The Finale of Korra

Okay so I know this is way late. So instead of wasting your time further with excuses, let’s talk about the Korra finale double-whammy, “Skeletons in the Closet” and “Endgame”. Spoilers will abound.

In no particular order, my feelings:

I generally want to marry Asami. Or Lin Bei Fong. Or both of them.

The first episode was almost entirely Amon backstory, which was kind of tedious albeit necessary.

LUMPIN’ AVATAR STATE SAVED THE DAY. I FREAKING CALLED IT.  GRAH.

Tarlok pulled through liek woah in the end. I suppose I shall cease calling him Pooplok.

Iroh is, even as Zuko’s grandson, funnily named, although badass. I can’t tell what age he’s supposed to be, though, whether he’s a grownup or closer to Korra’s age.

I want to be friends with Uncle Bumi.

Mako better, better, freaking better have talked to Asami and broke it off offscreen before he went all love-confessiony on Korra. So irritating.

The finale was so, well, final.  And now I hear there’s gonna be a second season anyway—I’m glad about it but they’re going to have to make up an entirely newconflict because they wrapped up literally everything—Amon, Korra’s airbending (a total copout, imho), the relationship beefs, the lost bending of Korra and Lin Bei Fong and everyone else, everyyythinngggg.

Final season one thoughts: I quite liked this show. It had all of the things that I loved about A:tLA but was different enought that it wasn’t a carbon copy. I still am sort of annoyed by Korra because she seems to effortlessly get what she wants all the time.

This season, I like it. Another!

What did you all think?

The Review of Korra: Antepenultimate Edition

Someone somewhere else (maybe Crunchyroll?) used the word antepenultimate (as in before the second to last) to describe the tenth episode of Book One of Legend of Korra, and I thought that was awesome. So here goes:

I feel really bad for Asami. Mako is basically cheating on her, and it’s not like he’s known Korra any longer than he’s known Asami that Korra has some previous claim over him. I don’t like that it’s sort of being played like Asami’s the bad guy and we should feel bad for Mako. No. Mako needs to sack up and stop stringing these girls both along.

I continue to love Lin Bei Fong like burning. Tenzin’s kids are also amazing and ridiculous.

The scene with the council members being attacked confirmed for me that, even when talking and not just blindly agreeing with Tarrlock, they are idiots.

Smackdown of the episode is a tossup between the Airbender kids and Naga laying the beatdown on Mustache Guy. Nevermind, smackdown goes to Lin for destroying one and a half airships singlehandedly. Lin Bei Fong is the queen of my heart.

AAAH HELLO DANTE BASCO- I MEAN , GENERAL IROH, YOU MUST BE ZUKO’S BOY AND AREN’T YOU ADORABLE. (So much for my Mako is Zuko’s long-lost son theory… Also, Zuko has the child-naming imagination of Harry Potter, good goddamn…)

Things that are still a problem: Korra still doesn’t know how to airbend, and she’s no closer than she was in Episode Two.

Who are Mako and Bolin’s parents? Is that important at all? Do they have some secret magical heritage or are they just bog-standard orphans? (No one in fantasy is ever just a bog-standard orphan.)

Did Sokka (and I assume Suki, because in Avatar teen loves are forever loves) have a kid? Why haven’t they made an appearance? Everyone else’s kids have.

Picture is unrelated.

This episode’s Who Is Amon guess: I was banking on him being estranged Fire Nation royalty, but Iroh’s appearance has filled our Zuko’s-family quota. Maybe Azula eventually bucked the cray-cray and had a kid? I’m stuck with my energybending cyborg theory.

Wish list for the finale:

• Let there be a season two, and don’t rush all of the plot into the finale. There is no reasonable way that Korra will master airbending in these last two episodes, so don’t focus on that.
• Resolve the relationship stupidity in a way that a) doesn’t estrange Asami, b) gives Mako his due share of the blame, and c) doesn’t spare Korra’s feelings. She has a bit of an internalized I’m-the-Avatar-gimme-gimme sense of entitlement on top of the standard-for-any-crush feeling of no matter how much you like the other woman, the guy would be better with you, and she needs to get over it.
• Let Korra (and Bolin, etc) grow as a character in general. One of the greatest things about the original series was the character depth – Sokka was the goofball, but a brilliant strategist. Katara was the sweet, principled, naive character who bloodbent when she had to. This is what made them interesting. Korra, Bolin, and Mako to a point are all still pretty two-dimensional for me.
• I read a really interesting theory on tumblr: because their energybendings are different, Amon’s is reversible. But only if the blocked bender is confident it can be reversed. The more they panic and are depressed about it, the less able they would be to reverse it. Please to be employing this or some other equally awesome and intricate theory to give Lin her bending back. (I’m sure she’ll still be kickass without it, but whatever.)

 

Avatar: The Review of Korra—The Catch-up Edition

I am so behind on Legend of Korra, you guys, but here I am finally catching up. Let me share my feels with you.

:O <–My face when I realized this stonecold badass was grownup Sokka.

Episode 6: Boy am I glad that they got the relationship drama episode out of the way so that we can move on with our lives. This episode was obnoxiously plotty and I loved it. I was surprised they moved past the pro-bending finals and onto the Amon business so quickly, but hell, they really were asking for him to attack.

This episode’s Who Is Amon guess: Still stuck on Son of Cabbages Guy. CABBAGECORP, YOUGAIZ.

Go Team!

Episode 7: Thank you, Avatars past, for allowing Asami to finally be badass. She drives like a boss and has killer karate moves. And with her father’s coming to light as an Amon supporter and her rejection of him, we finally have a cohesive and trusting Team Avatar. Yay! Side notes: New LOK OTP is Korrasami. Dat look on Korra’s face when Asami whipped out her ka-ra-tay. Just sayin’. Also, dear Lin Bei Fong: I love you, never change.

This episode’s Who Is Amon guess: Not sure. CEO Cabbages Guy seems more like a backer in the way Hiroshi is (if he’s even involved and wasn’t framed.)

Great face or greatest face?

Episode 8: This episode was filled with some serious McCarthy-level shit. Tarrlock is way out of line. At this point I’m becoming a supporter of the idea of Team Avatar going underground and helping Lin Bei Fong take out Amon. Except for the whole Korra-still-needs-to-learn-airbending thing. That presents a problem. Although with Korra captured and the rest of Team Avatar imprisoned, who knows what is going to happen next? Side note: the personality-less other three council members are starting to grate on my nerves. They always agree with Tarrlock no matter what. Also, Korra is righteously angry all the time. Why hasn’t she gone Avatar-state yet? Maybe next episode.

This episode’s Who Is Amon guess: Tarrlock. What better way to turn unaligned non-benders against all benders than to have bender authority figures arbitrarily and indefinitely imprison great swathes of them? Also, this would make it easy for Korra to undermine his follower base in the end—by revealing him to be a bender as well. Or maybe I just hate Tarrlock a lot.

Episode 9: YAY Lin Bei Fong! You are the baddest of badasses. Also,Tarrlock is a skeezy, nastyfaced grossjerk and I’m not sad he can’t bend anymore. I’m proud of Korra for rescuing herself, and for finally getting through to the memories Aang wanted her to see. Also exciting: seeing the grown-up Gaang kicking ass and taking names. Still no Avatar state from Korra, but perhaps she’ll figure out energybending from Aang and fix the borked benders? We’ll see, I guess. Side note: Even all grown up, Sokka still can’t leave his boomerang out of conversation. Also, will we ever find out why Yakon and son can bloodbend all weirdly, or are we just gonna have to assume it’s a bending quirk?

This episode’s Who Is Amon guess: Well, I guess I just hate Tarrlock (nicknames suggested by my brother: Tarrpoop? Pooplock?) a lot because he can’t be Amon. New guess: Amon is a cyborg since the bloodbending only partly affected him. STEAMPUNK (PART-)ROBOT OVERLORD? You decide!

Your thoughts, Korra watchers?