"This ends now."
— Lotor
The Black Lion has saved Keith and Shiro, taking them back to the paladins. Keith finally connects with Shiro in the Astral Plane, where he reveals that he had been dead since the fight with Zarkon, but the Black Lion preserved his spirit. While the paladins try to get the castleship running again, Lance comforts Allura who blames herself for all that's happening and for falling for Lotor's charm. Before Lotor and his team arrive, the paladins decide to destroy the gate and then wait for Lotor to arrive. Once he does, Allura is the first to attack and then things get worse from there. The generals decide that Lotor has gone to mad and attempt to leave the battlefield, only for him to eject them all out of their ships and finally form Sincline. Keith begs for Shiro to help him return to the others and connects with Black, allowing him to access the lion's ability to teleport. As Keith regroups with his team, they all form Voltron and get ready to fight Sincline.
Tropes featured in this episode:
- Berserk Button: Allura completely smashes this when calling Lotor even more like his father than she thought possible. It's one of the only things in the entire series to date that actually looks like it caused Lotor pain. This may have been one of the reasons Lotor fell over to his madness.
- Big Damn Heroes: The Darkest Hour arrives; Lotor has formed a dark mirror of Voltron and decimated the other four lions, and right when he's about to deal the finishing blow, Keith manages to connect with the black lion and Shiro's spirit and activate's the black lion's 11th-Hour Superpower, allowing him to teleport to the site of the battle just in time to attack Lotor's dark Voltron and save everyone else.
- Call-Back: Shiro tells Keith that "patience yields focus."
- Complete-the-Quote Title: "Must come to an end."
- Dead All Along: Shiro tells Keith that after the season 2 finale battle, he had died and was only here now due to the Black Lion preserving his spirit in the Astral Plane.
- Everyone Has Standards: It's clear that Lotor's generals had no idea he had plans to eradicate the Galra. Their own people!
- Evil Counterpart: Sincline is this to Voltron, with Lance calling out how Lotor had "made his own Voltron".
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Lotor takes having the portal to the Quintessence Field destroyed rather well, telling his generals to stand down and again trying to justify the sacrifice of thousands of Alteans as necessary for his end goals of universal peace. When Allura rebukes his pleas for them to work together by saying he's just as bad as his father, however, Lotor snaps and coldly tells his generals to destroy the Lions. During his dogfight with Allura, he laughs maniacally and declares he's going to erase everyone who stands against him from history.
- Gargle Blaster: Coran finds a bottle of liquor that his grandfather left in his toolkit after building the Castle of Lions over 10,000 years ago. It's apparently quite potent, as he can use the stuff to jump-start an engine.
- A God Am I: Lotor says that he will eradicate all history of Allura and her father, until the Alteans only know him as their ruler.
- Heartbroken Badass: Allura calls out Lotor for what he did, and is the first one to attempt to shoot at him and charge him.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: Shiro refers to his clone as an "it" instead of a "he".
- Mythology Gag: Lotor's ship is named Sincline, which was his character's name in GoLion.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Allura gets this repeatedly over the capabilities of the Sincline, because her Altean alchemy skills are what made them possible.
- Necessary Evil: While trying to appeal to Allura, Lotor again states that his sacrifice of thousands of Alteans was needed to unlock the mysteries of Quintessence, and tries to counterbalance it with his efforts to preserve Altean culture.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After seeing how mad Lotor had become, Acxa tells the other generals that they were officially severing all ties to Lotor and attempt to leave the battlefield. However, Lotor starts to combine his Sincline ships and eject the generals out from their seats. Acxa begs him not to do this, but is ejected anyway.
- Slow Motion: Coran when he sets off a bomb to reactivate the castle's engines.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: Lotor does this when he cuts off his feelings for Allura and not only orders his generals to destroy the lions, but actively chases Allura around the battlefield.
- Turn Out Like His Father: Because of what Lotor had done to the chosen Alteans, Allura says this, causing Lotor to finally go over the edge as he tells his generals to start firing on the lions.
- Un-person: Lotor promises this to Voltron, Allura, and Alfor if he wins, saying that he'll make sure no one ever remembers them after he defeats the team.
- Villainous Breakdown: After Allura angrily calls him worse than his father, Lotor suffers one during the fight, causing his generals to turn on him. He starts ranting about how he'll destroy everyone who's ever slighted him at that point.
- We Can Rule Together: Lotor offers Allura a final chance to work with him, but she turns him down for his betrayal.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Lotor still insists that he wants to bring peace to the universe by wielding Quintessence. But the cost of Alteans doesn't sit well for Allura, to say the least, and harshly turns him down.
- Wham Line:
- Lotor promises all of his enemies will fall.Lotor: Voltron, Haggar, and the rest of the Galra!
- Shiro drops one to Keith when they're back in the astral plane.Shiro: My physical form was gone. I existed on another realm. I died, Keith.
- Lotor promises all of his enemies will fall.
