Saturday, August 17, 2013

My Top Ten Episodes of "Avatar: the Last Airbender"

The second season of "The Legend of Korra" is coming up soon. I'm looking forward to it, especially after that Comic-Con trailer. So I thought I'd use this month's top ten column for a quick revisit to its progenitor series, "Avatar: the Last Airbender," which has my vote as being the best children's animated series of the new millennium, and the best thing I've ever seen come out of Nickelodeon.

Picks are unranked, listed in mostly chronological order, and there are some light spoilers ahead for the first two seasons, as I can't talk about much of the third season without them. And as usual, I will totally cheat and count two-parters as single episodes. Here goes!

"The Boy in the Iceberg" - Yes, it's the pilot episode. What a great introduction to Aang, the easily excitable airbender kid who Water Tribe siblings Katara and Sokka accidentally free from deep freeze in an iceberg. I wish I had seen this episode first, since it does a great job of setting expectations about the tone and the content of the show while introducing the rules of the "Avatar" world.

"The Waterbending Master" - Aang and Katara have to navigate carefully when Master Pakku refuses to teach Katara waterbending. This is a thoughtful look at the characters trying to balance their needs and interests with that of someone from a different culture, plus it has a great ending where Katara gets to throw down in one of the most exciting displays of waterbending in the whole series.

"Avatar Day" - Some dismiss this as a filler episode, but I think it's one of the funniest installments of the show. The gang come across a village that hates the Avatar, which prompts Aang to try and right the past wrong, and Sokka to play Sherlock Holmes with detective gadgets and a funny hat. We also get some significant advancement in Zuko and Iroh's storyline, as they adapt to life on the run.

"The Blind Bandit" - Toph's introduction episode, which spends a lot of time in the fascinating world of professional earthbending tournaments, which seems to function similar to professional wrestling. The parodies are great - one of the combatants is named The Boulder - but the fights are truly thrilling. Toph is one of my favorite characters, and this episode is a big reason why I started rooting for her immediately.

"The Drill" - Another big action episode that gives us one more round of Aang and his friends fighting Azula's forces. This time they intercept the Fire Nation's attempt to breach the outer wall of Ba Sing Se using a giant mechanical drill. In addition to the phenomenal construction of the action sequences, this has some of my favorite banter from characters on both sides.

"City of Walls and Secrets" - The gang finally reaches the Earth Kingdom capital of Ba Sing Se and quickly sense that something's not quite right about the place. The Orwellian society presents a different kind of obstacle that the kids haven't had to deal with before, and the darker themes and ideas in play are handled well. Also, the whole bit about the Earth King's bear is absolutely priceless.

"The Puppetmaster" - Trying to find out what's behind a series of disappearances, the kids meet an elderly waterbender who takes a strong interest in Katara. This one was originally aired around Halloween and presented as something of a horror story. It's surprising how dark this one gets, taking the concept of bending the elements to some pretty uncomfortable extremes.

"The Boiling Rock" - A two parter that features a good old-fashioned jailbreak story and some big surprises. This is one of several third season episodes that uses a smaller cast to spotlight specific characters, so Sokka, Suki, and Zuko get some great moments to shine, dealing with a situation that keeps getting worse. However, it's the villains who end up stealing the show with a major game-changing ending I didn't see coming.

"The Ember Island Players" - It's an old trope that right before the grand finale, you get a cheaper episode, usually a recap clip-show in the case of cartoons. "Avatar" takes the idea and does a great twist on it, putting the kids in the audience of a Fire Nation play that tells a warped version of the story so far from their enemies' point of view. The play and the kids' reactions to the play are hysterical.

"The Firebending Masters" - I've saved my favorite episode for last. This is the one where Aang and Zuko go to the home of the original firebending masters to learn firebending. The way these two interact on their journey, and learn the truth about the mysterious masters together is so much fun. The animation here is breathtaking, the final firebending lesson being one of my favorite moments from the whole show.
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