Surrender/Red Rain of Hell

Surrender
Oh, look,  we open on planet Doom and Zarkon wishing he was rid of Voltron.  Haggar promises a spell to send red rain.  Wasn't that a song?

Now we head to Arus.  Looks peaceful enough, with, like animals in the woods and stuff.  Oh, no.  Here comes storm clouds.  And the Arusian villagers have never seen red rain before.

We have a neat zooming shot of black lion with the castle in the background.  In the control room, Allura is lamenting the end of her picnic plans.  Coran points out that this may be a Zarkon trick.

The river outside the town (which is now more heavily populated than it was a few episodes ago) overflows with red.  And bursts into flames!  Allura vows to stop those fiends.  The team launches in the lions.  And the flames rise higher.  Keith sends Pidge and the Princess to work crowd control, while he and the others try to dam the river and smother the flames in sand (courtesy of yellow lion).

Pidge helps an old codger who got knocked down by panicking villagers.  Townsfolk?  Whoever they are.  They're like animals.  A woman and her daughter Tammy are seperate by the crowd.  The team's efforts to stop the flames are so far futile.  Keith muses about using an ice grid.  Pidge has found Tammy who keeps crying for her mother.  The flames spread into the town.  Pidge takes Tammy into the green lion.  Aboard the blue lion, Allura tries to stop the flames with an ice grid.  Which promptly melts.  Keith orders Pidge to use the tornado blaster.  And that makes things worse.

Yurak gloats to Brox?  Grox?  His slightly overweight lieutenant who is still not afraid to rock a kilt.

Pidge and Tammy are watching the flames from a ridge.  Allura brings survivors to the ridge.  Hunk vows to make Zarkon and Yurak (those weirdos) pay, and is then caught in a tractor beam.  Black, red and blue lions are also caught and tossed on top of green lion.  With the lions subdued, Yurak orders the ray broadened and sucks the villagers (including Tammy's mother) into his crazy looking command ship.  The ship lands on the ridge and launches fighters.

In the castle, Coran urgently tries to rouse the team from unconsciousness.  Nanny is strangely subdued.

In green lion, Tammy has a meltdown.  Then the Doom fighters start strafing the lions.  Their animation models look a little different in this episode.  Then Allura hears Tammy from Pidge's lion and chastises him for bringin her along.  The fighers strafe the lions, and red lion fights back with saw blades from his shoulders and "proton missiles" from a back launcher that melts the fighters.  Black lion and blue lion use their customary missiles, blue lion's then freezing the fighters.  Yellow lion has some sort of circular, spiky missile launchers on its shoulder.

Then Yurak reveals the prisoners.  The team argues over surrendering--Hunk thinks they're bluffing--until a robot fires a "stun gun" at a prisoner.  Allura calls Coran, and has him run the white flag over the castle.

The five lions line up and the team gets out--except for Pidge, who gave Tammy his uniform.  The team recognizes that it's not Pidge, but they go along with the ploy.  They convince Trox(?) to release the prisoners in groups as each team member crosses the line.  First Keith, then Lance, Hunk, and the Princess.  Tammy's mother recognizes her as they pass.  She steps out of the group and gets shot by Lox(?) who had some sort of weapon in his abdomen.  Yep.  Cyborgs.  Two Doom soldiers are sent to recover Tammy's mother, and Pidge takes care of them with shoulder blasters that launch, um, spikey ball things.  Bronx runs back to the command ship as the team takes out the rest of their guards hand to hand. 

Tammy and her mother have a brief reunion, then Yurak unleashes the Robeast unit (that's what he says).  No more of that ramming into the Robeast crap anymore, the team unites as Voltron immediately.

The Robeast (which is significantly bigger than Volts) pulls out one of its shoulder horns to reveal a sword.  Voltron forms his own, and they fight.  Ultimately, Voltron disables him with the electro-force cross, then pretty brutally stabs the beast.  The explosion apparently takes out the command ship, because Yurak is seen escaping in an escape ship.  This is pretty much the only actual escape ship in a series full of them.

We close at sunset (the red rain clouds have cleared up) with the team saying farewell to Tammy and her now-recovered mother (she got shot, remember?)  Pidge says she reminds him of his kid sister on Terra at the space academy.  Huh?!

Red Rain of Hell

Once again, WEP added an opening on Doom.  Not even as a recap this time.  Huh.  Padding.

The coming of the red rain clouds frightens two beavers drinking out of a stream, who flee into the woods making donkey noises.  The red rain freaks out the villagers.  Fala, on the other hand, thinks it's pretty.  Like strawberry juice.  (Ugh.  Seriously, kids, the Japanese version is not always superior).  Raible points out that its blood.  The villager who first speaks ominously that it's blood suddenly bursts into flames.  As do many of the other villagers.

Huh.  From Fala's dialogue, there's actually two settlements there.  The village that is first engulfed in flames (and apparently now has a population of 0) and the town, which is watching the approach of the flames.  Then the team launches.

The same plan unfolds as in Voltron, with the same results.  Suzuishi tries to keep them calm and unpanicked.  With no success.

A woman is separated from her daughter, Fran.  Now that's a good, solid name.  I like that name.

I forgot to mention it in Voltron 'cuz I was too busy being snarky, but the flammable blood rain is apparently being sprinkled on Altea by the command ship.  And blue lion's ice missile launchers look a little different from the shoulder launchers Fala's used previously.

Suzuishi actually tells Fala to carry the townsfold out in blue lion while green lion uses the green tornado to . . . make things worse.  He promises to take Fran to her mother soon.  Meanwhile, Fala has been ferrying groups of survivors to the ridge overlooking the town.  Then all the tractor beam stuff happens.  And green lion seems to react (roaring) autonomously.  The it gets smashed and the fortress lands.

Does Sadak's lackey have a name?  Or is he just "no-pants Galra lieutenant?"  Sincline's red army has all kinds more class, but that's still a few episodes away.

I like Suzuishi.  He bitches about Hys screaming about the princess as if the others don't matter.  Instead of chastises Suzuishi, Fala tells him that the mother's been evacuated to the hill.

Red lion's weapons are the red sword (the spikey things) and magma missiles.  Yellow lion's spikey shoulder missiles are the Gatling missiles.

No-pants lackey is named Guirus.  That's a good lackey name, even for one who goes regimental.

Do you need me to tell you that the Galra soldiers actually execute a guy as an example?  No, I don't.  'Cuz you know.

Fala has a nice phrase she uses--the people are the kingdom.  Take that little miss "if I let the princess do anything the kingdom is doomed!" Hys.

Guirus gloats over the fact that the Golion team actually cares about the hostages.  And he definitely has some kind of built-in weapon.  Judging from the relatively light nature of Fran's mother's injury, it's not as powerful as the rifles carried by the other Galra soldiers.

Green lion's shoulder weapon is called the green gun.  Kurogane calls the Galra soldier a "jerkwad." As he kicks him in the head.  Guirus flees back to the fortress.  Is this the last we see of him?  I'll keep an eye out for him . . .

The beastman's name is Buffalon.  Because he's an albino buffalo monster.  His weapons include the shoulder-horn sword, beam weapons from his chestplate, and eye-beams.  He goes for cover after Golion hits him with the fire tornado, but then takes damage from the cross beam, and blue and yellow lions chomp on him and allow Jyuoken the STAB HIM THROUGH THE HEAD!  Maybe the flammable blood that must have been stored in tanks aboard the fortress are ignited by poor exploding Buffalon?

At the end, Suzuishi seems to allude to being an orphan.

This is a change in tactics for Galra.  Maybe after the last couple of schemes involving Honerva and infiltration, they went with what appears to be a wholly technological attack?  In the Golion episode, the blood rain comes from the fortress, so there's nothing particularly magic about it.