This is a tricky episode.
ONE
Our team listens to a tale told around a campfire. It’s about “airwalkers”, people who laugh at gravity. Aang loves this. It’s an air bender story! The bard passes around a hat for tips.
TWO
Aang mentions that this story describes events from a hundred years ago. Nope, just last week, the bard says.
THREE
Appa flies the team up to the Air Temple. As they fly, Sokka carves a piece of wood, although we don’t know what the sculpture is.
FOUR
The sky around the Temple is filled with gliders, not air benders. They have no spirit, Aang says, disappointed. We meet these new inhabitants (of course the air benders are all gone) and watch them use their gliders. Teo, a young man in a wheelchair glider, greets them, and then recognizes the Avatar.
They’re refugees who found the abandoned Temple and turned it into a kind of steampunk laboratory. Aang’s pretty angry. They’ve desecrated the Temple.
SWITCH
Katara shows him that the bugs here are still the same. Change, yet continuity.
FIVE
The Air Door, the one only a bender can open, is untouched. At first Aang refuses to open it, but then he wants to gift the moment to Teo. When he does, we all see that the inside is covered with Fire Nation armaments. Teo’s dad has been working for the bad guys.
But we like him. He’s got so many ideas for inventions, and the Fire Nation forced him by threatening Teo. Sokka, especially, has befriended him. They’re like two peas in a pod, always brainstorming.
SIX
Sokka comes up with an idea to modify the war balloon. Give it a lid, so the gas can escape and the elevation can change.
SEVEN
Perfect. They can now use it to drop stink bombs on the Fire Nation soldiers who are on their way.
EIGHT
Battle. Eventually our team wins, or so they think. There’s bending, and flying, and stinking, and explosions.
NINE
Aang is glad the refugees have a home now in the Temple. In the forest, the routed Fire Nation find the downed war balloon, already marked with their insignia, and appropriate it. End.
Okay, so why is this episode so weird? It’s good. Teo and his wild steampunk dad are fun characters. We get to see some real Fire Nation war tricks, which is a first.
Obviously, one problem is with that Three/Six. It’s trying to be a Sokka mirror, which is commonly used well in Avatar, but it’s not clear here. If we’d seen a hint as to what he was carving at the Three, we may have found a better shape to the Four. At this point it’s an unrealized beat.
What is Aang’s arc? We’ve already seen a much better Air Temple episode with real feelings. His people, his entire culture, have been extinguished in genocide. He goes into the Avatar State over it, for crying out loud. Big event.
Here, he’s angry at first, a justifiable reaction, but then it fades away. It doesn’t really resolve. What leads him to peace and acceptance? There’s frickin pipes coming out of the sacred monk sculptures! Aang’s people are gone forever, his grief is relatively fresh, and this special place has been destroyed. The fact that the refugees are charming, have good intentions, and become great allies is not a story with dramatic conflict. Aang’s anger can make for strong storytelling. He has a huge potential for change.
Did the showrunners let respect for Teo’s disability override Aang’s arc? No one wants to see Aang yell at a guy in a wheelchair. Especially someone who’s so nice. Teo is welcoming, adventurous, and morally just. And enough time has passed since the first Air Temple to believe that Aang has released some of his pain. He no longer needs to explode or lash out. But he must express something. His forgiveness must be earned in some fashion. He is literally the last air bender.
Would a proper Three/Six (and a less lame Switch) have structured this story so that it worked better? Aang’s loss deserves a little more recognition. This episode, in my opinion, needed one more rewrite.