This was one of my favorite episodes as a kid because Sven finally came back. Now that I know Golion and can't get myself to believe that that's still Sven, it's still one of my favorites because it establishes a resistance force on Doom/Galra itself.
There Will be a Royal Wedding
In the Pit of Skulls, Optimus Prime tells us how Lotor orders his guards to "fire" when Romelle refuses to be Lotor's bride. That's not exactly the whole story, but oh well, Prime. We get some neat shots of vultures flapping over skulls, and Lotor has his red army guards dig into the skulls to verify that she's done for.
In a cave under the pit, a wild-eyed candle-weilding guy tells Romelle not to make a sound. He has a Swedish accent. The soldiers pursue them. Romelle trips, then gets back up as the soldiers keep firing. The wild-eyed guy rolls two boulders apart, leads her into a cave, rolls the boulders back, and tells her he's crazy and eats mushrooms all day. Really, that's what he says. Then Romelle recognizes him as Sven, the blue lion and the best navigator in the Galaxy Alliance. Sven, however, says the Sven he once was was a failure and is no more. Romelle then tells a story about something that never happened (Sven holding off the first robeast until the rest of the team arrived). Then he gets all emo. He describes how Zarkon invaded the planet in which he was in the hospital. They left him alone while he talked to himself and told himself to escape. Then he escaped into the caves. Romelle convinces him to lead her to the surface of the planet.
On the surface, Sven leads her out of the caves as an alarm goes off. Some slaves steal a slaveship and escape. Romelle urges him to call the Voltron force on, um, a transmitter she give him. At some point. They argue about it. Then he calls them on said magical transmitter.
In castle control, everyone is there to hear Sven's transmission. They get excited.
An officer tells Lotor that slaves have escaped. Mogor appears on the viewer to tell Lotor they've got the ship in sight. The slaves huddle in fear as the Rooster Frigate anchors red arrow-beam things to the ship and hauls it back to Doom.
Zarkon, Haggar, and Lotor look down into a pit where the Iron Maiden will start squishing slaves if they don't tell Lotor where Romelle is hiding. Romelle steps forward, but the slaves urge her not to. Doom soldiers whip some slaves, and then Haggar activates the Iron Maiden. The Maiden stoops and picks up slaves, squeezing them in her hands. And then, um, puts them down and picks up more of them. Totally not crushing them to death. The ones we briefly see at the Maiden's feet aren't dead, they're just resting.
Sven convinces Romelle to get back to Pollux because she's the only one who knowns some . . . thing. Some key to the defence system thing.
Sven gathers more slaves and they decide to steal another ship. Because Zarkon won't expect that. Really. That's what the say. The slaves rush the spaceport and slip past the guards. Just like when the Voltron force escaped. Sven has a gun from somewhere which he uses when some robots come up behind them. They get to a ship, but are surrounded by robots. The other slaves by them time by sacrificing themselves, walking into the gunfire. Romelle vows to come back and free all the slaves. As the Skull Galley takes off, Sven radios castle control and tells them he's on the way.
The team launches in the lions and form Volron to meet them. They use the Golion opening formation animation.
Lotor is jealous that Romelle would run away with a slave. Haggar explains that he's also a member of the Voltron Force. However, she has the Iron Maiden waiting.
The team and Bandor make radio contact with the slave ship. Allura picks up Lotor's fleet, green skull ships and his flagship. Lotor gloats. Bandor agrees to back up Voltron. His ship is between Lotor's fleet and the slave ship as Lotor releases the Iron Maiden in her capsule.
The Maiden emerges and Voltron uses flamethrowers on it. And the gray facade crumbles, revealing the robeast to be gold. The crown flies off and latches on to Voltron, immobilizing him. He falls out of orbit. Bandor yells "noooooo!" And then the Doom fleet knocks his ship out of commission.
The Iron Maiden grabs Voltron and squeezes and drills into him. There's something going on with the power crystal.
Romelle decides to crash the ship into the robeast. Sven navigates and calls out some nonsense coordinates. The robeast claws the skull off the ship, but a fragment of it shatters the crown. They form blazing sword. The robeast launches claws at him, but they destroy it anyway. Fragments of the exploding robeast destroy Lotor's fleet, and he flees in his flagship.
On Pollux, there is a reunion outside the castle. And we get a cool parting shot of Sven standing on Voltron's shoulder. The scale's a little wonky, though. Volts isn't nearly big enough.
Brave Shirogane's Brother
Picking up right where the last episode left off, Sincline dragging Amue to the pit of skulls by her hair. Most of the events follow Voltron, but Ryou doesn't lead Amue away until he sees a soldier stick his head in the hole to look at them.
Sho saved her because she's willing to fight Galra. He introduces himself as the brother of Shirogane of Golion, but Amue doesn't know any member of Golion named Shirogane. He thinks she's crazy, but she says she's the cousin of Fala, the pilot of blue lion. He argues that his brother is the pilot of blue lion. Amue figures it out and explains that Takashi Shirogane is dead. Ryou has a breakdown and tells her about a dream he had of his brother in Demon Castle. Ryou is voiced by Shirogane's voice actor, but dream Shirogane has a totally different voice.
We then cut to Shirogane's grave on Altea, where the team and Alor are standing. They as Shirogane's spirit what they can do to rescue Amue.
Apparently, some time passes, because now Ryou and Amue have arranged for the escape of some Heraclean prisoners. Ryou and Amue have a bit of a disagreement about his motivations. He then calls castle control to tell them that he's rescued Amue. The team is overjoyed.
Sincline? Not so much. He kills an officer who returns to tell them that they've investigated they area of Ryou's transmission, but found no sign of Amue.
The rooster frigate then recaptures the skull galley.
The escaped slaves are then to be executed by the Goddess of Hell. Daibazaal likes the idea. Honerva and Sincline call for Amue as a sacrifice. The slave squishing is far more graphic than in Voltron, but Ryou convinces Amue to hold fast and wait for an oppurtunity to avenge them. It's a rather Reimagined Galactica moment.
Ryou and Amue rally their resistance fighters. They get into the spaceport, but guards appear and take out some of the resistance fighters. They get to a skull galley. The Heraclean resistance fighters sacrifice themselves so they can get away. Another Galactica moment. With that Chinese folk tale flavor as the Heracleans basically walk up against energy beams to die at the guards' feet.
We then cut immediately to the traditional Golion formation.
Sincline curses Amue, and they see Golion heading to Heracles. Honerva tells him to use the Goddess of Hell, and he mounts a full offensive against Heracles and Golion.
The fight is somewhat unique. I've been sort of tracking Galra's strategy against Golion throughout the series. This is pretty much the only beastman since Deathhell that has the upper hand against Golion. It's only through Amue's intervention that they defeat it. It's also interesting because the fight against Galra, while joined officially by Heracles in the last couple episodes, now has an established resistance cell on Galra.
Goddess of Hell's crown still does some weird thing to Golion's energy systems. And Alor's ship gets the crap shot out of it.
And we end with a longer look at the cool out-of-scale shot of Ryou on Golion's shoulder. It was probably cut because of the Japanese "to be continued" text that appears.
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