Because of how long this commentary is, I decided to post it as two parts. Here’s a link to the first part.
Picking up halfway through the episode, Voltron moves through the second rift.
Coran, Sam, and Slav are on the pyramid. Coran touches the two pillars of the pedestal. Only Allura and Honerva have ever been able to operate pedestals like this, but somehow, Coran can now use the pedestal too. Slav says, “If we hit [the rift] with enough energy, it should seal.”
Coran asks, “Are the Alteans in place.” I have no idea who actually answers Coran. Some ethereal, disembodied female voice says, “They’re set.” Is the Balmera talking to Coran? This is so absurd that I am literally laughing out loud.
Voltron arrives in another reality and there is yet another rift there. So, Pidge’s comment a minute ago that “the rift must lead directly to the reality Honerva’s been looking for” is now conclusively untrue. The show gives literally no explanation for why Honerva tore through all these other realities. I have never seen a story treat alternate realities like rooms of a building where you have to go through multiple rooms to get to the room you want to be in. This show treating alternate realities this way makes the whole premise simplistic and silly.
Allura gives us some sophomoric foreshadowing: “I fear [Honerva] has started a chain reaction that can never be undone.” Voltron flies through the next new rift.
The Balmeras send their energy into the pyramid, which redirects it to the rift, and Coran says, “It’s working […] holding the rift together.” Coran’s earlier stated goal wasn’t to hold the rift together but to keep the universe from collapsing. The presence of the rift was supposedly what would cause the universe to collapse, but now he’s trying to hold the rift together? Wouldn’t they want the rift to cease being open because it being open is what’s causing the universe to collapse? Also, the other realities Honerva has tore through are deteriorating rapidly, so why isn’t this main universe in a worse state of collapse than the other realities we’ve now seen since the rift has been tearing through reality here longer than the rifts in the other realities have existed?
Voltron makes it into the next reality, and Honerva’s mecha is floating there, waiting for them. She hits them with a wing-blade. Keith yells, “Countermeasures,” but I don’t know what he means by that because Voltron doesn’t do anything in response to him saying it. Then there’s a dark bubble around Voltron that Honerva created, but I don’t know what precisely it does beyond make Keith briefly grunt because she stops creating the bubble so that she can tuck her mecha into a ball and roll herself into Voltron, sending Voltron slamming into the ground. She then throws a ball of wispy black energy at Voltron. Keith yells, “Form sword” and volleys the ball back at her like they’re playing tennis. Honerva dodges out of the way. There’s a really, really large arch or some kind of structure above them that the ball hits and it explodes.
The combined form of Voltron and the Atlas does actually look cool.
Sam says, “Our current power level isn’t enough to maintain the rift.” I don’t understand why they’re holding the rift open if the existence of the rift is the problem. It feels like something is missing. Again, Coran coming here was supposed to be him working a plan to solve the collapse of the universe. But now that he’s here, his goal is holding open the rift.
Now, Coran says, “Then we’ll hold it as long as we can. Every tick gives Voltron a chance.” Something is definitely missing, or this episode is made out of different stories spliced together. What their goals are now are not the goals the episode had them speak about and act toward earlier. This is the first time that anyone has said anything about the goal being holding the rift open for Voltron. Coran’s actions are supposed to be about closing the rift, not keeping it open.
In warps several Galra ships. Krolia, who would have no idea Coran is leading this effort, calls out to him, asking what they can do to help. Remember the big war meeting at the beginning of last episode? Remember what Krolia said she was going to do? She specifically said that she was going to go get a zaiforge cannon to use in the fight against Honerva. Guess what the show has forgotten about: the zaiforge cannon. Just like the weapons’ upgrade and the needed Balmeran crystal to power it, the zaiforge cannon is now completely forgotten.
Coran tells her that they need more energy. How can Galra ships generate enough energy above what nine Balmera can? Coran says that they’re trying to “prevent the rift from expanding further.” But just a few seconds ago, they were trying to hold the rift open, not keep it from expanding. Sam had said that they didn’t have enough power “to maintain the rift” now they’re back to trying to “prevent the rift from expanding.”
This episode cannot make up its mind what is actually happening. What are these characters trying to do?
Krolia orders the Galra fleet to shoot their ion cannons at the pyramids. So, no zaiforge cannon.
Honerva flies up in the sky, spreads her wing-blades, and the tips of the wings shoot many energy blasts at Voltron. The multitude of new weapons and attacks being used in this episode is overwhelming. It makes me want to give up trying to follow the combat because there’s always going to be some new, random thing that they can do that has no set-up. Voltron again slams into the ground.
Voltron swooshes away from where Honerva’s blasts are targeted and then blasts at her in return with Voltron’s chest. They don’t hit. Honerva hits Voltron with another ball of black energy and then slams Voltron into the ground with her tail. She pins Voltron down with a couple of wing-blades and then draws energy out of Voltron.
This reality starts to disappear starting around the horizon and moving upward through the sky toward a rift in the sky that has not been there until right now. If Honerva had made it to this reality but ran out of energy and thus had to drain Voltron and use that energy to create another rift, then maybe that would explain why she was just waiting here to fight Voltron. But, Honerva is not shown creating this new rift. So, either this new rift comes out of nowhere without her having to create it, or the rift has existed the whole time but somehow was never shown and she had no reason to wait here to attack Voltron.
Honerva moves up through the rift. Voltron remains on the ground. Voltron is given time to pretend that this is the end of the heroes, the villain’s won, Voltron can’t move, the Paladins themselves are weak, and this reality has nearly disappeared. Nearly everyone – Lance, Hunk, Shiro, Allura, and Pidge – makes a statement of failure or doom, but then Keith gives the rallying speech. Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery wanted Keith to be the main character, and here he is being the main character. It will always just emphasize for me how much Shiro and Allura were the leaders of this team in seasons one and two, and then both of them were demoted so that Keith could ascend to be the main character. There is nothing about Keith’s story arc though that makes this plot and this battle have anything to do with him. Plot and character in this series is, or at least has become, completely disconnected from each other.
The big rallying speech should produce an uplifting feeling in the audience, but it actually makes me feel even more exhausted.
Voltron gets up, its wings open up, and Keith orders “fire boosters” and they fly upward.
Meanwhile in the main reality. The Galra and the Balmeras have run out of energy. The pyramid starts exploding. Sam says they can’t “contain the rift,” so their goal in this moment is not to hold the rift open. Coran’s plan fails. Regardless of if his goal was to contain the rift or to keep the rift open, they’re not now able to do either. So, what was the point in all this time spent doing whatever they were doing if it’s achieved nothing? There’s a bit explosion and everything goes white, and the main reality seems to have been destroyed.
Voltron is flying toward the rift in the reality they’re in. Reality is disappearing faster than Voltron is moving, so there is no way at the depicted rate of movement that Voltron could get through the rift before reality is gone. Also, what exactly is Voltron supposed to be in as it flies toward the rift if the only part of this reality that’s remaining is the area of the rift itself? How is there still space between Voltron and the rift for Voltron to be flying through?
Everything goes black before Voltron can go through the rift.
Cut to somewhere in space. Honerva is calmly, quietly flying to somewhere. She is eventually shown to be heading toward this reality’s Daibazaal. How did she select this reality? Why didn’t she just directly go from the main reality into this reality. Why does this reality look stable even though she would have had to tear a rift into this reality to be able to get in. If the existence of a rift causes a reality to disintegrate, then why isn’t this one disintegrating? Also, why is she going to Daibazaal? She had specifically gone to the location where Altea had been in the main reality to tear out of reality into the others there. All the other realities she’s been to, she’s been at Altea. But now, in the reality she wants to go to, she’s not at Altea. If she’s been headed to a version of Daibazaal this whole time, then why didn’t she go to where Daibazaal had been in the main reality? Why hasn’t she been at other Daibazaals as she went from one reality to the next?
There is nearly no logic to anything that has happened in this episode.
On the surface of Daibazaal, Zarkon and some other Galra are sparring. Honerva arrives. She teleports out of her mecha and onto the ground outside and walks toward Zarkon. Zarkon points his sword at her and tells her to identify herself.
Honerva says, “You don’t recognize me?” Uh, she’s wearing a weird outfit that covers up her chin, jaw, forehead, and part of her nose, and she’s some distance away from him, so I’m not surprised that it’s hard for him to tell who she is. “I’ve searched beyond the stars to be here, to be with you—” and she is shown walking out of a shadow cast by the setting sun being directly behind her, obscuring her face in the glare, so there’s even more reason for him to not recognize her, making her having said “you don’t recognize me” seem silly. She finishes, “—and to be with my son.”
Zarkon now recognizes her as Honerva. I don’t know if she is delusional here and thinks this is her Zarkon and that this reality will have her Lotor, or if she’s lying to them in hoping that they’ll think that she’s their Honerva.
Cut to inside a space ship. They’re heading to Altea. It just seems so weird to have presented this whole episode like Honerva was trying to get to alternate Alteas, only to then, when she finally gets to the reality that she’s chosen, go to Daibazaal, but then now they’re going to Altea. It makes this episode feel like it’s running around in circles. Zarkon says, “I vowed to raise our son as you would have wanted. He excels in his Altean studies. Lotor has his mother’s intellect.” Of course, this is meant to contrast with how the main Lotor was subject to brutal Galra studies, as seen in 8x02 “Shadows.” It just reminds me of how Lotor was abused by his parents.
On Altea, Alfor and his wife welcome Honerva. Allura steps forward to speak, and Honerva glares at her like she wants to attack her. If an alternate reality has an alternate Zarkon and an alternate Lotor, and an alternate Alfor, why would she be surprised that there’s an alternate Allura? Allura escorts Honerva to Lotor. Here, Lotor is a little kid. He runs toward Honerva but stops short. Honerva asks him to come to her. Lotor says, “No.” Zarkon tries to tell Lotor that his mother has returned, but Lotor says, “She’s not my mother.”
I really like little Lotor. He’s something I can say that I like about this episode.
Honerva tries to convince him that “her love for [him] is that of a mother for her child.” She then turns to the same old Honerva that she’s always been, that she was long before she was poisoned by quintessence and possessed by a rift entity.
Speaking of rift entities, notice how the one in Allura is now completely ignored.
Honerva grows a bit angry, “Come to me!” Lotor stares her down and firmly says, “She is not my mother.” Zarkon tells him, “Don’t speak like that.” It’s amazing that this Zarkon just trusts a woman who shows up and says she’s his long-lost wife. In a well written story (I’m thinking of a specific one in particular that I love), if a long-lost wife showed up out of nowhere, the husband would insist on a lot of tests to figure out who she is and what happened to her. Zarkon does nothing like that because this show doesn’t have people behave rationally.
Honerva says, “Please,” and holds out her hand. Lotor rejects her, “No! My mother is dead, and you cannot replace her.” Zarkon tries to say that Lotor is just overwhelmed. Honerva glares at Lotor. Little Lotor is clearly scared since he’s holding onto Zarkon’s leg for protection. Zarkon kind of pleads with Honerva and says, “If we had some time.”
That’s not acceptable to Honerva. I guess she thought this would be instant satisfaction for some reason. This show has acted like she looked through a lot of different realities to find her perfect one, but this one doesn’t work for her. Did she only just look no further than to find a reality in which that reality’s Honerva was dead? This falling apart so quickly makes it feel like she didn’t bother really looking at all.
She says, “Time? You speak to me of time? I’ve spent lifetimes trying to get back.” What is she talking about? She hasn’t spent lifetimes trying to get here. At most, she’s spent four years. How am I supposed to take her character seriously when her dialog and actions are written in such defiance of what the show has already showed? Just because this Honerva has lived for 10,000 years doesn’t mean she’s spent that time “trying to get back.”
Also, if she didn’t mind having an alternate reality version of Zarkon and Lotor, then she shouldn’t have minded having a clone of them either. So, why did she decide on the much more difficult tearing through other realities until she got here instead of the comparatively much simpler cloning method?
She continues, “Countless worlds have fallen in the wake of my efforts to return to you. And this is how you welcome me.” She creates a ball of black energy in her hand. Maybe this is supposed to be some kind of depiction of her getting what she wants only to have it not be what she wants, but this doesn’t work like that. For that kind of development to happen in a story, the thing that the character wants has to actually be acquired. She hasn’t actually gotten what she came here for. That kind of development is born out of showing how a character has changed internally between when they set the goal for themselves and when they achieved it. But Honerva hasn’t changed. She’s still the same, mean, brutal dictator that she’s always been.
“My own child, my own husband question who I am. I have sacrificed more than you will ever know.” No, she has not! The way she’s speaking right now is exactly how an abusive spouse and/or parent talks. (Trust me, I know.) It is so frustrating that this episode is reaffirming how abusive Honerva is only to come to the end next episode and absolve her of her behavior.
There’s a sound. Surprise!twist Voltron made it through the rift. So, the depiction of the rift closing and everything going black before they could go through was all just really transparent fakery. It makes that fake moment of them not getting through absurd because of course the conflict isn’t finished yet. Voltron’s arrival does not have a sense of a new surge toward victory for the protagonists. It’s more that it leaves me wondering what took them so long to get here.
Honerva’s eyes go wide. “No! It cannot be!” Why not? They’ve followed you through other realities before this, why is their coming through one more so impossible? I mean, I guess she thought she left them absolutely powerless in the previous reality, but really. They were chasing her before now, it shouldn’t seem weird that the chase isn’t finished.
Also, given the other realities disintegrated quickly, why hasn’t this reality disintegrated? It’s not even showing any signs of disintegration. Of course, the entire premise of realities disintegrating because someone tore into them is contrived and fluctuates depending on whatever the creative team wants to be happening at any given moment.
Zarkon yells at Honerva, “You brought this abomination upon us!?” Why would he think Voltron is an abomination? He yells some more, “You are not the Empress! You are not my wife!” He yells for the guards.
Honerva scowls, “If there is no place in this universe for me, then there will be no universe at all!” She teleports away. That’s cliché. Whatever complexity the writers thought they have been adding to Honerva’s character, this scorched-earth simplicity erases all of that. She’s back to being nothing but the uninteresting 80s cartoon villain she was as Haggar in the beginning of the series. She hasn’t actually developed as a character whatsoever.
Speaking of character, notice how this episode is concluding without any connectivity of this series’ plot connecting to any of the main characters. Literally everything in this plot now is driven by Honerva and her desires. None of the main characters have any desires beyond stop-the-villain. This is a huge part of why this show has fallen apart. The executive producers and the writers absolutely lost sight of the show’s main characters. This story has become the Honerva Show. She is not compelling enough to carry the show, especially since she’s not the protagonist.
Everyone in the Altean city seems to be freaking out over Voltron landing. There’s a twinkle in the sky above Voltron. It’s Honerva’s mecha, which lands near Voltron. She can apparently call her mecha to her from millions of miles away. She teleports into her seat in her mecha. There’s an awkward split-screen stare-down between Honerva on one side and the Paladins and Shiro on the other. The lighting of the various images used for Team Voltron and the different facial expressions don’t create a sense of unity of emotion among the six of them. It again looks like they just took six random pieces of animation and used it here. The episode ends.
This episode is a disaster. It is so hard to follow what’s happening, why it’s happening, what characters are trying to do. Characters’ goals fluctuate from one scene to the next. The entire inner story of the episode is given to Honerva, making the actual protagonists kind of superfluous. This episode could have the protagonists in this episode be literally anyone, and the story would not change.
Given how much of a mess this episode is, I can totally see how people think there has to be a late-production re-edit. I definitely get a feeling that this episode is made out of parts. I don’t know if that’s necessarily a sign that there was a concentrated re-edit effort. But there are definitely times in this episode where it feels like two separate versions of a script or multiple different episodes are being stitched together. There is a severe dissonance in how things some dialog doesn’t match other dialog, how events have a discontinuity with other events.
Something went wrong with this episode’s production.
I have written more for this episode than I have for any episode before. Because of that, I’m going to post this commentary in two parts. This show has had some truly messy episodes, episodes where things happen that contradict previous things, episodes where characters behave oddly or out of character, episodes where things are presented as set-up but never resolved, episodes where trying to follow what’s happening is hard because of bad logistics. If you’re familiar with this series and/or you’ve read my previous commentaries, you know this. This episode is all those things but to an even greater degree.
This episode baffles me, not just in how it uses its characters, not just in the frequent, confusing shifts in plot, but it baffles me that it was made like this. This episode feels like a school essay, written hastily and turned in at the last minute, hoping that it makes sense. Of course, it is possible to do an okay job creating like that, but more likely the work won’t be as successful as it could have been. This episode is not a success.
The only thing I can say that I like about this episode is there is some good music in it, especially the arrival of the Balmeras and the combining of Voltron and the Atlas. Though that bit of story, like most of the episode, makes little-to-no sense, it has an atmospheric quality to it that I did enjoy. It’s weird to have to ignore what’s happening in order to enjoy what’s happening.
EDIT: I wanted to add (as I’m working on revisions to the second half of this episode’s commentary and just revisited the moment) that I really like young alternate reality Lotor’s clear recognition that Honerva is not his mother and his rejection of her. Aside from killing Narti and what this show did to Lotor between 6x04 “The Colony” and 6x07 “Defender of All Universes,” I have really enjoyed his character. Even being a little kid from an alternate reality, Lotor is still an interesting character.
The episode starts right where the last one ended. Honerva, with her mecha and Sincline combined, is doing her thing. The Atlas and the Balmera are there. The Lions are floating without power. The Paladins seem a bit baffled about what Honerva is doing, so Pidge comments, “That’s how she’s getting in,” and Keith responds, “What do you mean?” Maybe this was written this way to catch up any viewers who didn’t watch the previous episode or who totally forgot what happened last episode? It doesn’t really make sense that the Paladins would be baffled about what Honerva’s doing right now. Allura is heading toward her Lion, as she’s the only Paladin not yet in the field. Allura continues the recap that Honerva combined her mecha with Sincline.
Coran says, “Our universe is collapsing. Just like the day we lost the Castle of Lions. Those wings are causing the very fabric of our reality to disintegrate.” I don’t remember anyone in 6x07 “Defender of All Universes” saying that the rifts then were causing the universe to specifically collapse. Also, I’m still amazed by how willingly the creative team is ignoring 3x04 “Hole in the Sky.” Again, in that episode, we learn that the same comet that Sincline is made from had opened a tear from this reality through the rift between realities and into another reality, and that it had been holding that tear in reality open for 10,000 years. The universe didn’t collapse during that time. I know the show tried to handwave that last episode by having Pidge say that the comet was natural but Sincline is not, but it still seems like it’s more that this plot is ignoring the way the show had established the comet ore to work.
The Yellow Lion comes back online to give Hunk narrative time to get Coran, Romelle, and Tova to the Atlas.
Honerva starts talking, “My loyal warriors. Merla proved disloyal. She turned her back on our mission and the future of Altea.” So, Merla’s name is spoken in this series. And surprise-twist, Merla isn’t dead, despite having been blown up last episode. This show’s fake character deaths are so tiresome. So many characters are made to look like they die but don’t that it’s hard to take any of it seriously. At this point, it’s just blatantly manipulative. The other two Robeast Alteans, bolstered by Honerva’s speech, fly toward the Atlas. Pidge says, “Those Robeasts are headed our way,” but the logistics of the episode are already falling apart. Pidge and the Green Lion are shown, based on her visual perspective out of her cockpit, to be close to Honerva’s mecha. The Robeasts were shown blasting off toward the Atlas. They’re not heading toward Pidge.
The other Lions come online. Keith asks Allura if she can get to her Lion. She’s been heading to Blue for a good while now. I don’t think it’s taken a Paladin this long to get to their Lion since the extended fat-people-are-slow joke about Hunk in 1x04 “Some Assembly Required.” Shiro says that the Atlas has the Lions covered.
Coran interjects, “What about the collapsing universe?” I mean, what else does he think Voltron and the Atlas can do other than try to fight Honerva? Keith says, “Coran, we’re counting on you to figure something out.” Since the story eventually has the universe collapse and be destroyed, setting up the idea that Coran can actually do anything that benefits the plot here is just empty set-up. I guess they’re trying to give Coran something to do, but none of it really has any narrative relevance.
Keith says, “Paladins, do everything you can to keep the Robeasts distracted. Let’s give the Atlas a shot.” Literally 20 seconds ago, Shiro said, “The Atlas has you covered.” Now, it’s Keith saying that they’re covering for the Atlas. The writing on this show can’t even stay consistent for 20 seconds. The EPs and the writers don’t seem to have actually been able to decide who is doing what in this plot.
Also, Hunk is shown to have dropped Coran, Romelle, and Tova off on the Atlas and has now returned to be with Keith, Lance, and Pidge. Hunk had enough time to start out with the other Paladins near Honerva, jet to the Atlas, drop off Coran and crew, and return to the other Paladins. But in that same time, Allura has not been able to get from the wormhole generator on the Atlas to the Blue Lion in its hangar.
Shiro orders the Atlas to prepare for transformation. The Lions keep fighting the Robeasts. Keith has Black produce its wings spontaneously to fly past a Robeast, and he then declares he “is going in to stop Honerva.” At this point, isn’t Keith supposed to have developed out of his “lone wolf” attitude? So, what does he think he can do by himself? Also, what happened to Keith’s order to the other Paladins that they were going to distract the Robeasts so that the Atlas could shoot Honerva?
It’s impossible to follow what’s happening because things change without any regard to what happened before. First Shiro says that the Atlas is going to provide cover for Voltron, then Keith orders the Paladins to cover for the Atlas, now Keith is ignoring his previous order and ignoring the Atlas, which is supposed to be setting up to shoot Honerva, all so Keith can fly in by himself and “stop Honerva.” The narrative is so uncontrolled right now that it’s easy to see why people argue that there’s been a major, late-production edit of episodes, especially this one. This is just an absolute mess.
Honerva looks at the incoming Black Lion, says the word “Still,” a sigil appears around the Black Lion, and it stops. Since when can Honerva control the Lions remotely? This is a massive power spike for her character. It’s excessive. If she can do this, then the Lions shouldn’t be a threat whatsoever to her. It also actually offends me. Why can she do this? Zarkon had been a previous Paladin of the Black Lion who still had influence over Black, but Honerva has no bond, so how is she able to do this? This has long been a problem with her character, even from the beginning, and it’s rooted in the creative team refusing to establish definitive rules about how the magic of this story works. Honerva just suddenly does things because the creative team just has her do them. They seem to think, Honerva’s really powerful, is enough of an explanation. It’s not. It feels cheap and lazy, or at least woefully underdeveloped.
With the Black Lion “still,” and Honerva about to smash it with a fist, Atlas, which changed into mecha form offscreen, slams into Honerva at the last second. On the Atlas, Iverson over shipwide communication orders “MFE pilots, report to your hangars, standby for launch.” Even without announcing it, the MFE pilots should already be on standby by sheer nature of the fact that the ship has been in battle for a long time already. Iverson having to order them to the hangar and to be on standby is not how serving in the military during combat would work. Also, Shiro had already ordered the MFEs to standby prior to jumping into this battle last episode, so they should already be there. Iverson’s line seems like it was added to fill empty air/time, and it seems like it comes from someone who doesn’t have an understanding of how a military vessel like this would actually function.
Coran tells Romelle and Tova that he has an idea about how to stop the collapse of the universe. He says he’s going to get Slav and Sam and for Romelle and Tova to get the other Alteans. The Alteans were last seen unconscious after having been possessed by Honerva. We have no idea if they’re now conscious or still possessed, so we have no idea if they would even be able to help. We don’t learn of their status until they’re already on their way for this mission.
So, Allura never made it from the wormhole pedestal to the Blue Lion before Atlas changed. With Atlas now close enough to be in a fist fight with Honerva’s mecha, where is Allura and the Blue Lion? She doesn’t even have to travel the distance from where the Atlas was to where the Lions are because they’re all in the same spot now. This really feels like it’s totally contrived, done to justify not having the Lions form Voltron yet. It’s artificial.
Shiro screams, “Allura, now’s your chance!” That phrasing implies that she was waiting for something. What in the world was she waiting for?
The Robeasts continue to attack the Lions. Keith says, “We can’t get past them—” get past them to do what? I guess this is supposed to reference the eventual attempt at attacking the wing-blade mechanism, but the show hasn’t set that up as their ultimate target, so Keith’s comment is totally missing context. Also, there are two Robeasts currently fighting and now five Lions on the battlefield, surely if there’s some need to get past the Robeasts, at least one of the Lions should be able to do so. Moments like this fragment of dialog from Keith really do make this feel like it’s two completely different battles happening that have been edited together.
They form Voltron. The formation music has been changed. Forming Voltron now feels odd to me. I know that Voltron is more powerful than the Lions individually, but they’ve now gone from a five-on-two to a one-on-two situation. If the goal was to “get past them” per Keith’s statement, then they’ve made it easier for the two Robeasts to just focus fire on one target now.
Keith tells Pidge to use her special arm cannon and seemingly blows up one Robeast. She also blows up a lot of… rocks? There’s a lot of smaller explosions along the line of the cannon’s beam, so something has to be exploding, but the only thing there is rock. The blast might pulverize the rock, but why would the rock explode?
They make it look like the other Robeast is within literal inches of hitting Voltron with its scythe, but then cut to a different shot, and surprise-twist, Merla comes to Voltron’s defense and blocks the other Altean’s attack. Anyone remember when Honerva blew up Merla last episode? Merla was one of the few Colony Alteans to be actually given a voice in the show. She was depicted as one of the, if not the most zealous and devout of Honerva’s followers. Her turn against Honerva does not feel earned. It’s more of this show being written not to ensure that characters behave consistently, but written to produce surprise-twists. This form of writing causes characters to be hollow. I know she had a pivot point in the narrative: watching Honerva order the Alteans on the Atlas to give up their quintessence to fuel her action, but Merla has always been one of those who has been shown to believe in Honerva so much that they’d be willing to die for her. Like I said, it just doesn’t feel earned. Merla’s change is too sudden.
Also, what is up with this shot composition? This looks like they just flung together a bunch of unassociated images of various characters. Allura and Lance both only get half their face shown, but that’s more than Hunk gets. It looks like he’s only half a shoulder. The male Altean and Merla are supposed to be in direct combat, but their eyelines give an impression that they’re not currently directly against one another. There is no visual unity to this shot. No two characters in this shot look like they’re reacting to the same thing. It’s really, really weird.
Lance says, “Why is she helping us?” Did he miss last episode when Merla first shot and damaged one of the spires of the pyramid, producing a setback (though temporary, of course) for Honerva, and then later tried to blow up Honerva, resulting in Honerva blowing her up? Having Lance surprised that Merla’s turned when she’s done multiple things clearly showing that turn last episode makes it feel like Lance’s comment is out of place.
Merla says, “Do not harm them. They were misguided much like I was. We all were.” This is such unrealistic, simplistic writing. This feels like more of the show being unwilling to have consequences for characters’ actions (except for Lotor, the show didn’t mind killing him). It’s like the show is unwilling to have any of its villains (except Lotor) ultimately be a villain. And Merla’s massive psychological change that has occurred in just a few minutes is not even slightly realistic behavior. No one changes their entire world view this suddenly. Sure, people can undergo massive changes, but not as fast as Merla has done. This feels like a cheat. It shows how the creative team of this show think that having surprise plot twists is the height of storytelling.
So, Voltron’s sword, with one swipe, cuts through the Robeast in order to carve out the “pilot capsule” from the rest of the Robeast. That is absurd. We have seen one single Robeast hold off both Voltron and the Atlas in 7x13 “Lions’ Pride Part 2,” but now one Robeast is easily dispatched with a single swipe of Voltron’s regular-mode sword. I hate that I keep using the word “inconsistent,” but this really, really is.
Something nearly blasts Voltron with an energy beam attack. I am baffled by what this shot is showing us. Who fired? Voltron is currently slightly offscreen near the camera’s location just a bit off to the right side of the screen. The energy blast was not shown coming from Honerva, and she’s not in position to have shot the beam rightward toward near-camera and also have that beam destroy things near the pyramid on the left side of the shot. The Honerva/Atlas part of this shot to me honestly feels like it was added into the shot after all the rest of the animation of the shot was done. It’s really hard to see, but very close to the direct center of the shot, silhouetted by one of the explosions, is a Robeast that’s doing a bank turn and is swooping toward the camera, thus swooping toward where Voltron is. The shape of its movement has it originally heading from right to left, toward the whole Honerva/Atlas/pyramid morass on the left side of the screen. But it couldn’t have been what caused the blast that nearly hit Voltron either because that blast came from left to right, the complete opposite direction than the Robeast was moving. Maybe it’s all a fault in the logistics of the shot, but I don’t know who fired that beam and caused all these explosions.
Also, how is this Robeast still functioning? The episode was very dramatic about Pidge blowing this Robeast up. There have only been three Robeasts in this extended fight sequence across this episode and last. Merla has turned against Honerva. Pidge blew up one. And Voltron just carved the pilot out of the third. So, this has to be the one Pidge blew up. It is so incredibly frustrating that this show has done this so damn much. It’s all audience manipulation. We’re shown enemies being conclusively dealt with, but then surprise-twist, they’re still alive. You cannot believe any of the plot developments on this show because it’s only a matter of time before the show says that they didn’t actually happen despite showing them happening.
Honerva punches Atlas in the face. I literally laughed out loud. It’s not supposed to be funny. The voice acting of Honerva saying, “No!” right before throwing the punch is devoid of emotion. It just sounds flat. So that primed me to bust out a laugh when she literally punches Atlas in the face. This fist fight between the two of them is animated slow because the animators are trying to give a sense of size and weight to their mechas, but a punch that looks like slow-motion even though it’s real-time just feels weird.
Coran announces that he needs “an escort to Honerva’s pyramid structure.” At first, I thought: Atlas is directly fighting Honerva, there’s only one Robeast (even if it shouldn’t be functioning since Pidge/Voltron blew it up) that, between Voltron and Merla, they should be able to keep it occupied, so why would Coran need an escort? (And guess what, I’m right. Coran’s transit from the Atlas to the pyramid doesn’t have anything happen, so the escort is pointless.) Shiro even says, “What!? Right now!?” But then I realized, if they need an escort, there’s an easy option: the MFEs. They’re not doing anything, despite Iverson having said a long time ago for the pilots to “standby for launch.” They never did launch, despite Iverson’s line of dialog acting as if that launch was imminent.
Slav tells Shiro that “the sooner we go, the higher the probability that we can use the Atleans to stop the space-time rupture.” Coran, Slav, and Sam are in whatever room it is where Slav and Sam work. They’re not in a hangar boarding a transport, which when Coran first announced his need for an escort I expected him to be. Coran tells Shiro that his plan is “similar to how we stopped the rupture when Voltron entered the quintessence field.” This has to be just a clumsy way of Coran referencing the fight with Lotor in “Defender of All Universes.” The way it’s phrased, his specific words could be interpreted to mean that the means of stopping a rupture was by having Voltron enter the quintessence field. It’s just odd that he phrased it as “when Voltron entered the quintessence field” instead of something like, when Voltron defeated Lotor. Of course, the means of stopping that rupture was that they blew up a teludav. What Sam next describes sounds nothing like that.
Sam says, “Only this time, that superstructure will be the energy amplification conductor, and the Alteans will be the energy source.”
Can I tell you how much this infuriates me? Like, this is offensively infuriating. Remember how this show declared Lotor to be “evil” because he drew quintessence out of Alteans from the Colony? And how this narrative condemned Lotor to disgrace and death because he did that? Well now, the heroes want to use the Alteans as an energy source. The show doesn’t condemn the heroes for thinking of and using the Alteans as an energy source like it did when Lotor did the exact same thing. I doubt the executive producers, story editor, writers or anyone whatsoever working on this show realized how hypocritical this is. Through their storytelling, this show’s creative team absolutely condemned Lotor for using Alteans to produce energy. Just last episode, the show, at least temporarily, condemned Honerva for demanding the Alteans give up their quintessence to power her attempt to tear through reality to the point that her doing so was such a severe action that her own lieutenant, Merla, turned against her. But now, using the Alteans as a source of energy is okay because it’s the officially labeled heroes and not the officially labeled villains who’re the ones doing it. Nothing about this plan has established the idea that the Alteans are willing participants in this. We’re left to have to assume that once we see them in action. And the specifics of what the Alteans end up doing is different than what Coran, Sam, and Slav are planning here because the Alteans end up going to the Balmeras, not to the pyramid.
When the teludav was used to close the rupture, there was a huge explosion. This plan is being described here as being similar. So, wouldn’t there then be an explosion at the energy source the same way the teludav caused its explosion? So, won’t the people at the pyramid explode? (This gets even more complicated once this plan is in process because why they’re doing it keeps changing.)
Shiro concludes this discussion by telling Curtis, “Get a team in place.” I’m surprised that Shiro didn’t instantly think of ordering the MFEs to fly escort. Again, it’s not like the MFEs are doing anything.
The Robeast that had once been destroyed by Pidge’s cannon blast but then was surprise-twist okay continues to fight Voltron. Merla slams into it, and then Voltron swoops in and, like when they carved out the cockpit from the other Robeast, cuts this Robeast in half with Voltron’s sword in one single swing. How was Luca’s Robeast able to endure being attacked by both Voltron and Atlas in “Lions’ Pride Part 2” when twice here Voltron has been able to take two Robeasts out with a single swing of the sword?
So, the MFEs are part of the escort. I never knew that Curtis had the authority to order the MFEs on a mission.
Also, since Coran, Slav, and Sam are working on this plan now, and Hunk, of course, is part of Voltron, this reveals how absolutely pointless part of last episode was. Last episode, Hunk, Coran, Romelle, and Tova went to the Balmera to get a crystal to power an upgrade to Atlas’s weapons that Sam, Slav, and Pidge were putting together. But now, none of that is happening. Why did this show waste time last episode by having Team Coran go to the Balmera for a crystal and Team Sam working to design a weapons’ upgrade for the Atlas if the upgrade never happens? And Coran had Allura wormhole the Balmera to here because he couldn’t find a crystal big enough to power the weapon upgrade, though there was nothing said about what Coran was thinking they would do that required them to bring the Balmera here.
All of that – Coran, Hunk, Romelle, and Tova going to the Balmera, the introduction of new Balmerans who look nothing like the long-established Balmerans – Allura standing by at the wormhole generator specifically to bring Hunk and crew back and ultimately bringing the Balmera here, and thus Allura taking forever to get from the wormhole generator to the Blue Lion in this episode – Sam, Slav, and Pidge working together to engineer the Atlas weapons’ upgrade, and Pidge getting annoyed with Slav’s OCD – none of that means anything. It was all a giant waste of time.
Out of curiosity, I went through last episode and counted the time the episode spent on having characters talk about the weapons’ upgrade, going to the Balmera, actually going and coming, and Honerva’s attack on the Balmera. If I’ve done my math correctly:
Excluding Honerva’s attack on the Balmera, last episode spent 4 minutes 35 seconds on this weapons’ upgrade/Balmera crystal plot.
If you include Honerva’s attack on the Balmera, the time spent was 5 minutes 40 seconds.
These numbers are just last episode. These numbers do not include any time this episode spent recovering from that plan, like Hunk having to drop Coran and crew off on the Atlas or how much time Allura wasn’t in the Blue Lion because she was moving from the wormhole generator to her Lion (I don’t even know how one would actually calculate this latter element since it takes unusually long for her to make the trip).
The length of last episode between the end of the opening title sequence to the start of the end credits is 21 minutes 50 seconds.
Without Honerva’s attack on the Balmera included, last episode spent 1/5 of its time on the weapons’ upgrade/Balmera crystal plotline.
If you include Honerva’s attack on the Balmera, last episode spent 1/4 of its time on the plotline.
Spending one-fifth to one-quarter of an episode on a plot that is never resolved, never manifests, goes nowhere, means nothing, is totally forgotten, etc. is outrageous. It’s not like this is a plotline introduced seasons ago or even at the beginning of the season but then forgotten or abandoned much later. This is a plot that was introduced just last episode. Now, seven minutes (including the opening title sequence) into this episode, with Coran, Sam, and Slav now going to the pyramid to stop the universe from collapsing, the weapons’ upgrade plot is abandoned. Why spend so much screen-time last episode and have logistics ramifications this episode that had to be resolved for a plot that had no purpose in the narrative?
We finally see that the Alteans are conscious and seemingly unpossessed now. Team Coran is travelling to the pyramid on a rebel ship that includes Matt and his girlfriend.
Voltron swooshes, past Honerva and Atlas fighting, toward the rift. Keith has Hunk form Voltron’s shoulder cannon to shoot, I guess, the spinning wing-blade device. The cannon fires, everything goes black, and then there’s a huge explosion. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if the cannon caused the explosion or if the explosion was just the natural end of the cycle of the spinning wing-blades doing their thing. With no reason explained, Voltron and Atlas are now drifting without power, while Honerva’s mecha is positioned, fully functional, directly in front of the spinning wing-blades. Atlas is now between Voltron and Honerva, so given the size differential between Voltron and Atlas, the explosion had to send Voltron flying back far past where it had passed Atlas and Honerva fighting. How Honerva is now suddenly directly in front of the wing-blades is not explained either. It definitely feels like a transition is missing. The episode has totally just skipped over something again.
Honerva causes the wings-blades to stop spinning and to return to their wing-like position around her mecha. She flies into the rift, everything goes white, then the light from the rift fades. Then there’s a shot that places Voltron in between the Atlas and the rift, when the last we saw them, the Atlas was between Voltron and the rift. The logistics of this episode are a mess.
Keith says that they’re going in and orders the Atlas to follow him (because Keith is in command of everything, apparently). Coran reports that the Atlas can’t, and Pidge confirms, the Atlas isn’t made of transreality comet ore, so it can’t go through the rift. This makes me realize that the ship that the transreality comet was on in 3x04 “Hole in the Sky” was not made of the ore, but it somehow sat with one half of the ship in this reality and the other half of the ship in the other reality for 10,000 years. How was it able to transverse realities if it wasn’t made of the ore?
If Atlas can’t come with them, Keith says Voltron will go in alone. Slav says that won’t work because Voltron alone is unlikely to defeat Honerva.
Then, literally out of nowhere eight more Balmeras warp into the area. As others have pointed out, if Balmeras can warp like this (and they’ve never been shown to be able to do so before), then why did Allura have to remain in standby waiting to wormhole the Balmera to this location last episode?
Beyond the abandonment of the weapons’ upgrade plot making the trip to the Balmera last episode absolutely pointless, and thus negating a need for Allura to have been kept away from her Lion and out of the fight for so long, the fact that the Balmera can apparently travel at super speeds necessary to all warp in like this now is a second reason that Allura did not have to be written to be out of the fight. It makes you question: Why did they write Allura out of the fight then? Keeping her out of it is clearly artificially created since it has nothing to do with anything necessary to the narrative. Was it solely that the creative team for this show couldn’t think of what to have Voltron doing during this battle if Voltron was formed for all of it?
Also, how did these Balmeras know to come here now? Why didn’t they come earlier? This is all completely contrived. To deal with the Atlas not being made of comet ore, and thus (if you ignore the ship in “Hole in the Sky”) not able to enter the rift per the rule that only ships made of ore can go in, the show needed to do what Honerva had already done for herself. To balance Honerva’s creating a new, unified mecha of Sincline and her mecha, the show wanted to combine Voltron and the Atlas. But there is no mechanism for that to happen. Honerva used the energy she tore out of the Balmera to power her mecha combination. So, here come a bunch of Balmeras to power the Voltron-Atlas combination. There is no other reason for this to happen but to produce the combination. But because literally no characters planned for this, it happens out of nowhere. Again, the arrival of the Balmeras is completely contrived. No character has to do anything, and boom, magical power upgrade.
I actively try to avoid ever referring to anything in any story as being a deus ex machina. But the arrival of the Balmeras to cause Voltron and the Atlas to combine is a clear and blatant deus ex machina.
One of the Balmeras has Shay and her people on it. Bringing in this species, who’ve been exclusively presented as Balmerans the whole series until a new species was introduced last episode emphasizes the discrepancy or dissonance of there being two different species who’re called Balmeran.
Lance actually asks, “What called them here,” and Hunk answers, “Shay.” This is not an answer. This is a writing cheat. Just because the writing has Hunk say Shay did this does not explain how this situation came to be. How did Shay know to come here and to do so now? She had no ability to know that now is precisely when Voltron and the Atlas would need power to merge mechas. Even if Shay somehow magically knew to come, how did the other Balmeras know? This is absolutely absurd.
The music of this moment is really nice, at least. There is an atmospheric quality to the moment that, though it makes no sense, feels kind of cool.
Voltron and Atlas combine. Maybe I’m wrong for thinking this, but the design of the combined form totally looks like it has feminine high-heeled shoes/boots. That would make so much more sense if Allura, not Shiro, was the captain of the Atlas. The closest they can get to try to explain it away is that Allura is the pilot of the Blue Lion, which is one leg of Voltron, so somehow her being a leg causes her femininity to influence the feet of the combined mecha. That’s me really stretching to try to give them an explanation for the design aesthetic that works with what made it into the final product of this show.
Shiro orders Coran, “We need you to secure this area and find a way to suppress this rift.” Like with the weapons’ upgrade plot, why is the show spending time having Coran organize and act on a plan to stop the collapse of the universe when the show has everything he’s doing as part of that rendered meaningless because the universe ceases to exist?
Coran suddenly realizes “how to get the Altean energy into the structure.” It’s still really weird that they’re going to use the Alteans as energy generators while having condemned Lotor for his having done so. Anyway, he’s going to have the Alteans do something with the Balmerans. He, Sam, and Slav, meanwhile are going to the pyramid. None of this matters though because it doesn’t affect anything.
Voltron travels through the rift to an alternate Altea. Lance says, “It looks like this reality is crumbling, just like ours.” At least Hunk points out that it’s happening really quickly. Pidge tries to say that it’s specifically because the wing-blades are what opened the rift, but it just doesn’t work for me.
Pidge says, “The rift must lead directly to the reality that Honerva’s been looking for.” So, the reality that they’re in is not the reality that Honerva was looking for, so then why did Honerva tear into this specific reality then? She tore into this one and then tore out of it to another one. Why? She’s supposed to have already found the specific reality she wants to go to, so it’s not like she has to go into each one and spend time looking around to figure out if any particular reality will suit her desires.
There’s a shot of Shiro. He’s floating in the air in front of his control screens. His floating looks odd. There is no other bridge crew, so that makes me wonder, what happened to the rest of the crew of the Atlas during this merger with Voltron?
Shiro says, “Any reality that those wings bore through is falling apart.” Well, Pidge just said that the new rift (the one up in the sky, not the one behind them that they just came through) “must lead directly to the reality that Honerva’s been looking for.” So, that means only three realities should then be affected by Honerva. It seems clear that this line of dialog from Shiro is set up to negate what Pidge said. So, why did the writer not just revise Pidge’s line of dialog so that she wasn’t saying something that wasn’t true?
I just realized that I am only halfway through this episode.
(Here’s a link: This episode’s commentary continues in part 2.)
