TV Retrospective: Legend of Korra Book 2 Chapters 11-14

Well, here are my final Korra reviews until book 4 comes out next year (apparently early next year, but no official release date has been announced)

Chapter 11 Night of a Thousand Stars

It’s the fourth, and thankfully final part of ‘everyone’s an idiot except Mako.’ And let’s just say some of the second half does start to put things right with it, unfortunately some of the first half is painful to watch. Bolin is an idiot to sort-of believe that Mako would be responsible, I can understand his trust in Varrick, but he knows Mako better than anyone!! (I know he says he knows he isn’t one, but all other dialogue to the contrary) although it is touching that Bolin promises to provide help.

Asami not wanting to visit Mako because her dad is in jail as an interesting position, because it implies that she also believes he’s responsible! Again I think any of team Avatar believing Mako would be responsible is damned stupid.

Then there’s Tonraq being an idiot, not waiting for potential reinforcements and deciding to star their attack. They knew they were outnumbered, and they know Unalaq is powerful. They weren't so aware about the Dark Spirits but they still should've waited.

Bolin really can’t take a hint with ginger, can he? Anyway we get to the mover premier, probably the best part of the episode. Varrick certainly knows how to make a speech, although really he shouldn’t have called Bolin a knuckle-head Earth-bender WHILE HE’S IN THE AUDIENCE!

Anyway, the mover is cheesy as always, but we cut to more interesting stuff is the stadium is attacked. I do quite enjoy the two detectives get their comeuppance but how come there aren't more guards with the President being there. Back to the mover Ju-Ji dies because… plot? Seriously what killed it? Last time we saw him, he broke Nuktuk’s chains with laser vision? And then he’s suddenly dead.

Never mind. Bolin’s conversation with Asami is probably the closest thing they have to a scene together, without it being under the eyes of General Iroh

NO NOT HIM! The other General Iroh or Varrick

And then the fight, it’s quite amusing seeing how it mirrors the mover, and topping it off. Chiro Chenobe, despite not being in his commentator’s booth starts commentating on it. It’s nice to remind us, for the first time this book, that Bolin is a competent earth-bender

Of course Lin decides to secure the president and call for backup whilst none of them assist, good job police, leaving someone else to do your dirty work. Unlike everyone else though these guys seem to know that Varrick hired them, so Lin can actually be useful and arrest him

Of course now Varrick has been arrested Mako has been released, and it’s just in time too because Korra’s back, and suddenly doesn’t remember break (she doesn't seem to have any problem remembering anything else, but…) and of course Mako happily embraces the fact and does not try to tell her that they broke up, much the disdain of everyone in the room (aside Tenzin, Kya and Bumi I suppose)

Here’s where Raiko is an idiot, when Korra tells him Unalaq’s plan he refuses to send help, believing his forces would be needed if the world was plunged into chaos. And while the logic is sound, it does imply he believes they have a chance against giant dark spirits (and we all know, they don’t)

And we get a scene with Varrick, who built a special comfortable cell just in case he got arrested, and his goofball personality is very much intact. With a battleship at their disposal, team Avatar will be a force to be reckoned with

Rating 7/10

Chapter 12 - Harmonic Convergence

It’s official: Unalaq is completely insane

He wants to merge with Vaatu as Wan merges with Raava. The problem with Unalaq being completely and utterly nuts is the fact the personal connection Korra should have with her Uncle is completely obliterated. The stakes can be just as high if it’s personal, rather than just the scale of the problem.

Adding to that, what was the purpose of revealing his entire plan in the room with Korra and everyone involved, it served no purpose, and it sure as hell wasn’t out of respect for anyone in the room.

But we have everyone else. Mako is terrified of Korra when she’s angry. That’s a decent sign of a relationship that will never work. Bolin re-iterating Mako’s advice back at him was funny, and one of the few good uses of the otherwise irritating sub-plot

Bumi was the highlight of this episode. With Tenzin uptight and more Korra-like than Korra, with the fate of his daughter on the line. It was nice to have Bolin be in a grounding element in his extremely unique style, and with the help of Naaga (wasn’t she left behind at the camp, or did the flute attract her) manage to take out an entire encampment and rescue his captured allies

The actual attack is extremely visually engaging, although who gave the mecha-tanks to the northern troops. You can guarantee it wasn’t future industries, none of their shipments made it out of republic city.

The ending was a tad predictable. Given what we knew from a new spiritual age, it was written in stone that Vaatu would end up escaping, and given the title of the episode, I’d be surprised if we didn’t see this coming.

Rating: 7.5/10

Chapter 13 - Darkness Falls

I’m surprised a spirit that’s been trapped for 10,000 years would be so eager to be trapped inside a human body.

But it’s official, not half-way through the episode, the two most evil villains merge to become the dark Avatar, and in essence an invincible force seeing as despite the fact that Korra has mastery over 4 elements, not one, and has all her past lives to guide her, is no match for Unalaq’s mastery of only water-bending

I hate a battle that’s this one sided, because it feels like they’ve written themselves into a corner here. You know how in super-hero stories sometimes 5 heroes have a problem taking on one machine/monster but then after its defeat they can each defeat several on their own. Yeah, I find it bullsh*t, and it feels like this could end with exactly the same problem

Meanwhile there’s Tenzin, Kya and Bumi searching for Jinora’s spirit. This is an interesting adventure, featuring them getting completely lost, yet easily finding their way back to somewhere they were before (at the top of a cliff no less), another cameo from Iroh

And of course the adventure in the fog of lost souls. This is where Tenzin’s character arc for the season comes to hold. He sees himself as the only person capable of carrying on Aang’s legacy, and is frustrated that he can’t be the man his father was. Of course Tenzin had to face up with the fact that he cannot be Aang, and he shouldn’t be. (Oh, and Jhao was also there, nice reference) Great work by J K Simmons playing Tenzin in this piece

It would’ve been nice if Kya and Bumi also had an arc here, but this character arc for Tenzin has been present since the beginning and is by far the best of any character during the book.

Meanwhile the stakes are risen again as Unalaq rather too easily defeats Korra, rips Raava out of her and beats her to destruction, destroying Korra’s connection with her past lives. The decision to do this seems interesting, since Korra has not been overly reliant, I don’t think, on her past lives, so it doesn’t add much to her character other than to add to her humility.

Rating 7.5/10

Chapter 14 – Light in the Dark

This is not a great example of how to write yourself out of a corner.

“They’ll be fine, but I’ll have to get them into some spirit water right away” THEN THEY’RE NOT FINE! Spirit water has magical healing properties making it a more effective at healing major damage than normal water, if they need spirit water, they must have suffered some bad damage (if Aang’s requirement for spirit water is anything to go by, the damage could’ve otherwise been fatal)

And so we have the dues ex machina of the series, the tree of time, and Tenzin suddenly knowing everything about Avatar Wan, despite the fact Korra explained it to him (and only in brief terms if I recall) so we get the great cosmic energy, and Korra becomes a giant blue spirit (yay)

Republic City is in danger, as the military predictably stand no chance against the giant Unalaatu, although the spirit vines did break Varrick out of prison for one of the few amusing moments of the episode

Tenzin’s growth in the last episode begins to show here (aside from having knowledge of just about everything he should have) as he passes on the lesson he’s learned to Korra. Seeing Tenzin be the mentor we always wanted him to be, after the struggles of books 1 and 2 is a nice fit to his character

So it all leads to the Republic City showdown where, it’s much more evenly matched, but then dues ex machina 2 arrives in the form of Jinora’s ball of light Raava detector. (Seriously, we get some explanation of what happened in book 3, but not everything’s explained) oh yeah, and despite not being in her physical body, Korra can water-bend. (Because Logic? What’s that?)

We get a nice scene where the group protect Korra from dark spirits, which involves Eska and Desna proving themselves to much closer to characters than they’ve ever been before (they still feel like water-bending Mais to me)  

But with all done in the action department, we still have a few minutes to the end, and the way things are finished is most interesting. Korra’s decision to leave the spirit portals open provides a lot of opportunity for books 3 and 4. Also interesting that while she has regained Raava, but not her connection to her past Avatars

It’s also interesting, that the first thing she thinks to do rather than take in the praise she’s being given is apologise to Eska and Desna, that is a nice growth to her character (although Eska and Desna’s response was priceless) Eska grows to realise that for all her love of Bolin, she cannot be with him, as she has responsibilities to the water tribe. I found that quite a touching moment.

Speaking of touching moments, we get resolution on the breakup between them, as the tree of time conveniently restores Korra’s memories of the event, and so they break up on terms that upsets both sides, but creates anger at neither side.

Korra’s speech at the end was quite touching, and a good moment to finish the series with, even if the series was at best a mixed bag of episodes

Rating 6.5/10

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Images used in this review are from The Legend of Korra and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use.