Ibrahim Noir

Legend of Korra

Book 1: Air, Chapter 7

In a rather inventive use of the “Previously On” opening, we actually get an in-universe broadcast by Tarrlok. What’s especially neat about this is the timing. Since Shiro Shinobi was shocked last episode, he’d be recovering from his injuries right about now.

[Tarrlok] Although the Hundred Year War has long passed, we are not living in a time of peace. These revolutionaries who call themselves “Equalists” are not interested in equality at all. They just want to wage war against benders. Chief Beifong was supposed to protect Republic City, but she was powerless to stop Amon’s attack on the arena. She has failed us all. If we are to survive these dire times, our law enforcement needs new leadership.

From this broadcast, Tarrlok exposes the true motivation behind his decision to keep the arena open on Lin’s suggestion last episode: If the arena is attacked, he can escape blame by pinning the failure on Lin and cause the public to lose faith in the police chief. If the arena is safe, he can declare himself the one who endorsed her. Either way, he gets to come out and essentially play the hero. Something the citizens of Republic City desperately need after the attack. I honestly think it’d be really cool if the show’s opening was always this diagetic and story-based (since it’s played like a radio broadcast anyway). Imagine if every episode opened with some character’s thoughts on what’s currently going on. Hell, imagine one of these narrated by Varrick. Unfortunately this is an exception. Oh well.

We open on Mako and Bolin packing their things. The pro-bending arena’s been shut down following Amon’s attack, and so the brothers are essentially back to being homeless. But Korra rushes in and excitedly tells them that arrangements have been made for the two to stay on Air Temple Island with her! However, they inform her that Asami’s already invited them to live with her in her father’s mansion. Asami then shows up and invites Korra to the estate as well. Instead of being happy that her friends are going to be able to live luxuriously for the first time in their lives, Korra gets pouty and starts to leave, not even capable of being cordial with Asami.

I still don’t find Korra particularly sympathetic, if you couldn’t tell.

Anyway, Bolin (pretending to be Pabu while using him as a puppet, which is adorable) convinces Korra to visit the estate and she finally accepts the invitation.

Elsewhere, Chief Beifong and the Metalbending Police Force raid Cabbage Corp’s headquarters. Yes, you read that correctly. Cabbage Corp. The cabbage merchant from the original show apparently founded a tech company rivaling Future Industries. There’s even a statue of him in front of the building. 

I just want you guys to absorb that this series remembered to make a statue of the Cabbage Guy, but not Katara.

Of all the ways to do fanservice, I’d definitely file this under the “forced” category. It’s obvious Cabbage Corp was invented on the spot to be a “fall guy” company for the Equalists but also to reference a popular meme from Avatar. The proof is that this supposed mega-corporation has no presence in the city before or after the events of this episode until they play an incidental role well into Book 3. They essentially created this entity for a joke.

Oh right, I still need to talk about what the police were doing at Cabbage Corp. Apparently they’d acquired some intel that the company is manufacturing Equalist tech. They find crates full of shock gloves, Equalist propaganda, and whatnot. Lin makes a statement in front of the press announcing their shutdown of the company, and the owner, Lau Gan-Lan, is dragged off to prison.

His reaction is predictable.

[Lau Gan-Lan] NO! NOT MY CABBAGE CORP!

Ha ha ha.

At headquarters, Korra arrives and sees Tahno, disheveled and miserable after many failed visits to the city’s best healers. In a rare human moment I like, Korra expresses some sympathy for him and Tahno tells Korra to “get Amon” for him. They’re not exactly friends, as Korra points out, but there’s a level of respect that comes after facing each other in the ring.

Korra then arrives at the Sato mansion and almost sarcastically asks if Asami has shopping or makeovers planned.

Instead, Asami takes the group to the Satomobile test track and takes Korra for a ride. We learn that Asami drive good. Asami fight good too; she says her father put her through “self-defense training” since she was a little girl.

This will be relevant later.

Korra admits to Asami that she had her pegged (not like that…yet) as the “prissy rich girl” type before, but now she sees that she’s super cool! And so she now likes her. It took Asami helping to earn her team a spot in the championship for Korra to even give her the time of day, and she’s only now given her the chance to be more than a stereotype inside her head.

That’s cool.

Anyway, Korra excuses herself to use the bathroom, and because we never, ever see characters in fiction use the bathroom, we know something plot-relevant is about to happen. It’s the Law of Conservation of Detail.

Sure enough, Korra has a mishap involving face powder, and stumbles right outside Hiroshi Sato’s door, just in time to overhear him say over the phone…

[Hiroshi] I assure you, everything is going exactly as planned. (…) Uh-um, yes … luckily, the Cabbage Corp investigation has bought us enough time. (…) Trust me, by the end of the week we’ll be ready to strike!

Korra immediately comes to the conclusion that this business talk equates to Hiroshi being in cahoots with the Equalists. Uhh…you might want to avoid jumping the gun there, Korra. Hiroshi is one of the most prominent figures in Republic City. To say that it’d be a massive endeavor to head one of, if not the biggest companies in the city and be an Equalist supplier would be a just-as-massive understatement. The man couldn’t possibly have the time to do both. But Korra runs off with her suspicion, making a hasty excuse to Asami and the others to leave. She reports back to Tenzin and Lin with a new and equally unfounded suspicion that Cabbage Corp has been framed. Lin says they require proof, but figures it’s worth looking into since Sato has the means and the motive. Tenzin elaborates that Sato’s wife was…killed by a firebender.

Jesus Christ, say what you will about the Equalists’ methods, but something definitely needs to be done about these hotmen. This is getting ridiculous now. Katara, Sokka, Jet, Mako, Bolin, Amon (as of this episode), and now Asami all have the same Batman-esque “parents killed by firebender” origin story, and half of these weren’t even during the war. This isn’t bad writing, mind you, it’s just lazy. Even if you haven’t seen Avatar at all, it’s becoming conspicuous how this particular plot point’s been recycled so many times. But let’s, for a moment, get back to Lin saying Sato has the means and the motive. As I said before, assuming that Sato has the means to provide Equalist tech, in secret mind you, on top of his already enormous empire is quite the leap. The “motive” bit also ignores that having your family killed by a bender is still a ways away from wanting to exterminate benders entirely. But whatever. Might as well look into it.

The next day, Lin and Tenzin go to confront Hiroshi. Asami and Mako are both (rightfully) disgusted with Korra for spying on Hiroshi and then having the gall to accuse him of possibly being involved with the Equalists. Asami’s reaction is believable since she would obviously want to believe her father is innocent. Mako’s reaction isn’t unbelievable but I feel there’s a missed opporunity here. Mako might be indebted to Hiroshi for all his financial support, but he’s gone with Korra to an Equalist rally and has seen how many non-benders have a decent chance of being a closeted Equalist. It’d be nice if he had some doubts and paranoia, since it could then brew some interesting tension between himself and Asami. Hell, Mako’s lingering feelings for Korra become a sticking point in their relationship later; you could easily make this incident the first domino, with Asami feeling hurt over Mako potentially taking Korra’s side over hers. Alas, Mako simply parrots his girlfriend for the time being.

Anyway, Korra calls out the “shady” language Hiroshi used on the phone, and he (reasonably) waves this off as business talk. Tenzin, ever the only character with some good sense, calmly asks for a search of his warehouses and factories to put all suspicion to rest. Hiroshi tells the group they’re welcome to search all of his company to their heart’s content.

They look and they look, but the police fail to find anything incriminating. Mako and Korra step aside for a private conversation and Mako accuses Korra of acting out of jealousy over him and Asami. He tells her that their friendship is over if she doesn’t drop her suspicions about Sato. Hard not to see where the guy’s coming from. Korra’s been pretty awful towards Asami so far, and she’s gone through great lengths thus far to accuse her father of being an Equalist, despite the diminishing evidence on her side.

A Future Industries worker slips Korra a note telling her to meet him at a bridge at midnight for “the truth.” She, Lin, and Tenzin arrive…alone…without any backup in case it’s a trap.

Sigh.

The worker tells them that he’s a repentant Equalist whose backed out because he never signed up for this full-on war. He exposes that Hiroshi is indeed an Equalist and he’s working on a “new kind of weapon” in a secret factory right underneath his mansion.

They then head back to the Sato mansion, seemingly letting the guy go without taking him into custody in case this turns out to be a trap.

Sigh.

Tenzin reminds Lin of the risk to her career if they turn out to be wrong about this. Lin asserts that protecting Republic City is all she cares about, and the danger this new weapon presents is too great to ignore.

They arrive and Asami is again annoyed at the police’s investigations. She angrily tells them that her father is in his workshop out back. They arrive to find it empty. Lin then uncovers her metal sole and uses seismic sense to detect a tunnel running into the mountainside!

It’s really cool to see Toph’s unique ability make a return like this. There’s more than enough room to infer Toph taught her daughters to earthbend blind, which would explain their affinity for metalbending.

Which is about all the nice things I can say about this bit.

It’s almost implied that Lin is the only one who can do this when the other metalbenders necessarily should be able to as well if they can metalbend at all. This is an important detail that the writers apparently forgot when deciding that metalbending became more accessible and widespread over the 70-year gap (and you can bet I’m going to expand on this when we eventually get to Book 3). If the worldbuilding of this show insists that the police force does indeed consist of metalbenders, then this is a teachnique everyone on the force should be able to do. In fact, it’s a technique everyone should be performing at all times. Why in the world does the police (or at least Lin) wear shoes at all if they have seismic sense? They should have been able to detect this (dare I say) secret tunnel the first time they searched. They all should’ve felt the Equalists sneaking up on them last episode. It’s inexcusable for the metalbending police suits to be designed this way when omnidirectional vision is available to them.

Don’t forget as well that seismic sense operates as a lie detector. Lin should have been able to tell that Hiroshi was lying. She should have been using it when they were talking to the guy on the bridge. As a police officer, she should be using it at all times. This is a major flaw considering what’s been established about the metalbending police, and I can only imagine seismic sense is used so sparingly in this show because it would eliminate so much of this story.

So sure enough, Lin uncovers a staircase leading downwards into, wouldn’t you know it, a secret tunnel. Lin goes down with her men (backup this time!), Tenzin, and Korra, but forbids Mako, Bolin, and Asami from coming along. She orders one officer to stay behind to watch the three of them.

Lin, Korra, and Tenzin find a massive facility housing a bunch of robotic machines that kinda look like a cross between mechas and those old diving suits.

Just then, a wall comes up behind them, locking the group inside. Hiroshi, piloting one of the mech suits alongside several Equalists, reveals the source they talked to was, wouldn’t you know it, a trap to lure them here. There’s an effort here to limit metalbending by the show. Platinum, being a completely pure metal, is shown to be unbendable, and it’s applied to the wall and the mech suits. I appreciate the effort, but the show will now have to contrive reasons for opponents to have such a rare metal on hand whenever they need to combat metalbending. Hiroshi has a lot of it and lord knows where he got it from. And the fact that metalbending needs to have a nerf like this in place at all is an issue that I will elaborate on in the summation of Book One.

Hearing the commotion below, Mako and Bolin decide to join the group below. To get past the officer left to watch them, Mako and Bolin pull a gambit where Mako “sneezes” a fire blast and Bolin trips the target with earthbending before tackling them. The look they exchange beforehand implies this is a hustling strategy the brothers came up with and practiced regularly, perhaps during their days on the streets. I find small character details like this really neat!

Underground, our group fights the Equalists, but the mecha-tanks give them a huge advantage, and eventually they’re all knocked out and ready to be taken to Amon.

Let’s talk about Hiroshi’s plan for a minute because he is kind of a buffoon.

Tenzin, Lin, and Korra suspect Hiroshi might be an Equalist. All evidence is in his favor and their investigation turns up no results. You’d expect Hiroshi to say his GG’s before going back to being a beloved public figure by day and Equalist by night. Instead he decides to lure them to his secret factory,  go full mask-off and confirm he’s an Equalist for real, and eliminate any element of surprise concerning his newest anti-bender weapon. What exactly is the plan here? Say he succeeds in sending them all to Amon; does he think the police is just going to forget they found his secret underground factory? And that the chief of police, a councilman, and the freaking Avatar disappeared while investigating it? All Hiroshi had to do was nothing at all. They would have dropped the investigation and he’d get to continue with his shenanigans behind the scenes. Mama mia.

Mako has Asami stay behind because it’s too dangerous or whatever and he and Bolin make their descent. Though you may wonder how Mako and Bolin are going to make it, since there’s a big ol’ platinum wall dividing them from the group. Well, Bolin, uh, pops in through a hole in the ground with earthbending.

The ground is made out of earth. Meaning our group of heroes weren’t trapped at all. Why didn’t Lin, Korra, or any of the metalbenders try to escape through a hole in the ground? And why hasn’t Hiroshi accounted for this? What the hell?

So the Equalists load all the metalbenders into the transports. Conspicuously, they do this before loading the high-priority targets, those being Tenzin, Lin, and especially Korra. I know Amon said he wants to take her bending last, but capturing her does wonders for his plans. She should’ve been the first inside. The reason she and the other main characters aren’t, of course, is so Mako and Bolin have a chance to save them. And get this, they aren’t even being watched. Mako and Bolin are able to pick them up over their shoulders and just walk off with them without any of the Equalists immediately noticing.

Thankfully, the show doesn’t commit to this bit of clownery and the boys are indeed cornered by Hirsoshi and the Lieutenant. You might have noticed that I have less and less to say about Bolin. I’m saddened to say that this is because since the love triangle fiasco, Bolin’s purpose in this story has pretty much been completely reduced to what I’ve been calling “Bolin does a funny.” Almost every line out of him is played for a joke. I talked about the missed opporunity with Mako and his feelings over the events of this episode, but he’s the only brother who’s been allowed to have an opinion at all because Bolin is bust doing a funny. Why am I bringing this up here? Because this is the moment the brothers have come face to face with the man who sponsored their team, publicly supported their friend, allowed his daughter to date one of them, and let them into his own home, all as a ploy to gain their trust. And yet Mako is the only one allowed to have a serious confrontation with him because Bolin is doing a funny. It’s just so disrespectful to the character to take away his agency like this.

Hiroshi spits back at Mako that the hardest part about all of it was watching his daughter “traipse around with a firebending street rat.” Asami then teleports into the scene (Did she also come out the ground with earthbending? Your guess is as good as mine.) Hiroshi asks his daughter to forgive him and that he’s only doing this because benders took her mother from them both. He offers his daughter a shock glove and tells her they can rule together and bring a new order to the galaxy.

I think this is supposed to be tension-filled scene, but Asami up this point has had no character outside of being Mako’s girlfriend that it completely deflates any of the anticipation. Any action she takes is inevitably gonna be met with “…Oh. Okay then.” because this is the first autonomous decision Asami’s made since her introduction. She very well could turn out to be an Equalist and it would make just as much sense as anything else (in fact, if she had been colluding with her father the whole time, it would actually help to explain the contrived nature of her meet-cute with Mako). 

Consider “The Crossroads of Destiny” and the similar choice Zuko is faced with. Over the course of about 40 episodes, we’ve seen his highs and his lows. We’ve spent ample time in his shoes, seeing his history, relationships, and goals. We know good and well by this point that though he is antagonistic towards our heroes, he isn’t evil. Indeed, Zuko has a sense of honor from the start of the show. He’s just adopted a skewed idea of what is, based on what would be pleasing to his father, ironically missing that he had it right from the beginning. He suffers and struggles to find out what it is he wants, before two people important figures in his life try to convince him to make a choice. One representing the temptation of honor he so desparately wants to re-claim, the other representing a chance to become someone new and forge his own path. You watch with bated breath because the humbling and humanization of Zuko throughout the show prompts you to root for him and wish for him to succeed, but you realize it really could go either way. Zuko ultimately siding with Azula is not just heartbreaking because he abandons all the progress he’s made over the season to ultimately give in to the lofty versions of redemption and honor that he’s been chasing for the past three years. It’s heartbreaking because it’s entirely in-character. He’s bitter about his exile and lot in life, to a self-destructive degree. And while his capacity for altruism is great, his pride is still just as inflated and it ultimately wins out.

As it stands in Legend of Korra, we don’t have the slightest clue what Asami’s values are, and so we have no basis for whatever decision she makes here. Thus, the investment compared is some drops in a bucket. I’m not saying Asami needed 40-some episodes for this to work. Legend of Korra obviously doesn’t have that kind of time. But maybe, like, one episode where there was time dedicated to giving the audience insight to who she is would’ve helped? I don’t think I need to tell you this guys, but “good at driving” and “good at fighting” are not character. They’re dressing. Really, the only reason I can picture as to why this might be exciting is because this could be the first step in defining her as a character.

Regardless, Asami takes up the glove and seems to accept her father’s offer, but she shocks him instead.

…Oh. Okay, then.

She then takes out the Lieutenant in two hits.

What the hell.

What kind of self-defense classes did this girl take? Up until this point, the Lieutenant has consistently been portrayed as “more dangerous than your average chi-blocking Equalist, but less dangerous than Amon.” He was a highly competent second-in-command and an intimidating miniboss, to the point where just his showing up signified danger to the audience. He’s given everyone trouble, to the point that even Korra had to work her ass off to subdue him just last episode!

And yet Asami is able to curb-stomp him with one (1) shock glove and regular hand-to-hand combat. Just…no. All you need to do to fix this is change her target to a common mook. I honestly don’t think the writers realize what they’ve done here. It’s gonna get really hard to take the Lieutenant seriously after this.

So the group is just barely able to escape. In the police airship, Lin tells Tenzin that Tarrlok was right—she’s failed as chief. Her men are on their way to Amon and it’s all her fault. She resolves to turn in her resignation the next morning. Tenzin adamantly tells her she can’t give up. Lin replies she isn’t; she’s just going to have to find her officers and face Amon…outside the law.

Mako apologizes to Korra for not believing her even though he had no real reason to. Korra tells him her original offer to let them all live on Air Temple Island still stands, and even extends it to Asami. She turns Mako’s attention to her, telling him she’s gonna need him. Mako then goes to comfort her. Korra looks onto the horizon, ending the episode.

“The Aftermath” is pretty below par. I continue to enjoy Lin and really admire her commitment to her city and especially her policemen, which is such that she’s willing to risk her job and even go vigilante. Her dynamic with Tenzin is also becoming more and more compelling. I’m pleasantly surprised at how slowly and carefully Lin is developed in this season. But on the other hand, there’s still the show’s usual clumsiness in worldbuilding and plot. The reveal of seismic sense only underlines how useless the metalbending police apparently are since they either don’t have it or otherwise don’t employ it until they think they should. We’re introduced to a super-nonbendable metal exclusively because metalbending has been made so mundane. Korra hears an innocuous conversation Hiroshi has on the phone, immediately suspects Equalist ties apropos of nothing, and turns out to be right. Once again, other characters have to apologize to her and Korra doesn’t have to learn anything. Meanwhile, what’s supposed to be a big episode for Asami is undercut by the fact that Asami’s only just become a character. Bolin similarly has next to no agency and this persists throughout the rest of the season. We’ve past the halfway point and the positive aspects about the season are becoming less consistent. But our new Team Avatar has assembled, and we’re going to see them in action next episode, “When Extremes Meet.”