The Legend of Korra: "Endgame" (Episode 12)

Episode link is the same as the one in my review of episode 11, but here it is again.  Just click forward to the diamond about halfway across the screen and you'll begin "Endgame".

Also, it's a small matter, but the Nick website lists the episode's name as "End Game," while the episode itself reads "Endgame".  I went with the episode's version.  You gotta deal with it.

So there it is.  One season of The Legend of Korra is in the books.  Instead of going over the whole season, I'd like to take this episode in its own right and judge it on its own merits.  The season overview will have to wait for another post.

There were several winning scenes in this final episode:  Moments that caused an emotional reaction in me.  One of them is pictured above.  But I'll repeat the question I've asked in the past:  Were they earned?  Did the series follow through on a plot thread they'd been developing throughout the season, or did it just cue up the dramatic music and draw a character with a tear running down his/her cheek?

So, I've decided that, instead of doing a rundown of the episode and analyzing it, I'm going to pick out these points and discuss whether or not they were earned moments.  After that, I'll give my final grading of the episode.

So, I guess I'll begin with the moment shown above in the screen capture:

The Death of Amon

Moment:  Noatak flees Republic City on a motorboat with his brother Tarrlok, whom he'd just freed from prison.  Zipping along through the waves, Tarrlok tells his brother "It will be just like old times."  A single tear runs down Noatak's face and Tarrlok ignites the gas tank in the boat, using one of the electrified gloves designed by Hiroshi Sato.  A plume of smoke rises on the water's horizon.

Did it work?  Yes.

Possibly the most poignant and well-scripted scene in the entire series so far, this moment works only if we consider Tarrlok and Amon/Noatak as part of the same unit.  Each completes the other's character arc, until we are left with two sides of the same coin, trying to right the wrongs that were ravaged upon Republic City by their father in completely different ways.  Both realizing that their bloodline has been responsible for terrible crimes against Republic City, past and present.  And they make sure that their bloodline cannot cause any more misery.  Amon is aware of what his brother is doing, but he makes no motion to stop him.  He sheds his tear, and accepts punishment.

Ordinarily, I would gripe about Amon being too ill-defined until the next-to-last episode, and then asking us to read tragedy from his character through some hasty exposition, but I'm not doing that for two reasons.  One, the back story was just that good, earning its tragedy on its own terms, and I'm not sure how the show could have introduced it any sooner.  Two, this isn't just the story of Amon.  It's the story of Amon and Tarrlok.  As I wrote above, they are two sides of the same coin, and those times we don't get characterization on Amon, we're almost getting it from how the show portrays Tarrlok.

I can easily imagine Noatak coming into Republic City in a similar manner to how Korra showed up.  He would want to use his power to fight the corruption and widespread bender violence perpetrated by the triads.  But when he wrecked up the city, there was no Tenzin to get him out of prison, and no Tenzin to guide him through life in the city.  He would have been rotting in jail for trying to do the right thing, while these bending gangs intimidated and destroyed the lives of non-benders throughout the city.  To him, the bending police were maintaining the status quo for the bending triads.  Now, the way Avatar Aang fought that was by taking away the bending of criminals like his father.  Wouldn't that be the best solution in Noatak's mind?  Although the series doesn't give us this back story, the characterization that was done in that flashback was rich enough to allow the viewer to reasonably create his or her own.

Airbender Extinction

Moment:  After Amon reveals his scarred face (which would seem to contradict the assertion that he is a bloodbender), Mako and Korra make a move to get out of the arena.  Amon tells her to stick around for the main event, and Tenzin and his three children, the last airbenders in the world, rise up onto the stage, shackled to what looks for all the world like an execution scaffold.

Does it work: Yes, mostly

Tenzin and his family not only carry the bloodline of an endangered race and style of bending, they have been interwoven with the series in nearly every episode.  The carefree mannerisms and innocence of the children have been on display in numerous episodes.  Tenzin has been portrayed not only as a father to the main character of the series, but also as someone who can get a situation under control.  Korra looks to him for support and stability, so to see him bound to a post, having been unable to even protect his children, is a shocking moment, and it has built on the feelings that the series has created within the audience to provide impact.

That being said, the reason I added the qualifier "mostly" above is for two reasons.  Number one, it felt like a bit of a cheat, after it appeared that the airbender family got away at the end of "Turning the Tides".  There was no indication that any other airships were following them, so it never seemed like a possibility that they would have gotten captured.  Number two, if the airbenders got captured anyway, what did Lin accomplish through her awesomely-heroic sacrifice in "Turning the Tides"?  Does that moment get robbed of its power because of its inefficacy?

Korra's Salvation

Moment:  After Katara tells the group that she cannot restore Korra's bending, Korra falls into deep despair.  Depending on how you read the scene, she might be contemplating suicide.  Then she backs away from the cliff and begins to cry.  At that moment, a pair of legs appear that Korra (and the audience) takes to be Tenzin's.  However, the camera pans up and Avatar Aang is standing beside her.  He is at the head of a triangle of Avatars that stretches back into the distance, and their glowing Avatar State is transmitted into Korra, who regains her bending powers.

Does it work:  Eh, fifty-fifty

Korra does not really earn her salvation.  She keeps doing things the same way she's always done them, and this one time, when it looked like she was going to have to learn a lesson the hard way, Avatar State comes and bails her out, restoring the core of her self-image--her bending skill.  So what she learns is that patience is for chumps, because if she gets into any serious trouble, the Avatar State will bail her out.

On the other hand, if you believe the suicide theory, the decision to live is a pretty powerful one in its own right.  That may be her first step to realizing that the world is larger than just her and her problems.

And I have to be honest, the chance to see Aang again, acting in the present, was pretty awesome for a fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender.  They can trade on the characterization they've done over the course of three seasons (and one flashback this season) to the extent that I was just happy to see him again.  And it was exciting to see all of the past avatars show up, after having been cut off from them all season.

You really are a horrible father

Moment:  Asami, using one of her father's mecha tanks to smash up some of the biplanes that are going to be used to attack the United Forces fleet, has to confront her father, who is also driving a mecha tank.  He attacks her, and after a short battle, is staring down the barrel of one of her metal pincers.  But she has a moment of hesitation, and he launches a pincer at her and runs toward the opening of the airfield.  Knowing that he is at her mercy, Asami echoes Bolin's earlier words: "You really are a horrible father," and brings him down.

Does it work?  No, mostly

What the creators were trying to do is set up a scene that recalls the battle between Zuko and Azula in the series finale of Avatar: The Last Airbender.  It could have been masterful.  The reason it is not is that Asami's characterization has been so weak this season that I do not have many of her motivations that would show me how hard a time this is for her.  The series has not shown us the amount of affection she had for her father prior to his reveal as an Equalist, nor has it gone to great pains to demonstrate the reasons why she sides with Korra and her gang, other than the fact that her boyfriend did.  After Mako more or less dumps her, I don't see any reason why she stays on the side of the good guys.  If the show had portrayed more of Asami's own convictions (and maybe a little more of the conflict within Hiroshi at what he was doing to Asami, considering that he loves her so much), this could have been a classic scene.  Instead, it was all style and no substance.

Iroh's Big Adventure

Moment:  After finding out that Hiroshi Sato knows the location of the rest of his navy, General Iroh commandeers one of the biplanes and heads out for battle.  He takes down about six enemy fighters in various colorful ways before bailing out of his own damaged plane.  He quips something to Aang's statue, and we never see him again.

Does it work?  No

This is a character that never should have been introduced.  If you want to have somebody dashing around doing heroic things, why not call Bolin, who has been woefully underused since about episode five.  The show brought in a character whose existence had not even been hinted at before last week, and gave him one of the big action setpieces in the episode.  And then, as mentioned before, he's gone.  Why even include this portion of the episode?  Couldn't we have used a bit better spacing somewhere else, like say, showing Korra's despair over losing her bending over a wider range of scenes?  No good, Bryan and Mike.  No good.

Give me more of Republic City's real hero:  Uncle Bumi.

There were some other things in the episode that caught my attention (Korra's first airbending, the, uh, kiss...), but these were the main things that stood out as being cool to me on first viewing.

So overall, I give the finale a B.  Solid storytelling brought down by unearned character moments that should have had more impact than they did.  Also, the lack of Tenzin and Lin Bei Fong throughout most of the episode didn't sit well with me.

Other stuff (just a couple, because I've already blathered enough):

• If he commands a fleet of warships, shouldn't Iroh be an Admiral, like Zhao, instead of a General?
• Would it be unethical for Aang to ask Korra if he can possess her body for a couple of hours so that he can be with his wife and family for a while?  I would like to see that.
• Season two could make a complete sap out of me, like it did in the original series for Zuko's character.  I heard a rumor that more writers are being brought on board for the next season, so let's hope that one of them is Tim Hedrick. (UPDATE: One of them is Tim Hedrick.  The other is Joshua Hamilton, responsible for such episodes as "The Chase", "The Ember Island Players", and... uh... "The Painted Lady".)

There's a couple of things I would like to write in the Korra-less interrim.  One is a review of the season as a whole, as far as what worked and what didn't, and the other is a reorganization of the plots in this season so as to make it flow better as a whole. I will get around to that when I get a little time.

Also, all the episodes of the original series Avatar: The Last Airbender are up on Nick's website right now.  They can be accessed here.  If you haven't watched it and enjoyed Legend of Korra even a little bit, your enjoyment will be greatly enhanced by watching how it all started.  Seriously great television.

Until next season, I'll be waiting with Naga and all the rest of you.

All images are the property of Nickelodeon, Inc., Bryan Konietzko, and Mike DiMartino.  All rights reserved.

The Legend of Korra: "Skeletons in the Closet" (Episode 11)

So, here's a link to this and the next episode.  They all show in the same window, so just watch the first half if you for some reason only want to see "Skeletons in the Closet".

I decided to write separate reviews for the final two episodes of the season, even though they were shown consecutively on Nick, and they're being streamed consecutively on Nick.com.  My reasoning for that is, if the creators had truly wanted the audience to consider the final two episodes as part of the finale, they would have made them into a two-part episode (a la "Siege of the North" or "Day of Black Sun").  Anyone who picks up the series later on, in whatever format is most convenient, will not know that the final two episodes were shown as a pair, and will consider each accordingly.

That being said, I can see why Bryan and Mike wanted to put this episode together with the action-and-revelation-packed "Endgame".  This episode, although important to the advancement of the plot, was kind of boring on its own.

Broken down, "Skeletons in the Closet" has three main acts.  Act I shows what happens to General Iroh and his fleet of gaudy ships.  Act II shows our heroes planning out their final strategy against Amon.  Act III is the sad, sad story of Tarrlok & Amon.  I'd like to deal with their success or... not-success, in that order.

Act I: The firebombing of Iroh's fleet

As we left off last week's episode, Zuko's grandson Iroh, general of the United Forces Naval Fleet, was headed for Republic City, supposedly to be its salvation.  When he arrives, he finds it strange that there is no outward sign of hostile forces waiting for his ships.  Then, they run into mines.  And biplanes.  By the end of the sequence, the United Forces has been rendered a nonentity in the fight for Republic City.  While some of the action is exhilarating, the obvious fate of Iroh's fleet means that a lot of the consequences don't feel very... consequential.  Iroh himself has only been defined by four or so lines at this point.  I don't have any stake in whether or not he does anything awesome, because there's no life in him yet.

Another point of concern is the large usage of time that this fight requires to essentially change nothing about the situation in Republic City.  We sit and watch eight or so minutes of the episode that maintain the status quo established so far in the previous episode.  If some character development had taken place, I would actually rejoice--but none occurs.  Korra is the same impulsive-yet-eager-to-help girl that she has been all season.  As usual, Mako, Bolin, and Asami sit on the sidelines and watch.  Hiroshi's angry and wants to hurt benders.  Woo boy.

There has to have been some other way to get General Iroh into Republic City and define his character more clearly than this.  Time being at a premium this season, there was a better way to use the first 1/3 of this episode than dropping bombs onto ships.

Act II: The Hard Goodbye

Well, after Korra drags Iroh out of the bay, the freedom fighters regroup in Hobotown.

Small note on Hobotown: In the beginning of the episode, Gummo, the hobo with whom we're acquainted the best, tells our little group that benders and non-benders live together peacefully in Hobotown.  So who are all these people that support Amon?  It's not the lower class.  The upper class usually is not peopled by the Hiroshi Sato-driven-by-revenge type, so I can't imagine too many of them are supporters.  Middle class?  Maybe, but other than that scene where Tarrlok turns off their power, I can't see too many examples of middle class bending-haters.  Who do you think is going to these Pro Bending matches, after all?

Okay, back to Act II.

The group decides to split up, so that Korra can go challenge Amon, face-to-face.  Even though hot-headedness and pride have been her problems the entire run of the series, her "gut" tells her that she needs to man-up and fight Amon, so that's what she's gonna do.  Mako tells her that he's going to go with her to face Amon, and that pretty much breaks up the relationship that Mako had been in with Asami.  I guess it no longer "makes more sense" for him to go after Asami, since she's no longer wealthy.  So Korra and Mako go to face Amon, and the rest of the group goes to the airfields (which they find surprisingly easily, considering all they had to go on was Mako's "I think they came from that direction").  Not much to this act, as it was mostly to set up the structure for the rest of this and the next episode.

Act III:  Who Amon really is

       

So after Korra and Mako go to Air Temple Island (disguised as Equalists) to confront Amon, Lt. Mustache Guy tells them that they better get to the Pro Bending Arena for Amon's big rally.  Then, they go upstairs in the Air Temple and find Tarrlok.  And Tarrlok spills his guts about the true identity of Amon.

Before I get to that true identity of Amon, I'd like to point out that my complaints about Korra having no agency still hold true in all of this information dumping.  She doesn't seek out any additional information about Amon's plans, nor about his true identity--she just happens to be in the right place at the right time, just like she was in the Sato Mansion.  The only ideas that ever cross into Korra's mind are "fight" and "smooch Mako".  For how so many people have been raving about what a strong female lead Korra has been, this seems pretty insulting.  How about if she decides there's more to Amon than what he's telling everybody, and she decides to go on a mission to figure out what it is?  How about letting Korra control her own destiny for once?

Okay, now that I've got that out of my system, let's deal with the flashback.  As a rule, I am not a fan of exposition dumps, especially when they take the form of flashbacks that don't involve our main character.  Amon has been a nebulous villain throughout the series, and Tarrlok was a side character up until "When Extremes Meet".  It's lucky, then, that this flashback is so compelling and movingly-told.  Single-handedly, it nearly saves the entire episode from being a throwaway set-up to the main event.  It makes this episode worthy of standing on its own.

At first, I cringed when Tarrlok admitted that Amon was his brother Noatak.  "Did we really need any more coincidental family connections?" I thought to myself.  The idea of Amon avenging their father's dismissal from Republic City was too trite, too cartoony, to be a powerful motivator for a villain in this universe.  The Fire Nation's war carried back to a time when Sozin thought up the idea of manifest destiny.  Encroaching upon other sovereign nations is not a laudable activity, it's true, but at least he had high ideals.  Long Feng thought he was protecting Ba Sing Se from invasion from the Fire Nation by keeping it insular.  Since the Fire Nation had never been able to broach its walls, it must have seemed like the most logical conclusion in the world to just sit behind them and wait out the war.  In fact, it's only after Long Feng is overthrown that Ba Sing Se is sacked.

Point being, villains in this universe usually don't have purely evil goals.  Thankfully, Amon follows this trend.  Although he and Tarrlok are indeed Yakone the Gangster's sons, they both hate him.  Neither boy wanted to learn to bloodbend, and both hate doing it.  So Noatak (Amon's name before he put on the mask) gets it into his head that the Avatar's power to remove bending is the true noble power.  We are to suppose that he went in search of such a power, and developed his bloodbending capabilities to such an extent that those abilities would allow him to wield that power himself.

The entire sequence is chilling.  The two boys, vulnerable and alone in the night (pictured at the beginning of the review), have to sit and hear their father tell them that he's one of history's greatest monsters, and then have to hear that they're going to be forced to learn the same skill that earned him banishment from Republic City.  The sequences of bloodbending, too, become more brutal as each lesson is shown, beginning with Noatak bloodbending a bison into a standing position, then showing him forcing a pack of wolves into bowing to him., and finally culminating in a sequence where the two sons are told to bloodbend each other.  Noatak does so, but Tarrlok refuses to reciprocate, saying that it feels awful, and that he didn't want anyone else to have to feel that.  Perhaps mirroring the paths that the two brothers followed into the future, Tarrlok is the boy with the bigger heart.

Finally, Noatak bloodbends his father in order to protect Tarrlok, then runs away.  Just phenomenal storytelling for Mike and Bryan.  If it hadn't been preceded by fifteen minutes of filler, I would have applauded this episode, but it came at the end, almost to make us forget that those fifteen minutes had even happened.  Try harder next time, guys.  Give me 22 minutes of solid plotting and character growth, and I will gush praise.

Observations:

• Was there ever a character as pointless as General Iroh (II)?  He's so generic that there really could have been anybody commanding those ships.  He doesn't carry any of the pathos of Zuko, and he had not been introduced to the audience in any dialogue prior to his reveal last episode.
• Lovely desolate landscapes in the flashback.  You could feel the boys' isolation from the rest of the world, both physically and spiritually, in those backgrounds.
• Well, it's fortunate that Gummo the Hobo is also an ex-telegraph operator, because otherwise, how would Korra and Iroh have sent messages to the fleet?  These things work out so well!
• Oh yeah, I guess Mako is now openly trying to get with Korra.  Slipped my mind.  I wonder why.
• Boy, we sure were all wrong about this being an "Aang Gang" flashback episode.  Not that I would have minded.

That's it for this episode, but I'll try to get up the review for "Endgame" as soon as I can.  Maybe tonight, maybe Wednesday night.

All images are the property of Nickelodeon, Inc., Bryan Konietzko, and Mike DiMartino.  All rights reserved.

The Legend of Korra: Book One Reviews

I've compiled a page of links that will take you to the review for each episode.  I decided to do this for a couple of reasons:  Number one, clicking on the "Legend of Korra Reviews" tab in the "Tags" section opens up the reviews in the order they were posted, which might not be helpful if you're trying to catch up on episodes you missed.  Number two, the "Legend of Korra Reviews" tag also brings up every review that I've written in its entirety, which can make it difficult to find the specific review that you're looking for.

Also, I'll begin with my general impressions article, which kind of served as my review of the first two episodes.

The Legend of Korra - Not technically a review of the first two episodes, but the closest thing that I ever wrote.

Episode 3: "The Revelation" - We get our introduction to Amon and his plan for Republic City.

Episode 4: "The Voice in the Night" - One of my favorite episodes so far, it explores how Amon's revelation has affected Korra psychologically.

Episode 5: "The Spirit of Competition" - Eh... one of my "not-favorite" episodes.  Tried to be as positive as I could, though.

Episode 6: "And the Winner Is..." - Amon makes his reappearance at the Pro Bending Championships and leaves chaos in his wake.

Episode 7: "The Aftermath" - Not the thoughtful episode that we expected after the bombshell of Episode 6!

Episode 8: "When Extremes Meet" -The Avatar has another enemy, who is not all he seems...

Episode 9: "Out of the Past" - We see some of the exploits of Team Avatar in its later years, and Korra's friends break into an Equalist facility.

Episode 10: "Turning the Tides" - This run-up to the two-episode finale adds some depth and grace to our favorite metalbender.

Episode 11: "Skeletons in the Closet" - We find out the truth about Amon.

Episode 12: "Endgame" - Republic City's conflict comes to a head.

The Legend of Korra: "Turning The Tides" (Episode 10)

Episode link: here.

Well, here we stand.  At the crossroads of destiny.  Just one Saturday morning left, and then we go into another extended break from the Avatar Universe.

I'll wait for next week (or maybe even the week after) to do an overview of the first season, with impressions about what was successful, what was not, and predictions as to the next season's contents.

But for now, I'll focus on what the creators dished out this week.

This was a pretty action-heavy episode.  There were three distinct action setpieces that I can think of, with several minor ones scattered in between: Tenzin and Team Avatar against the equalists and mechs, Lin and Airbender Children against equalists, and Lin's final rampage against two airships.  All three were incredibly exciting, but they didn't leave a lot of time for character advancement.  The Avatar, apart from taking a mech tank down with her waterbending, barely has any part in this episode.  Asami and Mako are catty to each other.  Bolin makes a couple of quips, and that's it for Team Avatar.

In some ways, though, this episode gave me a glimpse into what could have been, if the series had decided to focus on Tenzin instead of Korra.  Judging from "Turning the Tides," I think that would have been a much better series.  Tenzin's concerns as a father, councilman, husband, and flag-bearer for an entire culture are so much more interesting than Korra's... anything, really.  All of Korra's problems are very self-centered:  She's not spiritual, she can't airbend, the guy she likes is kinda into somebody else but into her, too...  None of these affects anyone but her.  Who, outside of Tenzin, the White Lotus, and Korra cares about whether or not Korra learns to airbend?  How is that going to make life better for anyone in Republic City?

Contrast that with Tenzin's problems:  Trying to guide the city in such a way that neither benders nor non-benders are treated unfairly; taking care of a family; bearing the traditions of one of the four great nations on his back, as well as being the only living master of an endangered form of bending...  These are problems that have greater ripples into the rest of the Avatar universe, and make him a more sympathetic character.

To be honest, a series focused on the older people in the Avatar universe sounds (and looks, after this episode) immensely appealing.  It would be a completely different vibe from Avatar: the Last Airbender, and yet, also more true to its characterizations.  Aang and his crew usually acted in a manner that indicated that they were much more mature than they should have been, according to their age.  They also act much more mature than the current Team Avatar that we've been given in The Legend of Korra.

To get back to the episode at hand, the action starts pretty quickly.  We get some (frankly unnecessary and awkward-sounding) recap, and then we launch into Lt. Mustache Guy abducting the council representative from the Fire Nation, looking appropriately creepy.  He looks like somebody, but I'm having a hard time putting my finger on it.  If anybody figures it out, plunk it down in the comments section, will ya?

From there, the rest of the council falls, except for Tenzin.  Being the only combat-trained bender left on the council after Tarrlok's "departure", he manages to handle the kidnappers with relative ease and makes his way over to the police station.

From there, it's basically one fight after another.  My favorite in the episode is probably the Lin/Airbending Children battle on Air Temple Island.  Lots of Bei Fong coolness (especially the shot of her waiting for the Equalists to attack), and Tenzin's children acquit themselves admirably in battle.  It's basically just a really well-choreographed sequence, and it grows Lin's character without any exhausting exposition.

Pema has her baby while this particular battle is going on.  I don't know why the show chose to do that just then, but there it is.  I really hate that Pema's scenes are limited to "clearing the table while the men-folk and Lin talk," and "spitting out babies while everybody else fights."  I don't even need her to be a superhero like a lot of these other characters are.  She had a nice moment back in "The Spirit of Competition" where she talked to Korra like a mother.  I wouldn't mind seeing her in more of a confidant capacity, and maybe see her interacting with her children once in a while (which doesn't even need to be its own scene.  That can be shown in the background while other things are going on on Air Temple Island).

But I should get back to Lin, because she is really the heart of this episode.  Tenzin is strong and well-fleshed-out, but Lin's arc seemingly comes to a close this week, and it's been perhaps the most interesting arc that the show has provided so far.  Tarrlok was written out of the show (more or less) just when he was getting interesting, and I don't know that anyone else has shown the character growth that Lin has.  She went from being grouchy in the first episode to being a warm, human character who is willing to sacrifice herself for the people she cares about.  I still don't know why Korra fights, but I know why Lin Bei Fong does.

And what a sacrifice it is, too.  Someone on the A.V. Club's discussion board for the episode lambasted the creators' decision to 'off' Lin Bei Fong, calling her the most well-rounded, three-dimensional character in the entire series.  While I could name Tenzin as the exception to that statement, he was right.  And that's why she had to be the one to lose her bending.  What kind of emotional value would that moment have if it had happened to Mako, Bolin, or Korra?  The first two would have been shocking, but not really sad.  Korra, we could be pretty sure, would regain her ability to bend at some point, and that would have robbed the moment of some of its poignancy (setting aside for the moment that Korra losing her bending would not have been that sad to me).  So that left two choices: either Tenzin had to lose his bending, or Lin had to lose hers. Tenzin is the last airbending master in the world, and de-bending him would have made Amon into a far too unsympathetic character.  But Lin only represents herself.  And it was pretty devastating when I saw her leap into the air, knowing full-well that the two outcomes of her actions were capture and death.

And I've been treating the removal of Lin's bending as a death for her character.  Not only because the show's on Nickelodeon, and that's probably the closest the creators can come to showing an execution, but also because bending is a formidable part of her identity.  As an earthbender, it is in her personality to meet problems head-on.  Using her bending allowed her to jump to the front of any conflict, trusting in her skills to carry the day.  Her bending allowed her to be brave.  Without her bending, how must her personality change?  Another reason I read this as a death for the character is that, aside from Tahno's minor part in "The Aftermath," benders who have been de-bent have not been heard from again in the series.

Housecleaning (why don't we make Pema do it???):

• Some awesome little details in this episode, but this one is my favorite: Tenzin knows that he is about to be attacked by Equalists because his beard fuzzes up, due to the static electricity that the bolo-things are putting off.  So creative.
• Amon's rhetoric is starting to change.  Someone brought up a good point about the non-logic of Amon just randomly bombing Republic City--why is he attacking the non-benders that he claims to be fighting for?  Why is he taking down an infrastructure that he's going to need to use after he takes control of the city?  In his conversation with Hiroshi Sato, the phrasing he uses is "it is time for the Equalists to take control of Republic City."  He does not say "non-benders," but instead specifies that his group is going to take control of the city.  Not so populist anymore, eh Amon?
• I'm not thrilled about the General Iroh reveal.  Not only is it too fan-servicey, but Dante Basco's voice does not sound like it should be coming out of that body.
• On the topic of the Fire-oh-wait-I-mean-'United Forces' Navy, those are the gaudiest ships I've ever seen.  It's like they took their design cues from the Grandview China Wok.
• At least we didn't have to deal with Afro Circus Zebra this week.

Crackpot-theory-of-the-week:  All right, since the show is all but over for this season, I have to reach deep down to come up with this little number:  Tarrlok is assisting Amon in exchange for a place of power after the revolution is over.  He's come up with a new way to take control of the city.

Let me leave you with this, as it will stay with me this entire week.  Lin raises her head, as though to say "Get it over with," and breaks my heart.

All images are the property of Nickelodeon, Inc., Bryan Konietzko, and Mike DiMartino.  All rights reserved.

The New Red Menace Exposed! pt 2: Fear and Loathing in St. Louis

It's still waiting...

In the first part of this hard-hitting piece of journalism, I promised you, the readers, that I would get to the bottom of an insidious Soviet Conspiracy in our own backyards.  Codename:  Borscht.

It had been my intention to expose this beet-based threat and the extent to which it has infiltrated even the most heartwarming of American institutions: the Eastern European restaurant.  I did this knowing full well the amount of danger to which I was exposing myself.  Some brave truth-teller from IP address 67.81.255.167 tried to warn me, saying:
"borsh is a very g a y dish it is made of di ck."  I had no idea that a soup could change my sexual orientation!  That Wikipedia has cut down this brave soldier of freedom saddens me greatly.

But all you freedom-lovers know that "freedom ain't free" (to coin a phrase), so southward I traveled, to Dvin Restaurant on Big Bend Blvd.  The heartland.

When I strode up to the door, I could smell their fear.  What sight greeted me when I arrived?  What diabolical torture had they prepared?  They.  Weren't.  Open.  Dvin Restaurant knew they could not stand under my withering stare, so they took the coward's way out.  Plus, I wasted probably two gallons of gas getting down there!  Seriously!

But I am prepared to endure the expenditure of even four gallons of gas in order to bring the truth to the public consciousness!  I will be back.  They better be ready.

Tokyo Seafood Buffet

In the meantime, I needed to scare up some grub.  As I was driving down Olive, I saw this place (pictured above) that said they featured conveyor belt sushi (or, kaitenzushi).  Since this is the only place in St. Louis that I've ever heard about that features conveyor belt sushi, I decided to stop off and have dinner here, instead.

The place's name is Tokyo Seafood Buffet, which is not immediately apparent when looking at the façade of the restaurant.  And, while it DID feature sushi traveling around on a conveyor belt, I fear that was the only connection between Tokyo Seafood Buffet and the kaitenzushi places I used to go to in Japan.

For starters, the sushi was part of the "all-you-can-eat" buffet, which is usually indicative of the quality.  Second, I saw only two plates of nigiri-style sushi on the belt the entire time I was there.  And third, the same plates of sushi were going around the counter when I left as when I came in.  Not a good sign.

As for the other buffet offerings, I was decidedly underwhelmed.  Many of the entrees did not appear to be very fresh (I'm looking at you, 'slice-your-own roast beef'), and so I avoided them.  The mushrooms tasted as though the recipe was lifted straight from Golden Corral.  A friendly middle-aged woman who was frying... things motioned to me to take something called a fried oyster cake, and it turned out to be the best thing I ate all night.  It was like an egg roll with oysters in it, but with an exterior like a pancake instead of a crispy egg roll skin.

While I'm on the subject of oysters, I might as well say that I found out tonight that I do not like raw oysters. This was my first time tasting them, and I was not a huge fan.  Of course, the flip side to that is that a $13.99 all-you-can-eat buffet may not be the best venue in which to judge a normally-celebrated foodstuff.

Then came dessert.  I stayed light, and went for something that looked like a cream puff and a couple of spoons full of that banana pudding and "'Nilla Wafers" concoction that usually shows up on buffets.  They had other things (including a chocolate waterfall with only strawberries and marshmallows to dip in it), but I was reaching the end of my gut capacity, and wanted to be able to walk out of the building on my own power.  I had assumed the cream puff would be filled with custard.  Woe betides the fool who assumes anything at a buffet.  It was filled with tasteless whipped topping.  And that was the bright spot of the dessert!  If you've ever eaten a banana-flavored Laffy Taffy, you know exactly what the banana pudding tasted like.  It's that 'banana flavor' that's trying too hard to taste like bananas.  Very unpleasant.

On the bright side, the green tea was quite good (but not complimentary, as it should be in a kaitenzushi joint).

Walking out of Tokyo Seafood Buffet, I found myself wishing that Dvin had been open.  After that meal, I felt like I could use a bowl full of Pepto-Bismol.

The Legend of Korra: "Out of the Past" (Episode 9)

And the new episode is up.  And I got to watch it, after, I assume, everybody else watched it and stopped GUMMING UP THE WORKS!!  Seriously, Nick!  Anyway, here's the link, just in case you're one of the four people on earth who wasn't trying to watch this episode at 9:34 Monday night.

So we're three episodes away from the end of the season.  And we found out that the last two episodes are going to be shown together as the season finale.  So, basically, we've got one more episode of set-up before everything comes crashing down.  Which begs the question:  What have the last two episodes accomplished in terms of getting us ready for the final showdown with Amon?  The show confirmed that Tarrlok was an evil, vain mastermind in the last episode, and in this episode, he's completely depowered.  I mean that in every sense.  Not only is his actual bending taken away, the show strips him of his intelligence and menace, as well.

We start out all right, with Tarrlok's voice narrating his version of the abduction of the Avatar, while scenes simultaneously flash by, showing the audience how he set up the scene to make it appear that equalists had taken Korra.  After that, however, Tarrlok pretty much just goofs from one scene to the next.  Tenzin storms into the council chamber after the equalists claim no responsibility in the kidnapping and accuses Tarrlok of being responsible for Korra's disappearance.  And Tarrlok basically does that "look around and stammer" thing that lets everybody know he's guilty, even though he has to know that Tenzin has no proof.  And he doesn't comment at all about the Avatar's friends being out of prison.  The Tarrlok I remember from earlier in the series would have stormed from a position of power, basically accusing the Avatar Crew of being in league with the equalists and demanding their arrests.  And then, the air is let completely out of the balloon when Tarrlok's aide recounts the entire incident for Tenzin and his merry people.  What a letdown.  It would have been so much greater of a moral statement if Tenzin had been willing to attack a council member without solid proof, trusting instead in his comrades and his instinct.

Of course Tarrlok pulls out his bloodbending and knocks everybody out.  Don't know why they didn't restrain him at the outset, instead of standing there in defensive postures.  They have to know that there's no defensive posture that's going to work against bloodbending.  But we have to build up to that scene up there in the screen capture, so... run away, Tarrlok.  Eventually, Tarrlok has a conversation with Korra, owning up that he's Yakone's son (more on that in a moment), and gets depowered by Amon, who walks through Tarrlok's bloodbending ability (though not without some effort, it must be noted).

The other half of the episode (well, the other MAIN half, discounting more Asami/Mako nonsense) is spent with Korra and her visions of the past.  Lacking any other pastimes, Korra finally settles down into some hardcore meditation, and gets a tale of bloodbending from her predecessor, Avatar Aang.  What Aang's been trying to communicate all along was a memory of a bloodbender named Yakone who was able to bloodbend at will--regardless of the moon's status--much like Tarrlok.  When the council (specifically Sokka) sentences him to life in prison for the heinous act of criminal bloodbending (they make it a point to say that Yakone used his powers for evil), he widens his eyes and bloodbends everyone in the council chamber, without using his hands.  Avatar Aang scuffles with him and almost gets killed through some particularly crunchy and brutal bloodbending, but breaks out of it with Avatar State powers, finally restraining Yakone and taking his bending away.

The point of recounting both of these plot branches is to say:  What now?  We got some awesome stuff with Tarrlok, and now he's a non-factor?  Aang was trying to tell Korra about something that, by the time she learns it, is completely useless?  There's got to be more levels to this whole flashback/Tarrlok episode than just what we've been given.  If there isn't, this has been a colossal waste of two episodes.  You seriously could have taken ten minutes from one episode and given all of the character growth that occurred in these two episodes.  My feeling is that, what Aang really wanted to show Korra is that bloodbending can be broken by going into the Avatar State, as he did against Yakone.  The preview for the season finale (which can be seen here) makes it appear as though Mako and Korra are being bloodbent while Amon attempts to take away Korra's bending.  Information such as the above bit about breaking out of bloodbending might be useful in such a situation.  In addition, maybe some of the nuances of Aang's energybending technique will not be lost on Korra, and she'll notice that the way Amon takes away someone's bending is not the same way that Aang did it.  They touch different spots.  This episode made it very clear that Amon grabs the back of the neck before touching the 'third eye'.  Aang, when he energybent Yakone as well as Ozai, touched the chest.

Other stuff:

• The flashback was actually... kinda boring.  Everyone acted exactly the same as they used to in the old series.  Not to say that Sokka's rambling wasn't great, but there appeared to be no growth in the almost 30 years it had been since we last saw these people.  We also saw none of the supposed rage in Aang that I thought we would, after some of the flashes we got in previous episodes.  He's pretty matter-of-fact when he goes in to take away Yakone's bending.
• Side note to that, a lot of the dialogue in this series has been atrocious.  Aang's "You'll never get away with this!" to Yakone is just one of the examples.  Unfortunately, Tenzin's been on the receiving end of a lot of stinkers, too.
• Is Amon firebending in the preview for the finale?  I took a screencap.  Judge for yourself.

• All right, I admit that Amon walking through Tarrlok's bloodbending was pretty cool.
• If I could work my will, we'd have ended "When Extremes Meet" on an ambiguous note, simply panning away from Tarrlok's window.  Then, this episode could have happened as it did, with Korra meditating and the rest of her crew going after the equalists to rescue her, except that we wouldn't know that Korra was being held captive by Tarrlok until the end.  Then, the next episode could have been the race to capture Tarrlok, maybe ending with him joining forces with Amon?  I'm not quite clear on how it would have ended up, but I needed a little more tension in this episode.

Crackpot-theory-of-the-week:  This week's crackpot theory is a bit tempered.  We already know certain things are going to happen in the finale, because the preview said so.  So my prediction is this:  All those boats and stuff that we see?  That's Grand Lotus Zuko, bringing all the might of the Fire Nation to aid the good folks of Republic City.  Amon's war is about to go international.

Well, that's all I've got.  Unfortunately, since I've started classes, I don't have quite as much time to plan these review out as I used to.  But I'm still hanging in there, and I appreciate all of you who are hanging in there with me.  As a bonus, here's another screen capture I did of Amon's eye, this time, from the finale preview.  It's definitely yellow.  And actually, it doesn't look that sinister, either.

All images are the property of Nickelodeon, Inc., Bryan Konietzko, and Mike DiMartino.  All rights reserved.

The Legend of Korra: "When Extremes Meet" (Episode 8)

All right, you know the drill.  Episode's right here.  Watch and return, if necessary.

Well, for me, this was the best episode that The Legend of Korra has put across yet.  The lighting and the action were typically excellent, but the thing that made "When Extremes Meet" a classic is its tight focus around one central conceit.

At the beginning of the episode, the bending brothers and Asami take up Korra on her offer to move to Air Temple Island, and we get some good-feeling camaraderie between the airbender kids and their new co-residents.  Ikki and Bolin's interactions in particular are a real treat.  Ikki blurts out to Asami that Korra likes Mako, and we're left a little unsure whether or not Asami had already surmised that fact.  It would have seemed to be a minor detail, but when Asami shoots a nasty glare at Korra and Mako later on in her rear-view mirror, it makes it seem like maybe there is some ongoing strife that will be mined later (and this will be the basis of my "crackpot-theory-of-the-week").

So the episode shifts tone when Tenzin seeks out Korra, so that the two of them can go to see the ceremony naming the new police chief, Saikhan, in Lin Beifong's place.  This has got to make Korra feel great.  This is some official city business, and Tenzin thinks Korra should be there just as much as he should.  During the press conference, when Saikhan states that he will be reporting to Tarrlok on all matters pertaining to the Equalist Revolution, Korra makes a comment to Tenzin, calling Tarrlok a weasel-snake.  Is this to impress Tenzin that she's lined up with his way of thinking now?  I think it can be read that way.  She's feeling like big stuff.  So when she goes up to Tarrlok after the conference and tells him:  "You need me, but I don't need you. I'm the Avatar," there's a fair amount of hubris in that statement.  Even I felt like maybe she deserved to get taken down a peg or two.  But what Tarrlok does is destroy her self-confidence by reminding her of her failure to airbend, telling her "You're not the Avatar.  You're just a half-baked Avatar."

And it's around that power dynamic, the struggle between Korra and Tarrlok, that the rest of the episode turns.  Instead of following Tenzin's advice and trying to meditate on the flashbacks she's had of Aang, Korra goes and mopes on a cliff-side.  And when her friends tell her that she can go out and save the city with them, without airbending, she is only too willing to listen.  But it is not for the city's salvation that Korra goes into the night with her friends.  She goes to prove to Tarrlok and the entire city that she is a fully capable Avatar, even despite not being able to airbend.  The fact that she sticks around at the scene of her victory and waits for Tarrlok to arrive tells me that the main thing she wanted to accomplish was showing Tarrlok up.

And with that, the balance of power shifts back to Korra.  But what does she accomplish?  Feeling Korra's burn, Tarrlok goes into the ruling council the next morning and practically demands that they pass a curfew on non-bending citizens, presumably because any of them could be an Equalist.  Though Tenzin strongly disagrees, the council, of course, passes Tarrlok's measure.  The power swings back to Tarrlok.

And when Korra and her team get a call on their police scanner that there is a large Equalist mob gathering in a suburban area, they race to the scene to find that it's only a group of non-benders who have had their power shut off as part of the curfew.  This sets up a beautiful tug-of-war between Korra and Tarrlok, each asserting her or his own power in indirect ways.  When the crowd reminds Korra that she represents them, too, she shoves two police officers out of her way and promises the non-benders that she will put a stop to their oppression.  But when she confronts Tarrlok about it, he orders the metalbenders to gather the civilians and imprison them.  Korra fires back by using her earthbending to counteract Tarrlok's orders.  Tarrlok, frustrated again, decides to strike back at the Avatar by arresting her friends.  Korra strikes back by raising up two giant boulders and threatening Tarrlok with them.  Tarrlok then threatens her with jail time, too.  Korra comes out the loser in that round.

But despite Tenzin's insistence that he would take care of the matter in the morning, Korra cannot sleep until she has taken action to rescue her friends.  Except that her true motive is not trying to rescue her friends, but rather asserting her power to force Tarrlok into freeing her friends.  She is still stinging from Tarrlok calling her a half-baked Avatar, and it shows when she uses earthbending to throw him off of a ledge in city hall, saying: "Still think I'm a half-baked Avatar?"  But, in the end, Tarrlok still gets the better of Korra, bloodbending her into submission.

Korra shows the extent of her pride throughout the episode.  It is humility that Korra is missing, not airbending.  If she had stayed on Tarrlok's task force, not only would the curfew never have been enacted, but she would also have been able to keep an eye on Tarrlok without him suspecting that she was doing so.  Her superiority complex has made the entire city worse.  She's right, she can't save the city as she is now.

Korra never gives up.  Also, she looks like Katara in this shot. Y'know, except the fire.

Other Stuff:

• I didn't bring up the flashbacks this week, because it looks like we'll be getting some extended time with Aang next week, so I'll just deal with it then.
• The voice for Captain Saikhan sounded familiar, so I looked it up.  Captain Saikhan was voiced by Richard Epcar, who also voiced (among many other characters) Batou from Ghost in the Shell.
• I still don't trust Asami.  It was a little too easy for the team to knock off those chi-blockers, given the difficulty they had in the past.
• I think I saw Tahno in the crowd of non-benders that Tarrlok arrests.  Judge for yourself:

Crackpot-theory-of-the-week:  Asami is still evil in my book, and is probably pretty close to Amon.  But that look that she gave Korra and Mako when they were giving each other googly eyes in the backseat of her car tells me that maybe she really does care about Mako, and maybe that will be what brings her away from evil.

All images are the property of Nickelodeon, Inc., Bryan Konietzko, and Mike DiMartino.  All rights reserved.

Amon...

...is definitely not Tarrlok.

Top image is provided by avatarspiritmedia.net.  All rights reserved.  As always, the Avatar series is the intellectual property of Nickelodeon, Bryan Konietzko, and Mike DiMartino.