7.0/10. Solid enough episode. It's nice to see Katara be shown as a little bit flawed and not just and endlessly trusting, endlessly supportive sidekick. The fact that she was frustrated by Aang having waterbending come so naturally to him when she had to struggle so much to reach her meager level of mastery was a nice, human moment from her. Still, it was a bit cheesy that in the end, it was her and Aang's combined waterbending skills that got the pirate ship out of the harbor and stopped it from going down the falls long enough for Appa to save them.
And my lord, the fight with the pirates went on forever. It was done well enough, with the hand-to-hand combat stuff fading into a big water-bound chase, but it was just nothing but undifferentiated action that felt like it needed another quiet moment or two to get the pacing right. There was nothing wrong with the episode exactly, and Uncle Iroh dragging Prince Zuko around for a minor game tile was good for a few laughs, but for the most part this one felt like solid but unspectacular filler.
But hey, I've slowly but surely realized that I'm endeared to Appa because he reminds me a lot of my cat, so that's something! Still, mostly a filler episode, albeit a perfectly fine one.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2016-11-18T05:52:44Z
7.0/10. Solid enough episode. It's nice to see Katara be shown as a little bit flawed and not just and endlessly trusting, endlessly supportive sidekick. The fact that she was frustrated by Aang having waterbending come so naturally to him when she had to struggle so much to reach her meager level of mastery was a nice, human moment from her. Still, it was a bit cheesy that in the end, it was her and Aang's combined waterbending skills that got the pirate ship out of the harbor and stopped it from going down the falls long enough for Appa to save them.
And my lord, the fight with the pirates went on forever. It was done well enough, with the hand-to-hand combat stuff fading into a big water-bound chase, but it was just nothing but undifferentiated action that felt like it needed another quiet moment or two to get the pacing right. There was nothing wrong with the episode exactly, and Uncle Iroh dragging Prince Zuko around for a minor game tile was good for a few laughs, but for the most part this one felt like solid but unspectacular filler.
But hey, I've slowly but surely realized that I'm endeared to Appa because he reminds me a lot of my cat, so that's something! Still, mostly a filler episode, albeit a perfectly fine one.