Rebirth
Voltron
draws his sword, ready to fight the monster within, but they soon see it’s not
the same monster they fought before. It fires its laser but Voltron can block,
thought not forever, they try and draw its fire away from the Balmera but
they’re not successful, soon they trip and lose the shield so they try and
flank it by splitting up. Unfortunately the machine extends its arms revealing
it has dozens of laser cannons all capable of firing at once.
The Castle
arrives to help, but with its particle barrier still not at full strength, they
cannot sustain heavy fire, Keith suggests they take out those laser eyes, the Castle to act to cover them but the creature fires every laser upon them and
it’s barely holding on. Shiro gets the Castle to pull back into space whilst
the Lions head into the tunnels where the monster can’t fit.
Inside the
tunnels they hear the Balmera wailing, Zarkon never replenished the energy when
removing the crystals and it’s now dying. And anyone on the planet will die
when it does eventually pass away. They need to evacuate but with the monster out
there, they need to distract it with their lions to allow the Castle to land.
Allura
launches herself at the planet, but Hunk takes a blast for her in his Lion.
Allura makes it to the ground, but the word from Balmerans is that they don’t
want to evacuate. It turns out that Allura is capable of communicating with the
rest of the Balmerans, so she provides a motivational speech to try and get
them to leave and it seems to work. Coran gets the castle to land, we see the
Balmerans head to the surface to board the Castle, but the Balmera’s dying
causes the escape routes to be destroyed.
They notice
the ground beneath the ship is healed. Allura thinks she might be able to
perform the healing ritual to heal the planet, problem is it’s only ever been
done on a smaller scale, so there’s no telling whether she’ll survive the
process. Of course she will survive and this will become a recurring theme
throughout the series. With the Balmerans all helping as well, they begin the
process of healing the planet by resupplying it with quintessence.
With the
team not putting a dent in the monster in their Lions, the yellow Lion shows
Hunk something he can use. The monster eyes the castle and they decide to form
Voltron and try it out, the problem is the transformation scene is long enough
the castle could’ve easily been destroyed but let’s ignore that problem, the
show mostly does.
Hunk’s
bayard produces a giant shoulder cannon, it’s laser isn’t quite a match for the
combined forces of the other lasers but it manages to shut the beast down using
a combined blast assault and Keith finishing it off with a punch. Allura
finishes the ritual and is alive, as expected, with the Balmera up and running
again. Unfortunately, the monster reactivates but just as it’s about to blast
the ship, it gets encased in Balmeran crystal. Where I’m sure it’ll never bother
anyone again…
I do like
this episode, if mostly for Hunk’s development over the course of the Balmera
arc.
Rating 8/10
Crystal Venom
Time for another shakeup of the status quo, 1 episodes
before the finale.
Allura is
talking to her holo-father, reliving old memories. Coran goes to take her back
to rest, since the ceremony took a lot out of her. Pidge is summoned away, and
we get an ominous look at the Galra crystal, or a piece of it Pidge has been
studying. We head to Sendak, who’s been imprisoned since the episode where he
was captured, they’re planning to use Altean memory extraction tech to
interrogate him.
The process
begins but it takes a while and everyone except Shiro leaves for other
activities. Hunk, naturally goes to eat but finds the food goo machine going
haywire. Pidge finds herself in the midst of it too, coming up with a plan to
stop it, at least temporarily. Coran and Lance begin cleaning the healing pods
but Lance ends up caught in one of them, and Coran doesn’t notice.
Keith is
training, practising his sword play, but when he tries to end it, the opponent
continues to attack, even as Keith leaves the training room. Shiro demands
answers from a still captured Sendak and we see some memory extraction is
successful. Coran eventually brings the pod Lance is trapped in back up and
gets him out. Lance is naturally freaked out by this.
Allura’s
holo-father comes to her as she sleeps, Lance sees what he thinks is a ghostly
apparition, then hears Coran’s voice, saying he’s trapped in the airlock and
you can guess what happens next. 30 ticks till the airlock opens and Lance is
trapped.
Shiro hears
Sendak’s voice. Pidge and Hunk are about to begin their analysis of the Galra
crystal when the gravity in their region is switched off and they begin
floating. Keith’s fight with the train robot intercedes with Lance, Keith
manages to get the airlock door open, rescuing Lance and sucking away the
training robot.
The King Alfor
hologram offers Allura the chance to come home, much to the confusion of the
mice. Pidge tries to activate the gravity but her plan doesn’t work. Thankfully
Keith, Lance and Coran arrive and the gravity restores on its own. They realise
that the Galra crystal has infected the ship’s systems and caused all the
glitches, and the mention of Sendak gets Keith to consider Shiro.
Sendak’s
mind games with Shiro and his overall panic cause him to
eject his pod into space before the others arrive. They then realise that the ship
is beginning a wormhole jump, but rather than to Altea, they’re jumping right
into a sun. Coran eventually gets Allura to snap out of it, but she’s forced out
of the controls. The crystal corrupted Alfor’s AI and the only way around it is
to disconnect his power source, shutting him off permanently.
Team Voltron
manage to get to their Lions and use it to slow their descent into the star.
Allura gets to the power source but is confronted by memories, it slows her
down but she eventually shatters the memory tube. With that, Allura is able to
pilot them away from the star, just before it goes super-nova.
This is a
fantastic episode, probably the best this season.
Rating
8.5/10
Collection and Extraction
Team Voltron
begin sifting through what they collected from Sendak’s memories. It’s brought
up here that hitting the Galra command would be a massive mistake, since
they’re not experienced enough, they don’t have the manpower and Zarkon’s been
building for 10,000 years. They’re eyeing smaller targets they can hit and run.
With the
information they collected from him and the Galra ship, they have a location of
‘universal hub’ that appears cloaked the Castle’s scanners. They decide to
check it out; they scan from safe distance and find their universal hub, naturally
cloaked by the two planets it’s between. They plan to investigate, and Allura
volunteers to go with them, since she knows a little. Much to Coran’s dismay,
they agree.
Using the
Green Lion’s cloaking and a radiation burst from the castle, they manage to
board undetected and take control of the bridge. They begin downloading the
data and thanks to Hunk they have improved translation, they’ll get the
information quickly. As they download though a Galra ship arrives. Hunk manages
to stop them sounding the alarm but the data they’ve downloaded is just
shipment schedule. The ship that just landed is off to central command,
the intel they need will likely be there.
Allura shows
she has limited shape-shifting abilities, she’s able to alter the pigments in
her skin to turn purple like the Galra. This way, and with the costume from one
of the guards they took out, she plans to walk on the ship. Shiro assists he
join her and it’s soon pointed out he’s the only one with the tech to interface
with Galra tech to begin any download.
He’s brought
aboard as one of the shipments, meanwhile the others notice yellow stuff being
taken in, to the care of one of Haggar’s druids. Keith goes to check it out,
despite Lance warning him that he could easily blow their cover. Shiro has a
PTSD flashback whilst on the ship, remembering how to time his way past the
sentries on the ship. How convenient.
Shiro finds
a room filled with the vials, I’m pretty sure they’re filled with quintessence
because everything is filled with quintessence. Shiro and Allura make it to a control point
that Shiro can interface with but another patrol will soon come by. Allura
stands guard but soon the hacking gets attention, Allura manages to fend him
off and Keith shows Coran the room, where the druid is performing her magic on the quintessence. The
quintessence is being converted into Galra fuel.
Allura’s
cover is blown and they have to make a run for it out the ship. Keith manages
to steal one of the fuel vials but it gains the druid’s attention. Alongside
electrical blasts, the druids are capable of teleporting. Keith is injured and
worse the ship is about to take off. The Green Lion rescues Keith and in the
process he’s coated in quintessence, which heals his injuries.
Shiro and
Allura make it to the escape pods, but they couldn’t get the door to shut and
sentries are forcing their way in. Allura throws Shiro into the pod, and
launches it, allowing herself to be captured in the process. The pod is secured
by the Green Lion, but with Allura captured they no longer have a choice but to
attack Zarkon’s central command
It’s a good
lead in to the finale, but ultimately does feel a little too soon
Rating
7.5/10
The Black Paladin
The planning
starts for the rescue mission. Keith makes a valid point that bringing Voltron
straight to Zarkon might not be the wisest play, but he’s shut down by just
about everyone. The ship docks with Zarkon’s ship and Allura is confronted by
Haggar.
Coran comes
up with an idea to get to Zarkon’s fleet unseen as Allura is brought before
Zarkon. She tries to attack him, but Haggar stops that. There’s enough residual
energy in the castle to make the wormhole jump to Zarkon’s central command,
they’ll head into a gas planet where they’ll be undetected, but until they have
Allura, there’s no way out for any of them. Zarkon has all his fleet commanders
stand by ready to attack once Voltron gets in.
They form
Voltron, with intent of a hard and fast smash and grab approach, unfortunately,
once Voltron gets inside, the Galra activate a solar barrier to prevent them getting
out. They soon are engaged by the fleet but honestly have little trouble with
them with Voltron’s added upgrades. Thanks to the druids, Zarkon is
communicating with the Black Lion and Voltron seizes up, they’re separated and
a much larger fleet is standing by to attack them. Shiro is being brought on
board the command ship.
Coran
arrives with the Castle to help. Keith notices Shiro’s state and tries to help
but soon the Black Lion falls to the Galra and Shiro is expelled from the ship,
with his thrusters damaged. Shiro is gonna get the Black Lion whilst the others
perform the rescue and Coran provides cover, which considering the castle
barely withstood an assault from a single ship, they don’t have much time.
Shiro cuts
his way into the ship since he has no other means of moving without his
jetpack. Keith disbands from the group and shunts the Black Lion away from the
command ship. Zarkon exits the ship to retrieve the Lion, but Keith decides to
engage. Zarkon withstands his blast easily, and reveals he has the black
bayard, he was once the Black Paladin.
Haggar confronts
Shiro, creating duplicates of herself for him to fight. Haggar fights Shiro
with his demons as the Red Lion and Zarkon continue to fight. Hunk rescues
Allura, but she’s concerned about the Black Lion. Keith is knocked down but his
Lion creates a giant cannon that manages to knock Zarkon back, but it’s only
temporary. Allura and Hunk arrive to aid Shiro, Allura is able to see which of the
duplicates is the real Haggar. Shiro is injured though, his wound is glowing…
we’ll see if that means anything soon I’d suspect. The Black Lion engages
Zarkon and rescues Keith, before falling back.
They’re
about to leave but the solar barrier means they can’t generate a wormhole,
fortunately there’s a traitor in Galra command who manages to deactivate it,
the general who served under Prorok. They don’t leave unscathed as Haggar
manages to use her magic on the wormhole, and the Lions are sucked from the
castle
It’s a hell
of a cliffhanger and a decent episode, again the Galra, outside of Zarkon look
kinda weak in this episode as they’re destroyed in droves.
Rating 8/10
Well that’s
season 1 over with but don’t despair, season 2 is around the corner, which we
will look at next week.
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