2x05 Peacekeepers

[7.3/10] Making your character flawed is a good thing, or at least a bold thing, and I’d like to think that’s what TLoK is going for here. Korra is headstrong and young and impulsive and so it makes sense in some way that she would throw her lot in wholeheartedly with Unalaq at first and then have the fervency of both a convert and penitent when she turn around and sides with the Southern Water Tribe.

But man, it’s kind of frustrating as a viewer to have her be so obviously myopic. I imagine part of the lesson Korra is supposed to learn this season involves having to maintain a certain discipline, detachment, and neutrality as The Avatar to avoid being seen to show favoritism or change direction like a weathervane in a windstorm, but it’s bothersome as a fan of the character to watch her be (a.) so obviously biased and unobjective when it comes to who’s responsible for bad things that happen and who has a point and (b.) so lacking in understanding that people don’t immediately take her side.

Which brings me to an interesting change of heart for me about Mako. Mako seemed like a pretty bland generic love interest/ally last season, which made me roll my eyes at a lot of his shtick. But I really like the personality he’s developed this season, as someone who challenges Korra to see the other side of things, not jump to conclusions, and take a moment to think things through. The conflict between his loyalty to Korra and his loyalty to his job is a bit of a trope, but I like him having his honor and not wanting to lie to the President of the United Republic when asked a direct question. He pays the price for it (and Lynn’s exclamation of “what the flameo happened here” and remembrance of what she did to Air Island when Tenzin broke up with her were amusing codas), but I like that he shows some backbone and perspective, the latter of which Korra seems to have been missing this season.

We also get some plot development. Again, I’ve been wrong with like, every prediction for this show, but my supposition is that Varick is organizing some false flag terrorism in Republic City, specifically the bombing of the Water Tribe cultural center, not to mention paying off the cops who jerk Mako around, so that he can (a.) gin up support for the Southern cause and (b.) make money selling weapons and supplies to both sides. Regardless of who’s the cause, it seems clear that the bombing during the march was a setup, and Korra’s inability to see that adds to her myopia.

We also get Bolin hanging out with Varick. I like that the show seems to be taking a page out of Inglourious Basterds’s book with Bolin starring in one of Varick’s propaganda films. Bolin getting cheap pops from the pro bending crowd was an amusing scene, and despite my suspicions, Varick is an entertaining presence.

We also get a pretty amazing fight at the end. Watching Korra square off against her cousins from the North on the high sea had some exciting water-based action. But more than that, the sea spirit that attacked her and then swallowed her whole, Jonah-style, was all kinds of cool-looking. Again, I’m loving the design of the spirit demons, and the way they move and warp is very visually striking.

It may also be that I’m just knee-deep in Game of Thrones right now, but there’s something that feels very of a piece with that show too. You have the internal struggles for power and games of politics being played, while this more magical, mystical, and nigh unstoppable force threatens everyone as well and few seem to be focused on it.

Still, I think my favorite part of the episode may be the C-story about Tenzin helping Meelo train his lemur, Pokey. Meelo and Pokey are just adorable together, and Pokey’s puppydog-eye look when Meelo tells him he has to sleep on the floor (and Tenzin’s insistence) is cutely heartbreaking. As trifling as it seems, I’m pretty sure I would watch a show that’s basically a 90s Miller-Boyette sitcom of Tenzin’s parenting misadventures. The development that Meelo turns out to be a master trainer with a natural affinity for animals (something he gets from his grandfather, presumably) is a nice twist at the end.

Overall, a solid episode, and the prospect of meeting the new Fire Lord is an exciting one!

So Korra, after not getting her way via the democratic system has reverted to hiring the Fire Nation as her own PMC to fight the Northern Water Tribe, funded and armed by Asami's weapons company, the same company we were chastising last season for

[checks notes]

...selling weapons to an active terrorist organisation as they'd not got their viewpoint heard through the democratic powers that be. So it's OK when Korra does it, but not the "bad guys"? This show really needs to figure out its messaging.

Korra is insufferable in this show. Rather than listening and reasoning with anyone that opposes her, she acts out immediately with rash action and reckless abandon. Only when faced with the consequences of her actions does she finally calm down and take time to process what she's done. By which point she's usually gone nuclear and forced her way anyway.

Her boyfriend tells the police of her intention to hire a PMC and start a war against the North personally and she screams about allegiances, "taking sides" and "going behind her back". Korra, you're literally an extremist, your boyfriend can tell the powers that be that you're possibly about to start a nationwide war because you're upset.

I'm struggling to stick this one out because the titular character is one of the least likable I've come across, especially in YA media such as this. We're supposed to be rooting for Korra and her growth, her journey from brash child to grounded adult, but there isn't even a hint of her growing and developing across the two seasons so far. She's still the bullish idiot we've had since day one.

I love the show for tackling pretty heavy themes and concepts for what it is, but its characters are so one dimensional it's actively dragging down the topics and giving them no room to expand or breath.

I'm not going to be shocked if Korra uses the power of the Avatar to just carpet bomb the entire North, and the show will frame it as a victory.