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.)
