As always, this will be a spoiler-filled review, so read with your hands over your eyes if you're worried about that sort of thing. Looks like Nick just posted the episode today, so you can check that out, and then make your way back here to read the review.
Have you ever had a day where nothing seemed to go your way? You got dressed down at the job, sat in traffic for an hour, and when you got home, you find out that you forgot to put the chicken in the refrigerator, so now the entire place stinks? Korra can relate. She's not sleeping well because she's been terrified ever since she saw Amon remove someone's ability to bend. She's being harassed/manipulated into SWAT-style police duty by a prominent councilman, and her beau shows up at a party in her honor with another woman on his arm--a beautiful, feminine, daughter of a captain of industry. The writers pile up Korra's jealousy on top of her insecurity on top of her outright fear, until she finally breaks at the end and has her catharsis.
"The Voice in the Night" hits on three major plotlines: The first deals in political matters, and coincides with the reveal of the first of two new characters, Councilman Tarrlok. The representative to Republic City from the Northern Water Tribe, Tarrlok is ambitious, shrewd, and a bit of a dandy. He proposes that removing Amon (whom Tarrlok has designated as Public Enemy No. 1) and his chi-blocking posse should be the job of a special task force, which he will lead. Tenzin gives us our first cue on how to read Tarrlok's character when the pair disagree about the wisdom of creating this task force, calling it "another one of your [Tarrlok's] ploys to gain power," which implies that this isn't the first time Tenzin's seen his ambition go unchecked (I personally hope that Tenzin will put him in check physically at some point in this series). Our second cue comes from Ikki, Tenzin's younger daughter, who essentially calls Tarrlok out for being a dandy. "Why do you have three ponytails? And why do you smell like a lady? You're weird." Tenzin's wife, Pema, also seems displeased to see Tarrlok in her home (though that may have more to do with the fact that he interrupts the family's dinner). I get an idea that there aren't a lot of fans of Tarrlok among the people who know him. The third cue we get to Tarrlok's personality is shown through his actions, at first trying to flatter the Avatar, then attempting to bribe her, and finally using the press to manipulate her into joining his task force. Tarrlok is clearly not a character that Avatar Korra should be trusting, nor is he someone that we should trust. Why Tarrlok wishes so desperately for the Avatar to be a member of his special paramilitary group is not clear right now (though it could just be a desire to legitimize his somewhat distasteful commando raids to the public), but many online have speculated that there is a link between Tarrlok and Amon, and, indeed, they both deal in rhetorical absolutes like they were currency. I've read some opinions that say there's no way Tarrlok is unaware of how his raids are being perceived by the (especially non-bending) public, and that serves as proof that he is linked up with Amon. I think, however, that this could just be an incident that the creators are using to try to drum up some viewer sympathy to the Equalists' cause.
The episode takes a left turn after the Tenzin scene (and a moment where Korra begins to sweat profusely while listening to an Amon PSA over the radio), and we're thrown headlong into "The Crazy, Romantic Escapades of Mako." To sum up briefly, Mako gets hit by a moped, which was being driven by a girl named Asami. Asami is a pro bending fan, and also the daughter of Hiroshi Sato, the inventor of the Satomobile (automobile) and one of the richest men in the Avatar universe. So, the two hit it off, and Asami gets her dad to pay the entrance fee for the Fire Ferrets so that they can enter the pro bending championship tournament. And now, they're romantically involved. You might be able to tell from my tone, but I wasn't really crazy about this section of the story. It doesn't tie in to the (much more compelling) main themes of the episode, and its purpose relative to Korra and the story in general is to A.) Solve that MacGuffin about the tournament entrance fee from last week, and B.) Pile up on top of Korra's already-terrible day. It's possible (and I would argue likely; viewers have already pegged her as an equalist, due to her moped goggles) that Asami Sato will develop into an important character later on in the series, but right now, her inclusion is more intrusive and extraneous. Also, Mako seems very bland to me at this point in the series. If the creators are trying to make him into the next Zuko, they've got their work cut out for them.
The final, over-arching plotline for this episode, deals with Korra's fear of Amon, and how that reflects her self-image. The episode begins with Korra having a nightmare about Amon and his people breaking in through her bedroom window, tying her down, and she wakes up just as Amon's open hand moves toward her forehead. Avatars seem to have a lot of nightmares, and they're usually fraught with meaning (Toph's tiny bladder notwithstanding). This one, in fact, foreshadows a confrontation that Korra will have at the end of the episode. Korra has been completely cowed by Amon's display of his "power," to the point that the only action she takes in any given day is practicing her airbending forms. She is no longer the headstrong, boisterous personality that wants all that the city has to offer. And when Korra participates in and contributes to Tarrlok's raid, she gets some of that swagger back.
In a blustering move, partly from overconfidence gained from the raid, partly out of a desire to mask her fear, Korra challenges Amon to a duel. Her naïvetè in believing that Amon would play by the rules she sets reminds us of how inexperienced she still is. Of course, several hours after the fight was supposed to take place, Amon ambushes Korra, with a host of his chi-blocking subordinates, and the lighting in this sequence is phenomenal. Like, jaw-dropping. Korra does a spin-kick out of the harnesses that bind her legs, and the fire that she produces is all that lights the scene. As the fire from her kick fades, the light dims, until we're left with just an orange glow in the goggles of the chi-blockers. Amon tells Korra that their fight must be delayed, because he will not make her a martyr for the bending cause, and then he hits her on the neck, triggering a flashback from Aang's past. More on that in a moment. When she comes to, Tenzin is running toward her, and she confesses that she's been terrified ever since she first saw Amon's power in action.
As I noted last week, it is interesting to recall that Aang understood, without any guidance, that a part of his duties was to bring the Spirit World into harmony with the world of the living. In "Avatar Day," we also see Aang standing trial to clear the name of the Avatar, because he realizes that, in order to restore the world to balance, people have to be able to trust him as an icon. Korra has none of these preconceptions. For her, being the Avatar is solely and explicitly tied to bending strength and skill. If she was to lose that bending capability, which everyone in her life up to this point has praised (and, really, is also the source of her livelihood; as she noted in "The Revelation," she doesn't really have anything. People take care of her because she's the Avatar), she would lose the biggest part of her identity. This week's episode is the first step toward her discovering that being the Avatar is more than fighting.
Now, about that flashback. One of the great questions that it raises is: How did Korra see the flashback at all? In the first episode, we were told that she has devoted very little time to her spiritual side. Unless her airbending training has changed that, she should not be able to access her past lives. As for the flashback itself, we get a fair amount of fan service with a shot of grown-up Sokka, grown-up Toph, and two different takes with grown-up Aang in them (the second of which is pictured at the top of this article). The first one involves Aang standing in City Hall, interrogating someone who we have all taken to be "Yakone," a man that, Tarrlok tells us earlier in the episode, Aang had to "take care of" in the past. The second scene, I think we can all assume, is showing how Aang "took care of" Yakone.
A lot of people are speculating that Yakone is going to tie in to Amon in some way. I don't think that will be the case. I think the main reason to introduce Yakone to Korra at this point is to make her aware of the things she will be expected to do as the Avatar; to let her know what the stakes are in this game she's playing. But also, this Yakone incident, and the seriousness with which the Avatar universe is taking Amon's bending removal abilities, makes me feel like the writers are trying to posthumously add some gravitas to Aang's character, and 'redeem' him in our eyes. Although he chose to remove Fire Lord Ozai's bending instead of killing him; this series is telling us that, number one, Aang became capable of killing (we think) when he had to, and, number two, that removing a person's ability to bend is a bigger deal than we thought it was.
Now, my overall opinions, in easily-digestible chunks:
- The art is still a highlight on the show. Of course, the two screenshots above bear out what I mean, but so many of the settings look like they could be paintings.
- Despite my whining about Mako and Asami above, I still really love Korra, Bolin, and Tenzin. Korra and Tenzin's interactions have given The Legend of Korra its heart, and Bolin's thoughtfulness and sincerity make him easy to root for. I love the little detail of the cupcake he brings to Korra being wrapped up in a plastic sandwich bag, as though he bought it from a bake sale. You know he spent his own money on that.
- I wish the plotlines would stay a little more focused. The "we gotta get money for pro bending" plot from last week and the Asami/Mako plot this week did not appreciably add to the series, and I worry that, in a twelve-episode season, they're wasting my time.
- The series is also unraveling a lot of threads, muddying up the story, without giving very much resolution to the audience. I find myself wishing for a narrative structure that's a bit more traditional.
And to end out this week, I have TWO crackpot theories for your assimilation and appraisal:
Crackpot-theory-of-the-week #1: Asami, an equalist (or just a sympathizer) will either die or win Mako over to the equalist cause by some other means. Korra will have to fight Mako.
Crackpot-theory-of-the-week #2: Bolin, feeling slighted and belittled by everyone he holds dear, will go rogue, and Korra will have to hunt him down.
Wow. I've written term papers that were shorter than this! Thanks for making it all the way through, and I'll see you next week for "The Spirit of Competition".
Also, for anyone interested, there's a review of the latest episode every Saturday at The AV Club. The reason I mention it is that there's usually a pretty great discussion that goes on in the comments after the review. It's one of the most intelligent discussions of the Avatar universe I've read on the internet. See if you can tell which commenter I am.
All images are the property of Nickelodeon, Inc., Bryan Konietzko, and Mike DiMartino. All rights reserved.
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