This blog is a little project I'm doing to help decompress after some less than ideal times. The premise: watch Avatar: the Last Airbender and give my thoughts on each episode. I expect there will be some posts where I talk about my general impressions as well. Maybe a round-up post every few episodes? I don't know - I'm doing this for myself and my own enjoyment, so I won't be making any hard and fast rules. That being said, if you have thoughts on my thoughts, share them! I'll be posting whatever, whenever. No posting schedule, and if I'm not enjoying it, I'll stop.
Why Avatar? Well everybody in the (online) world seems to be genuinely, sincerely fond of it. It also seems to be a go-to comfort re-watch. So why not?
What do I know about Avatar going into this? I never watched it as a kid, I'm not sure if I knew it existed until a few years ago. But I've pop culture osmosis-ed a few things over the years:
-It's gorgeous
-There's a character called Zuko who has an army of fangirls/boys
-There's an episode called the Great Divide that is bad
-That's Rough, Buddy
-Elemental magic system
-Uncle Iroh is wise and apparently a parental substitute for a good portion of actual people in the real world
-The live-action that doesn't exist
-A collection of fanart by Devin Elle Kurtz came to my attention a few months ago and I haven't been able to get it out of my head.
Since I'm an adult, and this is a kids' show, I expect there might be some things that I'll interpret differently, or jokes that won't land. Also, this is my first ever time on tumblr, so be nice while I figure out things like posting and tagging.
Way back in early season two, I think, you wondered how Sokka would keep pace with the others in a fight as their skills improved. This is how. You give him a training montage and a sword that's from space, and because it's from space, you can treat it, narratively, like a lightsaber.
What does 'you can treat it, narratively, like a lightsaber' mean?
I can definitely see the nonnegotiable importance of having Sokka level up as the benders level up, but I also think it would have been cool if he could have been a point of stillness in a sea of powerups.
Strange choice of master but we'll see where this goes.
The meteor shower animation is quite meditative. I wouldn't mind it as a screensaver.
How to describe something exceptional to your blind friend: "You've never not seen anything like this."
It's amazing the quality put into even the tiniest of throwaway jokes.
Are meteor strikes flammable?
I love how whenever Sokka's disappointed he gets noodle arms. A surprisingly consistent characterisation.
Momo butt skate.
Iroh. The fuck?
ok. So he's playing a part for the guards. Why?
Pretty.
Funny to think about, but as a former WWE character, Toph's probably had more hero worship than the Avatar.
Lots to say about this!
First, I stand corrected! i honestly thought that Sokka would be immune to this specific insecurity by virtue of him not being a bender. I was wrong!
Second, I love how, as soon as Sokka expresses that he feels that he isn't as talented as the rest of them, the others respond by listing his actual, invaluable talents, without which the group would be completely at sea. They don't respond with "no you're perfect!" they respond with "no one can read a map like you can" and how he keeps their spirits up with jokes. They're not using false praise. They are using specific facts.
I love that an episode that looks like it's going to deal with a character feeling down on themselves establishes from the get go that the character is invaluable, actually. So often, the 'low self esteem stock episode' puts the affirmation of the character's value at the end. Which means the viewer spends the whole episode being convinced that the character in question might actually be useless. Here, we're told from the start that the character is invaluable - the problem is that they do not perceive themselves to be so. Quite on the nose for a show that deals so much with identity.
OMIGOD IT GETS BETTER!!!!!!!!!!
Validating Katara sweeps in and a) validates his feelings, while b) clearly explaining that his self-perception is not in line with how the others see him, which c) doesn't invalidate a) !!!!
Katara has such emotional intelligence when she chooses to use it.
Nuanced intelligent discussion of the complexities of emotions and self-perception in a Sokka episode I am so happy I am blessed the gods are shining on me today I'm sitting here twirling my hair and swinging my feet and doodling hearts on the corner of my journal
SHOPPING!!!!!
btw that's the same face he makes when he says SUKI!!!
"Reinvigorate my battling"
this boy. just. this boy.
He lasted a lot longer than I would have with nun chucks.
Aang the Happy Meal toy.
Some say that Halberd is still spinning today.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present: the 45 degree Sokka.
Some Foley artist had the time of their life with this weapons sequence.
Why thank you for that exposition, Mr. Exposition. Now walk away and we'll never see you again.
Toph does NOT move ONCE this whole scene and it's ever so slightly freaking me out.
Toph tells you she learned from Badgermoles and no one wants to discuss this further?!? We're going to gloss over that?
So this episode has a training montage theme.
Sokka goes freestyle on those door knockers.
That's one hell of a castle. Must be dark in there though. Tiny windows.
Which explains the several hundred candles. This show. Set up with one hand; slam dunk with the other.
This guy's reciting Sokka's s1 introduction on Kyoshi Island.
Sokka: Actually. I am a dumb.
The Master: Sold.
The face of someone who is definitely picking up what you're putting down.
It's been ages since I watched the episode, but is some of what the Master saying here about swords an echo of what Zuko says to the kid in Zuko Alone when he's decapitating sunflowers?
A Sokka-less Gaang. Depressing and they know it.
The way Katara's voice actor says "oh everyone's a critic" is gold.
Multidisciplinary education vs. kid who's never been within a mile of the box he's being told to think outside of. Fight!
Yikes that was a meaty hit. Does Sokka have a nose left?
They're wearing beehives on their heads.
Was Sokka always this short?
The greens in this episode are such a delight.
The way he says "I'm finished!" Sounds like "Am finished" and you can actually hear the smiley emoji he throws in.
He's good.
What do they FEED him?
Sokka's voice actor had a great time this episode. All the voice actors had a great time actually.
Sokka invents the La Z Boy
Katara inadvertently invents a fandom war by attempting a joke.
They're all so useless and it's wonderful.
That was all only one day? That's a lot of outfit changes for one day.
"You mess things up in a very special way."
Compliment? Let's go with compliment.
Sokka is so very Sokka this episode.
A reason to live is coming!
*thundering herds of shippers in the distance*
That's clever. The inciting incident gets smelted. Haven't seen that before.
This whole Iroh gets buff montage has been completely dialogue free on Iroh's part. Crazy levels of inner peace, that he'd doesn't need to snark back at the guard.
Seriously. What are they FEEDING these children.
Also how is that door that shiny.
Sokka really has it in for those door knockers.
Apropos of nothing, the clouds in this episode are all so yummy. All these soft slate colours and misty layers.
Meteoric iron is actually a thing, right?
Ok but aren't mold made swords crappy?
HI YUE
I love how they managed to made a crafting montage where the character who does the least work is the one who looks like he's working the hardest.
"I saw a heart as strong as my garden decor"
"No it certainly wasn't your skills. You had none."
You've known him like two days and you can already tell he's more worthy than any man you've ever trained? Sounds like you had poor taste in students.
"No. This is my fight. Alone." Bro you are going to DIE. The first time you held a sword was two days ago. You might need the avatar on this one.
Guard who never shuts up actually kind of has a point here. He's a dick about as usual, but it's entirely possible that the rank and file of the Fire Nation army view Iroh's actions as a betrayal.
Does anyone remember in Star Wars movie number 7, or maybe 8, when that Trooper sees Finn after he's switched sides and yells "traitor!" and it's the best part of the movie? Yeah, like that.
This episode throws the concept of linear time out the window. In two days, Iroh gets swole and Sokka masters sword fighting.
Do you think Sokka's realised yet that this is his final exam?
Yummy yummy clouds.
One in a million pocket sand shot.
One in a million stick placement.
So this master is like a sword spirit or something. He can't be human. There's no way he could get the scabbard to fly on perfectly without seeing.
"Try Lee, There's a million Lees. There's a tea shop in Ba Sing Se that has a super cranky waiter called Lee."
This guy's just this side of committing treason and I love it.
I see this Master is a devotee of the 'Hakoda school of shoving outrageously over the top compliments into Sokka's thick skull in the hopes that 1% of them will stick.' I approve.
This last scene has gorgeous hills and skies but you'll have to take my word for it because I've hit the image limit.
Sokka's been inducted into the super secret boy band!!!
He saved space earth for Toph! He's so considerate! He's fuelling the ships!
Let's compromise and call it space dirt instead.
Final Thoughts
This episode every two minutes: Sokka, you are currently flawless and you're about to get better.
Me: Yes. Yep. Yeah. Seconded. I concur.
I like it! It's great! It's 24 minutes of the writers and characters fangirling over Sokka! Of course I like it! It made me criminally overuse exclamation marks! What else can I say?
Hands down my favourite episode is Bato of the Water Tribe. For Sokka's story, this episode is Bato of the Water Tribe part 2. Of course I'm going to love it. This episode was lab grown specifically for me.
Now let's see if I can say something about this episode that isn't poorly disguised squealing.
I love how the characters respond to Sokka saying he's not special with an evidence-based refutation rather than blanket reassurance.
I love how shopping cheers up Sokka. I love how Katara knows that shopping will cheer him up. This must be something she's learned since the show started. I don't think there were malls in the South Pole. So Katara was paying attention when Sokka and Momo went through the bag saga.
I love how much the master is baffled yet impressed by Sokka. He seems almost charmed by this breath of fresh air. I think it's hilarious that, when Sokka first approaches him, he's expecting early season 1 Sokka. He'd better send Suki a thank you card.
I also really like "The way of the sword doesn't belong to any one nation." It seems obvious to us, but in a world where there are weaponisable skills that are quite literally inseparable from the nations their wielders inhabit, it's probably something no one in the Gaang has ever heard before.
Obviously the episode is a little rushed - half hour kid's show and all that - but it's still pretty crazy that you can apparently impart a solid basic knowledge of swordplay in two days.
Toph going all tsundere is funny, and makes Aang and Katara unapologetically desperate for Sokka's company twice as funny as it already is. Toph's like "whatever" and the other two spent the day making a welcome home banner.
I love how Sokka's happiness is always so loud and shameless. It makes it contagious.
This episode highlights what Sokka's actual strengths are, by instructing him in what he thinks his strengths are. If that makes sense? Sokka is brain, which he's finally starting to realise by attending brawn lessons.
He's also heart, and I'll die on that hill.
Iroh getting swole was honestly just a thing that happened. No comment really, except it was interesting to have a reminder from the guard that a character we perceive as the good guy is currently perceived as the bad guy by everyone but us. When the Fire Nation does inevitably get defeated, a whole nation is going to have to reset their worldview and that will not be an easy process.
I have no idea how Aang is swimming through a solid. Must be an Avatar thing.
I bet there would be time for more potty breaks if Sokka hadn't spent 100+ hours of their time drawing up the schedule. A very Sokka thing to do though.
Because hills often have horns. Great disguise.
You can't tell me that a factory that close to their town wouldn't also become the town's primary employer.
That is a lot of town.
I sense a return of preachy Katara. This episode is going to suck.
I'm with Sokka on this one. Buy fish, move on, defeat Firelord, return to help with environmental remediation if time permits.
I like Doc. And Shu. Nice people.
Writers: if you have to make one of your characters an entirely different person to set up the episode's lesson of the week, maybe the lesson doesn't fit your chosen characters. This is the Warriors of Kyoshi all over again. Funny how that's happened to Sokka twice.
We are all Sokka.
And where exactly did this mysterious painted lady get the food to deliver to the village, if the reason the Gaang stopped in the village in the first place was because they needed food?
Let the record show: I lost the last of my patience with this episode 8 minutes and 9 seconds in.
Waterbending healing has never thrown off that much light before. Even the spirit oasis water wasn't that bright.
Also where is the water she's healing with? Usually she has a big bubble of it.
Impersonating a religious figure. That won't end badly.
"Well I hope she returns every night otherwise this place would go right back to the way it was." YES!!!!!! THAT'S THE POINT!!!!!
What was Katara's plan? Forget about the eclipse, forget about fighting the Fire Lord, we're going to stay here for the rest of our lives so that the painted lady can put in a nightly appearance. THIS IS WHY SOKKA DOES THE PLANNING.
Spirit magic is more doing the worm than doing the wave. Good to know.
Bold of a kids' show to advocate for ecoterrorism.
Aang's like "Hey spirit lady! Here's my resume! Here's my connections on LinkedIn!" Why did Katara think that faking being a spirit within two feet of the bridge to the spirit world would be consequence free? Actually that presupposes that Katara thought. Which she didn't. Sokka does her thinking.
"I don't get to meet many spirits. But the ones I do meet, not very attractive." I am OFFENDED on Yue's behalf. And Sokka's. I guess Aang doesn't like Water Tribe girls after all.
"I guess I just became her." No. That's an excuse and a deflection. I don't want to hear it.
What was I saying about Aang and Katara enabling each others' bad tendencies?
Sokka is horribly out of character this episode, but Aang is as well. In what universe would Aang be so unbothered by Appa being sick, and then so unbothered by the reveal that Katara had been faking Appa being sick? Like, this is Appa. He nearly skinned a bunch of sandbenders over the guy. And he finds out Katara's been messing with him and calls her 'great' and 'a secret hero.'
So this factory, despite being operational 24/7, has no night staff, not even a night guard? Because if it does (which it absolutely does - automation is a problem for factories in our world, not the ATLA one), Katara and Aang just killed A LOT of people.
And so she follows up one short term solution with another short term solution, which causes a third problem she will no doubt solve with a short term solution. You think there won't be reprisals for the only obvious suspects to this industrial sabotage? You think they won't rebuild the factory?
Sokka was kidding when he said that the Spirit Lady had better blow up the factory, but not in the way Katara thought he was kidding. Katara thought he wasn't being serious. But Sokka was serious, in that blowing up the factory is as short term a solution as appearing every night. He thought the joke - exchanging one bad solution for another - was obvious.
Somebody's enjoying himself a little too much.
Unfortunately, serving as Exhibit A is the most Toph has had to do all episode.
It is cathartic to see someone finally call Katara on her nonsense. But I'll bet everything I own that the narrative is going to side with her anyway.
Welp. I won that bet.
"You need me." Correct! Katara unsupervised needs bailing out after five minutes.
"And I will never turn my back on you." A much more realistic goal than never turning your back on anyone who needs you, and also Sokka summarised in one sentence. Impressive for an episode where they had to Flanderise him beyond recognition to make Katara somehow the good guy.
Oh for fuck's sake. It's not about having a heart. This late in the game it's pure damage control.
So that's where the Painted Lady's food came from. I guess Fire Nation factories count as pirates?
I like the jetskis. The seem far more stable than actual jetskis.
It never occurred to Katara to obscure the evidence even a little bit? At least rub some dirt on the emblem. Look at me assuming Katara has thoughts.
Actual reprisals for once. About time.
This kid is annoying.
Toph gets to be a haunted house sound effects machine.
That's awfully waterbendery for a Fire Nation spirit.
I don't buy for a minute that anyone would be able to stay perfectly upright and balanced after an air blast from below without extensive trampoline training.
This won't work. His superiors, or the next shift change, or the first recruit wanting to climb the ranks quickly, will rise to the challenge presented here by the "painted lady." And as soon as one FN attack goes unchallenged by the "painted lady," the village is toast. I give them a week, tops.
Kudos to some clever in-universe bending special effects. Doesn't save the episode though.
Katara's preachy speech here makes absolutely no sense in light of the rest of the episode. Scolding them for not saving themselves, when waiting around for someone to save them appears to have worked perfectly? And having little miss I-must-save-the-whole-world-on-a-weekly-basis-otherwise-my-sense-of-self-implodes deliver that scold?
Who are these people wearing the Gaang's skin?
Yeah, nothing screams undercover in enemy territory like an entire village knowing that you're a waterbender. Good thing the only competent tracker in the Fire Nation is Zuko, otherwise these kids will absolutely be dead long before the eclipse.
Hi Bushi! You're about the only part of this episode that doesn't drive me nuts!
At least the animators had fun with this one.
Is this guy mopping the river?
Exactly how many days did they take out of Sokka's schedule to restore the ecosystem? I don't care how overlevelled these kids are at bending, you cannot mechanically separate an entire river's worth of dirt from water in an afternoon.
Well that's just he piss icing on the shit cake, isn't it? It wasn't enough for Sokka to lose all reason and come around to Katara's very flawed way of thinking, it wasn't enough for Aang to call her a hero, it wasn't enough to have a village worshipping at her feet, Katara needs affirmations of how right and special and correct and perfect and morally justified she is from the spirit world itself. This is Mary Sue stuff.
Final Thoughts
This is the first time an episode of Avatar has felt like a waste of my time.
It's also the first time I've felt like an episode has gone out of its way to insult the audience.
Katara talking about how she knows what she's doing is wrong is worth absolutely nothing when a) she goes right back to doing it; and b) literally every other part of this episode trips over itself to assure Katara that she's in the right.
Katara is downright punchable this episode. Sokka is Flanderised; Toph is non-existent; Aang is just there; poor Appa is an unwitting accessory to crime; and Momo has as much impact as a housefly.
So the execs forgot about the existence of The Spirit World Part One and demanded a save the environment special episode. The writers responded by forgetting that they'd already established that Katara was ride or die for literally anyone with a pulse in Imprisoned, and gave us this to remind us of that fact. They also forgot that they'd already established that Katara has no moral code whatsoever the minute her personal interest is involved in The Waterbending Scroll, so they decided to recycle the "narrative sides with Katara endangering them all over Sokka being reasonable" plot from that episode and hope we wouldn't notice. We did.
At least with Imprisoned, Katara kind of sort of caused the problem that she fixed. She was super tangentially involved in that kid's arrest. Here, she causes problems by trying to fix problems that she didn't really have any business getting involved in.
The more of this I watched, the more I wanted someone to slap Katara. What I wouldn't give for an episode where she is wrong (has happened a lot) and the episode doesn't pretend otherwise (has never happened). For god's sake, LET HER BE WRONG AND FEEL IT. How else is she going to progress past being self-righteously fourteen? Why is she being so consistently insulated from consequences? Aang chooses power over family at the end of season two and gets actually murdered for it. Katara steals, lies, skirts dangerously close to being a false prophet and does a nifty little ecoterrorism (with Aang's help), and she gets villagers being a bit shouty before big brother comes in and fixes it. Then she gets divine sanction for her actions so even the shouty bit is negated.
There's an interesting contrast in Katara's "I will never turn my back on people who need me" and Sokka's "I will never turn my back on you." It shows which of the two doesn't have their head in the clouds, and has actually formulated realistic expectations of how much a single person can do. It also speaks to the fundamental difference in how they operate. Katara acts; Sokka mitigates. Sokka does Katara's thinking for her; Katara outsources her thinking and then gets pissed when rational thoughts don't conform to her emotions' view of the world.
Why haven't the villagers moved away? If the water was poisoning them this much, why are they still here? Was the early 2000s too early to have a theme of climate refugees? Or the pollution equivalent? That would have been more interesting than this.
I hated this. Why isn't this the episode that gets hated on like the Great Divide? Its sins are nothing compared to this.
Doc, Shu, and Bushi were the only good thing in this episode, but they weren't enough to make this one remotely rewatchable.
One out of Three so far on season three episode quality. No other season has had this bad a ratio this early. This does not bode well for the rest of this season.
The village’s whole problem is that their river is so polluted that they can’t fish in it anymore. But Shu still somehow has plenty of fish/clams to sell. Granted, they’re not very appealing (because of the polluted water, presumably), but they’re still available and people can and do eat them. So why are the villagers starving? And if they are, why can’t Shu give them some of his fish? The kid comes begging to Katara for a fish, but why he can’t ask Shu directly? Or is Shu too selfish to help feed his fellow villagers? In that case, their immediate problem is Shu, not the factory.
The real Painted Lady can turn up to thank Katara, but won’t deign to turn up to actually help the villagers who worship her? Frankly, that puts her in the same asshole category as Shu.
Why/how does Katara manage to single-handedly steal enough food from the factory to feed the whole village, but the villagers are unable to do so? Even if they fear reprisals (which is valid), surely it’s better than literally starving? And if it’s so bad, why not try moving upriver? Why continue to live in and fish directly downriver of the factory’s outflow?
And ultimately, even scaring off the factory supervisor guy (or whoever he was) is only a short-term solution. How likely is it that when he reports to his superiors that the factory was destroyed by a spirit, they’ll believe him? As opposed to immediately investigating in person, and punishing the villagers? Probably at a time when the Gaang aren’t around to help the villagers again. And ultimately the factory will probably be rebuilt, and the same problems will arise again (that is, if the entire village isn’t destroyed as a reprisal from the army).
I get what the writers were trying to convey through this episode, but with a few tweaks, it could have made more sense and wouldn’t have painted the villagers as idiots who can’t do anything to help themselves or assholes who won’t help their fellow villagers, and would have shown the Gaang providing a genuine long-term solution, in a way that the villagers themselves wouldn’t have been able to.
The main beats of the story could have remained the same. However, it could have been framed as Katara wanting to help the villagers by secretly cleaning up the river – that is, doing something that she, as a waterbender, would have been able to do far more easily than the Fire Nation villagers. Sokka could have still pointed out that this wouldn’t be a long-term solution, as the river will just get polluted again as long as the factory keeps dumping its effluents into it. Katara might seriously consider destroying the factory – maybe egged on by Toph (who’s always up for some destruction). But Sokka (the strategist of the group) decides that a better solution – with a lot less potential to backfire on the villagers – would be to change the river’s flow such that the factory’s effluents don’t directly affect the village. Toph and Aang earthbend a separate channel for the effluents to flow into, whereas Katara changes the river’s flow such that the channel leading to the village does not pass by the factory at all.
The final act could still remain more or less the same, i.e., the factory supervisor and his goons still turn up at the village to harass the villagers once they notice the change in the river’s flow, but the villagers attribute it to their guardian spirit, the Painted Lady. The Gaang put on a show to scare off the supervisor and co. They run off, and decide that it’s above their pay grade to worry about the river’s flow. After all, it doesn’t affect the factory negatively, and they don’t really care where the factory effluents go, as long as it’s “away from here”. Katara helps the villagers clean up the remaining muck from the river (and heals the sick, while she’s at it). The real Painted Lady turns up to thank the whole Gaang.
The conduct of the villagers as a whole is the first time this show has had an episode where the characters feel like writers' tools rather than people. The villagers make no sense, because the writers needed them to make no sense in a specific way in order for Katara's story to happen the way they envisioned it. In every other episode, the one episode characters the Gaang has met feel like people who had lives before the Gaang showed up, and who will continue to exist after the credits roll. The villagers in the Painted Lady felt like cardboard cutouts who would be disassembled the second someone shouted 'cut!' I will be profoundly shocked if any of these characters show up again.
If you want to keep the existing set up of the villagers acting nonsensically, you could handwave it by saying that the pollutants the factory puts out are full of heavy metals that adversely affect cognitive abilities. There is historical precedent for people from certain areas/demographics who were stereotyped as stupid actually suffering from malnutrition/parasites or similar, which caused measurable changes in their cognitive abilities. (if you live where the ground never freezes, wear shoes outdoors folks)
I like your proposed solution. It still runs into the questionable decision to impersonate a spirit - which is something that I personally think should not be without consequences - but the worldbuilding disagrees with me on that one. Zuko can run around in a Blue Spirit mask, and Aang can cosplay Kyoshi, both without consequences for the impersonators. Rather, without consequences that are shown to originate with the impersonated spirits. Zuko does very much get knocked out that one time. But assigning the blame for reshaping the river to spirits would deter reprisals from a rational enemy. A sentence which opens a whole other can of worms!
There is a lot, that I have already discussed, that annoys me about this episode. But after a few weeks' reflection, I think what annoys me the most is how the writers turn Katara into a hypocrite.
In Zuko Alone, Zuko learns that things don't go well when you tackle things alone. In The Chase, Iroh directly states to Toph that you have to get help from others. In The Crossroads of Destiny, Aang chooses power over friends and is IMMEDIATELY MURDERED. In the opening episode of this season, Katara has the mother of all freak outs when she finds out that Aang has decided to run off alone. Katara has actual trauma around the concept of her loved ones going off alone, dating back to when her dad left.
The narrative of the show depicts going off alone as wrong and bad. The characters in the show declare or discover that going off alone is wrong and bad. The characters who go off alone are punished for it.
And then they make Katara go off alone in the Painted Lady.
That makes me cranky.
Look. We're all hypocrites sometimes. But, we also have lines we will not cross. And given that Katara has so much pain wrapped up in people going off alone? So much pain she was freaking out about only a couple of episodes ago? I do not believe that Katara, even at her most hypocritical, would go off alone as she does in the Painted Lady.
Just read your opinions on The Painted Lady (which were really interesting, especially since I last saw it when I was...12? Ish? And still had that kid perspective.) and now I'm curious: do you think the fact that you're watching these in a relatively short span of time is affecting your reaction to them? Because the show was originally broadcast over 4 years, so I wondered if this shorter watch would affect your reaction to the way some stuff is shown - especially re: your remarks about Imprisoned and The Spirit World, Part 1. (I agree, by the way, but you said stuff had originally been established - but for a kid watching at the time, it would have been at least two years ago, so I was wondering if you thought you'd see things differently if you'd watched it over a longer time.)
Have a good day! I love your analyses :)
Absolutely.
Both the fact that I'm watching these close together and the fact that I'm an adult are definitely granting me a higher-than-planned-for-by-the-writers detail retention rate. It's absolutely possible that this episode was so similar to Imprisoned on purpose, to remind kids of certain aspects of Katara's character that they were introduced to two-ish years ago (which is like 40 years in kid years). We'll know if that's the case or not if this facet of her character has any pay off later in the season - if there was a reason the audience needed reminding that she was like this.
It's one of the few ways that Avatar is solidly a product of its time. No one could have anticipated streaming or bingeing, and although home media was definitely around, the show was made for weekly broadcast on tv. Frankly, had avatar been made with bingeing in mind, I think it would have been worse.
On the other hand, season 2 didn't start with multiple episodes of season 1 being reenacted badly. So what changed? Did the writers lose confidence in their audience? Did they get audience feedback that season 2 was too confusing? Was there a larger time between broadcasting s2 & s3 than between s1 & s2? Did the writers anticipate a huge group of new watchers for season 3 who had to be introduced to the characters?
On the other other hand, kids aren't stupid. Anecdotally, if a kid chooses to be invested in a story, they absolutely will remember verbatim an episode from two years ago. I have never in my life (so far) met a child capable of casual investment.
I just want to say I thought I was the only person on the planet to enjoy The Headband but be meh on The Painted Lady. I appreciate that you feel similarly.
There are dozens of us! (or at least two)
I loved The Headband. In fact I've already rewatched it.
I will never rewatch The Painted Lady. I was rooting for the Fire Nation soldiers to wreck things by the end. Not a good sign.
I have no idea how Aang is swimming through a solid. Must be an Avatar thing.
I bet there would be time for more potty breaks if Sokka hadn't spent 100+ hours of their time drawing up the schedule. A very Sokka thing to do though.
Because hills often have horns. Great disguise.
You can't tell me that a factory that close to their town wouldn't also become the town's primary employer.
That is a lot of town.
I sense a return of preachy Katara. This episode is going to suck.
I'm with Sokka on this one. Buy fish, move on, defeat Firelord, return to help with environmental remediation if time permits.
I like Doc. And Shu. Nice people.
Writers: if you have to make one of your characters an entirely different person to set up the episode's lesson of the week, maybe the lesson doesn't fit your chosen characters. This is the Warriors of Kyoshi all over again. Funny how that's happened to Sokka twice.
We are all Sokka.
And where exactly did this mysterious painted lady get the food to deliver to the village, if the reason the Gaang stopped in the village in the first place was because they needed food?
Let the record show: I lost the last of my patience with this episode 8 minutes and 9 seconds in.
Waterbending healing has never thrown off that much light before. Even the spirit oasis water wasn't that bright.
Also where is the water she's healing with? Usually she has a big bubble of it.
Impersonating a religious figure. That won't end badly.
"Well I hope she returns every night otherwise this place would go right back to the way it was." YES!!!!!! THAT'S THE POINT!!!!!
What was Katara's plan? Forget about the eclipse, forget about fighting the Fire Lord, we're going to stay here for the rest of our lives so that the painted lady can put in a nightly appearance. THIS IS WHY SOKKA DOES THE PLANNING.
Spirit magic is more doing the worm than doing the wave. Good to know.
Bold of a kids' show to advocate for ecoterrorism.
Aang's like "Hey spirit lady! Here's my resume! Here's my connections on LinkedIn!" Why did Katara think that faking being a spirit within two feet of the bridge to the spirit world would be consequence free? Actually that presupposes that Katara thought. Which she didn't. Sokka does her thinking.
"I don't get to meet many spirits. But the ones I do meet, not very attractive." I am OFFENDED on Yue's behalf. And Sokka's. I guess Aang doesn't like Water Tribe girls after all.
"I guess I just became her." No. That's an excuse and a deflection. I don't want to hear it.
What was I saying about Aang and Katara enabling each others' bad tendencies?
Sokka is horribly out of character this episode, but Aang is as well. In what universe would Aang be so unbothered by Appa being sick, and then so unbothered by the reveal that Katara had been faking Appa being sick? Like, this is Appa. He nearly skinned a bunch of sandbenders over the guy. And he finds out Katara's been messing with him and calls her 'great' and 'a secret hero.'
So this factory, despite being operational 24/7, has no night staff, not even a night guard? Because if it does (which it absolutely does - automation is a problem for factories in our world, not the ATLA one), Katara and Aang just killed A LOT of people.
And so she follows up one short term solution with another short term solution, which causes a third problem she will no doubt solve with a short term solution. You think there won't be reprisals for the only obvious suspects to this industrial sabotage? You think they won't rebuild the factory?
Sokka was kidding when he said that the Spirit Lady had better blow up the factory, but not in the way Katara thought he was kidding. Katara thought he wasn't being serious. But Sokka was serious, in that blowing up the factory is as short term a solution as appearing every night. He thought the joke - exchanging one bad solution for another - was obvious.
Somebody's enjoying himself a little too much.
Unfortunately, serving as Exhibit A is the most Toph has had to do all episode.
It is cathartic to see someone finally call Katara on her nonsense. But I'll bet everything I own that the narrative is going to side with her anyway.
Welp. I won that bet.
"You need me." Correct! Katara unsupervised needs bailing out after five minutes.
"And I will never turn my back on you." A much more realistic goal than never turning your back on anyone who needs you, and also Sokka summarised in one sentence. Impressive for an episode where they had to Flanderise him beyond recognition to make Katara somehow the good guy.
Oh for fuck's sake. It's not about having a heart. This late in the game it's pure damage control.
So that's where the Painted Lady's food came from. I guess Fire Nation factories count as pirates?
I like the jetskis. The seem far more stable than actual jetskis.
It never occurred to Katara to obscure the evidence even a little bit? At least rub some dirt on the emblem. Look at me assuming Katara has thoughts.
Actual reprisals for once. About time.
This kid is annoying.
Toph gets to be a haunted house sound effects machine.
That's awfully waterbendery for a Fire Nation spirit.
I don't buy for a minute that anyone would be able to stay perfectly upright and balanced after an air blast from below without extensive trampoline training.
This won't work. His superiors, or the next shift change, or the first recruit wanting to climb the ranks quickly, will rise to the challenge presented here by the "painted lady." And as soon as one FN attack goes unchallenged by the "painted lady," the village is toast. I give them a week, tops.
Kudos to some clever in-universe bending special effects. Doesn't save the episode though.
Katara's preachy speech here makes absolutely no sense in light of the rest of the episode. Scolding them for not saving themselves, when waiting around for someone to save them appears to have worked perfectly? And having little miss I-must-save-the-whole-world-on-a-weekly-basis-otherwise-my-sense-of-self-implodes deliver that scold?
Who are these people wearing the Gaang's skin?
Yeah, nothing screams undercover in enemy territory like an entire village knowing that you're a waterbender. Good thing the only competent tracker in the Fire Nation is Zuko, otherwise these kids will absolutely be dead long before the eclipse.
Hi Bushi! You're about the only part of this episode that doesn't drive me nuts!
At least the animators had fun with this one.
Is this guy mopping the river?
Exactly how many days did they take out of Sokka's schedule to restore the ecosystem? I don't care how overlevelled these kids are at bending, you cannot mechanically separate an entire river's worth of dirt from water in an afternoon.
Well that's just he piss icing on the shit cake, isn't it? It wasn't enough for Sokka to lose all reason and come around to Katara's very flawed way of thinking, it wasn't enough for Aang to call her a hero, it wasn't enough to have a village worshipping at her feet, Katara needs affirmations of how right and special and correct and perfect and morally justified she is from the spirit world itself. This is Mary Sue stuff.
Final Thoughts
This is the first time an episode of Avatar has felt like a waste of my time.
It's also the first time I've felt like an episode has gone out of its way to insult the audience.
Katara talking about how she knows what she's doing is wrong is worth absolutely nothing when a) she goes right back to doing it; and b) literally every other part of this episode trips over itself to assure Katara that she's in the right.
Katara is downright punchable this episode. Sokka is Flanderised; Toph is non-existent; Aang is just there; poor Appa is an unwitting accessory to crime; and Momo has as much impact as a housefly.
So the execs forgot about the existence of The Spirit World Part One and demanded a save the environment special episode. The writers responded by forgetting that they'd already established that Katara was ride or die for literally anyone with a pulse in Imprisoned, and gave us this to remind us of that fact. They also forgot that they'd already established that Katara has no moral code whatsoever the minute her personal interest is involved in The Waterbending Scroll, so they decided to recycle the "narrative sides with Katara endangering them all over Sokka being reasonable" plot from that episode and hope we wouldn't notice. We did.
At least with Imprisoned, Katara kind of sort of caused the problem that she fixed. She was super tangentially involved in that kid's arrest. Here, she causes problems by trying to fix problems that she didn't really have any business getting involved in.
The more of this I watched, the more I wanted someone to slap Katara. What I wouldn't give for an episode where she is wrong (has happened a lot) and the episode doesn't pretend otherwise (has never happened). For god's sake, LET HER BE WRONG AND FEEL IT. How else is she going to progress past being self-righteously fourteen? Why is she being so consistently insulated from consequences? Aang chooses power over family at the end of season two and gets actually murdered for it. Katara steals, lies, skirts dangerously close to being a false prophet and does a nifty little ecoterrorism (with Aang's help), and she gets villagers being a bit shouty before big brother comes in and fixes it. Then she gets divine sanction for her actions so even the shouty bit is negated.
There's an interesting contrast in Katara's "I will never turn my back on people who need me" and Sokka's "I will never turn my back on you." It shows which of the two doesn't have their head in the clouds, and has actually formulated realistic expectations of how much a single person can do. It also speaks to the fundamental difference in how they operate. Katara acts; Sokka mitigates. Sokka does Katara's thinking for her; Katara outsources her thinking and then gets pissed when rational thoughts don't conform to her emotions' view of the world.
Why haven't the villagers moved away? If the water was poisoning them this much, why are they still here? Was the early 2000s too early to have a theme of climate refugees? Or the pollution equivalent? That would have been more interesting than this.
I hated this. Why isn't this the episode that gets hated on like the Great Divide? Its sins are nothing compared to this.
Doc, Shu, and Bushi were the only good thing in this episode, but they weren't enough to make this one remotely rewatchable.
One out of Three so far on season three episode quality. No other season has had this bad a ratio this early. This does not bode well for the rest of this season.
Hiii!!! I’ve been binging through your blog for the past few weeks and I noticed how you talk about how Kataang(Katara x Aang) is portrayed in the show. Honestly yeah, I will admit I didn’t like it at first but now I just don’t really care for it. But I’d be interested hearing an in-depth opinion on the ship(unless you already did and I just never noticed or forgot 😭).
Another question, do you think you’re going to read the comics that came out the series? If you’re asking my opinion I’d say they’re a uuuh 7-8 out of 10 IG?
I do have thoughts on Kataang which I haven't shared yet. Part of me thinks I should wait to answer your ask until I've finished the series; it's obvious to me that these two are being set up to be the big finale couple, which means if I talk about them now I'm probably missing the pieces I need to have a full, well-rounded opinion. But you know what? I feel like talking about them now. So here goes.
Short answer: It peeves me that Aang comes from a culture that seemingly doesn't even have parents, yet he still manages to date his mother.
Long answer: they're both way too young. I'm a huge fan of letting the kids be kids for as long as possible. Especially with these kids, who have been prevented from being kids by the war. As Katara points out in the opening scene of the very first episode, she's been the mother since her own died (or at least she feels like she has had to be the mother). Call me crazy, but I'd rather Katara spend a few years after the war doing dumb childish stuff to recapture that lost childhood than jump straight into a relationship. Isn't the safety and space to do dumb childish stuff one of the things those who are trying to end the war are fighting for? Shouldn't she get to enjoy that? And Aang is just way too young no matter what way you look at it. He's 12 right? I think that would make him a grade 6 student. Back in my day (yells at cloud) Grade 6 students collected yugioh cards and feuded over who had the snazzier lunch box. I could picture a 12 year old having a crush on a slightly older girl that goes to the same school, but it would be short lived and unactionable. I guess Katara would be around 14? So, a grade 8 student. A grade 8 girl would not date a grade 6 boy. It would just never happen.
They've both got bigger fish to fry. Aang is the last Air Nomad AND the current Avatar. When he fully takes on both of those positions, what time will he have for a girlfriend? Katara is the only Southern Waterbender. Whether or not she wants the responsibility, it will be her duty to single-handedly reconstruct a huge portion of her nation's culture from the ground up once she returns south. Does she have the time to ping pong around the globe mothering her boyfriend as he rides giant animals or does Avatar stuff? Say she wants to: what will her family and the rest of her tribe think of the only person who can access such a huge part of their culture riding off into the sunset?
Their current relationship dynamic is still too mother/son. This is more obvious in season 1 than in season 2 (maybe that's growth?) but you can't depict a male/female pair as pieta and then expect me to ship. I think this could change somewhat, but I've already been disappointed in that. I thought that once Katara had mastered waterbending and therefore felt she had something other than mothering to contribute to the group, she would back off with the mothering. And she did, a little, but not enough for my tastes. Maybe as Aang fully steps into the Avatar role and the last Air Nomad role (sidenote: no idea what the latter would look like) he'll move on to a more equal relationship with Katara.
I think Katara is meant for better things than rebirthing a nation. Bending seems to be at least somewhat genetic. So if Aang wants Airbending in any form to survive after his death, he's going to need a billion kids. While I could definitely see Katara wanting children, I don't see her as the barefoot pregnant type.
I'm not convinced that Aang has a clear picture of Katara. She has flaws, which is good! Does Aang see them?
I get the feeling that, while they are helping each others' skills grow as they travel the globe, they are also preventing each others' personalities from growing. As long as Aang is around, Katara has someone to mother. As long as Katara is around, Aang has someone who prevents him from feeling the full weight of his responsibilities. Again, this is worse in season 1, but how often did Katara deny that Aang was to blame for something that was at least somewhat his fault? Aang will never become a fully rounded person until he can look at his flaws and mistakes dead on and say "my bad" without a Katara in the background going "no you're perfect!" Katara deserves to find out what kind of person she is outside of a nurturing role. Quick thought experiment: what if you pair Katara with someone who needs no nurturing, or better yet, nurtures her? And what if you pair Aang with someone as bluntly truthful as Toph? Katara and Aang might find both of those situations uncomfortable at first, but I think it would contribute to their growth.
Aang having a crush on an oblivious Katara would be a great single season arc. I think it would fit both of their characters well, and I think Aang growing past latching on to the first person he saw after the iceberg would be a good way to show that he's rooting himself in his time-displaced present, and fully committing to ending the war. And don't get me wrong, I love Aang and Katara both as a fighting team and as friends.
These kids are all fighting a war, and all kids. I don't mind the supporting characters having romances, because it's not like Sokka or Suki can end the war, no matter how hard they try/might want to. But I'm a big believer in doing one thing at a time, and I think if you're the only person in the whole world who can end a war, then ending the war should take precedence over dating. I'm aware that that's an unrealistic expectation and out of step with the show's theme of balance. In the real world, birth rates skyrocket during war time because people live for the moment and grab happiness (read boinking) wherever they see it. But both these kids are pre-boinking age so I'm going to be a cranky old fart about it.
Being the wife of the Avatar is a position that will often come with being relegated to second place, especially with the amount of work that undoing a century of war will take. Although she works well in a team, Katara is a naturally dominant personality. Katara did enough of putting herself in second place before the series started. I think Katara could very easily fall into the pattern of subjugating her own needs and desires and putting her husband's first, but I don't want that to happen. And one way to prevent that from happening is to prevent her from dating the single most politically important person in the universe. (To be clear, Aang would never deliberately squish a wife like that, I just think the workload of being Avatar and last air nomad would cause that to happen)
A lot of my objections to this pairing are very adult objections. I don't know what I would have thought about this pairing when I was the age of the show's target audience. It undoubtedly would have bothered me less, although I probably would have been put off by how twee it is. As an adult, all I can see are babies playing house.
As for the comics, I hadn't made any concrete plans to read them. I don't know where I'd get access to them. I'm not sure how canonical they are. I guess I should probably decide whether or not I want to read them after I've finished the whole series. I've been told that my girl Jin appears in one of them, so I definitely have some interest. I have also had the Avatar Kyoshi novels strenuously recommended to me. But so much of Avatar's charm, to me, is in the medium. And while comics are closer to animation than books are, they're still static. Avatar does movement so well.
I don't care how dormant a volcano supposedly is. Living in the maw of one would absolutely freak me out.
Zuko out for his nightly constitutional lurking practice.
I want this snuggy cape.
No better disguise than a cloud 1.2 metres from the ground. That's where all clouds hand out. Cool puffins though.
Enemy puffins approve of new fluffy Sokka.
Did Sokka just dive headfirst into rock?
I do not like this angle. Looks like his head's on backwards.
This episode is three minutes in and already I'm loving the comic tone.
Wow Katara, with the enthusiasm you're showing for stealing those clothes, they must belong to pirates.
These are some top tier nonsense sound effects. Far too few of those in recent episodes.
Beat up Sokka quota fulfilled!
Toph has by far the best outfit. Love the gold accents.
We've had two seasons of blatantly blue Katara not being identified by the Fire Nation as a Water Tribe person. I think the necklace can stay.
His headband is an airbender arrow. So much for disguising himself.
I would love it if linguistic drift meant that Aang was going around tossing out slurs completely unaware.
WHAT is this face
"Just slob is fine." I ADORE characters that are so secure in themselves and in their belief in the decency of others that all attempts at ridicule slide off like water off a duck's back.
He does it again! "Wow. Are you a bully? This is so exciting! I've always wanted to meet a bully!"
Onji - get better taste in men. Why are you even dating this prick? Did you have any say in becoming his girlfriend? Blink twice if you need help.
These Fire Nation kids are all so mild. Contrast them with Zuko and they might as well be a different species.
What is Hide and Explode?
Sokka is showing a mastery of slapstick that I haven't seen since The Fortune Teller. Glad to have it back.
Is this the first time someone has recognised Zuko by his scar? About time.
Was it really necessary to beat up the guard? Seems a bit much. Zuko could have just asked nicely. That usually works for Iroh.
Speaking of: Iroh! Hi Iroh! Didn't think you'd still be alive.
Noodle Ozai. Did Aang get put in preschool by accident?
Those hippies should do a song about Secret Rivers.
Tired of spending three years talking to Zuko without making any progress, Iroh decides to attempt a new technique and deploys the silent treatment. It works just as well as three years of talking.
Colour me completely unsurprised that the Fire Nation has a pledge of Allegiance.
This school must have some gnarly punishments if questioning the teacher garners this reaction.
This man's head is alarming.
This man is also surprisingly nice for a fascist agent of the state bent on suppressing personal expression.
Movements? Aang you were showing her MOVEMENTS! GASP! FILTHY!
I love this fight. It's been a while (maybe back to season 1) since Aang's preferred fighting style was 'Nope'.
They haven't committed to the bit this hard since Bonzu Pippinpadalopsicopoulous, the Third!
It's funny how we spent two whole seasons haunted by nothing but threatening shadows of the Fire Lord, and then an episode after his face is finally revealed they turn him into part of the decor. He even gets a noodle version.
Play Spot the Firelord with this episode. I count four.
Sokka is having way too much fun with this.
Just going to sneak a reference to child labour in there. Gnarly punishments indeed.
Local Emos Experience Happiness for the First Time; Immediately Implode.
I'm sorry but Mai's cloak has such Santa vibes.
That is some serious side eye.
"You get to be normal all the time." Aang is pulling no punches today.
Where did they get this many candles? Actually, where did they get that many matches? They don't even have a Firebender on staff.
Poor kid is objectively correct. I guarantee your parents don't want you dancing in a cave. It will be good for you though! just don't lick the walls.
No wonder the Fire Nation got rid of dancing. Those moves are awful.
Zuko! "I brought you this food that I know you don't like because I need your help." Buddy. Why.
I could do without the heavy-handed Katara and Aang romance. Also, when exactly did Katara learn advanced gymnastics and choreograph a whole routine with Aang?
I hate this twerp so much!
That song the band is playing right as the adults bust in is better than the songs featured earlier in the dance montage.
I love this guy.
i know that the soundtrack probably went from diegetic to non-diegetic as soon as the chase started, but I love the idea that the school band provided theme music for searching for Aang.
Delightfully eerie. and also very Spartacus.
Actually with the guards starting to dance, it WAS the school band providing a soundtrack for the Aang hunt.
Is Momo at the reins?
How is this assassin good at keeping secrets and not being followed? He creaks and clanks.
Final Thoughts
I loved this. This type of episode is when Avatar is at its best: heaps of goof, a side helping of heart, subtle and not-so-subtle critiques organically incorporated, tonally contrasting storylines that combine to form a whole greater than its parts, and even one-note characters who are given depth.
Aang was in his element as a normal kid; Sokka was having a great time being super agent / team dad; poor Katara and Toph got like two lines each but still had fun with what they did get. Even Momo got some sight gags.
Aang is so personable. I think it's the combination of great social skills from a good peripatetic upbringing and being a peacetime child.
I think Zuko experienced every possible human emotion this episode. I loved seeing him snark with Mai (those two are way too good together), but his scenes with/revolving around Iroh were confusing and intense. Which is probably how Zuko would describe them too. Seems he's speedrunning his season 1 bad decisions arc.
I'm not fond of this new silent treatment approach from Iroh, but I have to admit that talking to Zuko didn't work for years, so what else is there to try?
I wasn't expecting a Footloose homage and a Spartacus reference in Avatar of all places. But it works. And it works if you don't catch the references too.
I am severely disappointed in Fire Nation fashion. I was expecting gloriously eye-searing red/gold/yellow outfits. I got black/tan/brown with dull red edging. It's probably a visual commentary on what imperialism does to its own people. And the price of dyes. But I was really looking forward to reds and golds! At least I have Toph's outfit.
I loved the liberal use of sound effects in the Gaang's plot. I love comic sound effects on their own, but they really enhanced the contast between Zuko and the Gaang's plots.
There was lots of heavy stuff under the surface this episode, what with the squashing of the self and the discrimination against colonials and the propaganda and the revisionist history and the assassin. But I feel like being silly today, so I'm not going to dig into it. That's one of the great things about this show. Not all, but many episodes are structured so that you can choose your level of engagement and consequent angst.
This episode was funny, and fun. A much-needed palette cleanser after the drudge of the season opener. The last time there was an episode this unapologetically silly was probably Avatar Day. In other words, it's been far too long. Definitely going on my rewatch list.
Ever since Mai's character was introduced, her voice has reminded me of someone, somewhere. I've finally pinpointed who she sounds like: a young Blythe Danner. I had an episode on in the background where she guest starred and I did quite the double take.
Aang says he's the only one who's completely out of it, but Appa's behind him in full faceplant mode.
Actually, by the hair growth standard established by Zuko, Aang's been out 5 days at most.
Season 1 bitchy Katara is back again. I hate season 1 bitchy Katara.
I'm impressed by how much of these characters' identities is tied to their colour palettes. I see all these water tribe guys walking around in reds and blacks and I have no idea who I'm looking at.
Aang's eyes are back to brown this episode.
I love that Katara has no idea how she healed Aang. Superpowered does not mean superlearned. So much more believable than supergenius tweens.
It's the old ladies! They're wearing croissants on their heads. Why not.
This is a cool way to do exposition. A royal proclamation narrating a flashback.
These Dai Li don't know shit about loyalty huh.
SONG! HI SONG! I MISS YOU!
CORNY BABY & FAMILY! HI CORNY BABY & FAMILY! I DON'T MISS YOU! My guy why haven't you unpacked yet.
Given the welcome Zuko gets from the Fire Nation crowds, I'm thinking the exact cause/terms of his banishment were never made public? They're hyping him up like a wrestling entrance. That doesn't track with someone known to be honourless.
I want whatever's in Bato's bowl. Those noodles have him mesmerised. He's staring at them like they're telling him the secrets of the universe.
Are you telling me that Appa successfully landed on the deck of one of these ships without sinking it?
I love how Gaang's reaction to everything going wrong is to go find their dad.
STOP GOING ON ABOUT THE INVASION PLAN. IT WON'T WORK. STOP.
"Yep! The whole world thinks you're dead. Isn't that great!"
Sokka. TACT.
Sometimes Sokka's brain gets too far ahead of itself.
Poor Aang. Not many people whose deaths are wrongly cause for celebration live long enough to see those celebrations.
How do the topknots fit inside the helmets?
This is silly beyond words. It's a two second throwaway gag but they're so into it.
Aang saying "I hate not being able to do anything" to the girl whose whole existence was not doing anything until recently is certainly a choice. And honestly, wasn't Season 1 Aang's whole point not wanting to be the Avatar? Actual responsible adults are handling the problems for once. He should be ecstatic.
I just realised this Fire Nation disguise ship plan means there are people in the Southern Water Tribe who know how to run coal powered ships. Neat.
One of the things I really love about Avatar is how much love they put into the side characters. This guy on the left is a nameless mook, but in the three to four lines of dialogue he gets, we see a world of political and bureaucratic headaches and a bunch of normal, humanising emotions (who hasn't been angry at that one coworker who can never be bothered to email?). The writers didn't have to give him that much personality, but they did!
Also, how often do Fire Nation ships get captured, if two pieces of bureaucracy not lining up causes this guy to jump to that conclusion, rather than think the bureaucracy messed up?
Someone in the Fire Nation has invented extra buoyant metal.
Turtleducks are scared of Azula. Turtleducks are good judges of character.
An awful lot of this episode is flashback footage.
Toph is a missile launcher. This is all I wanted out of life.
For the first time ever, Aang gets to play the role that Sokka plays in every bending heavy battle.
Since when can Katara do bending moves this big?
Sokka once again harnessing his ability to speak the opposite of what he wants into existence.
They said they passed through the serpent's pass a few days ago. Clever foreshadowing I completely missed.
Don't you love it when all your problems cancel each other out?
Aang. This is not the hill to die on. Also please don't throw tapestries around in a room with unguarded candles until you can firebend.
Wow Aang is just taking all the wrong lessons from this. And he's stealing Zuko's lines.
Turns out the Firelord is just some guy with an unfortunate goat beard.
Katara finally gets a chance to be her age, complete with nonsensical emotions and misdirected anger. I hate bitchy Katara but I love seeing her expressing the root of that bitchiness. And I love how illogical it all is, and that she acknowledges that! Emotions ARE illogical and messy!
Contrasting Hakoda winning Dad of the Year with Ozai setting off every alarm bell known to man is a choice. A really good choice. But wow. Not subtle.
I knew Azula always lied, but to her own dad/Firelord too? That's a dangerous move.
Aang. What are you doing. Stop.
Leave the door open. Peak sibling move.
In a turn of events that should surprise absolutely no one, Zuko's been played like a fiddle by his sister and is now as trapped as ever. The surprising part is that Azula thinks she can get away with lying to the Firelord too. Don't know how that's going to go for her long term.
So much for me saying the Avatar universe doesn't do ghosts. This season opener is surprisingly backwards-looking.
No offense to ghost Yue, but I think the saving the world she's referring to is the time she and a massive fishman saved the world, not strictly Aang.
How did they get past the blockade and find the right island?
I cringed at Katara's knee slide.
How are they standing on that island or breathing the air if it's hot enough to do that?
Final Thoughts
...what was that?
Seriously. This episode was a disorganised and aimless mess with the occasional gold mine of characterisation bobbing around. Did the writers not have a plan for what would happen after season 2 ended? This episode feels like the writers had as much plan as the characters did. If I was feeling charitable, I would say that this episode was a hot mess as a metanarrative commentary on Aang and the world's state, but I'm not feeling charitable. I think this episode was just a hot mess.
First, the good bits.
I liked that Sokka was very in character. We've seen before how he can run away with an idea to the point that he forgets to mind the human element. This episode's Sokka felt very much like Sokka. I liked that the beat up Sokka quota was replaced with 'Sokka dares the universe to play chicken and actually wins for once.' His optimistic characterisation this episode didn't grate like his inexplicable optimism did in Ba Sing Se, because here he has a reason to be happy. He's got his dad and a plan. Being around his dad and their people has done him good.
I like Toph the Ballista.
I like the noodle hypnosis.
I loved Katara's emotional blow up. It doesn't matter how noble or important the cause, leaving your kids for a cause is still leaving. I love that she points out how illogical her emotions are being. And I love that Hakoda creates a no-judgement-all-comfort-safe-to-rant zone for her. She's been waiting to do that for a while, and some of it came out at Zuko last episode, so it's been established that she's at boiling point. Fun fact: Katara has now had emotionally fraught venting sessions at Hakoda, Zuko, and Jet if you squint. I don't know what to make of the fact that the show has grouped these men into the same category of 'safe for Katara to vent to.'
I liked a couple of the throwaway gags, and the throwaway characters.
I liked the framing of Zuko's reintroduction to his father. Great use of angles and shadows. We've had two seasons of build up to this guy as the Biggest Bad, and the scene of Zuko kneeling in the throne room while Ozai paces around and delivers the world's most menacing praise felt big enough to be the crowning glory of that payoff. Especially contrasted to the loving father daughter reunion of equals it was interspersed with. But...
The bad bits.
Why did they immediately undermine two seasons of hype and all of the episode's menace by showing the Firelord as a gullible idiot who can't spot a bold-faced lie coming from a tween? I am legitimately pissed off that they defanged him as a threat so soon after introducing him. And I don't think showing that Azula can successfully lie to the Firelord builds up Azula as a threat - I think it also undermines her, because it's a stupid move. This episode could have introduced the biggest bad and reinforced the threat posed by last season's antagonist. Instead, it completely neutered the biggest bad and made Azula look like an idiot. I am actually mad about this.
Other stuff I didn't like: Aang's whole deal. Of course he was going to lose his mind and not be ok about what went down in Ba Sing Se. But he's never this dismissive of his friends, and a huge part of his early character is the fact that he would absolutely love it if some qualified adults stepped in and did the job he was unwillingly born into. Aang this episode felt self-centred and out of character.
Zuko's usually not this dim. I had figured out the angle Azula was going for by the end of the turtle duck pond conversation. Why can't he figure out for himself why Azula has redirected the potential blame if Aang is found to have survived?
The pacing felt off. The A plot flipped between action set pieces and emotional stuff. The B plot was purely talking. But the action set pieces felt out of place in an otherwise quiet episode. I get that you need something to interest the 8 year olds hyped up on sugar who only want explosions, but I think this episode would have been a lot better without the 'Aang almost drowns but gets a pep talk from a couple of ghosts who say exactly what everyone else has already said to him for two seasons but for some reason Aang listens this time and it works.' Why couldn't we have had a quiet episode?
Speaking of, why are Roku and Yue randomly popping up? Last time Aang talked to Roku, it took a trip into the Avatar state and the destruction of a very stupid general's whole army base. The ONLY person who's talked to Yue since she died is Sokka, and that took a magic swamp. I just don't get it. I don't get why they were there, why they said what they did, why those particular words in that particular order worked on Aang when no one else's words were getting through. I don't get why hiding out in the Fire Nation is the plan of choice over chilling with the Southern Water Tribe (other than because the plot says no responsible adults allowed).
The action piece with the Snekky Boy was fun. Even if what set it off was contrived (which it was), I think it was a fun watch and the only action the episode needed.
This episode was also so dark that I spent more time contemplating how much I really need to clean my screen than watching stuff happen.
I got so pissed off at this episode that I totally forgot about Mai. Go Mai! I am WEAK for romance arcs that boil down to 'Girl sees boy. Girl wants boy. Girl gets boy." Go Girl! Like I said above, questionable taste, but if it's what she wants, then congrats on getting it. I love Azula noticed and is like 'my resident goth appears to be broken.'
I have decided that Toph carved an underground harbour like the refugee station on Full Moon Bay and stashed all the water tribe ships in there, because those ships are too pretty to scuttle.
If I could surgically remove that scene between Katara and Hakoda and insert it into some other episode, I'd never watch this one again.
