Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 7 dropped on Netflix today (August 10th)! There ARE spoilers below, so stop reading now if you don’t want to know details about what happens.
Episode 1 – “A Little Adventure” – The season starts off with Shiro in stasis and the team splitting up with Allura, Keith, Krolia, and Cosmo (space wolf) staying to monitor and try to help Shiro while Coran leads Pidge, Hunk, Lance, and Romelle on a mission to find a way to power up the lions. The Shiro part of the episode focuses on flashbacks of Shiro’s first meeting and helping Keith into and through the Garrison along with the two big reveals that Shiro is gay and left behind an ex (Adam) and that he has a disease that will eventually kill him. (Which Lauren Montgomery confirmed in my interview is now cured “thanks” to the Galra). On the flip side of the episode, in contrast to the very dramatic and heart-wrenching Shiro scenes, the away team has a fun and comedic romp including a Honey, I Shrunk the Kids moment. Two interesting things that came out of the mission are that Lance is definitely proving his skill and worth to the team and Hunk and Romelle are going to be BFFs.
Episode 2 – “The Road Home” – This episode starts out pretty funny. There are five lions (duh) and nine people and a wolf, a cow, and mice that need to make the trip back to Earth. For some reason, they let Lance set up the assignments and nobody is happy. Thankfully, Cosmo saves the day by swapping everyone around to make the best of the traveling assignments. I love that space wolf! We then get the first glimpse that something is very wrong when Zethrid and Ezor show up and capture the team and the lions. They are wearing new costumes (Hello, new cosplay!) and have a contingent of Galra soldiers, also wearing very different costumes. They keep asking the paladins to explain where they have been and what happened, but, of course, the paladins are clueless as to what they mean.
Episode 3 – “The Way Forward” – There are four things of very important note in this episode. 1. Ezor and Zethrid seem to very obviously be a couple. Hooray for more representation! 2. Axca is allied with the Voltron team against them. And, it seems, all of those intentionally untaken shots by Axca are because she has a crush on Keith? If that’s all it ends up being, I’m totally fine with that since I love Keith and Axca is my favorite of Lotor’s generals. 3. Although, for the Voltron team they were never “gone,” we learn that they have been missing from the universe for two years and everyone thought they and Lotor all died in the final battle last season. 4. Keith manages to call to and teleport his bayard to himself, an ability we haven’t yet seen.
Episode 4 – “The Feud!” – I know some people are going to hate on this episode as being a poor fit or being too lighthearted, but I loved it. As a kid who watched game shows (Family Feud and Pictionary were my two favorites) whenever I stayed home sick from school, this episode was perfect. Not to mention we get to see top-knotted, binkied Keith, AND, although they aren’t real, we get the return of Zarkon, Haggar, and Lotor (which sadly is the only time we see any of them all season).
Episode 5 – “The Ruins” – This was the first really heartbreaking episode of the season (and not the last). On their journey towards Earth, the team picks up a distress call that Krolia recognizes as a Blades signal. The team hurries to assist. What they find is a planet that housed a secret Blades base in utter ruins. The Blades and the local population, save for one sole survivor, were completely wiped out in a battle with Haggar’s druids. Or so the sole survivor says. Taking the team to his hideaway, they find a cache of Blades weapons and discover the truth—the sole survivor is actually the last of Haggar’s druids that has been luring the remnants of the Blades to their doom. We get an amazing fight sequence where Keith and Cosmo prove how utterly badass they are, probably from their time training together in the time warp. We also discover that Kolivan was still alive and being held captive by the druid. The team saves him and, using the druid’s ship, Krolia and Kolivan head off to try to rebuild the Blades while the rest of the team continues to Earth.
Episode 6 – “The Journey Within” – This episode really tests the team as they try to stop from going space crazy as they float, lost in space, together. The biggest take away from this episode is that the paladins and their love for each other manage to power up the lions and make some huge crazy super jets on the back of Voltron which propels them through space and to Earth in the blink of an eye. The episode ends with the team on the outskirts of the Milky Way.
Episode 7 – “The Last Stand Part 1” – This episode jumps back in time to when Sam first returned to Earth. We see Sam coming home to Colleen. We also get to meet Lance and Hunk’s large families as Sam records messages from them to transmit out to space in the hopes of the paladins getting them (and of course, we know they never did which is heartbreaking itself). We get to meet four new ace pilot cadets who are a very diverse group. Sam begins helping the integration and understanding of Galra and Altean technology and making new tech for Earth to protect themselves, including a shield similar to the Castle of Lions shield and some new fighters (that are very reminiscent of something from Macross). And these defenses are none too soon because Sendak appears in the skies above Earth for an attack.
Episode 8 – “The Last Stand Part 2” – Hold on to your seats! Sendak, looking for Voltron, who Sam and the Garrison cannot produce, completely destroys most of Earth. Only the main Garrison base is left. We also meet my new favorite character, Veronica, an analyst who is a total badass and leads an away team of the new cadets to get some much-needed supplies for Sam to finish constructing and powering his new defenses. Veronica sacrifices herself to help the cadets get back to base, but then shows up later with the new underground resistance. And it’s here we learn that she is Lance’s sister!
Episode 9 – “Know Your Enemy” – Ok, so, you probably want to take a break before this episode because as much as your emotions have been all over the map until now, this one is a LOT all in one episode. Sam manages to get a warning message to the team before they race into the trap Sendak has laid for them so they hide the lions (along with the mice and Kalternecker) on a moon of Saturn and all sneak to Earth on a Galra ship they captured from a patrol. The paladins first seeing the destruction Sendak has brought is heart-wrenching. The new cadets rescue the paladins and bring them back to the Garrison where the “reunions” begin. Katie is reunited with Sam, Colleen, and their dog. Lance’s whole family is there to meet him. Hunk’s family has been captured and is in the Galra work camps that have sprung up all over Earth. Iverson apologizes to Shiro and Keith. And we learn that Adam died in the initial attack on Earth. Sam reveals the Atlas battleship that he built but cannot power. Keith gives Hunk an amazing pep talk about how he is the paladin Keith most admires for his courage. And then Keith, Hunk, Veronica, and Griffin sneak out to try to rescue Hunk’s family. They aren’t successful but we learn that they are safe if being used as slave labor. And finally, Allura gets to work on making Shiro a new arm using some of the prosthetics Sam has made for soldiers as a starting point.
Episode 10 – “Heart of a Lion” – This episode begins with Shiro getting his new arm. It’s a floating forearm similar to Sendak’s but it immediately has some backlash and is almost killing Shiro. Allura jumps to the rescue removing the Earth-based power source and inserting the crystal from her tiara. The yellow glow turns to a blue one, and Shiro gets full control of the arm. This one is going to be very difficult for all the Shiro cosplayers out there. However, I have an idea I’m already at work on testing about how to do a floating arm cosplay. Stay tuned! Lance and Allura get a couple of moments in this episode, which leaves Lance blushing an awful lot. The paladins infiltrate a Galra base and learn what Sendak has been planning. Each of the six Galra bases has been building a Ziforce canon—each one is a planet killer laser. The team comes up with a plan that requires exact timing to destroy all 6 canons—1 lion must attack a base, with the 6th being attacked by the new cadets in their MFE fighters. But how will they get the lions? Shiro tells them to all call to their lions and they will come. And they do! But they soon realize that it is a trap because the admiral betrayed them to Sendak! The Ziforce canons launch and fire on Voltron, blowing the lions apart.
Episode 11 – “Trial by Fire” – Surprise! Now that Sendak has Voltron and the paladins, he betrays the admiral as well! In an effort to stop Sendak, Shiro takes command of the Atlas and it is powered by the crystal that was created from the destruction of the Castle of Lions (a nice passing on of the torch). The admiral, realizing her mistake, sacrifices herself to buy the paladins time to get the lions and escape.
Episode 12 – “Lion’s Pride Part 1” – Ok, here we go! The race to the end! The team uses Sendak’s own array to hold off the Ziforce canons and the destruction of Earth while Shiro goes solo to infiltrate the base and stop Sendak. We get this great scene of Shiro in his space suit, destroying the shop’s crystal looking a whole lot like Mega Man (I love all the influences we see throughout the show). Shiro and Sendak have a huge throwdown duel. And right before Sendak is about to finish off Shiro, Keith jumps from Black and eviscerates Sendak! Earth is safe! And then something new crashes to Earth!
Episode 13 – “Lion’s Pride Part 2” A new, more powerful than ever Robeast has come to Earth! Voltron forms twin scimitars to face off against the beasts twin weapons. We get an amazing, long fight sequence, but Voltron is no match for the Robeast alone. Shiro transforms the Atlas! The Atlas is a giant robot that towers over Voltron and the Robeast. As it is defeated, the beast self-destructs. With Earth saved, we wrap the episode with a bunch of homecomings and reunions. Matt comes home! Slav shows up! Hunk finally gets his family reunion AND Shay shows up! We get to see Lance with his family again. Krolia and Kolivan return as well. Even Vrepit Sal sets up on Earth. The final reunion scene is Keith, Krolia, and Cosmo at Keith’s dad’s grave (we still don’t learn his name) with Axca watching from the shadows. The season wraps up with the recovery of the head of the Robeast. Sam and Allura find that it was being powered by an Altean! My guess here is that Haggar is using whatever technology Lotor had come up with for draining Alteans to power her beasts.
I am still reeling from everything that happened this season, but I am happy that, overall, it ended on less of a cliffhanger than previous seasons and that, despite all of the tragedy, we left the team on a more upbeat note. I don’t think I could have handled losing one of the core team this season after last season. But I’m not lying to myself and I don’t think the team will make it out of season 8 unscathed.
