Lion Riders Return

Pidge's online game turns out to be how Voltron's quiet loyalists talk under Wade's radar, and a player on Ariel asks the Force for help. Allura, Keith, Lance, Pidge and Hunk fly out to start building a pro-Voltron resistance, and she insists the cadets come too, without being able to say why. On Ariel the Force fights glowing blue Krelshi at a temple and is taken by Chief Kalon for one of Wade's mockeries until the misunderstanding is cleared up.

The Lion Riders explain that Wade's drill walkers are tearing out Corite ore and driving the Krelshi into a frenzy. While the pilots fight the walkers, whose tips can bite into the Lions, Vince, Daniel and Larmina follow Daigo into the mine below the temple. After a row in the cave, a Krelshi attack pushes them to an ancient forge, where Vince's touch restores the Lions to full power.

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

Keith: Giles Panton Lance: Andrew Francis Allura / Daigo: Ashleigh Ball Pidge / Chief Kalon: Sam Vincent Hunk: Ty Olsson Daniel: Vincent Tong Vince: Doron Bell Jr. Larmina: Shannon Chan-Kent Sky Marshall Wade: Garry Chalk

"Start with the people who never gave up hope."

"Whatever you're thinking about saying right now, take a deep breath, and then don't."

"Looks like the Charm Offensive is working!"

"Lingo's a work in progress."

"Okay, what exactly is the problem?" -- Larmina

"Stupid answer. Try again." -- Larmina

"You're royalty. You were born to do this." -- Daniel

"Just some punk kid who got lucky." -- Daniel

"You're here because you earn it every day." -- Larmina

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.

Destiny is the cheapest thing an adventure serial can hand a character, and this one has plenty to spare. Vince gets a destiny, Larmina gets a royal education, and the original pilots already have their lions. "Lion Riders Return" spends its running time on the one cadet with none of that, and it is the better episode for the choice.

The set-up is a lark. Before the titles, Pidge's game turns out to be how Voltron's quiet loyalists talk to each other under Wade's radar. A player asks Vince mid-match whether he is Voltron Force. That player is Daigo, a young hooded Lion Rider on Ariel, and the Force travels there to start a resistance among people who never gave up hope. Allura insists the cadets come along as well, and cannot say why beyond her father's say-so. [1] The Force arrives in the middle of a Krelshi attack on a temple and fights the glowing blue lions. Chief Kalon [2] promptly accuses it of being a mockery of the Voltron Lions sent by Wade. Keith's good will mission is off to a poor start, and one of the pilots is quick to point it out.

The adults get the loud half of the episode, but the cadets get the story. Allura tells Vince his task is to find out why he was brought, and that sends him, Daniel, Larmina and Daigo into a mine under the temple. Clear the drills and the ghost lions off the table and the episode is about the difference between being chosen and being earned. It says so in the best scene of the half hour. Vince goes quiet in front of a wall of carved symbols. Daniel, prickly and bored, announces that a dead end is what they came all this way to find. Larmina hauls him aside by the collar and asks what the problem is. "Nothing!" "Ow!" "Stupid answer. Try again." What comes out is an unguarded speech: Vince has a destiny, Larmina is royalty, "You were born to do this," and what does that make him? "Just some punk kid who got lucky." Larmina gets as far as telling him that is not how it is before they are called over and Vince announces a door. The timing is clumsy but the choice is smart, because it leaves Daniel's question hanging for the rest of the episode.

The answer comes at the very end. When a Krelshi goes for Vince, Larmina holds it off with a glowing staff while Daniel gets him to the forge door. The closing scene hands her the line that settles it: Vince has some kind of destiny, she was born into hers, "But you... You're here because you earn it every day." It lands because it is Daniel's own speech returned with the one claim he left out. Giving that to Larmina rather than to a grown-up is the right call. She has the most to be smug about of any cadet, yet she spends the episode being kind.

The weakness is on the other side of the plot. Pidge works out that the drill tips are made of Haggarium, which is why they can chew into the Lions as well as the ore. Later she finds that the new configurations draw more power than a regular formation. The second diagnosis comes after Voltron tries a Hunk-led form and its power meters collapse. It is the sharpest mechanical thought in the episode, and nothing the Force does answers it. Vince touches something in an old forge, a pilot notices that the Lions are being restored, and Voltron wins. The cadet story earns its ending; the lion story is solved from the side.

We like what it does for the new pilots, who get reasons of their own rather than just a seat in the cockpit. The least mystical of them is the one the others learn from. The title promises a homecoming for the Lion Riders, and they get one, but the payoff we remember is a royal telling a cadet he belongs!

1 ^ In the first scene after the titles (around 2:48) Allura talks with her father, who suggests the Lion Force should stop trying to stand alone. The episode never shows what he said about the cadets, only that she insists on bringing them at 3:49.

2 ^ The closing credits spell the chief's name Kalon; the subtitle track has Callan. This page follows the credits.

1. "Form Red Center!" is the first time the dialogue names a Red Center, and "Magma Pistols!" is the weapon that goes with it. In Joyride To Doom the same red-chested form had to make do with "Form blazing... Guns?", so the mystery weapon finally gets a proper name two weeks later.
2. The ore Wade's drills are after is "Corite, a powerful metal ore found only on Ariel". It pays off at the end of Clash of the Lions, where "that Corite charge" is what lets Wade take hold of Voltron, and it is still the problem in Five Forged, where the team notes that "the raw metal was mined from here on Ariel".
3. Pidge's online game is introduced as the way Voltron's loyalists talk "under Wade's radar", and Vince thinks that's brilliant. Gary turns it into a weakness: Pidge admits "I created the game to unite Voltron supporters" and that Lotor used it "to get at us from the inside". That episode also fills in how Daigo found his man, since "that kid on Ariel" worked out that the game's best player was Vince.
4. Keith opens the mission with "Right now, it's time to create some good will." Then the Force attacks the Krelshi, the chief mistakes them for Wade, and a teammate has to point out, "I don't think your good will mission's going so well." A little later in the fight there's a cheery "Looks like the Charm Offensive is working!"
5. The Krelshi's cry has an after-life. When asked what it said, the answer is "It said, I wasn't ready." By Five Forged the cadets are recalling it as "one of those electric-y, spirit-y, Krelsh-y things that attacked us and then told Vince he wasn't ready", which tells you nobody ever settled on how to say Krelshi.
6. The yellow-chested Voltron with the spiked wrecking ball from The Hunkyard returns, and this time the pilots call it up on purpose. They still fumble the name: "Hunk... Head." "Hunk... Head?" gets the shrug, "Lingo's a work in progress." The power drop afterward is blamed on "the configuration shifts", which "must draw more power than a regular formation".
7. "Where is Wade getting Haggarium?" is asked here after the drills turn out to be "Haggarium-tipped", and The Hunkyard had already shown Waderoids "somehow" running on it. The question is left hanging, and the dark energy keeps turning up in places it shouldn't.
8. The grown-ups are "the Original Five" and "Original Lion Force" in this episode, the same "original Lion Force" wording that shows up in Coran, Coran. The line to remember is from Allura's father: "Perhaps the Lion Force should stop trying to stand alone." The Lion Riders arrive to prove his point.
9. This is the first trip to Ariel in the first season, and the first look at the Lion Riders on their golden lions, the glowing blue Krelshi and young Daigo. It aired on Thursday, July 14, 2011, the fourth Thursday after the Trilogy premiere.

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