1x03 The Revelation

[8.5/10] So, we’ve introduced the new hero and her mentor. We’ve introduced her new sidekicks. Now it’s time to introduce the villain.

And what an introduction! Amon has a presence from his steely calm, talk of revolution, and, unexpectedly, his energy-bending abilities. AtLA fans know that Aang was the first person since ancient ancient times to energy-bend someone, so the fact that this guy can do it relatively easily, and with grace and style to boot, immediately marks him as a unique threat on the show.

Then again, everyone seems a little more advanced as a baseline in LoK. You have entire squads of metal benders after Toph was the first person to do that (as far as we know -- nice to know her metal-bending school bore fruit). Azula and Ozai were the only lightning benders we saw in Avatar, and now there’s enough of them to work shifts in a Republic City power plant (which is a cool detail, by the way).

What’s interesting about “The Revelation” then is that it paints Amon as a bad guy, but also as a little understandable, and his cause a little sympathetic. What’s interesting about the episode is that it ties Amon and Mako together. Both of them lost their parents to firebenders when they were very young, and yet they seem to have taken two entirely different paths, with Mako embracing firebending himself and remaining seemingly noble and stoic, while Amon is vengeful with a certain flair for the theatrical.

(Random prediction: the firebender who mugged Mako’s parents and who hurt Amon’s parents is one and the same, and we’ll meet him at some later point in the series. It’s kind of funny that the show basically cast Mako as Batman here, and I’ll be curious to see if they go Batman Returns and make his parents’ murderer the big bad. Also, Mako’s story about a firebender getting involved at his parents’ farm sounds a lot like a fractured account of “Zuko Alone” from AtLA. I wonder if there’s any connection.)

But Amon and The Equalists’ arguments have a certain intuitive appeal to them. This being an adventure show, something tells me his energy bending is a part of some larger plot, but he’s not going against police officers or spiritual leaders or The Avatar; he’s going against mobsters, the very sort of people whom Korra was roughing up for threatenings innocent shopkeeps in the series premiere. His cause, or at least the way he pursues it in the early going, seems just enough.

There’s something to the notion that the normal people of Republic City live under the yoke of their bending brethren, and depending on them to be safe. It’s natural that people would want to use technology like chi-blockers and electric sticks to try to even the odds, to not be dependent on The Avatar and others for their safety and well-being. Obviously we see Amon’s henchmen as well-trained thugs roughing up our heroes, but there’s an interesting complexity to their position, and understandable quality to their perspective, that makes Amon novel as an antagonist.

But as neat as those ideas are, there’s two ideas that really put “The Revelation” over the top as a great episode. The first is that it tells a really compelling and tightly-written story. Having Bolin take a muscle job to make the money to compete in the championship, and then having Korra and Mako hunt him down, works really well as a story engine.

It also makes for a nice, almost noir-ish mystery and progression. The episode builds nicely, with the pair following a tip from a local moppet leading to a flare up with the local goons. Then they stalk the soapbox Equalist activist from the series’ first episode when their initial effort fails. And then they use the clues they glean from him to piece together where Amon’s “Revelation” is going down and we get a nice little infilitration and rescue story. It’s tightly paced, with enough quieter moments for things like Mako’s backstory or Amon’s speech, and enough high-paced action to keep things interesting.

And wow, what action! Avatar had already upped its game considerably from its first season to its finale, but Legend of Korra seems to have taken the design and animation work up a notch still. The motorcycle chase with Korra and the local goons was a treat (though again, the integration between the hand-drawn stuff and the CGI buildings was a little disjointed.) The fights themselves, though a touch herky jerky, were well-staged and immediately distinguished the fighting styles of the men in hoods. There was almost a roto-scoped sense of the rhythms of their strikes and dodges.

That carried on into the skirmish between Amon and the Lightning mobster, with Amon’s fluidity and chi-blocking pressure point attacks immediately distinguishing him as a clear threat despite the fact that he lacks any bending abilities himself. The very notion of taking away someone’s bending abilities feels so significant, both because it means he poses more than a typical threat to our new Team Avatar, but also because it feels like taking away something holy, of de-spiritualizing someone, given the significance bending philosophy holds in the World of Avatar.

If that weren’t enough, we get a chance for Naga to take her place alongside Appa as a great Avatar familiar, balancing the line between being cute and fluffy when needed, but also teeth-baring and defensive as necessary too. We’re also introduced to Pabu, Bolin’s pet fire-ferret, who I imagine is our new Mono. And the episode also hinted heavily toward Korra and Mako as a couple. I don’t really feel the chemistry between them, but then that’s not unusual for me and main Avatar couples, so we shall have to see.

Overall though, this was a rollicking installment of The Legend of Kora. It had incredible animation that showed off the potential this show has in the action department. It told a well-paced story about a mystery with plenty of stakes and room to motivate our heroes. ANd most importantly, it developed two of what seem to be the show’s major characters, making Mako more comprehensible as an ally, and Amon more comprehensible as a threat. That’s no small feat for twenty-four minutes, and it speaks well of the show to deliver this much this well so early in the series.