creature’s face, so it fires the blue laser. Thace had briefly escaped the druid but is soon informed that they’ve found no luxite in the lower levels, the druid insists on staying with him again.

Keith and the Galra soldier take cover as a ton of Scaultrite is produced, pity it wasn’t producing it the other two times the laser fired by maybe it digests quickly or something. So, Keith begins bagging up the scaultrite but the Galra soldier draws her gun, taking one bag of Scaultrite and leaving. Keith comes out with like 20 bags of it, where he was keeping those bags I have no idea.

It’s a solid episode with an unconventional pairing, highlighting Hunk’s character more than Keith’s even with his subplots.

Rating 7.5/10

We’ll be taking a break, but we’ll be back in September to finish this season