Voltron: Legendary Defender “Blood Duel”

What is this?  Father’s Day?  Lots of parents running around.

I mean, Haggar remembers Lotor is her son.  That probably means something.

But this isn’t much for mothers, so let’s look at two fathers:  Sam Holt and Zarkon.

Zarkon offered Sam as a trade for Lotor.  Pidge, normally the quiet and rational one, screams and shouts at the others to make the trade.  Lotor says it’s a trick (it almost certainly is).  Pidge’s brother Matt stays quiet.  Hunk is for it.  Allura is tempted with the offer of renewing the old alliance once held between her father and Zarkon as a “next generation” sort of thing.  Lance doesn’t like that at all.  Everyone bickers, and then Shiro shouts at them.

Yes, Shiro lost his temper.  That’s a first.

Bottom line is, they go to make the trade while not trusting Zarkon.  There’s a good reason for that, namely that he’s the villain of the show and isn’t the slightest bit trustworthy.

And he proves it too when, during the exchange, Sam turns out to be a hologram because Zarkon thinks he can trade the real Sam (that he still brought with him for some reason) for Voltron.

Wait, he still wants Voltron?  I mean, even knowing why he wants Voltron and why Voltron is so special, it still doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.  Then again, I’m not sure why he brought the real Sam with him either.  Zarkon may not be the brilliant tactician everyone makes him out to be.

That must be why he loses.

Oh man, does he lose.

As Matt, Shiro, and Pidge rush the shuttle to rescue Sam from Lotor’s former generals, Lotor pulls out the Black Bayard and fights his father.  And…they seem to be evenly matched.  Zarkon says stuff about Lotor being only half Galra and that makes him weak, so Allura isn’t the only space racist, but then Lance shows up with the Lions leading the other Paladins and Coran even pops the castle out at the right moment.  Shiro, Pidge, and Matt manage to toss the generals out of the shuttle, but the generals don’t go splat on the planet’s surface because they have rocket packs or something.

Remember when the generals were presented as these unstoppable fighting machines, and now any Paladin and Matt Holt can take one out?  Yeah, I know I do.

But even as Sam and his kids are reunited, something else happens on the ground as Zarkon, regaining the Bayard, takes aim at the shuttle and Lotor…stabs his father in the back and kills him.

Yeah, Lotor is probably worse than Zarkon, but Zarkon was still the series’ Big Bad in the opening credits and everything.  We’ll have to see if that holds up.