Welcome back for another weekly review of Avatar! This week, everything explodes in the season finale. Read on to see how the episode holds up!
1. Zutara? Aangroh??
This episode sees every one of the season’s major plotlines intersecting, resulting in a glorious abundance of action and unexpected character pairings. I’m sure the vocal contingent of fans out there who support a Zuko/Katara romance had a field day with the catacombs scene (in fact, I remember going to the AvatarSpirit.net chatroom after the episode aired and seeing those fans going crazy). Looking beyond the potential romance, the scene is one of the purest expressions in the show about how we can often find connection with one another if we can look through our differences. Zuko and Katara, though from completely different backgrounds, both lost their mothers as a result of the war. In that moment of realization, it didn’t matter that Zuko was a part of the royal family responsible. Both characters are hurting the same way, just from different angles.
Extending that idea, we concurrently see Aang and Iroh team up to find their lost loved ones. The happy-go-lucky, spiritual Iroh ends up being the perfect mini-mentor for the happy-go-lucky, spiritual Aang. Thinking back to Toph’s meeting with Iroh in “The Chase” before she knew who he was, it’s no surprise Aang was able to get along so well with him. Aside from their different backgrounds, Iroh and Aang are two of a kind. It just took the right situation to get them to interact in this way.
2. “Did I ever tell you how I got the nickname ‘The Dragon of the West?’”
Speaking of Iroh, here we get the most raw demonstration of his power yet. The dude can literally breathe fire. The few seconds of his fighting in the hallway against Azula’s Dai Li agents were great, and I wish we got to see a bit more of it before he zapped an escape hole in the wall. His fighting later in the episode also shows his raw firebending skill, able to single-handedly hold off hordes of Dai Li agents while the rest of the team escaped. All of this demonstrates his altruism as well, as his fighting is always done to protect those who are truly on the side of good.
3. Zuko, you disappointment.
This episode gave us one Zuko disappointment after another.
It makes sense. He’s finally gotten a chance to gain the one thing he’s wanted for years: his father’s approval. So of course he would take it, without realizing it’s not what he actually wants out of his life. The fact that it’s logical doesn’t make it better. It makes it all the more frustrating.
It goes from frustrating to heartbreaking as Iroh gives some last-minute advice, some final words to try and keep Zuko on the right path. But Zuko’s an honor junkie, jonesing for his next fix. He can’t see that it will never be enough.
4. Azula, you murderer!
In an episode full of shocking moments, perhaps the most shocking was at the end, where Aang finally achieves the Avatar State… only for Azula to strike him with lightning. She killed him. Straight up, no joke. Aang died. And since he was in the Avatar State, the entire Avatar cycle was broken. Good thing Katara had that Spirit Oasis water.
Past episodes never really talked about characters trying to kill Aang. As Zhao said back in “The Blue Spirit,” they knew that if he died, he’d just be reborn into a different nation, so it was best to keep him alive in captivity. So I wonder about Azula’s thinking behind this move. She’s not reckless. This had to be part of a bigger plan. Did she not mean to murder him? Did she somehow gain the intel that no more Avatars would exist if Aang was killed in the Avatar State? Did she expect the Avatar to be reborn into a water tribe, and trust in her own skills that she’d be able to kill the new Avatar when they were much younger than Aang? That last one seems the most likely, considering how powerful Aang has become and how he can only get more powerful from here. Better to deal with the situation in this lucky moment and then kill the future Avatars before they reach this level of power.
Continued belowI’m fairly certain we never get a definitive answer, but I guess it doesn’t matter in the end. Azula’s a monster. A cold, calculating monster.
5. It all falls down.
Since this is the last episode of season two — the “second act” of the series — things end in a suitably “end of Act 2” fashion. The world is at its lowest point. Our main character died and got sorta-resurrected. The one world superpower that could have stopped the Fire Nation has fallen to Azula. Iroh has been captured for treason. Zuko has gone back on all his positive development. And our heroes run away in tatters. All hope seems lost.
Structurally, you see this sort of thing often in long-form epic storytelling. The most obvious example is the end of “The Empire Strikes Back,” where all plots have reached their lowest point: Han is dead, Luke has lost his hand and learned Vader is his father, the surviving characters race off into the unknown, and it feels like there’s no coming back from here. This is also the structure most movies adopt over the course of a single movie, hitting the low point right at the end of act 2. But with everything as low as it can go, all the pieces are in place for an epic, earned comeback.
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Thus concludes season 2 of Avatar, my favorite season of my favorite piece of fiction. Thank you to all who have been reading. I’ll be back next year for Season 3. In the meantime, leave a comment and let’s talk Avatar!
