Netflix Retrospective - Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 5 Episodes 1-3

OK, we’ve got to season 5 and since I wrote the last retrospective, Voltron has become somewhat a subject of controversy for certain narrative decisions in its final 2 seasons. I will cover the particularly controversial elements in due course, my opinion is that they’re well-intentioned but badly thought through, particularly with the announcement in the marketing for season 7, something I’ll get to when I eventually cover season 7.

For now, though, we’re only on season 5 and there’s only 6 episodes to cover as once again, the season was split in half so they could put more releases out, let’s see how this half holds up.

The Prisoner

We open with the Paladins attacking the ‘moon of Tragoch,’ where upgraded sentries are purportedly being produced. Thanks to that intel, they’re able to get past the moon’s outer defences rather easily before heading inside.

They head down a long tunnel, and Shiro warns them not to touch the sides, but, being in the biggest and least nimble lion, Hunk touches the side. This causes the entire tunnel to be flooded with molten metal. What was this tunnel for exactly?

Allura freezes the lava, holding it back, if briefly, but the Galra are alerted to the presence. The ice breaks and the lava gains on them, making matters worse they reach a dead end, their only hope is to form Voltron but if you believe the transformation sequence, that actually requires a fair bit of room... So naturally that fact is ignored and they form Voltron anyway.

After another year of your life passes, we cut to the Galra, believing Voltron to be dead for some reason, a theory that’s soon disproven as Voltron wrecks the base, forcing the Galra to ignore their mantra of ‘Victory or Death’ and run away like little sissy babies. Back at the castle, the character unnaturally exposit their adulation about their victory but of course, the intel is coming from Lotor

Allura isn’t comfortable and feels like there’s an ulterior motive at play. She and Shiro go to pay him a visit… is he being kept in the castle? Huh… Lotor claims his intentions are to return the Galra Empire to peacefulness, something which his actions in early season 3 do not match with. Since the Galra Empire relies on quintessence, provide it without the need for bloodshed and everything could change, which is what his plan was in the latter part of season 3 and season 4. He makes a pretty speech about his actions and prejudice and it’d be potentially interesting if it weren’t for his actions in the first half of season 3 and the fact that he was a villain in the original Voltron series.

It would be a genuine surprise if he ended up being a good guy, and without revealing too much he’s definitely not his father and has his own motives and agenda. We get a good scene between Lance and Princess Allura, as she prepares to make a speech and he tries to lighten the mood and ends up making a fool of himself, you know, classic Lance.

Allura makes a speech to the members of the Voltron coalition, but since ultimately she reveals no new information I’m not entirely sure what the point was. Kolivar and Keith have begun conducting raids with the Blade of Marmora, also using Lotor’s intel, which has all checked out. With so many targets being hit, it’s suspected that soon the Galra will change protocol, realising that the coalition is using inside intel. Their plan for this is to hit as many targets as they can as quickly as possible. Allura is still not convinced Lotor doesn’t have his own agenda.

They talk to him, as he warns that any further intel he has would be more dangerous, but offers something useful. A prison he once controlled that houses Pidge’s father. Pidge is busy with her brother repairing ships damaged during the s4 finale. They even repaired Beezer. Shiro and Allura contact her, whilst they can be there a while, she can be there sooner, with Rolo, Nymar and Beezer volunteering to back her up.

They arrive at the prison, cloaking the Green Lion, but there’s some sort of detection shield that turns them visible again. Galra fighters swarm the Lion, forcing Pidge to drop the others off so they can carry out the mission. There’s a small incident with Matt’s jetpack malfunctioning but Beezer saves him. They head inside the prison but see a bunch of destroyed sentries outside and the picture looks the same on the inside.

There are a bunch of prisoners, who instinctively recoil upon seeing them, thinking they’re with the ‘scary lady.’ Matt scans the room but his father isn’t among them, he goes to check the cells but doesn’t seem to find anything. Unfortunately the situation isn’t great for Pidge, she can’t collect them or she’d risk bringing all the ships to them, instead they load all the prisoners onto a shuttle, and take off. The thrusters can’t take the weight, as they’re only designed to carry 5 but they’re high enough that Pidge can pick them up. Just to show how small that shuttle is, it fits in the Green Lion’s belly.

They pass back through the shield so the Green Lion can recloak. But there’s no joy on finding their father. Zarkon is contacted by Lotor’s generals, who say they have something of interest. Soon after Zarkon contacts the castle. He wants Lotor in exchange for Pidge’s father.

This episode is a decent idea, but might’ve served better with a bit more time given to it, nothing is fleshed out beyond the surface.

Rating 7/10

Blood Duel

We open with the castle sending a pod down to the planet below, Shiro and Pidge in the front and Matt is in the back, they arrive and wait for Zarkon.

We flash back to just after that message, where Pidge is all for making the trade. Shiro makes the actually quite reasonable point that they should operate under the assumption that Zarkon would double-cross them but Pidge’s anger makes her lose all sense of reason.

Back in the present, Zarkon arrives on a small shuttle. We flash back, to them confronting Lotor with this information. He tells them that this trade would ultimately backfire badly on the coalition, which he’s half-right about but there is still the essence of him saying whatever he needs to to keep himself alive. Pidge is still acting like a friggin moron. I know family is supposed to be a thing for her, but she’s supposed to be the smart one!

The trade is seemingly legit. In flashback, Haggar enters a pool of quintessence, I think and begins seeing parts of her old life, including the fact that she was Lotor’s mother. There’s an episode in season 8 that dives further into this, but her remembering that Lotor is her son changes everything for her, and is a beginning to a major arc that lasts the rest of the series.

They begin the trade and Lotor and Matt begin walking toward their respective parties. Pidge jumps the gun and races towards him but soon realises that he’s a hologram and Zarkon still has him. So, Zarkon betrayed them, massive shocker there and now they hold no negotiating power with Zarkon. The other paladins can’t move in or risk the Galra fleet doing the same.

In flashback, we see Haggar ask about Zarkon, and she finds out about the exchange. In response she contacts the people behind operation Kuron and tells them to initiate stage 4 immediately. Zarkon demands the Lions in exchange for Commander Halt but it turns out Shiro had given Lotor his bayard, he escapes his cuffs and he and Zarkon fight.

With Zarkon distracted the others race to his ship to get Commander Holt. With everything in tatters the ships begin moving in, so time for the other Lions to come in an assist. Shiro, Pidge and Matt break into the shuttle, but now have to face Acxa, Ezor and Zethrid.

Shiro fights Ezor, Matt and Pidge fight Zethrid, Pidge manages to knock down Acza, sending the shuttle plummeting, she quickly recovers and tackles Pidge, and everyone falls from the controls, the falling also a producing a zero-g like environment to add tension to the fight. Lotor strikes a critical blow on the quintessence tubes that were feeding Zarkon. Meanwhile the others are easily taking out the Galra forces and seem to have wiped them out. Lotor’s generals are defeated and knocked out of the plane and Commander Holt pilots it to safety.

Despite his critical strike, Lotor seems to be on the verge of defeat, Zarkon prepares to strike a critical blow but is knocked back by the combined efforts of the Lions, he prepares to strike back, but Lotor stabs him through the chest, killing him for good this time. He’s been back only about 8 episodes and hasn’t done anything of note since and now he’s dead.

It’s a major step forward with the plot, but I can’t help feeling it was a bit rushed.

Rating 7.5/10

Postmortem

We’re back Olkarion, which is transforming into the Capitol for the Voltron coalition, and I can’t help but sigh a collective sigh knowing what’s going to happen in season 8.

The news of Zarkon’s death has travelled quickly, so generic Galra Commander #372 decides to make a move on Voltron. On the castle, Lotor’s actions have allowed him freedom, even if it doesn’t comfort everyone.  Yup, he proved his intentions for piece by murdering your enemy for you. There’s a weird animation issue with Lotor that you can see his eye underneath his hair, it’s quite distracting.

Anyway, Lotor tells them that with Zarkon’s confirmed death, high ranking Galra will gather for something called a Kral Zera, where a new leader is chosen, they need to be there. Lance and Alura both bring up that that means going into heavily armed Galra territory and would be extremely dangerous, Shiro back’s up Lotor and you know what, so do I. If the Galra select a new leader, everything they’ve accomplished could well be for nothing. In fact, they could end up with an even bigger threat once they become organised again.

But it seems like everyone else decides it’s too dangerous and their reasons aren’t entirely without merit either. And we find out that arming Lotor with Shiro’s bayard was done without consulting the others. Are you f*cking kidding me! They had no plan in case Zarkon betrayed them, something that was warned to be an option time and time again!

Shiro’s aggressiveness in this scene is… We see Haggar looking through what appears to be Shiro’s eyes, although probably too low. An assassin or 3 tries to takes her out but Haggar gets the drop on them and then kills Generic Galra commander #373

Lotor’s generals are imprisoned on the ship, believing that they’re doomed by Haggar has another idea, she wants them to bring her a challenger for the Galra throne. Generic Galra Commander #372 fires upon Olkarion. A generic device of certain doom arrives and begins leaking a toxin, a toxin that begins taking control of the greenery around it

Rather than dealing with the imminent unknown crisis, Lance is training and manages to unlock a second form for his bayard, a broadsword. By the luck of convenience Allura is there and the two talk, Lance gives what few pearls of wisdom he has and Allura remarks that it has helped her. How long before they hook up?

Pidge and Matt inform their father that they can’t come home with him, as they still have a lot of work to do. The virus the Galra had sent out has now made the trees form a cannon that attacks Shiro and makes him deploy the entire team. Generic Galra Commander #372 decides to descend slowly because dramatic, I guess. The vines have begun infecting the city

Pidge analyses the impact site, seeing a kind of ‘invasive plasma’ (because they really figure out what this stuff is, toxin, virus, now plasma) and sends it for her father and brother to analyse whilst the Paladins form Voltron. Voltron is sent to the ground by an attack, and the vines hold Voltron and eventually compromised. They plan to use the bayards to free themselves as they’re being brought in by the Galra cruiser. Matt and Sam arrive to help with the vines in the city, wearing a headset to interface.

The Paladins enter a kind of Voltron mind-space but Shiro seems to be missing. He eventually arrives as everyone but Lance and Shiro turn into energy beams. Shiro asks Lance to listen to him, but he can’t hear. I’d hoped something could’ve come from this but no, unfortunately it’s just a hint that gets overlooked. Voltron manages to free himself and the combined efforts of Matt Sam and the Olkari have defeated the vines and destroy the ship. Now all that remains is the plant cannon thing, most of them are tied up but fortunately Lance gets to fire the finishing shot.

Pidge and Matt get to say goodbye to their father, as Lance asks Shiro about what he was trying to say, Shiro says he didn’t say anything and in fact blacked out. Lotor’s generals bring back a surprise returning face, it’s Sendak

It’s a pretty intense breather episode, allowing for some various character stuff to start playing out. I just wish the Lance bit had payoff later on.

Rating 7.5/10