Ibrahim Noir

And we’re back!

Book One of The Legend of Korra was kind of a disaster. But it’s behind us now, and we’re about to jump into the next chapter. During Book One’s production, Nickoledeon had ordered 14 more episodes The Legend of Korra, to round out a standard 26-episode season of network television. Bryke, however, wanted the story sectioned into 12-or-so-episode arcs called “Books.” So they kept plugging along on Book One and sectioned off the 14 episodes as Book Two. Nickelodeon then ordered another 26-episode “season” that Bryke split into Books Three and Four, 13 episodes each. (To avoid confusion on this blog, I’ll continue to use “season” and “book” interchangeably when referring to the four story arcs)

Of course, as we’re all well-aware by now, Korra wasn’t planned around being more than a one-book miniseries (No kidding. I mean, have you seen it?). The orders for more seasons were apparently so close to each other, that there was a time when Books Two, Three, and Four were all being produced at the same time, with Two in post-production, Three in production, and Four in pre-production.

The point being, it’s probably safe to say that Book Two is when Korra as a full-fledged series begins in earnest. The seasons have a lot more connectivity between one another from here, and Book One is kind of treated like an extended pilot. I understand that this might sound like a bunch of meta-contextual drivel, but what I’m trying to say is that the way Book One was written has cast a shadow over the rest of the series, and we’ll talk about the storytelling decisions (and compromises) as they come up. For now, I’ll cut the preamble so we can jump in.

We actually open on a good illustration of what I mean when I say Book One is treated like a pilot. Here’s Shiro Shinobi’s spiel, meant to catch us up on the current state of things.

[Shiro]: Six months ago, Avatar Korra defeated Amon and the Equalists. Since then the council was disbanded and the United Republic elected its first president. Tenzin’s brother, Commander Bumi, retired and moved to Air Temple Island. And Korra and her boyfriend Mako have been the talk of the town. Peace has come to Republic City, but unbeknownst to the Avatar, danger now threatens the Southern Water Tribe…

So yeah. In six months Republic City has somehow dismantled and rebuilt its entire system of government from the ground up as a democracy and apparently completed its first election. Crazy. Commander Bumi has retired and is living on Air Temple Island. The last we heard of him, he was on his way to help defend Republic City from the Equalists. He showed up after the conflict, and now he’s off the force entirely. Speaking of the Equalists, they have completely disintegrated as an entity. There is zero reference to the bending/non-bending divide that apparently plagued Republic City or whether or not it was even addressed in the six month timeskip.

As you can see, many questionable changes to the landscape have happened off-screen, and it’s because the show is essentially embracing a soft reset. The council being disbanded and Bumi being off the United Forces are so Tenzin and Bumi can spend more time amongst the main cast while they travel to new locations. Bryan Konietzko has said in a Q&A that the Equalists scattered after Amon’s lie was revealed, but forced a “worldwide dialogue” about the representation of non-benders, who apparently represent the majority population of Republic City (something I legitimately did not know). President Raiko was elected to better represent that majority. None of this is communicated in the story, but Bryan did admit that they could’ve made this clearer, so I won’t go too hard on him. Of course, the Equalists necessarily have to disappear because they’d just get in the way of the new story Bryke wants to tell. This new story features Korra as a fully-realized Avatar and starts with this book, which leads into Book 3, which leads into Book 4, with each book dealing with the aftermath of the previous one. Book 2 is the standout exception, being that it kinda sorta would like to pretend Book 1 didn’t happen. Which is why instead of this season being about the fallout of the Equalist revolution, all we get is this opening reel connecting the two seasons. But the rub is that Book 1 exists in this continuity, so we don’t really get to pretend it didn’t happen. And we’re going to see the show try and fail to skip past what it’s set up as we go along. 

For now, we get an honest-to-God cold open, which is new for Avatar. It’s a dark and stormy night out at sea. An old sea captain tries to spook his first mate by warning him about the dangerous creatures that lurk in the depths. Shortly after this, the captain is dragged into an ocean by a squid-like spirit, right before it starts tugging the whole boat into the water…

After the title card, we cut to pro-bending night in Republic City. Bolin, the only the member of the original Fire Ferrets remaining because Mako and Korra both left, tries to encourage their replacements to do their best. They’re terrible though, and they fall off the stage as soon as the bell rings for “the fastest knock-out in pro-bending history.”

Damn, bro. I get that the show is saying that the new members suck, but I was under the impression that Bolin was at least decent? It doesn’t matter though, because the purpose of this scene is to communicate that pro-bending is so last season, and we’re doing away with it this go-around.

Thank God.

But why? Well, because Bryke randomly decided that they wanted Bolin to be an actor and for Mako to be a cop this season. I’m not being sarcastic, this is straight from their mouths.

(From the DVD commentary for this episode)

[Bryan]: Yeah, and I remember-I remember that day. Uh, I mean, I think it was like the first day you guys were here; we were still in Mike’s like small office that we had done all of Book One in. And um, we were all crammed in there, and we were just updatin’ you on like just the various random ideas we had for this season. I remember we were like, “Mako’s a cop! Bolin’s an actor!”. [Laughs.] I just remember those two, really clearly.

And that’s all there is to it. Now one of these I can understand, and we’ll talk about it later. The other…well I suppose we can only hope we’re going to get character reasons for this sudden change in career?

Speaking of everyone’s favorite brooding bad boy, we catch him in the midst of a high-speed chase in pursuit of a criminal bending triad. They freeze the road with waterbending to slow him down and Mako has to use his fire to get his motorbike back under control. Do you guys remember in the last season when the writers wanted Bolin to make an earthebending ramp so they had a random truck driver stop in the middle of the road? They do the same thing here.

See, now Mako has to use the conveniently placed ramp so he can propel himself with firebending. It looks so coooool.

He manages to get in front of the triad vehicle and disables it with their firebending. As the dizzied members stumble out, Mako quips, “Looks like you were having car trouble. Good thing the police are here.”

Smooth.

We then shift to Asami, who’s now head of Future Industries. She lands a modified bi-plane and we get an exchange of dialogue between her and one of her engineers that is meant purely for the audience becuase it makes zero sense in-universe.

[Asami]: I think these planes are finally ready to ship!

[Engineer]: I hate to mention the elephant-rhino in the room, but since your father was thrown in prison, no company will work with us. We’re nearly bankrupt.

Asami would already know that the company can’t ship out its products since she’s presumably been in charge for the past six months. This also raises question of why she’d so excitedly say that the planes are ready to ship when she knows that isn’t possible right now. I’m guessing no one wants to work with Future Industries because Hiroshi outed himself as an Equalist. I’m no businessman myself, but I really feel like in this case, Asami should be working to revitalize the image of the company, distancing herself from Hiroshi and his beliefs as much as possible, and making it loud and clear that Future Industries under her leadership is squeaky-clean and free from corruption. Nontheless, she reassures the engineer that she’ll be meeting with someone in the South Pole who can help put the company back on top. As she walks away, her confident smile falters into a look of worry.

But there’s one central character that we haven’t accounted for yet. Where is Korra? What’s she been up to for the past six months? A character’s first scene can often be their most important. It can help to properly establish (or re-establish) who a character is, where they are in life, what their values and motives are, and what kind of tone they’ll be bringing to the series. Korra’s first scene in Book One was her introduction as a toddler, followed by her firebending test. I had a few words for that scene, but we were able to pick up that she was hot-headed, a skilled bender, and was always ready for a fight. Since then, Korra was brought to her lowest point by Amon…before being lifted out of it by Aang. She now has access to all forms of bending, and the Avatar State to boot. Concerning this choice by the writers, I already asked “Why?” several times and with some pretty strong language. But now the question is, where does a character like Korra go from there? She’s basically the Avatar with everything and her story is still in its infancy. Is she bored with no new challenges to face? Has she grown even more protective of her status of the Avatar? Is she paranoid about her place in the world being threatened by someone like Amon again? Does she feel a sort of imposter syndrome about being given her powers back? If we’re meant to believe she grows over the course of the series, we need to be aware of some kind of limitation she has to overcome first. What do we get for this season?

She’s tired of training. Well, more specifically, she’s being tired of being told to train.

Sigh.

Korra and the airbender kids are racing on air scooters. If you guys remember, Aang developed the air scooter way back before he froze himself, and taught it to his friends. Only once everyone learned he was the Avatar, the other kids didn’t let him play with them anymore because they thought it would give him an unfair advantage. I want you all to bear in mind that this was considered a point of tragedy, and played a big role in Aang’s reluctance to be the Avatar.

Korra is in second place behind Ikki, until she uses the Avatar State (on command) to get a boost and win the race. And if this feels like trivializing the Avatar State, then you better get ready for many, many more instances of this sort of thing. This show has none of the reverence or respect the previous show had for the Avatar State and this scene is already all the reference you need of that.

Getting to character now, Korra can activate the Avatar State whenever she pleases, and the first thing we see her do with it is use it to win a children’s game. I’m not entirely sure what the writers want us to think of Korra at this point, but intentionally or not, they’ve shown us that she hasn’t really changed since the first season. She still sees her Avatar-related abilities as superpowers she can use to give her an advantage over others.

🤓☝️ “Ibrahim, you’re being unfair. Tenzin berates Korra for this. It’s not like the show is on her side.”

Well, hypothetical person I use to make my points, you are half-correct. To explain, I’m going to slow their conversation right down so we can take it piece by piece. We’ll start with Tenzin.

[Tenzin]: You did what!? The Avatar State is not to be used as a booster rocket! You are toying with a dangerous power that you obviously do not appreciate.

Tenzin does indeed berate Korra, and he’s absolutely correct. The Avatar is at their most vulnerable in the Avatar State and shouldn’t be used lightly. (Side note, do rockets exist in this universe?) Now let’s see Korra’s response.

[Korra]: It’s the Avatar State and I’m the Avatar. Who appreciates it more than me?

Now here’s where you’re half-incorrect, because Tenzin doesn’t actually respond to this directly. Instead, he says this:

[Tenzin]: Clearly you need more training to grasp the depths of your spiritual connections. Not to mention that you’re still a long way from mastering airbending.

Do you see what’s just happened? Tenzin and Korra were arguing about her abuse of the Avatar State, then the conversation oh so subtly shifts to the topic of Korra’s training. Tenzin makes a vague statement about Korra needing to “grasp the depths of her spiritual connections”, whatever that means, in order to segue into the topic of Korra’s airbending. The topic of the Avatar State is forgotten about, meaning Korra essentially “won” that exchange when she said no one could appreciate the Avatar State more than her.

Korra then “proves” she’s mastered airbending by throwing three air punches.

[Korra]: See? Mastered.

Bumi joins the Tenzin pile-on, remarking “Looks pretty good to me.” Thankfully, Tenzin does get to respond here and tells Korra that she’s mastered “Korra-style airbending” and now she needs to learn the real thing. Funny enough, this is is very similiar to the criticism I made of Korra’s airbending in “Endgame”. Though it raises the question, if the show is aware that isn’t “real” airbending, why did they write “Endgame” such that Korra unlocks the ability and defeats Amon with “Korra-style” airbending? And for that matter, what has Korra been doing for the past six months if she hasn’t been training in the real deal? She clearly wasn’t pro-bending. Surely she wasn’t just practicing air punches and kicks the entire time? Has she just been goofing about with Tenzin’s kids? The show dedicated some time to her learning the footwork and forms before just giving her the ability outright, and then concluding that she’s become a fully-realized Avatar worthy of the title. I’m worried that the show agrees with Korra and considers her proficient in airbending as-is. The previous season abandoned the notion of devoting any time to Korra learning real airbending, and this season certainly isn’t going to pick up the slack. If the writers really didn’t want to bother, they should have just given her the proper training during the timeskip. You could have even “soft reset” Korra’s personality into a more humble one. Alas, the show can’t even deign to have Korra develop off-screen. She’s the same character she was in Book 1. And why wouldn’t she be? She didn’t learn anything from her experiences in that season. And the show is never again going to suggest that Korra needs to learn proper airbending. We’ve just started a new season and we’re already running into the same old problems with Korra’s character: purely theoretical “flaws” that Korra never actually has to work on becuase they only ever serve her in the plot.

Sigh.

Anyhoo, Tenzin says they’ll be traveling to the Air Temples throughout the world to give Korra the change in perpective she clearly needs to master classical airbending. Surprisingly, Korra rolls her eyes at this. No, I’m not being sarcastic when I say this is surprising. I would think that someone who’s been raised in a compound her entire life might be more excited at the prospect of traveling the world and seeing new places. Especially when one of those places is the home of her immediate past life. I mean this is the same person who ran away from her home to learn airbending with Tenzin, whereupon she couldn’t wait to get off the island because she couldn’t stand the idea of being cooped up in one place again. I guess this isn’t good enough for Korra though. Instead she’s more excited about having “some real fun” at the Glacial Spirit Festival at her home in the Southern Water Tribe, which will include “rides, games, and fried foods on sticks.” Somewhat interesting to me though is that Tenzin says he finally has time to rest and vacation with his family “now that the president is in office”, which implies he never stepped down from Republic City’s political scene until Raiko transitioned into the role.

What a guy!

Bumi, who’s been excited about pestering his brother with “24/7 Bumi time”, taunts Tenzin, telling him that he can’t stop him from coming to the festival since Katara already invited him.

On the boat ride to the South, Mako brags to Korra about the less-than-impressive quip he made after his police chase we saw earlier, and we find out that he actually has a bunch written down.

I wanted to avoid dignifying any of this by commenting on it because it’s cringe and I’d like to just write it off as attempted comedy, but this is characterizing Mako as someone who has “looking cool” pretty high up on his priority list as a cop. It’s worth keeping in mind that Mako grew up on the streets and had to run with gangs he’s come to despise so he and his brother could survive. His shift into cop for this season is something I understand and I think has a lot of potential. So it’s a little disappointing that the show so far just wants us to know that he cares a lot about the showboat-y part of the job, and I’m not sure it’s a wise direction to take the character. But we are just starting out, so I’ll hold my tongue.

Putting that to one side, we get our first look at Korra and Mako’s romantic relationship. After Mako says he could make detective and he keeps up the good work, Korra pouts, saying all she does is train all day.

[Korra]: It’s like Tenzin’s totally forgotten how I beat Amon!

Alright sweetheart, let’s get something straight. You did not “beat” Amon. You tossed him out a window with airbending the universe handed to you when he pretty much had you dead-to-rights. Then he exposed himself as a bender to all his followers cause he was an idiot. Then he escaped, and that’s as far as you know. Of course, we, the audience, know that Tarrlok blew both of them to hell, but these characters don’t. For all they know, he could be in hiding plotting his big comeback. You should all be on your toes anticipating his return. You should probably be more worried about going to one of the goddamn Water Tribes when you know he’s from one of them. And off the back of this, Korra is moping about having to train? Cry me a fucking river.

Mako tries to be supportive.

[Mako]: Tenzin’s just trying to help you be the best Avatar you can be.

[Korra]: Of course you take his side.

And with that she storms off.

Ughhhhh….

So yeah, to the surprise of no one, Mako can’t even get through a single conversation with his girlfriend because she forever thinks the world revolves around her. I’m surprised they made it six months, frankly. But the writers think this is cute or whatever so I hope you guys are ready for another season of shipping bullshit.

The group make it to the Southern Water Tribe, and we not only see Katara once more, but we’re introduced to her and Aang’s daughter, Kya. I’ll say here that I’m a fan of Tenzin’s siblings. The dynamic they share gets us some of the best moments in the season. And JK Simmons is as great as he always is. For example, Kya playfully punches Tenzin on the arm and teases him about the times she would beat him up when they were kids, and Tenzin retorts that he isn’t afraid of her…before sheepishly adding, “…Anymore.”

Bolin is excited about the large crowd that came out to greet them, but Korra corrects him, saying the crowd is for the occupants of another ship. This belongs to the chief of the Northern Water Tribe. Tonraq (he’s Korra’s dad in case you forgot) is none too happy about this, and we find out it’s because the chief is his brother, Korra’s uncle, and the villain for the season.

It’s Unalaq.

The creepy twins trailing behind him are Korra’s cousins, Desna and Eska. Desna is a guy, as Korra points out to Bolin after he expresses interest in both of them. The brother chiefs exchange icy greetings before we transition to the festival.

Unalaq goes full boomer, complaining about how the South has abanadoned its spiritual connection and has reduced the festival, once a time of meditation and fasting, to a commercialized, gaudy affair. It’s interesting enough commentary to set up one of the conflicts for this season. It reminds me of the commercialization of Christmas, and other such holidays.

Also, because this show can’t help making jokes at Bolin’s expense, after Unalaq says the festival is now just a chance to see “a rube stick an entire arctic hen in his mouth,” we pan over to Bolin doing just that.

When Tonraq pushes back, Unalaq mentions that spirits have been attacking ships, which catches Korra’s intrigue. Unalaq offers to teach Korra the spiritual ways of the Water Tribe. Of course, Korra intreprets this to mean she’ll be fighting spirits, and says that airbending has gotten pretty boring. I think it’s unwise of the writers to imply that Korra is interested in fighting spirits, not in hopes of helping people, but of doing something more fun that airbending, but it hardly matters because Tonraq interjects, saying Tenzin can give Korra all the training she needs.

We then cut to Bolin, who is accompanying Asami to a meeting with the potential investor she alluded to before as her assistant. She tells Bolin to “stand there and don’t say anything,” which makes me wonder why she’s asked him to come along in the first place, but we’re going to find out that the writers have certain plans for Bolin.

And it’s here we meet one of the best characters in the show! Varrick has an insane amount of wealth and apparently controls the entire global shipping business. He’s also completely eccentric and flamboyant with just the right amount of manipulation and guile. He’s awesome. He’s kind of like the Saul Goodman of this show. I always enjoy seeing him on-screen because he’s a fun character who can not only get shit done but actually succeeds in being charismatic and funny, due in no small part to the performance of John Michael Higgins.

The two enter Varrick’s house, where he is seen sitting cross-legged on a pillow, surrounded by a large crowd. He then celebrates having levitating off the ground, prompting the crowd to clap, “Emperor’s New Clothes” style. In true Bolin fashion, he breaks his vow of silence to tell Varrick he wasn’t levitating at all. Varrick seems upset about this, but is really just annoyed that no one else in the crowd told him. He actually likes Bolin! He calls him a real sharpshooter. He sits him and Asami down and shows him his newest business venture: “movers.” As in “moving pictures,” as in movies. He tells his silent assistant Zhu Li to “do the thing!” The sample he shows them is delightful. It’s footage of an ostrich-horse galloping in a homage to The Horse in Motion. But Varrick dismisses this as old news, and pulls out the star of the next big mover he’s working on, a Marilyn Monroe-esque showgirl named Ginger, who poses sexily much to Bolin’s delight. Asami tries to steer the conversation back to Future Industries but Varrick cuts her off and forces her into a sudden, close-proximity stare down. After a few seconds, he loudly declares that they have a deal! He promises the finalized details and the banquet later that night, and Asami gives a bewildered Bolin a hug for helping her get the deal.

That night, at the banquet, Unalaq reminisces some more about the festival back in its heyday. The tribal elders would commune and watch the spirits dance in the sky. He cites Korra’s status as the bridge between and physical and spirit worlds as the reason he so badly wants to teach her. When Tonraq tries to block him again, Unalaq reveals that it was in fact not Aang’s decision to keep Korra secluded in the compound, but that of Tenzin and her father. Tonraq, instead of telling Korra about the group of psychopaths that tried to kill her when she was a baby, makes the significantly weaker defense of “We did what we thought was best for you.”

Unalaq has shone a light on the very significant issue of Korra being raised in captivity, preventing her from traveling the world as the Avatar should. It’s a criticism I had of the first season, and I’m sure I wasn’t alone. I know Unalaq is trying to manipulate Korra, but it’s strange that the writers don’t have an in-universe defense for their own writing decision to keep Korra localized to one area. They’re finally going to make one up in Book 3, but if it hasn’t been written yet at this point, why bring it up at all? It’s not like it’s necessary to drive a wedge between Korra and Tonraq. Unalaq simply could have mentioned that it’s tradition for the Avatar to choose their own teacher, playing on Korra’s desire for independence and alienating her from her father, who he could position as someone trying to control her life.

In any case, Korra becomes upset and tells her father that she wants to make her own decision.

Over at another table, Tenzin’s older siblings (who can somehow hear the conversation despite being a considerable distance away from Korra and her family) tease him about being replaced as Korra’s mentor. Something I appreciate is a reaction shot from Katara, who has a somber expression on her face as she watches this, no doubt missing the teasing matches she’d have with her brother. It’s the little things!

Unalaq rises and addresses the congregation, denouncing what’s become of the festival and saying the North can “no longer stand idly by watching their Southern brothers slip into total spiritual decay”.

What did he mean by this?

No one is concerned apparently, because we cut to the gang enjoying the festival. Bolin sees Korra and Mako being lovey-dovey and decides to make a move on Eska. Bolin clearly missed the lesson on sticking it in crazy becaue he flirts with Eska even after she growls at him. But Eska concludes that Bolin amuses her and decides to make him “hers,” without elaborating when Bolin asks nervously if she means as a boyfriend or as a slave. This is the beginning of a subplot the writers apparently thought was really, really funny, which is Bolin being trapped in an abusive relationship with Eska. Because abuse is funny when it’s happening to a man, right?

Here’s what Bryan had to say about this scene.

(from the DVD commentary for this episode)

[Bryan]: So, that was a very fun scene, uh, that was definitely one of my favorite scenes.

How do I even respond to this? Whenever people say Legend of Korra is more mature than Avatar, I want you all to remember this (in addition to the fartbending scene from Turning the Tides).

Speaking of relationship nonsense, Mako and Korra are playing a carnival game (with a cute chibi Aang from the Super Deformed Shorts) and they have another failed conversation. Korra vents her frustrations about Tenzin and her father and asks Mako what he thinks she should do. However, Mako, having internalized Korra’s previous remarks about taking sides, decides not to take any position, merely telling her to do what she thinks is right and that he’ll support her no matter what. Korra, frustrated, storms off…again.

I hope you’re all really invested in this.

That night, Naga detects evil. It’s an attack from a dark spirit!

I talked about this in detail in my review of “Beginnings,” but it really is lame how spirits have just become these amorphous blobs when they were based on different aspects of nature before. Not that it doesn’t look cool. I do like how it blurs and shifts when it dashes around. I’d probably like this spirit a lot if this was the only one that looked like this, but it’s not. Not by a long shot. Spirits as a whole are just not consistent with what we’ve come to understand about them in Avatar. But that is simply what’s on the menu for this season (and the rest of the series) so I’m not going to get into all that again.

Korra and co. try to incapacitate the spirit with their bending to no avail. Tenzin tries talking to spirit, much like Aang did with Hei Bai, only to be ignored and tossed aside. This kinda illustrates why I’m not a fan of the concept of “light” and “dark” spirits. In the DVD commentary for this episode, writer Tim Hedrick along with Mike say that the call-back was deliberate, and that this is meant to establish not only that these “aren’t your father’s spirits”, but to give our first hint that Tenzin lacks spiritual enlightenment (more on this later in the season).

It seems to me like we’re trying to mock Tenzin’s method here, which rubs me the wrong way. The idea that these “aren’t your father’s spirits” implies that Tenzin has the right idea, but he’s just chosen the wrong spirit to try this method on. This didn’t work for Aang at first, either, but that was for two very important reasons. The first is that he had no idea what he was doing and resorted to basically shouting at the spirit to listen to him, which was never going to work. The second is that Hei Bai was lashing out because he was too hurt and angry to listen to Aang, even if he had been reasonable. It wasn’t until Aang showed Hei Bai the acorn, representing hope that his forest could regrow, that he finally calmed down. Tenzin here is asking the spirit what they’ve done to offend it and the writers laugh at him for it, but it’s not really fair because this spirit isn’t angry, it’s “dark”, making it beyond reason. Do you see what I’m getting at? Hei Bai was a neutral agent that had become angered by the actions of humans, whereas these dark spirits are evil just because, and Tenzin had no chance of calming it down in the first place, even though he’s making a much better attempt than Aang first did. It doesn’t seem fair to use this as evidence of Tenzin not being good at handling spirits. Attacking it has already proven ineffective, and the only means of pacifying it is locked to waterbending, as we’re about to learn.

But we’re not quite there yet. Korra activates the Avatar State and shoots more fire at the spirit. It looks…unimpressive. Korra is basically just firebending at this creature while she’s floating in an air spout. It lacks the spectacle that usually comes with the Avatar State. It’s basically the Final Smash meter from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate now. We’ll see it more often, but get ready for it be weaker and significantly less cool.

Surpisingly, this doesn’t work. This is when Unalaq arrives and pacifies the spirit.

After mocking the idea of talking to a spirit who might be angry about something, we’ve introduced spirits who are just Evil that can be converted to Good with some fancy magic water. It’s as simple as pressing a button. It is objectively less nuanced than before.

This cool with you guys?

Remember in like the first thirty seconds of Avatar, Sokka refers to Katara’s waterbending as “magic water” and Katara corrects him by insisting that bending isn’t magic, and how that set the tone for bending was a whole? What the hell is this if not magic? How is this something a regular, non-Avatar human can do? I know waterbenders can heal, but this is on another level right? How does manipulating the push and pull of water “skill tree” into turning it gold and bending the morality of a separate creature?

But, fine. Accepting that this is a possibility, I have a question: why is this spirit pacification technique locked to waterbending? I thought it was the airbenders that were the most spiritually attuned. Hell, they were living amongst the spirits in Wan’s era. What gives?

Well I know what gives, we need this to be the case so only our waterbending villain of the season is capable of using it. And it’s so Unalaq can perform the evil, corruptive version later (gag me with a spoon). We could have had a neat payoff where Tenzin learns to perform his own version of this technique, but I’m sure the writers have something much better in mind for him.

All in all, this has got to be one of the dumbest additions to bending in this show. I know a lot of people are willing to give “spiritbending” a free pass but I just can’t get pass the clear disconnect between this and regular waterbending.

Anyway, Unalaq sends the spirit off and offers to teach Korra the ways of the spirit. Tenzin tells Unalaq that Korra still needs to perfect her airbending and is hoping the other Air Temples will connect her to the other Avatars. Unalaq scoffs at this and Korra’s anger at Tenzin and Tonraq for continuing to talk around her like she isn’t there blows over. She renounces Tenzin as her mentor and says she needs to learn from Unalaq now. Tenzin, though clearly heartbroken, accepts this humbly and merely says it has been an honor teaching her thus far.

I think this is…fine. While this conflict was set up fairly clumsily at first, what with implying that Korra wants to learn to fight spirits because it’ll be less boring than airbending and failing to provide a compelling reason why she was raised in the compound in the first place, I can believe now that Korra thinks this is the best way to help the world. I can’t blame her for being manipulated by Unalaq here.

I like the next scene too! Tenzin gets ready to leave for the temples only to be stopped by Katara, who encourages him to brings his siblings.

[Katara]: I think you forgot a couple of things. (Kya and Bumi standing behind her)

[Tenzin]: (sighs) Mother, I think I need some time alone with my family right now.

[Katara]: This is your family, Tenzin. When you get to be my age, you’ll be thankful for the time you had with your siblings. Besides, I think it’s important that you all visit your father’s home together.

That’s the busybody we all remember. Definitely not the type to let Aang neglect any of his children…ahem, not that that’s relevant right this second.

Korra asks Mako if she did the right thing. Mako admits he’s not good at giving counsel to the Avatar, but says her heart is in the right place and she should trust it. See guys? The failed the first two conversations but made it through this one. Who says writing is hard?

Unalaq comes and places a comforting hand on Korra’s shoulder, saying he has “great plans” for her.

We’ll be the judge of that.

And that’s the opener for Book 2! Hopefully you guys get where I’m coming from when I say that this season would like to be as detached from Book 1 as possible. It’s taken for granted that Amon has been “beaten”, the Equalists are completely gone, and Korra doesn’t really need any more airbending training. She’s got the Avatar State down pat, and she’s ready for the next part of her training. We’re going to see just what Unalaq has in store for her and the many twists and turns along the way. We’re also beginning some subplots that might be great or terrible. We have re-introduced spirits as mindless creatures, but more on that later. This season still has some time before it craps the bed, but that time is running short. This season unfortunately doesn’t get to enjoy Book One’s much longer grace period because the setting and characters have been established by now, and we’re dealing in aspects of this universe that have implications for Avatar: The Last Airbender. I hope you’re ready.

I’ll see you all next time for The Southern Lights!