Netflix’s Mech Cadets follows Stanford Yu, a janitor’s son at Sky Corps Military Base in Arizona, dreaming to be a mech pilot one day.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Stanford Yu is a janitor’s son who both work at Arizona’s Sky Corps Military Base. He wants to become a Robos pilot but can’t go ahead with living the dream as he failed his screening.
With the help of his engineering wizard best friend, Ava, he steals an ExoSuit to assimilate into the trainees but one of them, Olivia, who’s also General Park’s daughter, spots and exposes him. Consequently, Yu is fired.
On his way, he witnesses a Robo falling from the sky. Inspecting the crash takes him to the Robo and soon a Sharg attacks them. Yu helps the Robo fight off the Sharg just as Tanaka, the first-ever mech pilot, arrives and takes Yu into the cadet batch.
Olivia is angered and unleashes her frustrations with Park but he can’t do anything other than state how disappointing this state is. He later unveils a surprise which is a human-made mech under the Hero Force program he’s been working on.
Meanwhile, the Sharg eggs recovered by Captain Tanaka and stored inside the base start to crack and one sets loose, killing Dr. Miller. At the same time, a giant object is detected on the far side of Mars.
Sky Corps campus is locked down when the hatchlings wreak havoc and Yu opens the gate to save his mom and General Park, who fires him for risking humanity to save two people.
They try to get another trainee bond with Buddy but the mech rejects him, with the helpful tinkering of Ava. Captain Tanaka and Maya look for the remaining Sharg that broke out of the base.
While Ava uncovers a shocking secret about Hero Force, Stanford is reinstated into the force seeing the crisis of the Martian Sharg ship that looms as the grand threat.
He finally grows closer to his teammates and they all bond to a certain extent with each other, none more than Maya and Frank, who love each other and keep missing out on private time.
The Shark ship approaches and jeopardizes the Global Defense Ring, leading Captain Tanaka to take the trainees with him to an epic battle. Tanaka gets injured and GDR is compromised, following which Park grounds all Robos but Olivia sneaks out and heads to the space.
She scans the ship and they learn it’s actually the Queen Sharg and not a ship. She ejects countless eggs and gigantic Shargs. Maya and Frank head off to lend assistance before Yu who heads off after helping Ava repair the GDR.
He still has to re-align the satellite that gets hit by Queen Sharg. Meanwhile, the enemy bogies overwhelm the young cadets before Tanaka arrives and helps them.
The GDR is repaired but the cadets decide to finish the task and take care of Queen Sharg. Tanaka ideates using the remaining pieces of Veritas’ power core to blast the enemy away but it ends up imploding and creating a black hole.
They try again, this time Buddy holds the hole open while Tanaka sacrifices himself to take Queen Sharg into it, but he’s saved while Olivia pushes ahead and gets sucked into the hole with Queen Sharg, before the black hole disappears, and Olivia with it.
Mech Cadets ending explained in detail:
Does Olivia die?
Olivia saves Tanaka from getting sucked into the black hole created by Veritas’ power core piece imploding but decides to push back Queen Sharg into the hole herself.
She sacrifices herself for it and gets sucked into the hole before it eventually seals up and she, along with Queen Sharg disappears into the other side.
Yu, Maya, and Frank honor her memory but also believe that she can survive this too. Meanwhile, Tanaka suits up again to go save his niece, and General Park hops inside an HF too, before they and the other mech cadets head out to search for her.
Mech Cadets season 1 ends with Olivia waking up inside a large room and soon these behemoth doors open and massive amounts of light barges in, and amidst all that glow, is a humanoid silhouette of someone walking towards her.
What is Hero Force?
Hero Force is a program supervised by General Aiden Park wherein artificial Robots are created by humans and a lot of technology goes into the creation of said mechs.
It’s later in Mech Cadets season 1 that Ava and Chief Max find out that Hero Force uses Robos’ power cores to power the man-made mechs. It’s not that anomalous since spare parts from inoperable Robots are often used for HF mechs.
However, General Park goes a step beyond the normal routine and employs drastic measures to proceed with the program.
Who is Charlie?
Charlie, short for Charlotte, is the late mother of Olivia, wife of General Park, and sister of Captain Tanaka.
From the brief glimpses the show provides of her from when she was alive, she comes across as a deeply caring, loving, and warm person.
She would eventually pass away when Olivia was just a kid. Ever since her passing, Tanaka made a promise to look after her daughter, whose face contains a striking likeness to her mother.
Olivia also keeps the memories of her mother very close to her heart, and so does General Aiden Park.
What happened to Veritas?
Veritas was one of the Robos at the base but it was reported to be killed in action eventually. However, in reality, something entirely different transpired.
As Chief Max and Ava find out, Veritas was not killed but damaged during the action and could’ve been repaired. They also find that the pilot of Veritas, Lieutenant Kalle, was weirdly transferred to a European base.
Ava and Yu confront Olivia with this information and she gets upset that they would even try to accuse her father of any crime. She then confronts Park herself and he confirms that what she heard is true.
He reveals that it was he who got Veritas killed and used its core to power a whole squadron of Hero Force units. He says he did it to give humanity a better chance at surviving and fighting back.
General Park also reveals that he did so more children won’t have to be sent away to fight the battles and sacrifice their lives. It was an especially valid reason for him since he didn’t want his own daughter to meet a terrible fate like less fortunate Mech Cadets before.
Despite that, he had to give her the Hero Force mech when she displayed a relentless desire for a Robo. In the end, when all her mech’s energy is sucked out by the Shargs that the Queen deploys, Park packs three pieces of Veritas’ power core to help her replenish her mech’s energy.
Other pieces of the power core are later used for implosions that create black holes and one of them sucks in Queen Sharg and Olivia with them.
Also Read: BASTARD‼ -Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy season 2 summary and ending explained