"The Legend of Korra": Year Two

It was a mixed year for "The Legend of Korra," with animation studios getting swapped around, too many different plots going on in the beginning, and Korra herself revealing deep flaws that felt like a major step backwards from her character progression last year. However, when all was said and done, I liked this season much better than the previous one. It has several episodes that are among the best things the "Avatar" team has ever done.

Korra faces several different antagonists this year. First there's her power-hungry uncle Unalaq, chief of the Northern Water Tribe, who comes to the South with his twin children, Esca and Desna, to start a civil war. Angry dark spirits attacking ships and causing havoc are another problem. Then there's a mysterious force in Republic City that is also causing trouble but Mako, now a cop, is the only one who realizes it exists. Meanwhile, Bolin and Asami get caught up in the schemes of an eccentric businessman named Varrick. Tenzin, having been rejected by Korra after a severe falling out, spends time reconnecting with his family, including his older siblings Bumi and Kya. And finally there's the biggest villain of the season, whose very existence and relationship to the Avatar is a major spoiler.

"Legend of Korra" struggles to juggle all of these different characters and storylines. The spirit world figures into a lot of the story this year, and the season even features the subtitle "Book Two: Spirits," but there's so much else that needs to be set up and established, that we don't get around to the spirits for a long while. It's really not until the midpoint of the year, when we get to a two-parter explaining the origins of the Avatar, that the show seems to find its groove again and regains some of the lost coherence and momentum. I think the biggest issue was that the show tried too hard to make sure all of its supporting cast got time in the spotlight. Bolin's movie career, as funny as it was, could have been largely cut, and several of Tenzin's little bonding sessions with his kids likewise could have been skipped.

Korra herself bore the brunt of the damage, sad to say. She spent so many of the early episodes being stubborn, hotheaded, shortsighted, and much too easily duped, that I got frustrated with her, as I'm sure a lot of other viewers did. It's not that the issues she faced were inappropriate or that they didn't make sense for her character, but that they all should have been addressed much earlier, or in some cases it seemed like they had already been addressed during the first season. I understand that "Korra" was originally supposed to be a stand-alone miniseries and the creators wanted to end the first season with some finality, but too much of her development this year failed to build on her existing journey. Fortunately her arc concluded in a better place, and characters like Mako, Tenzin, and Bolin were handled better. Mako actually has a personality now, thank goodness.

Messy as it all was, ultimately I liked "Korra" this year so much better than last year. We got out of Republic City and got to see how the rest of the "Avatar" universe was doing. We delved much further into the show's mythology and there was a lot of great worldbuilding, particularly everything related to the first Avatar, Wan. There were also more references to and cameos by characters from the previous series, without relying on too many flashbacks. Aang was largely absent this year, but he had arguably a larger presence thanks to all the time we spent with his squabbling offspring. Lots of longstanding questions about the nature of the Avatar, the Spirit World, and the spirits were finally addressed.

I felt that the change in environment to largely urban settings was something of a mistake when "Korra" first premiered, so the focus on the spiritual world and the more slowly evolving Water Tribes was a welcome change. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the Avatar Wan episodes, which take place thousands of years prior and utilize this wonderful woodblock art style. The Spirit World also provides lots of good opportunities for unique visuals with different design sensibilities. I should also note that it's very obvious which episodes were given to the show's primary animation house, Studio Mir, and which were farmed out to a second-stringer.

I'm a little worried about how the series is going to progress from here, because we've still got at least two more Books coming down the pipeline, and yet again the story seems to have wrapped up pretty nicely. It's hard to say where the story could go from here - maybe they'll finally do something with Zuko's grandson?
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