Voltron: The Fate of Zarkon

Voltron season 5 completely shattered the series’ status quo, pushing Lotor into an alliance with the Paladins and even dispatching their one time greatest enemy, Zarkon.

In a fight sequence that had Lotor and Zarkon pull out all the stops, Lotor was finally able to triumph over his father and kill him. To executive producer Joaquim Dos Santos this was the end of more than just the emperor of the Galra empire. 

“This ends the (story)line we saw in the flashback episode with all the original Paladins. It ends that conflict and allows Allura and Lotor to maybe start anew,” Dos Santos says.

Allura’s father had worked with Zarkon before he was seduced by the power of the quintessence and the two ended up on opposite sides. That conflict almost carried over to their children but with Lotor now a part of team Voltron perhaps Zarkon’s death really did mark a change in Lotor.

While some fans might miss Zarkon (and Neil Kaplan’s chilling performance) Zarkon was never meant to be the big bad of the entire show. This is confirmed by Dos Santos when asked if Zarkon is really dead. After all, quintessence has some unique properties that could have tossed him into another dimension or the spiritual plane right?

“We’re moving on,” he says. “Zarkon’s gone. He’s done. Say bye-bye!”

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Well that’s that. The Paladins will have their hands more than fun not only dealing with the witch Haggar but perhaps Lotor isn’t as much of an ally as he seems. We’ll have to wait for Voltron Season 6 to find out.

Shamus Kelley is a pop culture/television writer and official Power Rangers expert. Maybe all Zarkon needed to do was visit Meow Dot Com. Follow him on Twitter!