Hi folks! Welcome back to our weekly recap of Avatar: The Last Airbender. First of all, let’s celebrate, because the series did so overwhelmingly well that Netflix approved not one but two new seasons after just a couple of weeks out!
This week’s episode is named “Omashu,” which is where we begin to “deviate” from the original series. I mean, it’s still very faithful, but here we got storylines from a lot of episodes in the animated series, and even the full introduction of Azula, so let’s dive right in!
1. To Thwart a Rebellion
The episode starts with an original scene, where a little team of rebels in the Fire Nation try to kill Fire Lord Ozai with the “help” of Azula, only to discover that it was a trap and Ozai knew all along, because his daughter have been rooting out rebels for a while.
I really enjoyed this brief moment, it introduced us to Azula and showed us a lot of what the Fire Nation think of themselves, they have rebels and people who don’t agree with what their leaders are doing, but are quickly shut down under the pretense that they are “the greatest nation of the world” (gee… where have I heard that before?)
2. Teo and the Mechanist
While traveling to the tribes of the north, Aang notices a person flying and believes them to be an airbender, so they make a brief stop at a town he used to know: Omashu. But it’s not like it was before, now it’s a fortress with paranoid levels of security.
There they meet Teo and his father Sai, the mechanist, and also Jet and the Freedom Fighters, so the team splits and each member has their own plot. Aang goes out and flies with his new friend Teo.
Sokka stays with the mechanist, learning a lot of engineering stuff and even proposing some updates to the mechanist himself, which will come in handy in the future. It also shows us that Sokka could have a passion as an inventor, but instead he was forced to think as a kid-warrior worried about protecting his tribe.
3. Jet
Katara meets Jet and the freedom fighters while following a spy of the Fire Nation. At first, she is all in with what they do, since they call themselves the good guys and seem to fight spies, and even accuse the machinist as being part of the bad guys.
Jet tells his story and connects with Katara. They are both orphans who both want to end the war, and he even helps her get better at waterbending because he tells her that she should focus on happy memories, instead of sad ones.
4. Betrayal
This seems to be the theme of this episode. First, when we meet Azula, Ozai tells her that his brother might have completed his impossible mission, because the Avatar appeared, which makes her angry; the possibility of her brother returning and inheriting the throne is something that she saw as impossible, so she asks Commander Zhao to ally with her, and he quicky agrees, thinking that it’s his chance to go up the ladder.
Then, while Katara believed that the machinist was betraying Omashu, she discovers that the bad guys all along were Jet and the freedom fighters; they were the ones who blew up the warehouse that was thought to be a terrorist act. They have a plan to explode the machinist’s case to kill the old king and his higher team, “the face of corruption.” Jet sums it up arguing that killing innocent lives is worth it when fighting for freedom, something contrary to what Aang, Katara and Zuko believe.
5. Zuko vs. Aang, Part II
Zuko has been struggling to keep his team in check, so when he hears that Aang might be in Omashu, he decides to go alone, except with his uncle Iroh. They find the kid and Iroh tells his nephew to keep his bending in check to avoid being noticed.
Zuko and Aang start fighting, well, one mostly tried to flee but you get me. The important thing is that Zuko discovers that Aang has his diary/journal, and isn’t able to control himself so ends up using fire bending, which creates panic and causes the earth soldiers to arrive, as the episode ends in chaos (and a cliffhanger).
And that’s it for this episode, I enjoyed this approach of merging stories that came later in the original series, bringing themes together and overall making it more concise. What did you think of this episode? Leave your comments below and join us next week for our take on episode 104, “Into the Dark.”
