Note: There will be spoilers here! Make sure you’ve watched the first two episodes of Season 4 before reading on.
Avatar fans, it’s finally time! The final season of the Legend of Korra is out, with the first two episodes already released and a third one on the way this week. This article is just the first of my weekly review posts on this last season of Korra. Being an Avatar fan since its very first season, I’m a little sad to know that after this it’ll all be over, but I’m looking forward to what this season may hold.
After a touching and heartbreaking Season 3 finale, many fans, including myself, were shocked to learn that the final season of Korra would be coming back so soon. As exciting as it was, it just brought up the knowledge impending end to the series. Despite that, I was still interested in just what this season would hold. After a somewhat lackluster Book 2 and a improved Book 3, I was hoping that that Book 4 would give me what I felt I lacked in the previous seasons. And wow, does it deliver!
Episode 1 gives us a little look into all of our cast’s lives since the three years from the Book 3 finale. Team Avatar’s Asami has been successful in saving her family business in Republic City; Mako now is the bodyguard of Prince Wu, the apparent relative and successor to the Earth Queen; and Bolin, working for Kuvira in her military for her goal of uniting the Earth Kingdom, believes he would help others. Korra is nowhere to be seen until the very end, and her reveal is quite a shocking one, barely keeping her own and losing in what appears to be an Earth kingdom brawl ring. Not only that, but she sports a new look, and when mentioned on her resemblance to the avatar, denies it. I knew that Korra was proabably suffering from PTSD issues during the finale, but seeing her getting beat up so easily definitely shows the extent of her ordeal on her ability to fight. She’s able to move around again, but doesn’t seem to be able to fight very well.
I thought that the first episode was a really good establisher episode overall.We got brief glimpses at what everyone’s been up to, including the airbenders Kai and Opal, who have been going around on peacekeeping missions in the earth kingdom.
We also get to see our new Season 4 villian, Kuvira, who was first seen in Book 3, and got a taste of what type of person she is.
She’s different from the villain’s in previous seasons, but also very interesting. From what we see, we know that she is very capable in combat and manipulating people into joining her cause, almost forcing them. She doesn’t like it when things don’t go her way, and I suspect that when she was trying to convince the state of Yi to join her, she was working with the bandits to sabatoge Kai and Opal’s attempt to help so that the governor would sign the contract. The bandits suddenly having the plane so they could steal the supplies from the airbenders so soon after Kuvira left the state of Yi was just too coincidental to not be suspicious. The fact that Bolin is working for her is something I think will become a point of conflict later in the series, seeing as how Opal was also not very approving of what Bolin was doing. Bolin seems to have a bad track record or working with the bad guys, (Varrick, Triple Thread Triad) but it always manages to somehow help expose just what the villains are really doing.
There’s a lot of interesting things going on in this first episode, but I’m going to go on to the second one, since that one had a lot of things that I’m really happy about.
First off, the episode title is definitely a homage to an earlier episode of Avatar, as it is called “Korra Alone,” focusing on Korra and her character growth the same way “Zuko Alone” did for Zuko back in Book 2 of the original trilogy. That was the first thing I personally noticed, and it’s a nice throwback to the original. Second, Avatar fans rejoice, for the melon lord is back! I didn’t expect to see Toph so soon, but it sort of makes sense, as she seems to be the person at the moment who is going to help Korra regain her ability to go into the avatar state and be herself again.
Seeing Korra’s personal struggles in this episode made my heart hurt for her, because you could see how painful it was and just what effect Zaheer’s attack had on her. I really liked how the episode showed how Katarawas the one who helped Korra recover, at least physically, because that definitely seems like something she would do. After being pushed into the background for much of Season 3, I was happy to see her again.
It was also really nice to see how Mako, Bolin and Asami care for Korra, by sending her letters of what’s been going on with them and how much they miss her. Each person’s letter had their own voice to it, and I just felt their bonds between them all and Korra. Seeing how Korra only wrote back to Asami also made me like their friendship so much more, because I hadn’t really felt like they were really friends until Book 3, which I enjoyed. It was a nice but bittersweet part, because you can see the effect her friend’s words are having on Korra, who, unable to do anything, is stuck at her home recovering where she feels useless.
In this episode, we see things from Korra’s perspective, and see her reason’s for lying to her parents and her whereabouts for the past half year. We learn that Korra is unable to go into the avatar state, and has flashbacks of her fight with Zaheer whenever she tries to fight, inhibiting her. From what I can tell, the “dark avatar” hallucination she sees may just be some kind of manifestation of some soft of Vaatu, but that’s just my guess. It could just be her PTSD affecting her somehow. We can see now that when she went into the earthbending arena, she was just really seeing her opponent as fighting herself.
When Korra lies to her parents to go on a soul-searching journey, we see her cut her hair and abandon her identifying water tribe clothes for some earth tribe garb. I kind of feel like this was her way of trying to shed her old self and rediscover who she is, since she still isn’t able to fully recover. There was that nice bit of throwback to Aang in this episode, which was a comic relief and easter egg to the fans, that I loved. Seeing how even though in the flashbacks Aang seemed serious but still retained his silly self was a welcoming sight.
When Korra went into the swamp, I knew she was probably going to meet Toph, since Aang saw Toph in a vision there in the original avatar trilogy. So when I saw this:
I was practically squeallling at the screen, wanting to see old Toph. And when I do and she calls Korra “twinkletoes,” I just feel that immense satisfaction and happiness at how Toph knows who Korra is, and still calls her by the same name she used for Aang.
While this second episode primarily focuses on Korra, I liked it just as much as the first one, since it gives a better perspective of the person Korra is now compared to who she was before. Now that we have all the characters in place, all that’s left is to observe what happens next.
This week’s episode is this Friday. I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen from here!