Morale is low on the Earth voyage. Shiro suggests that well-trained paladins should be able to power up Voltron by themselves, but before they can follow up on this line of thinking, they are sucked into a strange energy pulse. After that, everyone but the paladins are frozen. As they get out to tether the lions together, the energy pulse hits again, separating the paladins from the lions. Morale drops further and further as strange phenomena keep happening, and the paladins start turning on each other. When the team starts thinking that Earth is in front of them, Hunk realizes that it must be fake since the rest of the solar system can't be seen. He tries to stop them from continuing onward, and shoots at "Earth", which turns out to be the eye of a giant alien who is hunting the team. The Power of Friendship kicks in, and the paladins are again able to use their bayards against the predator. This doesn't do much damage, however, at least until the lions arrive to take on the alien. When the energy pulse hits again, the team is able to form Voltron and fly through it.
On the other side, the paladins' companions are revived. Pidge realizes that the nebula carried them all the way to the fringes of the Milky Way.
Tropes:
- Always a Bigger Fish: Subverted. The alien isn't running from the lions, it's running from the energy pulse.
- Artistic License – Space: Not that the series has ever portrayed space travel accurately, but Pidge recognizes constellations in Earth's solar system when they are just outside the Milky Way.
- Big Damn Heroes: The lions, who jump into the fray just as the alien is heading straight for the paladins.
- Bottle Episode: Besides Shiro and Romelle speaking at the beginning and end, the rest of the episode is just the five paladins alone in space. Their relationships with each other are discussed and tested.
- Brick Joke: Lance says at the beginning that something always comes along to try and kill them. At the end, recovering from the energy blast, Romelle asks if something did come to do so.Lance: You know it.
- Cross-Referenced Titles: to "The Journey".
- Easily Forgiven: No one is held to task for anything said during the space psychosis.
- Evil Knockoff: When Shiro mentions his clone again, he refers to him as his "evil clone".
- Exhausted Eyebags: By the second check-in shown onscreen, the paladins all have dark circles under their eyes to emphasize their exhaustion, the time that has passed. It may be a sign of Space Madness, since the eyebags are gone when the team realizes the truth of the situation.
- The Heart: Hunk turns out to serve this role; he attempts to minimize conflict and keep everyone's heads on straight.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Subverted. Hunk tries to use his bayard to buy the others time to escape, but they stop him.
- Homage Shot: When the paladins are separated from the lions, there is a shot from Pidge's helmet that pays homage to Gravity.
- Just Toying with Them: Allura realizes that the alien is just messing with them as it shrugs off all their attacks.
- Mecha Expansion Pack: While Voltron could always fly, this time, it gains turbo-powered wings that allow it to fly through the energy field.
- Mundane Solution: When Allura says she has a way of tying the lions together, Lance asks if it's some magic she learned on Oriande. She responds that she's actually just got some leftover zipline.
- The Power of Friendship: The realization and affirmation that the paladins are indeed friends and not just people thrown together by circumstance allows them to power up their bayards and form Voltron once again.
- Space Isolation Horror: The paladins are all alone in the vacuum of space with no one but each other to cling to, and strange phenomena they can't explain keep happening to them.Hunk: So we're all alone in space, no power, no way to call for help, nothing within several thousand light years...
- Space Madness: Allura mentions that being lost in space can drive people mad, and it does obviously take a toll on the team's sanity.
- Spotting the Thread: When the paladins think they see Earth and attempt to reach it in excitement, Hunk is the only one to realize something is wrong. They can only see Earth and no other parts of the solar system, including the moon or the sun. Everyone else ignores him and thinks he is coming down with Space Madness, but he turns out to be correct when the "Earth" is revealed to be a trap by an alien that is hunting them.
