We’re gonna look at Voltron for the final time, and see if the ending is satisfying.
Uncharted Regions
Honerva is well aware of the Paladins action and calls her ship to leave a wormhole they’d been in. The Paladins detect this too but without Allura’s wormhole capabilities they can’t get there in time. They update the rest of the ATLAS on Honerva’s plan as she begins using her new mech to begin glimpsing alternate realities to find the perfect reality she wants.
So, whilst they can’t interfere directly they’re preparing for battle. A Galra fleet has been spotted with an active Zyforge cannon, they’re going to try and recruit them to their side to aid in the battle, Slav and Sam Holt have come up with some upgrade ideas for the Atlas and just need to source extra power for it, Pidge offers to help, as Coran suggests finding the Balmera in this vicinity, Hunk and Romel will travel with them.
Lance is left feeling a bit downtrodden, Keith is the one to inspire him again. Romel approaches the other Alteans, who seem to have calmed down a bit. She offers for them to help with the Balmera but it’s not deemed wise as they still have the entity within which Honerva can use against them, all except Tavo, who agrees to help.
With Honerva opening wormholes across the universe, there’s little the ATLAS can do, until they discover they have a small scout ship in the area, Commander Ozar is contacted to do some reconnaissance for them. They find Honerva’s ship and her mech, unfortunately they’re spotted by Robeasts and the entire squadron is destroyed.
Honerva tells her commanders she’s found what she needs and to set course to Altea. Lance is sat by Allura’s bedside, trying to help her wake up. And I don’t know if it works because of Lance, or because of Honerva’s plans. They’re still working on getting a huge crystal from the Balmera but time is of the essence so they wormhole jump ready to face Lotor’s mech, the robeasts and Honevera.
The Black, Red and Green Lions are launched, unfortunately just as Hunk is ready to head back, Honerva begins taking control of the entities, including Allura’s they head to the bridge and prepare to take the Balmeran crystal, they transfer the energy from the crystal, sacrificing their lives in the process. Allura wakes up and opens a wormhole for Hunk, they bring along the Balmera for some reason, and Honerva manages to draw the quintessence from it. With all that power, Voltron can’t stop her and although one of the robeasts tries, it ends only in her own death. Honvera’s suit merges with Lotor’s and she begins piercing realities.
It’s a pretty intense episode, but there is a problem when you make an enemy this unstoppable, it’s gonna be difficult to justify her defeat now.
Rating 7.5/10
The Zenith
As Honerva begins to pierce realty she sends her last two robeasts to hold off Voltron and the ATLAS, thankfully the Lions begin to get online just in time. Power is coming back to the ATLAS too, so the Lions are to keep the robeasts distracted long enough for the ATLAS to get a shot at Honerva. Coran is left with trying to deal with the fact that this universe is on the brink of collapse thanks to Honerva.
Keith tries a run for Honerva but it ends badly. The ATLAS transforms and keeps Honerva distracted, giving Allura the chance to get out so they can form Voltron. And retcon alert guys, all the Alteans who supposedly died in the last episode are alive again. Coran has a plan, but it requires getting everyone to Honerva’s ship. They send out a squad, with the MFDs protecting them, but all may be for be for naught as Honerva has successfully pierced realities.
There are a lot of potential pitfalls of following her but they all get conveniently solved with all the Balmeras converge and lend their quintessence into forging a union between the ATLAS and Voltron. Also, Coran comes up with the idea of having the Alteans transfer their energy from the Balmera. It’s worse than they feared as every alternate Altea they cross through is falling apart.
Voltron makes a stand against Honerva as Coran receives further help by the arrival of Galra fleets. Honerva begins drawing power from the Voltron, leaving them helpless as the reality they’re in collapses and Coran’s plan begins falling apart. Keith once again gives a speech that allows them to recover and head for the portal, unfortunately it seems to close before they can get to it. Honerva arrives at she perceives to be her perfect universe.
Zarkon is training some recruits as her monster arrives. She reveals herself, seemingly the version of her in this reality is gone, she asks where Lotor is, and he’s apparently on Altea, excelling with his studies. But hope of the happy ending for Honerva absolutely no-one was asking for is quashed when Lotor begins to doubt. Oh gee, I feel so sorry for the monster whose genocide spans multiple realities.
Upon discovering Voltron getting to her, she decides to end this universe and gets back in her mech.
I really don’t understand why we’re getting a sympathy play for Honerva in the same episode she’s wiping out realities left at right. There are things you can’t come back from.
Rating 7/10
The end is the beginning
Is it though? I’ll let you be the judge
Voltron vs Honerva’s mech begins, Voltron takes the battle outside the city and thanks to another new power they gain the other hand, but only briefly as Honevera strikes them and begins piercing realities once again. Voltron manages to recover and heads after her through the portal.
They find themselves in the nexus of realities where Honerva is systematically wiping them all out. This doesn’t even make sense from Honerva’s point of view now, is she planning to end herself as well? Voltron isn’t able to save most, there’s one reality left before Voltron can engage. Once again, a new power shows up just in time to help them. They push Honerva right into the centre where most of the reality strands come from.
Honerva awakens outside her robot and oh my god, they’re going to talk her down, brilliant… Allura begins to remind her of who she was and we see it working, especially with the remind her that whilst Lotor had a ton of issues, he wanted to preserve life. It eventually does break through to her but the damage is supposedly done. There is one chance, thanks to Lotor, Allura can transform quintessence from a destructive to a life giving force, and since Honerva’s machine is full of it, they may be able to do it, but it’ll come at a cost, their lives.
I guess we probably should’ve seen this coming. In a few earlier episodes, Allura survived doing things that should’ve killed her, that had to be an end to that eventually. But it’s a bittersweet ending, especially for Lance and one thing I really feel is a poor decision is to have it be the end of Voltron also.
She says her goodbyes to everyone, and it’s all touching. Lance gets the mark of the chosen for some reason. Allura and Honerva save reality, and Honerva even gets to say goodbye to Zarkon and Lotor, reality is restored, even Altea is back, and so is Daibazaal.
We cut to a year later, the Galra join the Galactic coalition officially with a speech given by Keith. Hunk and Shiro are holding peace negotiations, and are joined by Romel, and several other familiar face, including Vrepit Sal. Pidge and Matt have been working on a robot, Pidge has named ‘Chip’ because that’s just cute.
Lance is telling children of Altea, and various other cultures the history of Allura, interrupting Coran’s plans for setting up a feast. He’s been working on a small farm, living the quiet life now the universe isn’t in constant jeopardy. The feast begins and it’s revealed that Sam has managed to create wormhole tech that doesn’t need an Altean to activate.
The Lions are ready as they begin to set off for locations unknown until they’re needed. Hope the ATLAS can give Pidge a lift. Final wrap-up, we get a photo to remind us the mice exist across a couple of years. We see the Holt family established the newest Galactic defenders. Hunk created a Culinary empire in the name of piece, including so many familiar faces. Lance never really got over Allura’s death, which is a bit sad, though they frame it as a good thing. Kolivan and Krolia became the representatives elected to represent the coalition (they asked Keith, he said no)
Keith helped transition the Blade of Marmora to a humanitarian relief organisation. And Shiro ended up marrying that one guy who was in a couple of shots. This was added at the last minute thanks to the controversy in season 7 and I hate it. They basically picked a guy from at Atlas at random and made him Shiro’s husband with no foreshadowing or explanation whatsoever. That’s incredibly insulting, and what really bugs me is they could’ve used the episode that ended up being Day Forty-Seven to foreshadow this even slightly.
But hey, there’s an actual kiss, which is more than Korra got? But at least Korra had some establishment of a relationship between her and Asami, even if you could dismiss it as friendship.
I have mixed feelings towards this finale. It does a lot right but equally does quite a lot wrong. I really don’t like that they pushed a redemption arc with Honerva of all people. Steven Universe got flak for redeeming the diamonds, and rightfully so but Honerva went so much further, the death count of her actions is unfathomable and it just doesn’t sit right with me that she gets anything resembling a happy ending.
I think my other issues I’ve made clear in the summary
Rating 6/10
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