Nickelodeon’s ‘The Legend of Korra’, the sequel series ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’, premiered its hour-long season one finale Saturday, June 23, 2012 with the two-part epic, “Skeletons in the Closet” and “Endgame.”

Major spoilers ahead for the finale as well as the entire first season.

Seventy years after Aang and his friends defeated Fire Lord Ozai, Korra (Janet Varney) is the newest Avatar and is training in Republic City to master airbending with Aang’s son, Tenzin (J.K. Simmons). She is also friends with Mako (David Faustino), a Firebender, and his brother Bolin (P.J. Byrne), an Earthbender. The three play on a team, the Fire Ferrets, in a competition known as pro-bending. Right now, Korra and her friends are embroiled in a struggle with Amon (Steve Blum), leader of the Equalists, who has developed the ability to remove a person’s bending permanently. He wants to conquer Republic City and destroy everyone’s bending abilities.

In the previous episode, Amon declared war on Republic City and began attacking its citizens with airships. Tenzin took his family away from Air Temple Island while Lin Bei Fong (Mindy Sterling) fended off their pursuers, losing her bending ability in a selfless act to save them. Korra and her friends have been hiding underground in a colony for the homeless as they await the arrival of reinforcements led by General Iroh (Dante Basco), grandson of Zuko.

General Iroh’s battleships reach the city but the airships have been replaced with airplanes, which easily dominate the battlefield. Korra intervenes and manages to destroy the fleet, but she and Mako learn that there are more of them on the way. General Iroh sends word to his brother Bumi to send more troops while Korra and Mako head up into the city to take Amon head on at a rally.

While waiting to confront Amon, Korra and Mako find Tarrlok (Dee Bradley Baker) imprisoned. He reveals that Amon is actually his brother, formerly known as Noatak. They had been raised by the evil bloodbender Yakone to become bloodbenders as well, but as he continued forcing the two brothers to bloodbend, Noatak became angry and resentful of them both. He snapped and ran away from home while Tarrlok grew up alone, thinking his brother had died in a snowstorm.

Korra and Mako attend the Equalist rally and tell Amon’s followers that he is actually a waterbender, but no one believes them. Amon reveals that he has captured Tenzin and his family and Korra and Mako rescue them.

Meanwhile, Bolin, Asami (Seychelle Gabriel), and General Iroh head to the airfield to destroy the remaining airplanes in Amon’s army. With some difficulty, they are able to tear up the airfield and Asami defeats her father, who had been working for Amon.

Amon chases Korra and Mako through the pro-bending arena and after a vicious fight, he removes Korra’s bending. Mako manages to injure him and tries to get the both of them to safety, but Amon corners him and just as he tries to take Mako’s bending, Korra unleashes her airbending. He falls into the water outside around his followers and in his enraged state, he exposes his waterbending. Most of his followers give up on the cause and he lets Tarrlok out of his prison and escapes. While fleeing Republic City, Tarrlok explodes the boat, presumably killing them both because they have nowhere left to go.

Korra is taken back to the Air Temple to be examined and Katara admits that she cannot restore her bending. Korra is heartbroken and Mako tries to console her, revealing that he is in love with her. Korra runs off alone and in her despair, she contacts Aang in the Avatar state and he is able to restore her bending. She and Mako admit their love for each other and the season ends there.

The finale is a heart-stopping ride, to say the least. Every scene has a deep emotional impact on the characters as well as the audience. It is by far one of the most adult-oriented episodes as well because it deals with child abuse, war, and an onscreen murder-suicide, which may cause some parents dismay as they watch with their children. However, because these issues are handled with exceptional care and expert writing, the finale ends up being one of the most powerful in the show’s history.

Furthermore, while Mako has been receiving heavy criticism from the fans for his actions in the season so far, his utter devotion to Korra in the finale is simply amazing. He fights his hardest to stop Amon, and even when he fails, he still manages to save Korra, nearly dying trying to get her to safety.  If nothing else, his sacrifice and love for Korra deepen the bond between them more than words can say.

While the finale is excellent, the biggest flaw is the last minute restoration of Korra’s bending. This problem is largely due to time constraints and episode limits. Because the first season is only twelve episodes long, the writers have had to condense the story and rush the ending in order to resolve the lingering problem with Korra. Some fans have been waiting all season long to see Korra reach the Avatar state and converse with her other reincarnations, and so some feel cheated that they did not get to fully enjoy it. Plus, Korra’s restoration happens in less than a minute so it feels like a cop out as she didn’t have a long time to deal with only being able to airbend.

Still, even with its problems, the season finale of Korra is a magnificent ending to an already stellar show. Season two has already been written and is currently being animated, set for a release sometime in 2013.

Grade: 4/5

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Nickelodeon’s ‘The Legend of Korra’, sequel series to the hit show ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’, continued Saturday, June 16, 2012 with its tenth episode, “Turning the Tides.”

Spoiler alert!

Seventy years after Aang and his friends defeated Fire Lord Ozai, Korra (Janet Varney) is the newest Avatar and is training in Republic City to master airbending with Aang’s son, Tenzin (J.K. Simmons). She is also friends with Mako (David Faustino), a Firebender, and his brother Bolin (P.J. Byrne), an Earthbender, and plays on their team, the Fire Ferrets, in a competition known as pro-bending. Right now, Korra and her friends are embroiled in a struggle with Amon (Steve Blum), leader of the Equalists, who has developed the ability to remove a person’s bending permanently. He wants to conquer Republic City and destroy everyone’s bending abilities.

Meanwhile, Councilman Tarrlok (Dee Bradley Baker) has been waging his own war with the non-benders, thus causing he and Korra to butt heads. When Korra confronted him for wrongfully imprisoning her friends, he kidnapped her and lied about it, saying that Amon captured her. However, former Chief of Police Lin Bei Fong (Mindy Sterling) broke Korra’s friends out of jail and brought Tenzin along to discover the truth. Once discovered, Tarrlok fled Republic City, intending to take Korra with him, but then Amon showed up and took his bending away. Korra narrowly escaped Amon’s clutches and returned to Republic City, where her friends soon found her.

The tenth episode picks up with Korra recovering from her ordeal with both Tarrlok and Amon. She tells Tenzin and her friends what happened, leading them to believe that Amon’s actions are escalating towards his end game. Tenzin sets up a meeting with the city council to figure out how to stop him.

Meanwhile, Asami (Seychelle Gabriel), Mako’s girlfriend, has begun to get agitated with all the attention Mako bestows on Korra. She confronts him and demands to know if he likes Korra in a romantic sense, but Mako stresses that there is not enough time to argue when the entire city is in danger. This argument puts the two of them at odds with each other and the tension becomes so thick that even Korra later notices it.

When Tenzin heads to the council meeting, several Equalists attempt to capture him as they already captured the other council members, but Korra and her friends intervene. Seconds later, Amon leads several huge airships to begin a siege of Republic City. One of the airships heads towards the Air Temple, where Tenzin’s family lives, and they all rush back to help. Lin Bei Fong and Tenzin’s family fight off the Equalists, but more of them are coming. Tenzin sends a message to a nearby Fire Nation city for help while he takes his family to safety. He tells Korra and her friends to stay hidden in the city until the Fire Nation army arrives to help. As they leave, two airships follow them and Lin jumps off to stop them. She destroys one of the airships, but gets captured before she can stop the second one. She is brought before Amon and when she refuses to give up Korra’s location, Amon takes away her bending.

Only moments after this tragedy, the Fire Nation city responds to Tenzin’s message and sends their troops led by General Iroh (Dante Basco), son of Zuko. They are set to arrive in Republic City in three days to confront Amon and bring him to justice.

This episode is by far one of the most emotional in the first season. The escalation of the war between benders and non-benders as well as between the characters is built with ultimate precision. The dynamics of their relationships are changing as a result of constantly being in danger. By far, the most heartbreaking moment is when Lin’s earthbending is taken away from her. Her sacrifice to save Tenzin’s family is one of the most admirable actions in the entire series.

Furthermore, the action sequences are as astounding as always. The animation style lends itself to some of the most visually stunning fights one can be graced to witness. It was particularly satisfying to see Tenzin in action as he defended himself against the Equalists in their mecha suits. Tenzin always teaches peace and understanding, but like his father Aang, he is ready to defend the innocent and fight oppression.

The only thing that detracts from the quality of the episode is the continued lack of attention paid to Bolin. Because the Asami/Mako/Korra love triangle is so prominent, Bolin has been unable to get much screen time in the past few episodes. This is understandable, but also unfortunate as Bolin is a fabulously entertaining character and deserves more screen time.

The hour-long season one finale of ‘Korra’ is slated for June 23, 2012 at 11am EST. All of the events in the show have led up to this and you will not want to miss out. Be there.

Grade: 5/5

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Nickelodeon’s ‘The Legend of Korra’ (2012), the sequel to ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ (2005), premiered its ninth episode, “Out of the Past”, on June 9, 2012.

Spoiler alert!

Seventy years after Aang and his friends defeated Fire Lord Ozai, Korra (Janet Varney) is the newest Avatar and is training in Republic City to master airbending with Aang’s son, Tenzin (J.K. Simmons). She is also friends with Mako (David Faustino), a Firebender, and his brother Bolin (P.J. Byrne), an Earthbender, and plays on their team, the Fire Ferrets, in a competition known as pro-bending. Right now, Korra and her friends are embroiled in a struggle with Amon (Steve Blum), leader of the Equalists, who has developed the ability to remove a person’s bending permanently. He wants to conquer Republic City and destroy everyone’s bending abilities. Meanwhile, Councilman Tarrlok (Dee Bradley Baker) has been waging his own war with the non-benders, thus butting heads with Korra.

In the previous episode, “When Extremes Meet”, Tarrlok wrongfully imprisoned Mako, Bolin, and Asami (Seychelle Gabriel), Mako’s girlfriend, and Korra went to his office late that night to demand that they be set free. When Tarrlok refused, the two engaged in a brutal fight and Tarrlok only won because he revealed that he is a bloodbender. He kidnapped Korra and threw her in the back of a police car, driving her miles away from the city.

In “Out of the Past”, Tenzin finds out that Korra has gone missing. When he confronts Tarrlok, the councilman lies and says that Equalists kidnapped Korra. When former police chief Lin Bei Fong (Mindy Sterling) hears that the Avatar has been kidnapped, she gears up and breaks Korra’s friends out of jail and joins with Tenzin to go find Korra as well as her kidnapped police officers, whom Amon captured in an earlier episode.

Meanwhile, Korra, who is trapped in a cage in an abandoned house miles outside of Republic City, heeds Tenzin’s words and meditates in order to figure out what the past Avatar, Aang, has been trying to tell her. She discovers that a vicious criminal named Yakone (Clancy Brown) had been menacing Republic City with his bloodbending back when Aang and his friends were adults. He was put on trial and found guilty, but then he attacked the entire courtroom and tried to escape. Aang gave chase and just barely managed to stop him by taking away his bending.

Bei Fong and Korra’s friends find a tunnel beneath Republic City where the Equalists are holding the kidnapped police officers. However, they find that Korra isn’t there and realize that Tarrlok lied. They free the officers and confront Tarrlok, who continues lying, but his assistant reveals that he saw Tarrlok kidnap Korra. This forces Tarrlok to bloodbend the group and run away to go ransom Korra off. However, when he arrives, Amon and the Equalists burst in to capture Korra for themselves. Tarrlok tries to bloodbend Amon but it doesn’t work and Amon removes his bending and captures him. Korra manages to bust out of her cage and escapes. Her polar bear-dog Naga finds her and takes her back to Republic City where her friends get her to safety.

Like the episode before it, this episode is outstanding. The dramatic tension between the new Team Avatar, as Bolin coined them, Tarrlok, and the Equalists, is executed perfectly. Everything builds towards a truly exciting conclusion and leaves tons of problems in its wake. Almost everyone got their moment to shine as they searched for Korra and continued digging for the truth about Tarrlok. Furthermore, the reveal that bloodbending does not work on Amon sent the entire fandom into a frenzy with wild theories about just who and what Amon really is.

It was particularly nice to see Aang, Sokka, and Toph as adults who still share the same level of respect and friendship as they did when they were children. The flashbacks manage to remind us of who they are and how they have changed while still giving an air of familiarity. Fans were especially delighted upon the reveal that Tarrlok was Yakone’s son, as many of them held this theory when they found out he could bloodbend.

This episode also increased the romantic tension between Mako and Korra as Mako was desperate to find Korra and treated her with an amazing amount of tenderness when he finally found her. Bolin told Asami that Mako and Korra had once kissed, so there will definitely be some emotional drama in the next three episodes that remain in the season.

If the preview for the finale is any indication, ‘The Legend of Korra’s’ first season will be just as awesome and heartwrenching as the first season of ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender.’ Fans are eagerly awaiting the finale’s one-hour premiere June 23, 2012.

‘The Legend of Korra’ premieres Saturdays at 11a.m. EST. Be there.

Grade: 5/5

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Nickelodeon’s hit show ‘The Legend of Korra’ (2012), the sequel series to ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ (2005), returned from its two week break with the eighth episode, “When Extremes Meet,” on June 3, 2012.

Spoiler alert!

Seventy years after Aang and his friends defeated Fire Lord Ozai, Korra (Janet Varney) is the newest Avatar and is training in Republic City to master airbending with Aang’s son, Tenzin (J.K. Simmons). Korra is also friends with Mako (David Faustino), a Firebender, and his brother Bolin (P.J. Byrne), an Earthbender, and plays on their team, the Fire Ferrets, in a competition known as pro-bending. In this game, teams compete to knock each other out of a ring using their bending.

In previous episodes, the leader of the anti-bending movement, Amon (Steve Blum) destroyed the pro-bending arena, leaving Mako and Bolin homeless. Mako’s girlfriend and daughter of the inventor of Satomobiles, Asami Sato (Seychelle Gabriel), offered to let them stay at her mansion, but Korra, Tenzin, and Chief Lin Bei Fong (Mindy Sterling) discovered her father, Hiroshi Sato, was working for Amon. Thus, Asami rejected her father and they all have decided to stay with Korra on the air temple island.

Tenzin’s daughters and son, Ikki, Jinora, and Meelo, help the Fire Ferrets get acquainted with the island when they arrive, but unfortunately, this doesn’t go as well as Korra hoped. Ikki blurts out that Korra has a crush on Mako to Asami, and while Asami does not address this, there is now underlying tension between the two ladies.

Meanwhile, the slimy Councilman Tarrlok  (Dee Bradley Baker) has appointed a new Chief of Police after Bei Fong resigned so she could work independently to rescue the officers Amon captured in their last battle. He then gets the city council to allow him to issue a curfew for all non-benders in an effort to stop the Equalists, or people who support Amon, much to Korra and Tenzin’s frustration.

Korra is also upset because she has still been unable to airbend, but Mako, Bolin, and Asami cheer her up by offering to help her patrol Republic City. While out, they catch a group of chi-blockers and Equalists and turn them in, much to Tarrlok’s annoyance. On another night, Korra and company find out Tarrlok has shut off the power to the homes of non-benders, causing them to protest in anger. She tries to intervene, but Tarrlok’s officers take her friends hostage. She and Tenzin go to the prison the next morning, but the Chief of Police refuses to release them.

Angered, Korra bursts into Tarrlok’s office that night and demands to have her friends freed. Tarrlok offers to free them if Korra returns to working with his taskforce, but she refuses. The two engage in a brutal, heated battle. When Korra gets the upperhand, Tarrlok reveals that he can bloodbend—or control the water in Korra’s body so that she can’t move. He kidnaps her and throws her in the back of a police car, driving her outside the city limits and thus raising the stakes.

This episode is definitely one of the best of the Korra season. The drama is gripping and sometimes downright terrifying, especially when Tarrlok bloodbends Korra’s body. The tension building between the good guys and the bad guys is well executed, and the stakes are very real. Everything feels like a natural progression towards the season finale, which is only several weeks away.

However, there was one drawback that I noted and it is similar to previous complaints I have had about the show. Since ‘Korra’ is shorter than ‘Avatar’, it has to take shortcuts with certain character arcs and dramatic moments. I did not like that Ikki just blurted out that Korra likes Mako for the sake of making Asami suspicious and jealous of the two friends.

I would have preferred her to find this out on her own because Asami is the least developed character in the series so far. She is beautiful, strong and kind, but that is still about all we know about her. She is a bit of a boring character and so seeing her catch on to the little smiles and mild flirting between Korra and Mako on her own would make her seem more perceptive, and therefore, more developed.

‘The Legend of Korra’ premieres Saturdays at 11a.m. EST. Be there.

Grade: 5/5

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Nickelodeon’s hit show ‘The Legend of Korra’ (2012), the sequel series to ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ (2005), continued Saturday, May 19, 2012, at 11 a.m. EST with its seventh episode, “The Aftermath.”

Spoiler alert!

Seventy years after Aang and his friends defeated Fire Lord Ozai, Korra (Janet Varney) is the newest Avatar and is training in Republic City to master airbending with Aang’s son, Tenzin (J.K. Simmons). She is also friends with Mako (David Faustino), a Firebender, and his brother Bolin (P.J. Byrne), an Earthbender, and plays on their team, the Fire Ferrets, in a competition known as pro-bending. In this game, teams compete to knock each other out of a ring using their bending.

In the previous episode, directly after the pro-bending championship between the Wolfbats and the Fire Ferrets, in which the Ferrets lost due to the Wolfbats’ cheating, the leader of the anti-bending movement, Amon (Steve Blum), burst in and attacked all of the players as well as the police officers. Amon had learned a technique that removes a person’s bending permanently, and he took away the Wolfbats’ bending powers, promising that he would do more to “help” the non-benders of Republic City.

In “The Aftermath”, the arena is mostly destroyed, meaning Mako and Bolin will have to move out as it had been their home. Korra arrives to tell them they can stay with her, but it turns out Mako’s girlfriend, Asami Sato (Seychelle Gabriel), daughter of automobile titan Hiroshi Sato, has offered to let the brothers stay at her place. Korra later visits them at the mansion and learns there is a little more to Asami than her money and her looks. She can drag race and she knows self-defense.

However, Korra overhears her father on the phone and is led to believe Sato is working with the Equalists, Amon’s anti-bending group. She goes to Tenzin and the Chief of Police, Lin Bei Fong (Mindy Sterling), to tell them what she heard. Bei Fong starts an investigation on Sato’s estate, which angers both Asami and Mako. Mako tells Korra to drop the issue or they will no longer be friends, but Korra trusts her instincts and pushes onward.

They search Sato’s factories and find nothing, but then an anonymous worker tips them off to a secret underground factory beneath Sato’s mansion. Bei Fong, Tenzin, Korra, and a handful of police officers find the factory only to be caught in a trap by Sato, who has a new army of mechanical suits.

He defeats them and starts to capture them to take to Amon, but Bolin, Mako, and Asami intervene, freeing everyone except the captured officers. Bei Fong vows to resign from her post and rescue her kidnapped officers outside the law while Mako apologizes to Korra for his actions and comforts Asami.

This episode is relatively solid, but it does have a couple of noticeable flaws. First, the plot is incredibly predictable. As soon as Korra learns of Sato’s secret phone conversation, a savvy watcher will be able to tell he has set a trap for her and wants to lure Bei Fong, Korra, and Tenzin into his clutches to prove his valor to Amon.

Similarly, when Sato confronts Asami and asks him to side with him, a sharp viewer will know she will decline the offer based on the brief characterization we see of her earlier in the episode. Thus, most of the tension in the episode is minimal.

Second, the forced tension between Korra and Mako is becoming more of a problem. The writers of the show are well aware of the “shipping”, i.e. supporting two characters in a romantic relationship, that the fans engage in for the show and so they delight in poking fun at them whenever possible.

This notion was exemplified in episode five, “The Spirit of Competition”, where they basically forced a love triangle among Korra, Bolin, and Mako only so they could immediately destroy it. The romantic tension has only been building since episode two and so the characters’ interactions do not have as much weight as the characters preceding them in ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ where the main heroes’ relationships developed naturally over time.

Mako accuses Korra of being jealous just because he is in a relationship with Asami, and it is a predictable move by the writers to use this angle, especially when it is quickly resolved by the end of the episode. If they had not forced Mako and Korra’s possible romance in the fifth episode, it could have felt more tense if Mako did not know Korra had feelings for him, which would then compel her to decide what to do about the issue. As it stands, their relationship comes across as rushed.

On the upside, the fight sequence between the Equalists and the benders, while short, was breathtaking. This is the first time we see Tenzin cut loose and show off his airbending skills, and they are quite a sight to behold. Furthermore, there is also a rather clever Shout Out to the Cabbage Man from the previous series who is a meme in the ‘Avatar’ fandom and the joke lands with brilliant success.

Overall, the episode is predictable, but enjoyable all the same. It is yet another good stepping stone of building tension on both sides of the pro-bending and anti-bending war brewing in Republic City.

‘Korra’ premieres Saturdays at 11 a.m. on Nickelodeon. Don’t miss it.

Grade: 4/5

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