VLD8x08 – “Clear Day”
8x08 – “Clear Day”
This episode is so frustrating. The carnival is a waste of time, but that’s less frustrating than Allura’s hallucination and dream. All writing is a choice. If you write a cryptic dream into a story, it has to be for a reason, it has to mean something. And I want Allura’s hallucinations and dream to mean something. I feel like I desperately try to tease out a meaning from it when I watch it. But I don’t know what it means. It’s never explained in the show, and it’s so frustrating. Ultimately, I end up so annoyed by it that I just think that the show’s creative team didn’t actually have a real meaning for the hallucinations and the dream. I think they probably just had these cryptic moments for no other reason than to just be cryptic. I don’t think they thought they had to have an explanation for what it all meant, let alone that they had a storyteller’s obligation to explain it in the story.
I’m left feeling that this episode is just more audience manipulation, and I’m not okay with that.
The episode starts with Allura talking to Tova. Hunk’s cookies caused zealots who wanted to commit genocide to now want to cooperate with Allura. That ending scene last episode leading into this cooperation really only works if you ignore everything the show has established about these Alteans. If they had only been angry and hadn’t really done anything and were captured and then they ate cookies and calmed down and changed their mind about Honerva, that would be fine. But the show specifically identified these Alteans as the ones who were piloting the Robeasts, and those Robeasts were used to drain the quintessence of several planets. Just because the Rebels seem to have been able to evacuate the population of those planets doesn’t negate the fact that these Alteans were trying to commit genocide. It really is creepy that this show just ignores that now.
Tova tells Allura that he doesn’t have much time to talk to her. This connects to how in 8x01 “Launch Date” when Luca talked to Romelle, Honerva remote killed Luca. Tova says, “Now that she has Lotor, she will use him to destroy everything—” So the show is again explicitly saying that Lotor is back. Tova states this as fact, so Honerva had to have specifically spoken to the Colony Alteans about this being the goal. Since Lotor doesn’t actually come back in this show since he’s a melted corpse, are we supposed to assume (assume, since the show never bothers to show us) that Honerva was just lying to the Alteans?
Tova convulses and falls on the floor, two creepy-mask medical personnel (seriously, who thought the visual design on medical personnel was a good look?) come in, and Allura tells them to back off. At first, I thought it was weird that she was keeping Tova from receiving medical attention. She kneels down, holds out her hand, and her hand starts glowing, and I thought she was going to use her magic healing like she did with Lance in 6x01 “Omega Shield.” Then she says, “I feel something.” Why is she only feeling it now? The entity has been in him the whole time.
She apparently magically pulls a rift creature, last seen in 3x07 “The Legend Begins,” out of Tova. I really wish this show had not brought the rift creatures back into the story since the story doesn’t really do much with it beyond this episode. The creature flails around the room. Monitoring outside is Sam and Matt’s robot? cyborg? person in a mask? girlfriend. Why is she even part of this scene? Why is Sam even in this scene really? He’s not a doctor, he’s not a diplomat, he’s not the ship’s captain, he’s not Romelle or Coran, so he doesn’t have a cultural investment in this conversation. Sam is the ship’s engineer. There is not reason for him to be here except that they wanted someone to speak technobabble. Why couldn’t that have been Coran? He knows a lot about technology and could have thus spoken technobabble, and he would have had a reason to be watching because he’s Altean, Allura’s there, and they’re trying to get the Colony Alteans to cooperate. Having Coran here would have made so much more sense than having Sam, and Coran has the added benefit of being one of the show’s main characters. So, once again, the show has shoved a main character to the side in order to give time to a side character.
Allura, Tova, and the medical personnel exit through the door, and conveniently, the rift creature does not attempt to follow them as they do so. Sam hits a button, metal in the room clumps together in the center of the room, and then cut to their having somehow gotten the creature out of the room and into a small container. Allura tells Sam that the creature was trying to communicate with her. I use this stated attempt to communicate as being the foundation for my attempts to interpret Allura’s hallucinations and dream.
Curtis and Shiro directly talk to one another! About a picking up “an abnormal signal.” So, you know, clearly, they’re in love.
It’s the guy from that planet in 4x04 “The Voltron Show!” where the weather is only clear one day out of the year. Like in that episode, this episode seems to think saying Coran’s inability to know what day it is on that planet is the result of “time dilation.” It didn’t work as a joke in “The Voltron Show!” and works even less as a joke now because the way it’s used this time doesn’t even seem to come from understanding what time dilation is. The “abnormal signal” that Curtis picked up was solely that there are a bunch of inhabitants on the planet who are currently on the surface. That is not a signal!
The alien guy rants at Shiro when Shiro suggests it’s too dangerous because of some miscellaneous threat. The Galra have completely ceased to be a thing in this show. We’re to somehow think that a universe-spanning military dictatorship culture that has lasted for 10,000 years has stopped being a problem because Honerva killed a handful of people in 8x02 “Shadows.” Honerva hasn’t been spotted in a while and is leaving no wormhole trail, according to Allura last episode. So, what’s the danger that Shiro is so worried about that he thinks a planetary cultural event should be cancelled?
The alien guy tells Shiro if he’s so worried about their safety, then they can come provide security free of charge. Shiro tells Veronica to make a shipwide announcement, “We’re going to Clear Day.” Cut to them seemingly having already arrived because Lance is asking Allura if she’s sure she doesn’t want “to go down to the carnival.” Allura says that she wants to rest after what happened to Tavo. Lance offers to stay with her, but she tells him to go, to “win [her] a prize […] something sparkly.” One cliché guy-winning-a-girl-a-prize-at-a-carnival reference, check. Even with it being totally cliché, I do actually like that Lance seems genuine about wanting to get something in order to try to lift Allura’s spirit when he arrives on the planet. The fact that he’s having to lift her spirit though, continues supporting my argument that Allura was depressed this whole season.
Once again on this show, a planet is populated only by a small number of people in a single, small location. Why is the show like this? Every alien civilization (other than the Galra) only has a planetary population the size of one town. It’s so off.
Pidge and Hunk offer to help Lance look for something for Allura. Keith overdoes it with the professionalism (which is slightly endearing) by being too focused on their providing security for the event. Shiro, who had been the one who initially was so worried about whether the people of this planet should be having this event due to miscellaneous threat, now doesn’t seem to remember he was worried earlier. Now, he tells Keith, “Relax. Go have fun.” Keith asks, “If we’re not here for protection, then what are we even doing here?” So, yeah, about two-and-a-half minutes after having said, “Are you sure hosting a celebration is safe? This sector has seen a lot of hostile activity lately,” Shiro has now been written to have a totally different motivation, telling Keith now, “Morale on the Atlas is low after what happened on Oriande. Who knows, a few hours at the carnival might just give us the boost we need to get back on track.” This show can’t be consistently written for even three minutes. This latter motivation of Shiro wanting to boost the crew’s morale makes a lot more sense than his earlier concern about a miscellaneous threat. Although, they’re only going to be here for a few hours? I thought the celebration was supposed to last an entire day.
Back on the Atlas, Allura wakes up and hallucinates Lance. He talks about the Altean flower that Colleen was growing last episode and has since given Allura. “I had assumed they had gone extinct,” she says thereby marking the flower as a symbol of the Altean people. She hears Lotor’s voice saying, “You should know better than anyone nothing ever truly goes extinct.” Lance is gone, and then Lotor is there. He says, “It’s good to see you again, Princess. You know, the ancients believed that all of life began with a single juniberry flower.” Allura summons her bayard and tries to cut through Lotor, but she only damages the wall and floor, not him.
He tells her, “You and I desire the same thing. We both seek to destroy Haggar.” Allura counters, “Haggar? Haggar is no longer. She is Honerva now.” I know the show desperately thinks it has told a story about someone who has differentiated personalities caused by quintessence poisoning, but it really hasn’t. Haggar, Honerva, it doesn’t matter what name she uses or what appearance she’s taken on, she’s still the same person. Lotor agrees with me, “Though I could rename this a highland poppy, you and I would still know what it truly is. The witch may change her name, but she will always be a witch.”
It’s really baffling in a way. It’s like this show doesn’t even know what position it wants to take about the fundamental truth about Honerva. The show very much expects the audience to consider Honerva absolved of her behavior post-quintessence poisoning, but here it has someone arguing that Haggar and Honerva are just two names for the same person, so following through with that, Honerva most absolutely shouldn’t be forgiven for her abusive and genocidal behavior.
And since this isn’t really Lotor talking but the rift entity, what are we supposed to think about Lotor here telling Allura this. What Lotor is saying is totally right, but are we supposed to interpret this as the rift entity manipulating and deceiving Allura? The show did expect us to think everything Lotor said in seasons five and six that was totally truthful and accurate were actually manipulative lies. It’s so weird. The way this show does this by having him say things that are so clearly true, but then to try to say those clear truths are deceptions, it makes it feel like the executive producers and writers of the show are trying to gaslight the audience.
I’m curious if the rift entity is projecting Lotor saying this because it actually does recognize Honerva for what she is. The last time we saw a rift creature was in 3x07 “The Legend Begins.” Honerva had one in a forcefield bottle. Because it becomes aggressive and attacks and more of its kind come through the rift, combine, and attack, I went right along with the idea that it was a malicious creature. But thinking about it now, it could have been really interesting if we eventually found out it wasn’t malicious whatsoever. The first time we ever see it, it’s been captured and imprisoned by Honerva.
Allura says that “there’s nothing [she] can do to counter [Honerva’s] abilities.” Lotor says she’s wrong. “Everything you need is here,” he says. He causes her to have a vision of the rift entity. He says, “It is an ancient form of energy that predates time itself.” So, is it energy or is it a creature? “Entities like this gave Haggar the ability to conquer worlds and control the universe for 10,000 years.” Uh, how? This is the first time since “The Legend Begins” that this show has brought the rift entities into the story. The show has not shown Haggar doing anything with them for 10,000 years, so this just feels like it’s coming out of nowhere.
Again, I just don’t think this show knows what it actually wants the facts of the story to be. It’s too interested in having unresolved ambiguity, but without resolving the questions it raises for the audience, the show ends up just seeming like it’s being manipulative. Lotor puts his mouth to Allura’s ear, clearly meant to be creepy and evoke viewer distrust, as he says, “If you can become one with the entity, the powers you gain can defeat the witch.” Allura is shown reaching out toward the entity.
There’s a bright flash and suddenly Allura is standing in a field of flowers talking to her mother. This is the first and only time (that I can remember) we ever see her talking with her mom (of course, it’s not actually her mom). Her mom says, “You’ve arrived just in time […] to save us.” Above is a fleet of Galra cruisers who start firing on the nearby Altean city. Her mother says, “Only you can protect us.” Allura then is in the armor of one of the Colonly Alteans who pilot the Robeasts. She’s in a Robeast. She slams the Robeast weapon into the ground, draws out quintessence, and uses the chest cannon to destroy the Galra. Then she realizes she’s destroyed the planet. Her mother, as she turns to dust, says, “I am so proud of you.”
This is such an interesting dream sequence. But what does it mean? Or rather, what did the writers intend it to mean? I don’t remember this ever being explained. Is her mother supposed to be the voice of the rift entity, asking Allura to save them? If the rift entities now are like the one back in “The Legend Begins,” then has Honerva imprisoned them and is using them against their will? Are they being violated by Honerva, and this one is asking Allura for help? If the rift entity is just trying to offer Allura power to trick her into letting it into her so it can do something bad to her – consume her? the show never seems clear to me about what the threat of the entity is to Allura – then the dream doesn’t narratively work for that because it ceases to be enticing because it causes her to see her kill her own mother. That’s not how you write deceitful promises of power because Allura doesn’t have reason to trust the entity now.
I just don’t understand what the message the show is trying to convey with this dream sequence. Allura dons the Robeast pilot armor and uses the Robeast. She drains the planet of quintessence, killing everyone including her mother, but she’s doing it to provide defense, destroying the Galra who are attacking. It seems like it’s justifying horrible action – draining the planet of quintessence and killing everyone – in order to do something else – stop the Galra. It can be read as a statement about doing horrible things in order to achieve a bigger goal. I know I read a long while back some suggestion that this dream sequence can work as an explanation to Allura about why Lotor should be forgiven, that his second Colony that drained quintessence from Alteans was a horrible thing done in order to achieve a bigger goal.
It’s just so weird. Her mother says Allura’s there “to save us,” but then Allura doesn’t save them, she kills them to kill the Galra. Is it supposed to be explaining the threat of what negative things would happen if Allura takes the rift entity into herself? That she would be doing it out of a motivation to protect people but that it would turn around and end up killing those she wants to protect? That isn’t what happens when Allura takes the entity into her though. And if this dream is coming from the entity itself, why would it have Lotor suggest to her that she take it, but then have Allura see a vision that’s trying to say that if she does take it then she’ll be responsible for killing everyone.
And then, Allura’s mother says, “I’m so proud of you,” after Allura has killed her. Why would her mother say that if the vision intends for Allura draining the planet to be interpreted as an ultimately negative thing?
The show, of course, doesn’t follow up with any of this, so I ultimately have no idea. I just wonder if the writers even knew what they were writing when they wrote it. The sad thing is that I can easily imagine that the writers of the show think I’m wrong for wanting this dream explained. I think that they failed as writers in not explaining it. I think it’s a mark of an amateur, and there are a lot of well-paid, acclaimed writers who are technically professional that I am still criticizing as being amateur, to write cryptic scenes into a story with no intention of providing an explanation for the audience. I’m not saying don’t write cryptic scenes, I’m not saying you can’t let a cryptic scene sit for a while, but you have to absolutely explain your cryptic scenes eventually or else you betray the trust of the audience.
Whatever happened with the dream, it had a real-word manifestation. The flower on the nearby shelf is dead. (Though the mice on the bed are still alive. How’d they survive?) It suggests Allura actually drew the quintessence out of the flower during her dream. She has used her space magic to revitalize people before, so I guess this supposed to just be her able to do the opposite? Where did this flower come from? It wasn’t in the scene when Allura and Lance were laying on her bed before he left for Clear Day. Instead of this flower, a holographic projection of her father and mother was what sat in this spot on her shelf. Is this discrepancy supposed to mean something? This show has too many inconsistencies for me to say it must mean something.
Honestly, this show’s executive producers and writers seem to be the type of people who’d put weird stuff in the story for no other reason than to be weird. I can totally see them not thinking any of this needs to make sense.
Back at Clear Day, Pidge plays Whack-a-Coran. The people of Clear Day have manufactured games with Coran’s face on it? Well then, that’s some spite for Coran’s inability to track time in “The Voltron Show!”
Shiro walks into the arm-wrestling tent. The alien guy complains about the Blue Lion not being there. The alien tells Shiro that the arm-wrestling contest isn’t “for people like you.” Shiro says, “Why’s that, because of my arm?” The alien says no. I say yes. Shiro’s arm does not have an elbow. It doesn’t have a way to create leverage, which is what is needed to arm wrestle. It’s like this show actively picked something that Shiro would not logically be able to do. It’s like the show and the creative team behind it are actively mocking people for having a problem with how illogical Shiro’s arm is.
The alien says that “arm-wrestling is for the young and strong. You’re old, like me.” I guess maybe he’s just supposed to be taunting Shiro or something. It has felt like the executive producers and writers have thought of Shiro as older than he is throughout this show’s production, and I have no idea why.
Coran participates in a yelmore calling competition. I genuinely laugh. His yelmore call is funny.
Hunk eats food, but it’s a carnival, so it makes sense.
Keith asking some people if they’ve seen anything suspicious and their mocking him about how there’s a guy going around asking people if they’ve seen anything suspicious is annoying. I’m over this episode disparaging Keith for being professional. Somehow, Keith and Hunk are spontaneously, and unknowingly in line for a ride. This is such a weird transition. I think the transition itself is supposed to be a joke, but it just feels off. So, were the people Keith was questioning in front of him in this line? They others in the line behind Keith didn’t complain about Hunk cutting in front of them by joining Keith. The moment lacks logic.
So, they get on the ride. The ride seems like it’s based on the clichéd mockery of the It’s a Small World ride at Disney theme parks. It’s not funny.
Still looking for something for Allura, Lance is at a game booth and complains, “Voltron doesn’t have a purple lion.” It’s really hard to see how the writers would have put this in and not mean it to be a reference to Lotor. Precisely what they mean by it, I don’t know. Lance asks the game attendant if he’s “got any blue lions? I used to be the Blue Lion’s Paladin and now my girlfriend is.” The attendant has a blue lion, but he’s clearly a scammer since he takes all ten of Lance’s tokens for one play of the game and swaps the rings for smaller ones. Lance still gets two of the three. The attendant offers to make Lance some kind of a deal.
Meanwhile, Pidge has won a bunch of tickets and is trying to redeem them, specifically for a prize fit for a princess. It feels like her doing this has to be connected to the same giving spirit that came from her in 8x01 “Launch Date” when she gave up her video game for Allura’s outfit. But, like too many things, this show doesn’t actually explain what the bigger meaning is. Pidge wants a sparky hardhat but needs more tickets.
Shiro competes in the arm-wrestling. Curtis watches him. It could have been used to actually have them talk to each other and set up getting them together in the end, but since they weren’t planning on having them become a couple, the writers didn’t think to actually do anything to set-up the relationship.
Pidge asks her dad for more tokens. He accuses her of wasting her previous tokens. She gives him a face and he goes to give her more, but Colleen snatches them and says she wants a family picture in exchange. It’s supposed to be funny, but I don’t find it funny at all.
Back on the Atlas, Allura is looking at the entity. Lotor is still talking to her, creepily telling her to free the entity. She says, “I can’t. I won’t.” And then her hallucination changes to Lance, who says, “It won’t do any harm. The entity will help you. It will save all of us.” Lotor aggressively says, “Take it.” Then Allura sees and hears her mother again, who says, “Only you can save us all. Release the entity. Come home to Altea.” Her mother turns into Honerva, who says, “Join us.” And then she turns into the entity.
I still don’t have a clue what this dream sequence is supposed to be telling us. All of this is the entity talking to Allura, right? I think the biggest problem with this is that the creative team, in the same way that they never really settled on an explanation for what quintessence was and how it worked, they never settled on an idea about what this entity is. We’re supposed to have a sense of foreboding. We’re supposed to consider it threatening, but for no reason other than that’s the emotion the show wants us to have. There is no foundation to what makes this threatening. We’re supposed to go, oh no, don’t trust it, something bad is going to happen now. But nothing bad actually happens because of this. It feels like all the hallucinations and the dream are setting up something specific, but I don’t think it is. I think the whole point of this is just that the creative team is messing with the audience, toying with us.
Allura releases the entity. Why she would respond to Honerva saying “Join us” by releasing the entity, I don’t know. It seemingly enters her. A mecha’s eyes and horn? light up. There’s a shot of Lotor laughing. The sound of his voice sounds like he’s having fun. It doesn’t sound like a maniacal laugh. His face looks wild though. The visual of his face and the sound of his voice do not match in tonality. He says, “Follow me!” I know this moment has been the subject of a lot of debate and discussion. I don’t really know what to add to it. I assume this is supposed to be the entity still talking to Allura? Is Lotor supposed to be the entity and the mecha he’s piloting supposed to be Allura, as a statement that Allura is now possessed and controlled by the entity? But then who’s the statement “Follow me” being addressed to if it’s not being addressed to Allura. Is the entity through this vision of Lotor making this statement as a declaration of partnership with Allura?
Again, I think I’m putting way more thought into these scenes and this dialog than anyone who worked on the show did. I think they most likely just threw some words into a script and didn’t care if any of it made sense.
There’s a shot of space and some planets and Voltron, and the whole image smears sideways and whites out. Why? What does it mean? I doubt it actually has any meaning.
Keith and Hunk are still stuck in the ride. It’s not funny. The ride breaks down again. It’s still not funny. Keith breaks out of the ride. Coran still is in the yelmore calling competition. I genuinely laugh at the calls. Coran wins. The deal the game attendant made with Lance was Lance autographing all the Blue Lion plushies. Lance was totally cool with that, and he’s got his Blue Lion plushy in return to give Allura. Pidge got the sparkly miner’s hardhat for Allura. They all converge on the arm-wrestling final.
Shiro’s final competitor is the warden from 2x10 “Escape from Beta Traz.” It’s set up to suggest a personal stake to the competition. Shiro calls the warden out on having imprisoned an innocent person. The warden then apologizes, saying, “Look, I know I did some bad things. The truth is, I thought you guys ruined my life, but really, you saved me.” I can’t help but read this as a parallel to Allura’s dream. Like with her dream, the warden talks about interpreting something initially as bad (“I thought you guys ruined my life”) but then seeing it as good (“but really, you saved me”). It has a parallel quality to Allura’s dream where she does something that seems bad (drains the planet of quintessence and kills her mother) but it happens with the language of it being a good thing (“You’ve arrived just in time […] to save us” and “I am so proud of you”).
Part of me feels like there has to be an explanation here. There has to be a meaning we can figure out. But the other part of me feels like I’m just desperately grasping for something to try to create a meaning because the show failed to actually give us one.
Shiro and the warden arm-wrestle. I think Shiro arm-wrestling is still ridiculous because of his arm lacking an elbow, but I think the animation of the arm-wrestling looks really good. Shiro wins.
The Paladins and Altas crew return to the ship.
Sam runs in to find Allura on the floor, unconscious. (Again, why is this Sam instead of Coran?)
The episode ends.
Yeah, this episode frustrates me so much. It all feels like a giant suggestion of meaning, but the show never provides that meaning. This episode just ends up feeling absolutely disrespectful of the audience, like it’s all just a giant manipulation.