Ibrahim Noir

Legend of Korra

Book 1: Air, Chapter 10

We open on Korra resting peacefully on Air Temple Island after her recent capture and escape from Tarrlok. Mako sits at her bedside and even holds her hand. Asami spies her boyfriend’s obvious attraction to Korra and sulks away sulkily.

We then see Tenzin return to his wife and kids. He reassures them that Korra’s okay and everything’s going to be fine now.

That afternoon, Korra is up and munching on some food Pema’s made. She tells everyone she’s feeling like herself again and fills everyone in on everything that happened: Tarrlok is Yakone’s son, Amon took his bending and kidnapped him, and he nearly captured her too. Tenzin says that Amon’s moves are getting more and more bold and concludes he must be reaching his endgame.

Elsewhere, Pema washes dishes with Asami and we’re reminded that Pema is pregnant. You could be forgiven for forgetting since it hasn’t come up since the first episode. The fact that it’s a plot point now is practically a dead giveaway that it will be of some importance this episode.

Mako comes in and asks for boiling water for Korra’s tea, and Asami coldly tells him to boil it himself with his firebending.

More shipping nonsense happens and as much as I’d like to just skip over it, I have a duty to you all. Pema excuses herself immediately so the two can talk (there’s a quick funny shot of her grimacing as she paces out of the room.)

Asami accuses Mako of having feelings for Korra and tells him she knows about the kiss the two shared. Mako spends the entire conversation denying and deflecting, and eventually tries to table it altogether. Asami coldly walks out and tells him there might not be a relationship to talk about later.

Continuing the trend of Tenzin and Lin having some of the best interactions in the show, Tenzin heads outside and awkwardly asks Lin if she could protect his family while he attends an upcoming council meeting. He says that with the increased Equalist attacks, he wants to be sure they’re in safe hands. Lin tells him, “Of course I’ll help, old friend.” Pema arrives and promptly hands a nonplussed Lin Meelo who has to “poo real bad”. More dumb toilet humor but there’s something to read into about Pema doing this as some kind of passive-aggressive form of revenge for almost stealing Tenzin and trying to have her thrown in prison, which is funny in a more subtle way. There’s also the fact that Tenzin hurriedly thanks Lin and flies away on Oogi after she yells that babysitting is “not what she signed on for.”

The Equalists begin their attack on Republic City, with the Lieutenant disguised as an exterminator kidnapping the Fire Nation councilwoman.

Tenzin lands on the roof of City Hall (for some reason?) and some Equalists disguised as cleaners attack him. A neat detail we’re shown is that Tenzin is able to detect the electrified bolas thrown at him from behind because of a quick bristle in his facial hair. It’s a cool passive ability of an airbender to be able to detect the slightest changes in the wind and helps to inform why most of them are bald.

Tenzin is able to subdue his attackers, but Tarrlok’s assistant comes out of the building to inform him that the remaining council members are all missing. Tenzin is now the sole leadership of Republic City.

We then see bombs being dropped from airships above the city…well, I shouldn’t say dropped. There just seems to be explosions happening for no reason while the airships just sort of fly about. Lin on the island hurries the kids inside and tells Team Korra,

[Lin] Republic City is under attack.

Up above, Hiroshi stands with Amon, who says that it’s time for Republic City to finally be equalized…and I feel nothing because Republic City isn’t a place we’ve really gotten to know outside of plot-relevant portions of it. It actually feels less developed than a lot of the towns the Gaang visited in Avatar. We still have yet to see the bending oppression Amon keeps yammering about, and we don’t even see anyone running/panicking because of the attack! Despite supposedly being a bustling city, there are almost no people and no cars. Republic City looks like a ghost town half the time.

Team Korra find Asami’s car crashed against a street lamp. Asami sarcastically comments on Korra’s parking job and Korra defends herself by reminding them that everyone except her was in prison and she’s already made it clear she can’t drive. Asami kicks Mako out of shotgun, suggesting he sit with Korra. Korra asks if everything’s alright but Mako plays it off.

Tenzin heads to the police station to talk to Saikhan, who informs him that the force has been spread too thin to properly deal with the siege. Tenzin tells him to wire a message to the “United Forces” (whoever they are) for further reinforcements.

Who are the United Forces and why is it implied that they’re a separate faction from the United Republic? I guess we’ll have to see if we ever get an answer to this.

For now though, power and communication are cut off, and nerve gas is pumped into the station, incapacitating most of the officers. Tenzin has as much people as he can gathered close so he can shield them with an air bubble. When they get outside though, they find mecha-tanks waiting for them. These ones are equipped with big ol’ magnets to deal with the metalbenders.

Might be time to reconsider the armored suits, guys!

Try as he might, Tenzin is overwhelmed and unable to save Saikhan. But Asami arrives and uses Car no Jutsu to take out two of the tanks. One latches onto Mako with its cables and electrocutes him, but he redirects lightning back at it. I guess lightning redirection was also democratized over the 70-year gap, so that’s cool. I’m not sure what the point is since Mako can just fire lightning with a point of his finger anyway, but whatever. Korra slips some water into the exhaust pipes of one, causing it to malfunction and giving Bolin and opener to knock it down.

What is Asami doing? Taking out all the ground guys, numbering at about seven grown, armed, and trained men by herself.

Yas queen slay!

Up above, Hiroshi watches this with Amon and remarks that he’s saddened seeing his daughter fight alongside those awful, awful benders. Amon reassures him that he’ll have his daughter back soon enough.

The action seems to be over on the ground, but Mako points out an Equalist airship headed to Air Temple Island.

Uh oh.

The Lieutenant heads down with multiple chi-blockers and Lin orders everyone to get inside. Pema starts screaming because the baby is coming!

Man, this baby has an awfully dramatic sense of timing. I feel like the attack on the island works well enough in terms of creating tension, as opposed to this baby we’ve done nothing with all season. But I know what you’re thinking. “Stop being coy, Ibrahim-senpai, and just give it to me straight. Are you suggesting the baby’s arrival was dropped here to artificially inflate tension because there was nowhere else for it in the season?”

(from the DVD commentary for this episode)

[Bryan] Well, we knew there was going to be a moment where the revolution really like took over, you know? And they were going to seize Republic City, and it’d be this kind of military order. But, um, yeah, we slid it around, how early do we want that to happen, how late? But then, yeah, taking Air Temple Island made it more personal, they were more vul-vulnerable. And then, we had this runner that Pema was pregnant the whole season. So…

[Mike] Wasn’t just a random thing! Paid off.

[Joaquim] Mighta started as a random thing. (Joaquim and Steve chuckle)

[Bryan] I was going to say that. But no.

[Joaquim] Sorry.

[Mike] I think we definitely knew she was going to have the baby, but we didn’t, we didn’t know how that was gonna go down exactly. (Steve chuckles)

[Bryan] Right. Yeah, you know, real stressful event, seems like.

Well yes. Yes I am.

Pema is hurried inside by a pair of Air Acolytes while Lin and the White Lotus sentries fight off the Equalists. Lin is knocked down and is at the mercy of the Lieutenant. This happens because Lin uses her metal cables against an enemy who uses electricity to fight instead of earthbending. We know Lin is smarter than this, and that she has accesss to earthbending and the wolvering claws. But why does this happen? To set up what has to be one of the worst scenes in the season and possibly the series. To start, we get this line that is widely considered cringe by everyone except this show’s most diehard defenders (and for good reason):

[Jinora] Stay away from my dad’s ex-girlfriend!

Sigh.

It’s hard to say when something is definitively cringe, but the fact that so many people dislike it should give an idea of just how annoying it really is. It’s clunky, overly long as a quip, and it’s odd to say given the situation. But the worst is yet to come. Next, the Lieutenant just stands there and waits to get knocked out (in one hit!) by Jinora. Ikki then rolls in on an air scooter and takes out multiple chi-blockers. They all stand there so she can hit them like bowling pins.

Yup. Lin needs to be rescued by children and they completely BTFO all the Equalists on screen.

But we’ve only just gotten to the worst of it. We’ve now come to the holy grail. This is something that even Korra‘s most diehard apologists have trouble defending.

Meelo drops in and, uh…fartbends on the remaining Equalists. I cannot explain this. I’m just going to show you.

I have to once again stress that they drafted, wrote, storyboarded this, and left it in the final edit. The Legend of Korra not only engages in toilet humor, but also weaponizes it. Meelo’s farts take out several chi-blockers and ultimately help save the day. Apparently most of the toilet humor in this show came from the mind of the director and art director for Book One, Ki Hyun Ryu. No one thought it important to stop him from doing this. In fact, this scene in particular was what we got after Mike and Bryan negotiated with him and allowed him only two farts.

We were going to have more.

There aren’t many scenes that fail so fundamentally like this. The competency of both Lin, the White Lotus, and an entire brigade of Equalists, including the Lieutenant, are compromised for a joke. A type of joke that appeals to the lowest common denominator by design. It’s so damn sad that this is even part of the same franchise as Avatar.

And if you still think I’m being unfair, Lin herself admits to Tenzin that she would’ve been toast if it weren’t for his kids. Bear in mind that Toph never needed to be bailed out by some kids, even when she was one. She took out an entire team of earthbenders by herself.

Whenever anyone says that Legend of Korra is the mature alternative to Avatar: The Last Airbender, I want you all to remember this scene in your mind, and understand why I simply cannot take that idea seriously.

Tenzin makes it back (why he took his sky bison instead of using super-speed to skim across the water is beyond me but never mind), and reunites with Pema who’s just had the baby. He names the baby Rohan…and that’s really it for the baby.

I wish I had more to say about Rohan but he has absolutely no relevance for the rest of the series. You could remove him and it would change nothing at all. His name has no in-universe significance as far as I can tell. We never even find out if he ended up being an airbender or not. I have no idea why he was invented story-wise or even what purpose he serves this season. It’s yet another example of content that exists purely to pad out the season. I can’t understand why a series supposedly short on time keeps wasting what little it has on stuff like this.

Korra informs Tenzin that more airships are coming, and he says that he needs to get his family as far away from everything as possible. Lin volunteers to go with, saying there’s no way she’ll allow Amon to get to the last airbenders. Tenzin tells Korra to lay low until the United Forces arrive with reinforcements. Korra clearly doesn’t like the idea of hiding, equating it to “giving up”, but she goes along with the plan.

Tenzin and Lin fly away with the family on Oogi. Team Korra hops onto Naga so they can escape and…

Wait a damn minute.

How in fresh hell is Naga carrying all of Team Korra on her back? Not two episodes ago they established she couldn’t because they were too heavy, and now she’s able to do so comfortably with no issue?

What the hell is going on? Are you guys paying attention to your own show?

To make this even better, the Lieutenant shows up, and Naga leaps into the air with everyone on her back and unceremoniously swats him aside. It looks so damn goofy.

I think it’s safe to say at this point that the Lieutenant is a complete joke. Between getting owned by Asami, Korra, Jinora, and now Naga, his badass factor’s been reduced to almost nothing. It’s downright cartoonish at this point.

Sigh.

Up above, the airships start to gain on Oogi. Lin starts to realize that the bison won’t be able to outrun the Equalists (though I’m not sure why this is the casse), and tells Tenzin not to turn back no matter happens to her. She grapples onto an airship and, in an admittedly impressive display of (remote) metalbending, she forcefully rips the top of one to down it.

She leaps onto the next and is about to do the same, but some Equalists tie her up and electrocute her unconscious. It’s frustrating again to know that she would’ve seen this coming with seismic sense, but I really appreciate Lin’s sacrifice here. Meelo finally has a line of dialogue that’s worthwhile too.

[Meelo] That lady is my hero.

[Tenzin] Yes. She is.

Team Korra somberly watch as the island is raided before Mako suggests they keep moving, while putting his arm around Korra. Asami watches bitterly in the background. Yes, the show is going to continue to subject us to Mako getting cozy with Korra while Asami watches bitterly in the background.

That night on the island in the rain, Lin is brought in front of Amon, who tells her she can keep her bending in exchange for Korra’s location. Lin defiantly refuses to tell him anything. She then closes her eyes in dignified anticipation of what’s coming before her eyes open wide in shock. She slumps onto the ground, unconscious.

This is one of my favorite scenes in the series. It’s a poignant send-off for one of the season’s strongest characters. The sound of the rain stopping to emphasize the music as Lin’s eyes go wide and camera zooms out into the sky could easily be seen as pretentious elsewhere, but the season earns this for Lin’s sacrifice. The act is character-motivated and the first on-screen de-bending of a heroic character is treated with the proper respect and weight. If only Lin got to go all out on the Equalists on the island instead of performing basic metal whip moves before having to be bailed out by the kids. It would give this scene that much more potency. But thankfully we got a defiant last stand in the form of her act atop the airships. As it is, my only real problem with the scene is that we barely get time to sit on the moment because it’s cut short for one of the most immersion-breaking moments in the show for me.

We cut to the bow of a United Forces ship and a messenger informs the general of the wire sent by “the Avatar” (even though it was most definitely not Korra, but the police on the behalf of Tenzin but whatever). The general responds in the immediately recognizable voice of Dante Bosco that he’ll be there in three days time.

[Messenger] As you wish, General Iroh.

This comes across as fan-pandering to an almost desperate degree. Having Zuko in the show isn’t possible so here is a brand new character who is the grandson of Zuko, sounds exactly like Zuko, more or less acts like Zuko, and is named after fan-favorite Uncle Iroh. It’s the messenger’s conspicuous delivery of the general’s name that does it for me. He says it at the end of the conversation rather than the beginning and pauses after “as you wish” just for the surprise factor. Dante Bosco does nothing to disguise his voice either, which I’m sure is deliberate. It jolted me out the show and reminded me that I am watching characters in a cartoon with voice actors, something I never felt in the previous series or even throughout this one. I think a sound-alike voice actor would have been more subtle and helped this Iroh to feel like his own character.

Anyway, that’s “Turning the Tides”. Phew. The series is losing steam fast and major rot is starting to form as the whole thing wears on. There are some really conspicuous and sloppy mistakes in this one, and I’d be lying if I said the good outweighs the bad. When I think of this episode, I think of Lin’s sacrifice because it’s an easy highlight. But then I think about the underdevloped nature of Republic City and its supposed bending conflict, the amount of time wasted on the romance and Pema’s baby, the degradation of characters who should be more competent in the name of “cool” moments or jokes, the blatant fan-pandering, and the writers forgetting simple details like Naga being unable to carry four people. I’m left to wonder how much of it I’m supposed to take seriously. Legend of Korra‘s first book clearly has a story it wants to tell, but it just as clearly has other priorities and cannot get them straight. Outside of some good moments, the show is quickly losing the momentum it had in its first half. The next episode will bring it to a halt before we stumble to the finish line in the finale. I hope you’ll join me next time when we find out the truth about Amon in “Skeletons in the Closet.”