To Soothe the Savage Robeast

To Soothe the Savage Robeast

Optimus Prime starts us off with a realtor's spiel of Arus.  And we pan into a house with a woman playing a harp and thinking about her lost . . . husband?  Boyfriend?  His name is Ro, in any event.  She flashes back to Doom slavers capturing Arusians as slaves.  She and Ro try to escape the robots on a boat, but Ro is captured. 

On Doom, robot overseers are commanding slaves to do things with stones.  Ro is carrrying a wicker bast full of jewels, which he drops in exhaustion.  In Castle Doom, Lotor marries Merla, with Zarkon officiating.  Hurgh, is this disturbing.  And Merla does some mind control stuff.  Doom robots and Merla's fish speakers cheer.  Merla is already plotting to take Zarkon's throne--after she conquers Arus, naturally.

Haggar is moving through the slave quarters, looking for Ro from Arus.  She finds him.  And has Merla's scheme in mind.

Taryn is out collecting honey from her bee hives when Ro appears.  They collapse in the grass in joy.  Then Merla and a barely-disguised Haggar appear, and Ro introduces them as his "new friends."  AND THEY RUN A FOUNDATION FOR NEEDY SPACE CADETS!  Merla gives Taryn a pitcher of DEATH to deliver to Keith because Merla is in love with him and completely shy.  And EVIL.  So Taryn and Ro deilver it to Allura, and Taryn gives her the completely suspicious cover story, and Allura is a little suspicious and jealous.  She calls Keith for his birthday party.

Keith doesn't hear her call because he's MILES AWAY picking flowers on the cliffside.

Ugh.  Taryn's voice actress' delivery is straight out of Leave it to Beaver--that annoying coached dialect from 50s and 60s television.  She plays her harp for Ro and he has a flashback to his time as a slave and is overcome with guilt and explains that bad stuff is going to happen.  So they decide to warn the castle. 

Haggar ambushes them on the way to the castle with a . . . magical tree root that breaks the wheel.

Allura is still brooding over Keith's secret admirer while they all sit around the food-laden table and wait for Keith.  Nanny pours out of the pitcher of death, and Lance convinces him to wait for Keith.

Keith for some reason stops at a house, and Lotor steps out.  Lotor warns Keith of Merla's plot.  I like this development with Lotor that's been going on in the past couple episodes.  Even though it goes completely against his first season characterization.

Hunks toasts Keith while the mice scare each other.

Haggar watches this on her crystal ball, and sees Taryn and Ro with their wheel fixed.  Merla sends robots on robot horses after them.  The horses are closing in and Ro prepares to throw FLAMING EXPLOSIVE BARRELS THAT THEY JUST HAPPENED TO HAVE IN THE BACK OF THE CART.  Keith sees the chase and rides to the rescue.  The robots shoot the wheel off, then Keith arrives and drives them off.

Coran is STILL TOASTING and they're about to taste DEATH IN A PITCHER when the mice spill it on some flowers and the flowers disintegrate.  Hunk throws his glass on the fire and the flames turn blue.  They run outside and find Taryn and Ro and their horse.  And Keith.  Once again the day is saved.  And Keith and Allura have a completely platonic romantic moment.  And Zarkon's fighters strafe them.  And Taryn is going to be okay in a hospital bed.  And they ride their ziplines to the lions. 

The lions, um, run around while they get strafed by the fighters.  Then black lion detaches its wings AND ITS HEAD and destroys some fighters.  Haggar tells her crystal ball to destroy them all.  Things get cloudy and lightning-y, and another shitty robeast appears.  They form Voltron. 

They fight in a completely incomprehensible montage of scenes, but then they form blazing sword and are saved by stock footage.  Oh, and this robeast . . . runs on lava?  Wha--?

Lotor confronts Merla on a bridge over a canyon on Arus.  This is another kind of interesting development in an episode that is overall stupid.  Merla casts her marriage bracelet into the canyon.  then optimus Pirime tells us the moral of the story.