"We were on this ship and there was this booby trap and...well...we boobied right into it."
Katara- "Why didn't you tell us you were the Avatar" Aang "because I never wanted to be."- Typical "refusal of the call. Part of what I like about this series is how many times Aang refuses and fails the Call to Action. Its the same in the Legend of Korra and is more realistic than the usual heroes journey outline.
I'm never getting over just how fucking cool airbending is. Aang wasting a whole fire nation ship with his ands tied behind his back is such a goat move. Never forget he became an airbending MASTER at age 12
“So...I guess you’ve never fought an air bender before. I bet I could take you both with my hands tied behind my back.”
I really love the exagerrated facial expressions and choreography.
If the first episode was about setting up the initial dynamics (the trio's friendship, Katara and Sokka's sibling rivalry, Zuko's obsession with the Avatar, etc), this is about immediately throwing a wrench into the mix. Keeping the reveal of the Avatar to this episode is a very smart move, as while it's not shocking to us, it allows the cast to actually have some time to process the reveal as opposed to rushing into it early on. Because of that, the episode is less about character setup and more about plot setup.
And because of that, the episode moves at a clip, feeling very much like the second part of a two-parter (of which this is of course), but this isn't a bad thing for it's overall quality. Instead, the episode uses this to showcase it's incredibly creative action sequences and animation, both of which are great and yet will only get better with time. It's a fantastic second part to a fantastic series premiere, and it's only about to get better from here.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2016-10-31T22:01:16Z
5.7/10. This one was a little better than the pilot (though the pacing makes me think the two episodes were meant to be viewed as a whole.) The boost mostly comes from seeing Aang use his powers a bit, which allows the show to succeed visually while it still feels a bit rudimentary in terms of its characters. There's still a lot of that herky-jerky quality to the animation which throws me off, but the scenes where Aang uses his wind powers to disarm his captors "with [his] arms tied behind [his] back" had a fluidity and creativity that helped make up for less flattering bits like silly side effects and characters nigh-instantly having changes of heart.
Again, I find myself liking the idea of the story told in these two episodes than the execution. The notion of a "chosen one" who didn't want to be the chosen one has a lot of potential (this series, once again, makes me think of Harry Potter), and while it's been done, I also appreciate that while Aang's air powers come naturally to him, his Avatar powers play by Last Unicorn rules, where he can't quite control them or choose when they happen, and they take a lot of him to boot. The childishness that makes the character interesting -- someone with untold power and yet the mind and perspective of a typically hyperactive twelve-year-old--can also make him kind of annoying from moment-to-moment.
To that end, the voice acting on the show isn't great. Again, the sporadic stiltedness of the animation doesn't help, but there's an overexaggerated quality to many of the line readings that makes me feel, once more, like I'm watching an old G.I. Joe cartoon rather than something made in the new millennium. Katara is a major offender here, and while I like the idea of her taking a stand, the whole village turning against her and Aang so quickly, and then changing their tune just as fast when they learn he's the Avatar, is all very rushed and thus emotionally unsatisfying, something that the middling-at-best voice acting can't really save. I do appreciate that Sokka's characterization is a little less stock here, even if he gets a bog-standard "coming around to the good guys" arc here.
Overall, a slight improvement on the show's first installment, but a lot of shaggier elements that make me hope the show is still just finding its voice.
(Oh, and a blind guess, but Since Aang is an airbender, Katara is a waterbender, and the evil prince is a firebender, the law of conservation of characters suggests to me that at some point, Sokka becomes an earthbender.)