The fifth season of Voltron: Legendary Defender from DreamWorks Animation recently released on Netflix, and it’s packed to the brim with new character arcs, fights, and general tomfoolery.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Spoilers for Voltron: Legendary Defender Season Five below.
Specifically in this season, the Voltron paladins are forced into a spiritual zone of sorts where they commune with each other in order to restart their respective Lions, Lotor joins forces with them and ends up leading the Galra Empire — which fractures — and Matt and Pidge rescue their father. It’s a big season for just six total episodes.
ComicBook.com spoke with Jeremy Shada, who voices Lance the pilot of the Red Lion, all about Season Five, what’s coming next, and whether Lance will ever make the swap for Keith’s red suit among other things.
****
ComicBook.com: Lance is kind of in a weird place this season. There’s a lot of change happening around and with him. Where’s his head at these days?
Jeremy Shada: Yeah, there’s a lot that happened. I think for Lance, it’s kind of hard having to be in a weird place with a kind of reaching out, and having to start almost working with Lotor a little bit, and obviously he’s super skeptical with that because, you know, this is somebody who’s attacked him and basically already tried to kill him once or twice. Kind of being in this weird place where they have this opportunity that could pan out, but at the same time still having this like, you know, weird trust, and then there’s other members of the team that are also un-trusting of him, and there’s some people that want to work with him. It’s just a weird place to be in for everybody for sure.
How does Lance really feel about Lotor?
Lance does not like him in any way, shape, or form. I think Lance pretty much just hates Lotor, so… It’s somebody who’s kind of, you know, not a good dude even to begin with, and then on top of that, obviously Lotor comes in and he’s very suave and, you know, starts doing things that kind of put himself in the limelight and obviously takes some attention away from Lance who likes a little bit on attention at times, and obviously Lotor starts getting very close to the war, and obviously Lance hates all that so, Lance does not like Lotor in any way shape or form.
How does Lance feel about his fellow paladins at this point?
I mean I think Lance, obviously over the past however many seasons, they’ve really built up this camaraderie with everybody. It is like a family at this point. So with that, they’re all obviously very close, and they all are usually on the same page about a lot of stuff. But no matter what, because it also is still like a family, they’re still going to have a lot of disagreements, and even though they’re always probably going to work through those and come back from those disagreements, it still makes it very intense and a very difficult time when they’re having them, and they have to go on these missions when they’re having these disagreements and stuff, and it plays into everything. So it’s hard.
Speaking of family, Keith is basically gone this season. What’s Lance’s viewpoint on that, especially considering that they were pretty much rivals at one point?
Keith being gone is obviously interesting because you have Shiro being back in kind of the lead of the team, which I think people love, but then at the same time, that definitely creates a little bit of an opportunity for Lance to like step up and then take on that responsibility and fill that role. They are like frenemies […] he has to kind of figure out how to be his own man apart from that.
You’re talking about stepping up and pulling his weight. Lance is the first, I believe, to pull a second weapon form out of their bayard. What does that mean to Lance, especially with Allura’s noting that her father wielded a similar blade?
Jeremy: I think it’s cool. I think it shows his maturity. I think it shows his kind of growing as a paladin and definitely the fact that there’s always a lot more to him than meets the eye, and there’s a lot more levels to him. It’s kind of cool, because it shows his connection with her dad in that way, because now he is, you know, kind of a new pilot of the Red Lion, and so having that connection with the original pilot of the Red Lion is really cool, and it also gives him that connection with her dad in a really cool way.
Is Lance ever going to ditch the blue, do you think?
You mean the blue costume?
Yeah.
The suit? Nah. I think his suit will pretty much stay there the same, even though they’re swapping in and out of Lions at times, because it’d be like even more confusing to have them swap suits here and there just because they happen to, you know, hop into some Lions. But he’s going to stick with his blue suit, but I don’t think he’ll be going back to the Blue Lion any time soon.
Keith’s suit is just sitting there in the wardrobe, waiting.
Yeah. His suit is just kind of chilling. No one’s really wearing it. It’s just kind of being kept in pristine condition, you know, hopefully but occasionally Hunk cleans it.
What’s the deal with Shiro’s warning to Lance in that weird Voltron phantom zone?
Obviously that’s spoiler territory. But it’s interesting that he kind of gives that warning to Lance and that obviously at the time we don’t really know what that’s about. But that will definitely come up in the next season, I think. Either the next season or the one after that, but that… will come back fairly soon, and there’s some pretty big ramifications there. People can probably theorize on what that actually means, but I guess I can’t really state what that is, but it will be something that sits with Lance for a while and then he might realize what it actually means a little bit too late. So we’ll see.
The end of Season Five sort of ends on that note with Lance having lots of questions and not a whole lot of answers. What can fans expect going forward for Lance?
I think Lance has some definite investigating to do after that episode. I think he’ll definitely kind of try to figure out what that means, but it’s one of those hard things for him to investigate because there’s not really much you can view since there’s not like anything physical for him to actually check out ’cause it was in this weird kind of, you know, astral vision that he had, and so, he’ll go and ask Shiro about it, but I don’t even know if Shiro knows what any of that means at this point. And so it’s just kind of a weird place for him to be in, to know there’s kind of some impending threat, but there’s not really a way for him to prepare for it or even know what it is.
And he’s also, Lance, right? Not really the best-suited detective of the group.
He’s saying like, “Well, I guess that was just weird space stuff. I’ll just continue doing what I normally do.”
****
Voltron: Legendary Defender Season Five is airing now on Netflix, and Season Six is scheduled to air this summer.
