The second season of Netflix’s “Voltron,” based on the classic ’80s cartoon of the same name, has added to the legend of this animated universe in spectacular ways.
“Blackout,” the thirteenth and final episode of “Voltron’s” sophomore season, which began streaming Jan. 20, may be the greatest single episode of “Voltron” ever produced. The episode features an incredible battle between Voltron and a robot beast powered by classic villain Zarkon that’s the top moment in the Netflix series so far.
Instead of giving fans what they thought would happen, producers Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery are surprising them, taking advantage of the limited scope of their “Voltron” memories. As the producers told The Washington Post last year after “Voltron’s” debut on Netflix, most fans know they love Voltron, but probably couldn’t tell you many plot points from the original series. Most remember the lions transforming into a robot warrior and Voltron’s vintage episode-ending swipe of a sword to do away with the bad guy robot in the original ’80s series. But that’s it.
Truth be told, going back and watching those original ’80s episodes is an eye-opening experience. They were fun, but not very complex in plot. It was basically Voltron will destroy the evil robot beast, the end. “Voltron” looked really cool, and for a lot of us, that has been enough to keep these characters in high regard.
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“Voltron’s” new animated series on Netflix, by contrast, is rich with intrigue. “Blackout” proves the best is yet to come, despite being an episode that seems impossible to top.
Repossession of the black lion remains an obsession for Zarkon, a former paladin of the black lion, who can’t shake his history with the robot and is convinced getting it back will put the universe in the palm of his hand. Both Zarkon and Shiro have a mental link to the black lion and the two engaged in a telepathic battle for the robot’s soul in “Blackout.”
Shiro may have paid the ultimate price with his life (we won’t know until next season), and Zarkon was so badly injured in battle with Voltron that fan-favorite bad guy Prince Lotor, who has yet to make an appearance in this series, was summoned and perhaps will be the lead villain of season three of “Voltron.”
Keith, the presumed future leader of Team Voltron if Shiro doesn’t make it back from wherever he has gone, has discovered he is half Galran, the same race of aliens as Zarkon, which puts him at odds with Princess Allura, extinguishing for now any potential romance between the two. Allura considers the Galrans to be the ultimate evil in the universe. But Allura is also surprised to find out that Zarkon’s right hand woman Haggar is, like her, Altean, proving Galrans aren’t the only race capable of evil in the universe.
Bits of everything we thought would happen on “Voltron” are there. They are just taking shape slowly and possibly not happening the way we would expect.
If Shiro comes back in season three, will his death, foreseen by so many fans, indeed happen, or will the producers decided he’s worth keeping around because he’s been such an enjoyable character in Voltron’s first two seasons? He’s certainly become more than a character just used to set up his impending death. At this point, if and when Shiro is gone for good, it could be quite an emotional exit — causing a level of emotion probably not elicited if Dos Santos and Montgomery decided to just kill him in season one like everyone expected.
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Can Keith lead this team? Will Allura let him, given her revealed prejudice towards an alien race she refuses to embrace? Will we find out who Keith’s Galran mother is in season three? Did we already meet her in season two?
Is Allura somehow connected to Haggar? Both have powers based in magic. Will Allura take over the red lion if Keith takes over the black lion? Or will she pilot the blue lion like she did in the ’80s, meaning paladin Lance (currently piloting the blue lion) could be up for a robot lion change?
For a show that many thought they could easily guess over two seasons, “Voltron” continues to give us more questions than answers.
The one sure thing is that “Voltron” has never been better.
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