Netflix Avatar: The Last Airbender makes you miss the The Last Airbender movie. Sure, it was hot garbage, but it only lasted under two hours. By the time episode five wraps up, that’s more than four hours of binging pure trash. With another two and a half hours still left to consume. Shyamalan may not have known how to adapt Avatar, but he at least knew when to let something end and die in shame and disgrace.
Episode 5 of Netflix Avatar: The Last Airbender begins with the gang running from a handful of soldiers in an unknown location. It makes little sense why they’re running. In episode two, Katara shoots five soldiers by splashing them with a little water. Did she suddenly get weaker?
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Aang and Katara team up to push back the soldiers, only for ten more to come charging at them. And Katara instantly beats them by hitting them with ice discs. What was the point of this? Potentially to introduce some flashy action sequence as most of this episode is about exploring the Spirit World with very few fights to be had. Either way, it’s a massive waste of time.
Instead, the show should really have had Aang practicing his water bending. We’re five episodes in, and Aang has never attempted to use water bending, and it’s hard to say if he even knows how to. In the original cartoon, Aang was tasked with mastering the four elements, but now that all seems to have been cut out. Either way, the gang jumps on Appa to escape the soldiers they’ve been easily dropping, just showing that this was all a giant waste of time.
As they fly over a massive forest, Aang hears something growling below, and they see a section of the forest has been burned away. By the visual, it looks like a very small portion was burned away, and it makes what happens next very silly.
They land in the burned section of the forest. Aang gets depressed because of the destruction, but again, it’s a small area that was burned. Katara reminds him of how forest fires work and that the small area will grow once more. It might seem nitpicky, but if the showrunners wanted to go this route, then maybe give us an entire CGI field of a burned forest instead of an entire CGI forest with a small CGI burn pit.
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Eventually, they chase after a girl and wind up in a village nearby that’s literally surrounded by a massive forest that’s not been burned. The group speaks to one of the villagers, and he explains that something spooky is happening. Aang blurts out that he can just go to the spirit world now.
In the cartoon, Aang had been the Avatar for a little bit before leaving the Southern Air Temple, but he didn’t know he could do this and had to try it first to help the town. This Aang, who was revealed to be the Avatar literally hours before getting trapped in his ice prison, really shouldn’t know how to do this immediately. He still doesn’t even know how to water bend!
The scene shifts to Zuko and Iroh encountering June, but it’s a random encounter. Small note, Zuko’s actor is atrocious. Zuko was always angsty and determined, but when you see him on screen in this, he seems whiny and childish. Since most of the actors are fairly young, it’s easy to give them a pass, but after spending over four hours with them, it’s starting to grate on the nerves.
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June is fine, though; she seems exactly like she did in the cartoon. Iroh’s flirting with her was removed for obvious reasons, and it would have been funny to see, but June does call him cute. Later Iroh convinces Zuko to hire June and use more diverse tactics to capture the Avatar. And the actor almost looks like he’s about to have a temper tantrum after his daddy scolded him.
For some reason, they give us more Azula. There’s no excuse here, this actress really does not carry the same flare as the actual Azula from the cartoon. Here she’s trying to praise Zhao and is dismissive of Zuko’s efforts, but Ozai rebukes her and says Zuko is the one who discovered the avatar. Azula then leaves looking hurt instead of just pissed off.
At this point, it’s obvious what’s going on. The showrunners desperately want the viewer to sympathize with Azula and see her as a more tragic figure than she was ever intended to be. On some level, this could work, but only if it had been saved for the third season. Azula is meant to be one of the most callous, ruthless, and intimidating villains in the second season. Having the showrunners portray her as this hurt child desperate for her father’s approval this early on before she’s ever been seen as a threat is such an awful choice.
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Back to the A plot, Aang enters the spirit world and somehow brings Katara and not-Sokka along. It’s explained away as the place is powerful, but the showrunners clearly want the group to stay together. It would have been nice to see Aang get some development by himself, but the story goes on.
Wan Shi Tong randomly appears here. That would be the owl spirit of knowledge the group is supposed to encounter much later on in his library. Is that entire plot removed now? Originally, it was how the group discovered the weakness of fire benders, but if Wan Shi Tong is no longer in his library, that’s a problem. This is a problem for the writers and showrunners. They’re obsessed with including characters and events that happen much later on while ignoring actual relevant plot points that could be explored.
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Like teaching Aang how to water bend.
The spirit advises Aang that his friends are in danger there and to seek out a man in a hut just outside the fog. But then Hei Bai appears and causes the three to scatter and get lost in an illusion caused by the fog surrounding them. It’s important to note that this episode originally seems like it’s focused on Hei Bai, but in reality, he’s more or less turned into a plot device for the real villain of the spirit world.
Katara is brought back to the time her mother was turned into a flame-broiled crispy person and had to relive the events. While not-Sokka is brought to a time when he discovers that his father is disappointed in him and thinks he’s incapable of being a leader. But when they both fall to despair, another fan-favorite character appears.
Koh, the face stealer, captures both Katara and not-Sokka. His inclusion is a little weird and really doesn’t make too much sense, but more on that later. When Aang realizes he’s about to fall into an illusion and breaks free of it, Koh confronts him and is visually very creepy. He states that he and Aang have a history and hints at killing the lover of one of his past lives. Then claims Aang has stolen something from him before chasing him away.
There are just a few massive issues that come from this. For one, Koh hates the Avatar, and that element from the cartoon is still in place. So why doesn’t he kill Katara and not Sokka the first chance he gets? He’s rather prideful about what he did to another Avatar’s lover, after all, and even shows her face that he stole.
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For two, why are Koh’s powers non-existent here? Koh is powerful, but what makes him so deadly is that he can steal the face of anyone who shows him emotions. Katara and not-Sokka are both terrified when they first see Koh. And Aang is visibly shaken at his presence.
Koh feels heavily nerfed now, and although the CGI does make him look quite creepy and menacing, it’s hard not to just see him as a very big centipede thing that just uses brute force.
Aang does manage to escape Koh and finds the hut where Monk Gyatso is waiting for him. It’s a nice scene, and the actor playing Gyatso is still the best in the show. It would have been fine to cut Koh out and save him for later so we could get more time with Gyatso, but the plot demands conflict. Gyatso explains that other Avatars have faced Koh before and that Roku even managed to get the better of him.
Aang decides to leave the spirit world and go contact Roku at his shrine so he can advise him on how to beat Koh. We’ll have to wait for the next episode to see how this is handled, but there’s little reason to hope.
Either way, Aang departs for Roku’s shrine in the Fire Nation, leaving the others behind. Meanwhile, June, Zuko, and Iroh are seen heading out to capture Aang.
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The final rating for the second episode is 4/10.
This episode feels so out of place from the rest of the series as it’s one of the episodic adventures the crew takes that wasn’t inherently connected to the main conflict in the show. It feels like a side adventure but not a very fun one.
Dedicating an entire episode to Koh as opposed to starting with Hei Bei and essentially forgetting about him to focus on Koh just feels like a waste. Aang does promise to help heal Hei Bai before leaving, but up until that point, it’s very easy to forget that he’s the whole reason the gang is there in the first place.
It’s also annoying with the attempts to turn Azula into a sympathetic victim of Ozai. Had they decided to do this in a third season after seeing how truly demonic Azula is, it would probably play better. In truth, Azula is irredeemable and openly acknowledges that she’s a monster.
That said, Koh is a scene stealer, and it is the first time the team actually feels like they’re in danger. The episode barely has any CGI bending in it, so high marks there, and Gyatso’s appearance always improves this show.
What do you think of episode 5 of Netflix Avatar: The Last Airbender? Leave a comment and let us know.
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