Black

Daniel, the new Black Lion pilot, brags that he has plenty of time for the learning curve. Then a distress call from Earth arrives, and Maahox appears by hologram to say that he has begun galactic chaos and decapitated the Galaxy Alliance. Castle Doom has become a giant Robeast attacking an Earth city.

Keith lets Daniel lead the mission. Daniel skips the usual tactics and forms Voltron at once, and when Vince urges him to admit that he won the last battle by reading the enemy's mind, he refuses. The team fractures, and Daniel is knocked out in the Black Lion. Allura turns to her father's hologram and receives a final gift. Keith takes over the Black Lion, Coran pilots the castle, and Voltron forms Blazing Sword, followed by head attacks that surprise the cadets. On a rooftop afterwards, Keith tells Daniel he is not ready yet and promises modifications for his return.

Voice cast, as credited on this episode's closing titles (role, then actor).

Keith: Giles Panton Lance: Andrew Francis Allura: Ashleigh Ball Pidge / King Alfor: Sam Vincent Hunk: Ty Olsson Daniel: Vincent Tong Vince: Doron Bell Jr. Larmina: Shannon Chan-Kent Maahox / Coran: Ron Halder

"Peace time is the best time to prepare for duty." -- Keith

"I was born to lead this team." -- Daniel

"And besides, we just defeated all the evil in the galaxy." -- Daniel

"And I've found the best way to incite disorder is to cut off the head." -- Maahox

"Voltron is all Flash Form all the time now." -- Daniel

"And does being the Black Lion pilot automatically destroy your sense of humor?" -- Lance

"If I tell them that, I'll lose Black Lion!" -- Daniel

"None of you trust me!" -- Daniel

"Only when tested that one's true valor is discovered." -- King Alfor

"The honor of the black lion helm is earned with integrity." -- Keith

Transcribed from the episode's subtitle track, which we checked against the audio, with misspelled names corrected. Speakers are named only where the dialogue or the picture makes them clear.

A title can be an honour or a job, and the finale's cold open is built to show Daniel mistaking one for the other. He leads his friends down into the cadets' old hideout and teases Lance with "I can't help it if the black lion pilot is the leader of the Voltron Force," then proposes a secret room for current members only. When somebody asks whether he is nervous, he answers: "I was born to lead this team. And besides, we just defeated all the evil in the galaxy. So I have plenty of time for the learning curve." The titles roll on that sentence, and the next thing anyone hears is a distress call from a compromised Earth.

The villain's timing is very good, and his method is better! Maahox appears by hologram to announce that he has begun his greatest experiment, galactic chaos. The best way to incite disorder, he says, is to cut off the head, which is why he has decapitated the Galaxy Alliance. [1] Asked about Lotor, he waves the question away: Lotor was merely a single image in his master mosaic. We like the villain logic, since later he watches the team's quarrel unfold and observes, with a satisfaction he does not trouble to hide, that dissension is the first stage of chaos.

The monster is a Castle Doom the size of a city, but the weapon is Daniel's pride. The Voltron Force spends much of its last adventure doing Maahox's work for him! Keith sets it up by handing over the lion and promising to hang back in the control room, and Daniel promptly throws out the careful drill. There is no point in spreading out, he says, and "Voltron is all Flash Form all the time now." Lance asks whether being the Black Lion pilot automatically destroys a man's sense of humour.

Our pick for the best scene is the argument in the cockpits. Vince, who alone knows the truth, tells Daniel to confess to the others that his success in the last battle came from reading the enemy's mind. Daniel's answer gives him away: "If I tell them that, I'll lose Black Lion!" It is a smaller, nastier moment than anything the monster does; it sets up the later confrontation, when Daniel snaps at the team that none of them trust him. The audience can see that they are right not to.

Allura's crypt scene is the gentlest thing in the episode and the most surprising. She goes to the hologram of her father and says she has been trusting destiny, but that destiny seems to be leading only to the destruction of Voltron. King Alfor's answer is that valour is discovered only when tested, that now she is queen his time with her is over, and that he has one final gift. It sounds like a farewell, and the gift turns up later as a supercharged sword. [2]

The one real weakness is the threat itself. Maahox's scheme is introduced with wit and then barely seen. Earth's chaos amounts to a flickering feed and a burning skyline, the human lab rats never get a face, and the Galaxy Alliance is one we never hear from again once the distress call is cut. The finale prefers its intramural quarrel to its apocalypse, which suits the thesis but leaves the giant Robeast as scenery.

The ending is the right one. On a rooftop under fireworks, Keith tells Daniel that "the honor of the black lion helm is earned with integrity," that leading is about teamwork rather than any one person, and that the team is already planning his return to the cockpit, with modifications from Pidge to suit his style. It is a demotion delivered as an invitation, and it closes the series on a conservative and perfectly fair verdict: not yet, and not alone. [3]

1 ^ The closing credits list Ron Halder with both Maahox and Coran, and Sam Vincent with both Pidge and King Alfor, which makes the hologram scenes in this episode a small feat of doubling.

2 ^ Alfor mentions the gift at 12:35; Allura recognises its effect at 17:08 ("Father did have one more trick up his sleeve"), and the four and five lion head attacks that follow take the cadets by surprise.

3 ^ In the cold open at 0:17, Pidge demonstrates a defence upgrade called the Lion's Roar, and it is not mentioned again in the dialogue.

1. The reshuffle that ends the first season lasts exactly one episode. In The Army Of One the team asks which of the original pilots will give up a Lion, Deceive and Conquer has Keith hand Daniel the Black Lion ("It's your show now"), and by the end of this one Keith is back at the Black controls and Daniel is benched, with a consolation prize: "I had Pidge make a few modifications that I thought would suit your style."
2. The finale aired on Wednesday, April 25, 2012, ten months after the 90-minute New Defenders Trilogy premiere on June 16, 2011. Nicktoons planned 26 episodes from the start, and a second season was reportedly in development but never made. The ending is built for more: "We may have eliminated the threat of Haggarium for the time being", and a pointed "we aren't giving up on you" for Daniel.
3. Daniel's boast is the best joke of the episode, because the show cuts straight from it to the disaster. He insists he is the leader ("I can't help it if the black lion pilot is the leader of the Voltron Force", to which Lance answers "I'm a red man through and through") and then "we just defeated all the evil in the galaxy. So I have plenty of time for the learning curve." The next thing after the opening titles is the distress call.
4. Vince tells Daniel to come clean: "You were only able to pull that stuff off in the last battle because you could read our enemy's mind! Nobody else knows that!" The secret is straight out of Deceive and Conquer, where Vince worked it out and Daniel brushed him off with "I can't brain talk about this right now, Vince." Daniel's counter is that he will "lose Black Lion" if he admits it.
5. "Voltron is all Flash Form all the time now" turns a rescue trick into a policy. Flash Form came from Flash Form Go!, where Daniel, a self-described Voltron fan, timed the normal formation at 36 seconds. When someone suggests the standard sequence because "It uses less power", the answer is "We're not wasting time on that either."
6. Keith opens the episode "officially retired from the Voltron Force" and has already found a new hobby, drilling recruits for an "Eruja National Guard" ("Peace time is the best time to prepare for duty."). Someone was trying to set up a committee. It follows from the scene in Deceive and Conquer about serving "our people".
7. King Alfor's hologram says goodbye: "Now that you are queen, my time with you is over." It has been a recurring presence since Coran, Coran, where Alfor's hologram turns up in the catacombs, and the question of whether Allura could be both queen and a pilot was posed bluntly in Roots of Evil. His "one final gift" turns out to be a power-up for the Blazing Sword.
8. The cadets' secret lair gets one last gag. "It was our secret cadet lair. Hence its very clever name." Hunk, who was let in at the end of The Hunkyard, admits "I've been coming down here for a while", and someone is clearly stung: "You guys told Hunk about your secret place and not me?" The lair itself started in Coran, Coran with "The lair!"
9. "Four lion head attack!" and "Five lion head attack!" are called out like old tricks, and the cadets are floored: "Our heads fly? I had no idea Voltron could do this." No other episode names the move out loud. Some longtime fans point out that in the 1980s series the head attack was done by the Lions in separate mode, not as a combined Voltron.

Voltron Force, the 2011 continuation, in which the 1984 pilots take on cadets.