I have one early complaint, detailed below, but mostly this is a great season opener. Questions are answered that may have dragged down future episodes. We have a clean slate now.
ONE
Fog. A dream. Aang sees himself in his first Avatar State at the Southern Air Temple. Avi Aang attacks Dream Aang. Now the Ocean Spirit Aang attacks him. He startles awake. They’re still at the Northern Water Kingdom.
TWO
Master Poku gives Katara a parting gift, a water-filled amulet from the spirit oasis. He gifts Aang a box of water bending scrolls. And for Sokka? A pat on the shoulder, lol. Our team leaves on Appa. Eventually, Aang will learn earth bending from King Bumi. They must stop first at another Earth Kingdom destination.
Iroh, after three weeks floating on a piece of driftwood, gets a massage. Meanwhile, Zuko recognizes that it’s his three year banishment anniversary. “I want it all back,” he says.
THREE
A Fire Nation ship. Everyone onboard bows as a canopied chair is carried forward. Azula steps out. (That grating voice!) She gives a speech about the shame that’s been brought on the royal family. When the captain tells her they can’t dock until the tides turn, she terrorizes him.
FOUR
The team arrives at this mediary Earth Kingdom city. General Fong welcomes them with a fireworks and bending display. He references the power Aang showed at the Water Kingdom. You’re ready to defeat the Fire Lord, he says. The Avatar State is the ultimate weapon. Aang says, I don’t know how to enter the Avatar State. It’s decided, Fong says, ignoring any hesitancy. Katara objects, but Fong shows Aang the infirmary and all the wounded. The war continues, and you could end it.
On the Fire Nation ship. Azula trains while two very old ladies mentor her. She has mastered lightning bending. In response to the display, Iroh, far away, wakes. He shows that preternatural sense he has.
SWITCH
Aang, persuaded by Fong’s argument, says, “I’m in.”
FIVE
At bedtime, Katara still objects. Sokka, though, says, “Glow it up!”
Now comes Fong’s attempt to instigate the Avatar State: stimulating tea (which just makes Aang hyperactive), shocks, scares, a silly ritual while Aang wears an assortment of ceremonial clothing. None of it works.
Meanwhile, Iroh, still feeling his bliss, admires some sea shells. Aargh! Azula arrives to surprise them! Zuzu, she coos. I have a message. Family is important, and father regrets what happened. Zuko believes her.
Katara, with Aang, tells him she can’t watch this attempt to throw him into the Avatar State. He has so much pain and rage there.
Zuko, excited, resists Iroh’s hesitation and calls him a lazy, shallow old man who’s just jealous.
SIX
Another Avatar State dream. Aang, driving a whirlwind, attacks as Zuko runs. He wakes up, Sokka wakes up, and Aang realizes, “We shouldn’t try this.” Sokka is immediately supportive.
SEVEN
Zuko carries his backpack as he boards the ship. Iroh, although he still doubts, joins him.
Aang tells Fong that he wants out, that he can only enter the Avatar State if there’s genuine danger. I see, Fong says, and knocks him out the window.
EIGHT
Here comes the earth bending battle. I’m not your enemy, Aang cries, but Fong and his men throw everything at him.
On the Fire Nation ship, Zuko and Iroh slow-walk up the gangplank, eyeing the troops on either side. The captain, the one Azula already threatened, says something about escorting the prisoners. Oops. Iroh covers the rear while Zuko takes on Azula.
Intercut with Aang as he fights Fong and his men. Katara, worried, comes to check on him. Fong immediately earth bends her into the ground, lower and lower. Aang begs, but Fong says, “I don’t see glowing.” He buries Katara completely.
Aaand . . . there’s the glow. (You asked for it, buddy.)
Back to the sibling battle. Azula lets out the truth, that father thinks Zuko’s an embarrassment who needs to be locked up. And then Azula loads the lightning. Slow motion as she prepares to strike. Iroh grabs her wrist and redirects her lightning through himself and safely away. Then he kicks her overboard. Heh.
Aang in the Avatar State is the whirlwind, destroying everything in the courtyard. Katara is safe, but he can’t stop. His spirit steps outside his body, and Roku on his dragon flies in and picks him up. It’s time you learned, Roku says. The State is a defense mechanism, a tapping into the knowledge of all past Avatars. The culmination of that experience makes the Avatar at his most powerful, but he’s also at his most vulnerable. If killed in the State, the reincarnation cycle is broken and the Avatar will cease to exist.
When Aang returns to his body, he looks at the destruction he created. Katara holds him. Fong, hilariously, thinks it was all perfect. Sokka bonks him on the head, and the soldiers in the courtyard bow as the team flies away.
NINE
Zuko and Iroh stop at a creek. Both men cut their topknots and watch the hair slide downstream.
CRITICAL NOTES
Would it be so terrible to start Season Two with Azula? She is the last moment of Season One.
Structurally, the One and Three here in the breakdown should be swapped. This season, and certainly this episode, is a world in which Azula hunts Zuko and Aang. Her threat is a perfect Enneagram One, if the showrunners were willing to open the season with her scene. Instead, they choose Aang’s dream memory of his barbarity in the Avatar State.
The Six, beautifully placed, is that same dream. A mirror Three, if this episode had swapped with the One and used the dream, would hit a lovely chord. My opinion is the dynamics would be the same, that Azula has as much impact as the Avatar State, but I can see that it was a tough call. I must disagree with the episode as presented, though. I want that Three/Six mirror.
One other episode in Season One started with Aang’s dream, and I didn’t like that structure, either, lol. Ah, “The Storm”. I actually said that the Enneagram Three and One beats were reversed! I’ll be quite interested to see going forward how often the showrunners use this technique.