Deceive and Conquer

Lotor sacks Maahox for second-guessing Castle Doom, and Maahox leaves. At the Castle of Lions, Keith and Allura wonder who should pilot the Black Lion, while Daniel, secretly sick with a Haggarium infection, begs Larmina and Vince to help him hide it.

On Planet Doom, Kala, turned into a spider Robeast by Maahox, comes for revenge, and with Sky Marshall Wade alongside her she absorbs Lotor into one merged creature. Daniel claims he found the plot with his equipment, and Keith lets him ride co-pilot in the Black Lion. Voltron fights in Yellow Center, Red Center and Black Center forms while Daniel finds he can see Lotor's thoughts and Lotor can see his. The creature falls, Daniel's infection is gone, and Keith gives him the Black Lion at a ceremony. Back on Planet Doom, Maahox revives Lotor, declines to work for him again, and answers Lotor's puzzled "Castle?" with "My Robeast."

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

Keith: Giles Panton Lance: Andrew Francis Allura: Ashleigh Ball Pidge: Sam Vincent Hunk: Ty Olsson Daniel: Vincent Tong Vince: Doron Bell Jr. Larmina: Shannon Chan-Kent Sky Marshall Wade: Gary Chalk Maahox: Ron Halder Lotor: Mark Hildreth Kala: Tabitha St. Germain

"By my count, your plans have a 100% failure rate against Voltron." -- Maahox

"A lump of dirt would get the same results." -- Maahox

"Maahox, I'm no longer interested in your opinions, your designs, or your stupid plans." -- Lotor

"One last secret pact?" -- Daniel

"You're riding co-pilot in black today, Cadet." -- Keith

"Co-pilot's not an honorary title." -- Keith

"Lotolider?" -- Hunk

"I think someone's gotten into your head." -- Maahox

"Oh, and you're unfired!" -- Lotor

"Castle?" -- Lotor

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.

Who gets the Black Lion, and on what evidence? "Deceive and Conquer" puts the question in the launch bay almost at once. Lance observes that the kid has always had his eye on black, Keith insists that this is not something to settle with a coin, and Allura suggests that a man who has served the galaxy as a pilot might now serve her people as king. Keith's slow "Oh" when he understands what she is offering is the warmest beat in the episode, but it is played between numbered doors and cyan holographic panels, which is a hard place to be tender! [1]

The trouble is that the people deciding are working from incomplete information. Daniel, the cadet everyone is discussing, is carrying a Haggarium infection that nobody on the senior team knows about. He spends his early scenes asking Larmina and Vince for one last secret pact because he does not want to be the one left behind. The episode is really about that: the Black Lion is heading to a boy whose best qualification is a symptom. The later scenes test whether anyone, Daniel included, can tell an ability from an affliction.

The villains get the funnier half of the script, and they get it as a chain of grievances. Lotor sacks Maahox in the cold open, having just been told that his plans fail against Voltron every time. Maahox, it turns out, has already turned Commander Kala into a spider; Kala arrives on Planet Doom wanting Maahox and settles for Lotor, because Wade, speaking alongside her, reminds her to take out the biggest threat first. [2] Maahox begs everyone to be careful with the walls ("They're new") and then grins with open delight as the Drule king is absorbed into a three-minded creature, which Hunk christens "Lotolider"!

The standout is in the Black Lion on Planet Doom. Keith has put Daniel in the co-pilot seat, a promotion that is also a test, and Daniel is plainly not himself. He winces, he holds his head, and then he shouts that he is in the creature's head and calls a counter-strike that works. A "Good man!" comes from a commander who has just reminded him that co-pilot is not an honorary title. Keith cannot tell what we can: the instinct he is praising is the infection reaching across to the enemy. Maahox says as much to Lotor: "I think someone's gotten into your head." He adds, with relish, that the connection may work both ways. [3] What Keith praised as instinct is now a hole in the team's defences. The cockpits fill with urgent talk of keeping their thoughts clear so that Lotor cannot see what comes next.

The one real weakness is the cure. Daniel's infection disappears at the end of the fight with a flat "The infection? Gone." and a "Why?" that the dialogue never answers. The story needs him clean so that Keith can hand over the lion with a clear conscience, yet it supplies the cure without a cause, and we are left to wonder whether the uncanny edge went with the sickness.

The ending is gracious all the same. Keith gives Daniel the Black Lion at a ceremony in front of a golden archway, with a crowd on the field and Pidge cheering at the edge of frame. The scene lets the gift be sincere even though the audience knows how it was earned. Then Maahox gets the last word, as he should: he revives Lotor, refuses to be unfired, and answers Lotor's puzzled "Castle?" with "My Robeast." Daniel has deceived his way to the lion, but what it costs him to keep it is left hanging.

1 ^ Lance's remark about black comes at 3:13, and Keith's line about the coin follows at 3:16.

2 ^ The sacking happens in the cold open at about 1:07 ("And you're fired!"), before the titles.

3 ^ Daniel's cover story for knowing about Planet Doom arrives at 10:50, when he stammers that he detected the activity with his equipment and is congratulated for it.

1. Maahox gets sacked before the title sequence, right after pointing out that "your plans have a 100% failure rate against Voltron." From there the episode runs on firing jokes. Lotor gets to say "And you're fired!", then "I hate to use the word fired twice in the same day!" in the middle of the battle, and finally "Oh, and you're unfired!" Maahox keeps answering with a downgraded title: "my until-recently lord", "my, uh, ex-lord", "Sorry, my no longer Lord."
2. Kala has been a name since New School Defenders, where an Alliance council meeting brings up "this mysterious Commander Kala", and she turns up in person in Defenders of Arus. This is the episode that ties her to the black spider Robeast that cocooned Wade's lion in Defenders of the Universe, which fans had long read as hers. She shows up to say "You double-crossed me! Turned me into a monstrosity!", and Maahox calls her "my first Haggarium-powered creation" and adds "To be fair, I only did the spider part."
3. A short scene hands Keith a new career path. Someone says "That new fact changes everything", the fact being Keith's family roots in Crossed Signals, where the ship takes him for Commander Cogaine and he asks "My family... Came from Eris?" The suggestion is that he serve his people "As king." The reply is "But you're already queen, Allura", followed by a very small "Oh."
4. Daniel's Haggarium infection has been a slow burn. Roots of Evil says he caught it when he was cocooned with the spider, and Vince and Larmina agree to keep it quiet. By here the secret is "One last secret pact?", with the plea "The infection's getting worse." When the spider-Kala merger falls, it is gone: "The infection? Gone. Why?" Nobody stops to say.
5. Maahox plants a nasty seed about the mind link: "I think someone's gotten into your head", and "it's possible the connection works both ways." It does, so the cadets switch to "Clear. Keep it clear. Don't let Lotor see what's next." Daniel's reason for not telling Keith, "I can't brain talk about this right now, Vince", is what drives the finale, Black.
6. Keith makes Daniel "co-pilot in black today, Cadet" and then snaps "Co-pilot's not an honorary title." Count the faces in the cockpit panels and there are six pilots for five Lions: Lance, Keith, Daniel, Vince, Hunk and Larmina. Daniel has ridden along before, in Lance's Red Lion in Flash Form Go!, but here Keith gives it a title.
7. Mid-fight comes a new battle cry: "Let's Voltron!", followed by "Huh. I like that. You got that, team?" and everyone repeating it. The cadets were already using the words in Rogue Trip, where they replace the interlock routine ("I say we go with a simple... Let's Voltron!"), and it is still the order in Black.
8. Naming big things is a running gag. When the Kala-Wade-Lotor monster appears, "Lotolider?" earns a flat "Not the time, Hunk." Earlier episodes had "Neutron" and "Awesome-Tron" in Rogue Trip and "Dan-tron" in I, Voltron.
9. Position in the run: this aired on Wednesday, April 18, 2012, one week before the finale. After the 90-minute premiere on June 16, 2011 it ran on Thursdays (with a Sunday for episode 17 on Thanksgiving weekend), then Nicktoons went quiet for three months and came back on leap day, February 29, 2012, for a closing stretch of Wednesdays.

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