#without the internal screaming that followed nearly each ep drop

[kcwcommentary]

VLD7x13 – “Lions’ Pride Part 2”

7x13 – “Lions’ Pride Part 2”

This is an odd episode to end a season on. Most of this episode is just a mindless action sequence. There is no character connectivity to the fight. There is no internal struggle to mirror the outer struggle. The mysteriousness of the enemy only sustains the action so far. It eventually gets to a point where it feels like you’re waiting for the battle to hurry up and finish so that we can finally start getting an explanation for why we should care about what’s happening.

The transformation of the Atlas from ship to mecha seems so blatantly designed to be something Allura was supposed to cause to happen. But the EPs’ adamant, primary desire to have Keith as Black Paladin, and thus Allura as Blue Paladin, deprives the Atlas transformation of the significant emotional impact it could have had. Not that I don’t love Shiro, clearly, but there’s no explanation for why he was able to make it happen.

The episode begins with the object that entered Earth’s atmosphere at the end of last episode continuing its plummet to the surface. Allura screams out, “No!” without any real reason to. Yes, this does end up being a mecha that they have to fight, but that hasn’t been revealed yet. So, why is Allura acting like it has? Conveniently, the mecha lands really close to Voltron, close enough that a shockwave hits them. Black tries to block some of it, but Hunk and Shiro (at least) are shown tumbling through the air, Yellow coming to swallow them. Keith tells Hunk to “get Shiro to the Atlas.”

This mecha has a long polearm weapon with blades on each end and a rapid-fire wrist blaster. The Black Lion fires on the mecha, landing no hits. Allura says, “That energy spectrum completely deflected our attack.” Really? Because it looked like the mecha deflected Black’s blasts by spinning its polearm. Allura’s comment sounds like the mecha used some kind of energy shield. Not a big deal, but still the dialog doesn’t match the animation. The Lions try using their jawblades, but the mecha parries them.

The Paladins’ conversation establishes that they haven’t a clue where this mecha came from. And that’s the way it is for most of this episode. I remember watching this for the first time and feeling super confused the entire time. I’m not actually against the show varying up the story structure like this. It leads into next season’s story, but it is completely disconnected from this season’s story. It’s an interesting writing choice. But doing this does make something stark to me: This season’s main villain wasn’t narratively significant.

Ending the season with this battle emphasizes that this season didn't really have a main villain. Sendak was sort of put into the position of main villain, but the only thing that could have really connected him to his conflict is the past emotional antagonism he had had for Shiro. None of that past antagonism was turned into current antagonism for this season though. Shiro and Sendak fight last episode, but none of their previous contention is brought up during that fight. There is nothing about Sendak's being in this season that needed it to be Sendak. Everything he did could have been done by nearly any other Galra. The show seems to have been relying solely on name and face recognition, relying on viewers seeing Sendak and remembering him from the first season when he was a threat by himself. His brief appearance in season five was ultimately insignificant, as that appearance placed the source of his threat in Haggar because she had chosen to support him (with hopes of manipulation) to become emperor, and that was a moment that was quickly over. This season relied on Sendak having a past on the show in order to pretend he was relevant to the invasion plot, but he ended up functioning like a generic villain. This shows that the creative team had a plot plan for this season: Galra invade Earth. They did not have an inner story planned for the characters this season.

Keith gives the expected rallying speech. The Atlas joins, Coran stating they’re there to support. The mecha blasts Atlas, knocking the ship’s shields out in one hit. A medic has taken Shiro to the medical bay, but Shiro declares, “I need to get back,” and shoves his way past the medic. Keith asks Atlas to hold off the mecha while they form Voltron. The mecha takes to the skies and continues its attack on Atlas.

When Shiro arrives on the bridge, he asks about their weapons, which are charged, and then he orders their shields dropped so that those cannons can fire. Anyone remember how the Castle of Lions would fire its weapons either through or somehow directly from its shields? I thought the Atlas was supposed to have been designed significantly after the Castle’s technology. So, it makes it odd that the shields have to be dropped in order to fire on a target. I do kind of like it this way, it allows for some play with the progression of tension in a scene or sequence, but it does still feel like a discrepancy.

The mecha spins its polearm, and now doing so causes incoming blaster fire to reflect back at the attacker. Before, doing that just caused the blasts to be blocked. Little inconsistencies like this in a story combine to eventually make it impossible to build the story in one’s mind as one watches/reads it. I imagine that this creative team would think that that’s a good thing, but the audience/readers of a story should be able to anticipate certain things. If a character action produces a certain result once, then, unless there’s something introduced to explain a change, that same action should always lead to that result.

Voltron swoops in and blasts and/or knocks the mecha into the ground. The mecha changes the shape of the blades on its weapon and separates the pole into two swords. Voltron responds by Red and Green opening their bayard ports. I do not understand why Lance and Pidge are animated to scream while plugging their bayard into the port. It’s not really that dramatic of a moment to necessitate that scream, though I guess the creative team thought it was. Voltron produces two swords, and they and the mecha have a brief sword-on-sword fight. The mecha quickly though knocks the swords out of Voltron’s hands, jumps and dives down onto Voltron, even more easily knocking Voltron’s shield in two. I can’t quite tell but I the mecha actually pierces Voltron’s hull with its swords?

Shiro orders the MFEs to launch, the weapons fire of which does nothing. Pidge grabs the green bayard, still in its port, and Voltron manifests a new (at least I don’t remember seeing it manifested before) arm cannon, which Pidge uses to blast the mecha away from them.

Hunk says that the mecha’s blades “sapped our energy.” And Pidge adds, “It felt like the komar.” This would have to be a reference to the battle in 2x13 “Blackout.” That’s the only time I think Pidge would ever have been in position to know what being subjected to the komar felt like. But this does give the episode’s first hint at who’s behind this attack. I know this episode is about setting up next season, but it is narratively weird for the season to have had no Haggar, except tangentially with the Druid, until here at the very end. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t miss Haggar, and I’m not looking forward whatsoever to watching Honerva have so much screentime next season.

The MFEs are recalled to the Atlas, which hits the mecha with a sustained cannon blast. The mecha throws its sword at Atlas, knocking its shields down again. The mecha then charges some large blaster in its chest and hits the Atlas with it. Pidge says that the mecha absorbed Voltron’s quintessence with the sword attack and is using that energy to power the blasts. Keith says that they’ll “have to avoid direct contact,” and then Voltron reforms its two swords. Wouldn’t a sword fight be direct contact? When I hear “avoid direct contact,” I think a return to cannon fire.

The mecha elbows Voltron in the face, knocking Voltron back a bit. The show then throws Hunk’s family and other assorted humans into position behind Voltron so they can pretend that those people are in danger. They haven’t been mentioned once in this battle until now. These mechas have been dashing about all over the place, and never once did their location include risk to humans. This battle was taking place where Sendak’s ship crashed, and Voltron had specifically maneuvered that ship away from any settlements prior to it crashing. Now including this risk to miscellaneous humans feels empty and contrived. Voltron launches into the sky and the mecha eagerly follows.

At this point, ten minutes into the battle, it’s become mostly spectacle with no emotion involved. That’s not really the best way to end a season: empty, emotionless fighting. There’s nothing about this fight that connects it to an inner struggle for any character, so it functions as just a miscellaneous action sequence.

Keith orders Pidge to fire her cannon again, and she does so. The mecha reflects the blast, and the reflected blasts find their way down through the atmosphere to precisely where the Atlas is floating barely off the ground. That feels contrived. The mecha pierces Voltron again and pile drives it into the ground below. It’s weird that Voltron gets pierced by weapons, but it never takes any structural damage from being pierced. It makes the animation of having Voltron be stabbed feel off, like something is wrong with the animation. Voltron’s eyes go dark. The mecha blasts the Atlas, which explodes. I don’t know exactly what about Atlas explodes, but it does. The Atlas has no physical damage depicted, of course, just like Voltron has none from being stabbed.

Everyone is screaming at Shiro for orders, things are chaotic, the sound of voices drops away. Shiro looks at his new prosthetic hand, and everything around him starts glowing white circuit board like lines, then things snap back to looking normal. Shiro orders the Atlas into the upper atmosphere. Everything glows for Shiro again, the camera zooms into him and then cuts to the crystal the Castle of Lions was crushed into. The walls and lines of the Atlas all over start glowing. The Atlas begins its transformation sequence.

This is a huge part of why so many of us have argued that it seems clear the Atlas was originally intended to be captained by Allura, not Shiro. Why does Shiro respond to the Atlas like this? Why does the Atlas respond to Shiro like this? Shiro was not part of the construction of the Atlas. He was not part of providing it with power. That power comes from the corpse of the Castle of Lions. Shiro might have lived on the Castle for some time, but that Castle was Allura’s. It would make total sense for the Atlas, powered by the corpse of the Castle, to react to Allura if she were captain and in this moment of desperation. It would have had so much more emotional impact if this was Allura having a big hero moment, channeling her alchemy through the crystal made from her Castle, to turn this new ship into this new mecha. It doesn’t have an emotional impact that it’s Shiro doing this because he has no emotional connection to the Castle. He has no ability through which this transformative connection can happen. It’s not like a Paladin and a Lion having some kind of transformative moment because they have a bond. How is Shiro making this happen? The EPs and writers never care to explain. They must have just hoped we wouldn’t pay attention to how this would have far better fit for Allura than it does for Shiro. It emphasizes that their primary goal with this show was Keith as Black Paladin, and they were willing to sacrifice the story having emotional impact and resonant meaning to do so.

Also, Mecha Atlas has really big legs. It’s easy to see how a lot of viewers look at Atlas and see feminine hips, which again, suggest Allura was supposed to be the one captaining the ship.

Atlas fist-dives down onto the spot where the enemy mecha was standing. There’s a really weird sound, almost like a deep, airy scream, as Atlas does so. I don’t know why that scream was included. The mecha flies away, while the Atlas punches a bunch of dirt. Given how close the mecha was to Voltron when Atlas punched the ground, I would think the shockwave would have hit Voltron.

Atlas as a mecha is huge. I know that Atlas as a ship is bigger than Voltron, but it didn’t seem like the size differential was quite this big. I wonder if the animation team made Mecha Atlas bigger than ship Atlas. If so, that’s a problem for me. But maybe we just haven’t had enough side-by-side of the Atlas and Voltron for the size differential to be clearer to me. Atlas tries to blast the mecha but just carves a circle around itself as the mecha flies out of the way.

The Atlas and Voltron reestablish communications. Shiro says that he’s “not exactly sure” how he turned the ship into a mecha. I’m really not a fan of this show having so many upgrades happen without the person causing them to happen knowing how they’re doing it. It makes the upgrade process totally random within the narrative and contrived from a writing perspective. And of course the show having Shiro do this without knowing how is made worse given that they had a totally reasonable explanation for how Allura could have done it if she had been in Shiro’s position.

The mecha blasts Atlas, but Atlas blocks it with its hand. The mecha comes flying toward the Atlas, and a ghostly projection of the mecha comes off the mecha and grapples with the Atlas. This projection is the same size as Atlas. It feels like every time this episode advances the heroes’ abilities, it almost immediately counters it with the enemy. What is played to feel like success ends up being negated almost immediately, and that creates a feeling of being jerked around by the plot. It’s not that the heroes deal with one problem only to have a new one, it’s that their successes are negated. The projection knocks Atlas back and then ends, the enemy mecha at its normal size.

The mecha comes around, projects itself large again, and hits the Atlas in its back, in its shoulders, knocking the Atlas to its knee. The regular sized enemy mecha stabs the Atlas in the shoulders and starts draining its energy.

Keith seizes upon the idea (that was actually set up a lot earlier in this battle) that they have to hit the mecha in the opening it uses for its big chest cannon right before it fires.

Fifteen minutes into this battle, and it still doesn’t have any inner struggle brought out by the outer struggle. Why is this fight happening? It just is. What character(s) are connected to it? None. The battle has a total miscellaneous quality to it. And that causes the audience to not have an emotional investment in the development of the fight.

Red starts blinking its bayard slot at Lance. He and Keith bayard up, activating Voltron’s big wings, they fly to the enemy mecha, stab it in the chest, and there’s a big explosion. In typical fashion for this show, that explosion has no physical impact on anything. No hull ruptures or anything like that for either Voltron or the enemy mecha. Voltron has been separated into the respective Lions. They detect a surge in energy, and Hunk says that the enemy mecha must have a self-destruct mechanism. It’s survived tons of weapons fire, it survived the big explosion just now, but it’s going to blow itself up? Oh, whatever!

The Lions push the mecha up off Earth and into the sky. The music is really nice, but I wish the emotion of the story matched the emotion of the music. Keith says, “It’s been an honor to fly with you all,” like we’re supposed to interpret this as a potential final sacrifice of Team Voltron, but it feels empty to me. The narrative hasn’t been leading to a big character sacrifice, so I have no reason to believe that this is one.

They push the mecha into space, and the mecha explodes. One by one, the animation flashes each Paladin’s face, like we’re supposed to think this is everyone dying. But still, like I said, the narrative didn’t actually set up a character sacrifice, let alone the sacrifice of all five Paladins. It doesn’t have the emotional impact that it seems like the creative team of the show thought it had.

The unpowered Lions fall back to Earth. They were in space, why are they falling down like they’re low in the atmosphere?

Miscellaneous humans stand in miscellaneous locations looking up at colorful streaks for each of the five Lions. Red just plummets through air, not shown to hit anything. Blue hits water. Green hits a forest. Yellow hits rocky desert right next to where Hunk’s family is. Black hits near the Garrison, which, despite having been ordered evacuated into the Atlas when the Atlas launched, still has a person there to see Black hit. Since Shiro has a far greater connection to the Garrison than Keith does, the Black Lion landing at the Garrison would have made so much more emotional sense if Shiro was the Black Paladin in this moment.

Most people who write stories want to have an emotional impact on the audience/reader. So, of course, this show is trying to produce that. But moments like this are just blatantly manipulative. Did literally anyone watching this actually think in this moment that the Paladins died?

Cut to the Galaxy Garrison flying a flag at half-mast. Instantly connoting the observance of respect for the fallen. Shiro is giving a speech. “Today is a solemn day.” The show wants us to think that their having a memorial for the Paladins. It’s a fake moment. It’s not that they’re not having a memorial, it’s just not for the Paladins. It’s purposefully framed to be manipulative. And that makes the scene frustrating from the start.

“Today, we look back at the lives that have been lost and the sacrifices that have been made here on Earth and across the universe,” Shiro continues. Clearly visible in the crowd are a bunch of aliens. How are they suddenly here on Earth now? A few days, maybe a couple weeks have passed since the big finale conflict, and the Voltron Coalition is only just showing up now? Where were they when Earth needed help fighting the Galra for the past three years?

There are miscellaneous photographs of the fallen behind Shiro. The only one who is someone actually in the show is Sanda.

“There isn’t anyone here today who hasn’t experienced the tragedy of losing someone close,” Shiro says. The camera cuts to the memorial wall of the listed dead, those from the Garrison who died in the initial invasion. “It truly feels like a light has gone out in our lives, and the sun itself couldn’t reignite it.” The camera spends a moment on Adam’s placard. It makes me wish we had gotten to see Shiro have more time on camera to be upset over Adam’s death. I wish we had gotten to see more of their relationship so that it felt like Shiro lost somebody deeply important to him.

“But that light, that fire, has not gone out completely,” Shiro says. Then we get a still image montage of what has apparently happened over the past few days or couple of weeks. Matt showing up with the rebels. A Balmera is in the sky behind him. “It is fueled within each of us by the memories and the love of those we’ve lost. And now we must move forward in their names—” the camera purposefully pans over the faces of the Lions positioned behind Shiro and then onto Shiro. The episode is still! trying to fake us out into thinking the Paladins died. It’s so obnoxious. “—and shine that light onto a new path for future generations. Today is a solemn day, but it is also a day of hope.” A still image shows members of the Garrison shaking hands with various aliens.

“Earth is now stronger than ever, and it stands as a beacon of light to help guide those fighting against tyranny and oppression.” More aliens arrive, there’s a shot of miscellaneous Garrison personnel and aliens standing behind them. “From here, we will spread peace, and together we will hold strong as the defenders of the universe.”

The camera pulls back from Shiro to reveal that Hunk has been watching this memorial from his hospital room with his family nearby. Shay enters his room and hugs him. Cut to Pidge in her hospital room with her parents, Matt, the android? rebel, and Nyma. Nyma is here but Rolo isn’t? Where’s Rolo? Lance has his family with him in his hospital room. Allura is in her hospital room with Coran, Romelle (now wearing a Garrison uniform), and the mice. There’s a card nearby in Allura’s room that has a really rough drawing on it, and I’m left wanting to know who drew that card for her!! Keith is in his hospital room, unconscious. He opens his eyes to see Krolia and Kolivan there.

So, the fake Paladin deaths have been resolved. They’re not dead after all. Surprise everyone! Is anyone surprised?

It is frustrating to see this sequence of the Paladins each being shown with their families, but that Shiro doesn’t get any sort of moment like that. Hunk, Pidge, Lance, Allura, and Keith all have some form of family, someone important to them. Shiro gets no one. That the EPs and the writers of this show didn’t think we needed to see Shiro having people who care about him is infuriating. There was so much possibility. They could have literally shown us Shiro’s family. They could have had him having parents still living who come to him and hug him. They could have chosen to not kill the main clone and instead have Shiro’s spirit put in one of the other unactivated clones, and Shiro could have had a brother in the clone. They could have not killed Adam and had him and Shiro reunited, which was apparently at one point part of the plan, according to recent interviews. But Shiro has nobody because the EPs and writers wanted him to be alone.

This season ending with everyone having someone, but Shiro being alone is part of why fans were so incensed over how his character was treated this season. Unfortunately, the EPs very narrowly interpreted this upset to mean that everyone just wanted Shiro to have a boyfriend. It’s not like we are against the idea, but we didn’t want it to come out of nowhere. That eventual end marriage to Curtis was so clearly and blatantly tacked on to try to placate fans who were upset that this ending has Shiro being alone. But it shows that the EPs didn’t really understand why fans were upset that Shiro was alone in the end.

Cut to the Lions, humans, and aliens all working to rebuild Earth. Sal from Vrepit Sal’s has come to Earth and seems to be contemplating a pineapple. I don’t know why, but I kind of really like seeing him there. Allura stands looking up at a wormhole, standing at a platform with her hands on two pedestals, generating it with her magic. Olkari help the Garrison with technological repairs.

Keith, Krolia, and Cosmo go to his father’s grave. Axca walks up behind them. This is a story the show completely drops. This suggests that there is something to Axca. We know from interviews and public appearances that there had been plans to have Keith and Axca get together in a romantic relationship, but this is really the last hint toward that, and the relationship never manifests. This moment recalls all the other moments of unexplained connectivity between the two characters. And it feels so weird that this is just dropped, never resolved.

Cut to Sam showing Allura the hangar where they’ve been storing pieces of the enemy mecha as they recover them. Sam says that the amount of time that has passed has been months since the battle. He says, “We never found its power source, until now.”

To Allura’s surprise, it’s an Altean. And the episode smash cuts. The season is over.

This ending episode has such a long battle, and because they were preserving the reveal at the end of the episode to be this last, sudden, surprise twist, the battle, and thus the vast majority of this episode, is a fight against a faceless enemy. It results in the battle feeling like it’s going on too long, and it deprives the conflict of emotion.

Season seven was very ambitious. The first half of the season felt like it was spinning its wheels really, waiting until it finally got around to the Earth invasion and occupation plot. I think it would have worked better if the Earth invasion and occupation had been given more time to breathe. With so many new characters introduced, they needed time to become important, but they often just ended up feeling miscellaneous and like they were taking time away from the story’s main characters. I like the premise and some of the ideas behind this season, I just don’t think they were executed well. Like the series as a whole, this season had so much potential that just wasn’t actualized.

#voltron legendary defender #voltron #vld #voltron criticism #vld criticism #voltron critical #vld critical #vld season 7 #vld 7x13 #commentary