If it lacked a couple of key beats, this is an episode I’d almost skip watching. It’s not bad, just . . . not thrilling.
ONE
The team, asleep, camps in the woods. When they’re surrounded, everyone grabs their important stuff except Sokka. His boomerang left behind, he’s told there’s no time to retrieve it.
TWO
He laments his lost identity. Aang has his tattoo arrow, Katara her hair loopies, and now Sokka’s just ponytail guy.
When they go to pay for something in town, they’re told, “Have a nice Avatar Day.” This cliffside earth kingdom village holds a festival. A giant Kyoshi statue, a rolling Roku statue, food . . . Aang smiles at it all. Then the villagers torch the statues and cry, “Down with the Avatar!”
THREE
The Blue Spirit, in some village, steals food. After hiding the mask in the forest, Zuko returns to Iroh in a cave. They eat, Iroh unaware of what Zuko’s done.
FOUR
Avatar Day even has an Aang statue to light on fire. Katara water bends the flame out. Aang presents himself as the Avatar, and people panic. He’ll kill us! It turns out that in a past life the Avatar murdered their leader, Chin. Aang wants to clear himself. He’ll prove through trial and by following their rules. He ends up in the stocks.
Sokka wants to just break him out, but Aang insists he prove his innocence. Wearing a Holmes hat and pipe, Sokka becomes a detective.
Meanwhile, the Blue Spirit attacks a cart and violently takes the occupant’s money.
Happy to embrace a new identity, Sokka investigates the crime scene. Kyoshi emerged from the temple 370 years ago to strike down Chin. A footprint remains in the stone.
In prison, Aang meets a scary bald man on a length of chain.
Sokka and Katara go to Kyoshi Island to try to get more info. The children, seeing Appa, clap and wave. “Where’s Aangi?” They’re disappointed to only find Sokka.
SWITCH
As he approaches Kyoshi’s shrine, Sokka asks about Suki. She’s gone to join the fight.
FIVE
Kyoshi’s former temple, now a shrine, holds relics. Her boots are enormous, the biggest of any Avatar. Aha! says detective Sokka. The crime scene footprint was little.
At the prison, Aang is now friends with the hardened criminals who offer him advice about his love life. There is weeping, and not by Aang.
Besides the footprint, which is the strongest evidence, Sokka also has something about the temple stone’s age and a Kyoshi Day painting. He thinks he has a strong alibi for Kyoshi and, as the current Avatar, Aang.
The town mayor says, Evidence? That’s not how it works. It’s “justice”. I say what happened, you say what happened, then I decide what happened. “Just us.”
Aang, on trial, tries to explain Sokka’s evidence to the crowd, but it’s all confused.
SIX
Iroh drinks tea and says he’s not ashamed of poverty. Never give in to despair. Zuko, who’s been stealing money, can’t hear his wisdom.
SEVEN
At the trial, Katara demands a last testimony. “I call Kyoshi herself.”
EIGHT
Aang in drag uses a fake voice and feels ridiculous. Wait, it might trigger something . . .
A whirlwind of darkness. Here’s Kyoshi, tall and fierce. “I killed Chin.”
He was a horrible tyrant who demanded surrender. Kyoshi warned him, then used her fans to split Kyoshi Island, originally a peninsula, from the mainland. Chin, standing on the precipice, lost the ground beneath his feet and fell to his death.
I created the island to be safe, Kyoshi says. With a whirlwind, she retreats, leaving a woozy Aang. What happened, he asks. Wellll, Katara says, you confessed.
Guilty! Bring out the wheel of punishment!
Meanwhile, Zuko tells Iroh, I realize I have nothing to gain by traveling together. I must find my own way. Although quietly devastated, Iroh tells him to take the bird mount and sends him off.
Back to Aang, who must spin the wheel. (There really is a wheel of punishment, with various tortures around the outer rim.) “Community service,” the team prays. Nope, it’s boiled in oil.
Fire Nation bandits arrive in the nick of time, demanding the leader. When everyone points to the mayor, he jostles the wheel so it now points at community service. Do something!
Battle, save the day. These are the bad guys from the One, so Sokka’s boomerang shows up. It always returns, Sokka says lovingly.
NINE
The town safe, it’s a new Avatar Day. The treats are an uncooked man cookie, because it wasn’t boiled in oil, hardy-har.
CRITICAL NOTES
The middle is mostly a blur of information, with the joke of Sokka as a Sherlock Holmes running underneath. Hidden there, though, is what I’ve marked as the Switch: Suki is off fighting. It’s a tossed line, meant to give Sokka an embarrassing romantic moment, but it says a lot. The warriors have left the village and gone to war. While Aang and crew toddle about, the adults are fighting.
After the Switch, people come together. Aang and his prison pals, Sokka and Katara with the clues. That’s Five stuff, so it seems to fit.
I’m not enthusiastic about the Three/Six because the Four has one extra Iroh and Zuko moment. I prefer a more streamlined structure. If these two are going to be our mirror beats, then don’t add them in elsewhere. I definitely don’t need to see Zuko terrorizing more travellers than we already have. In the Eight we have Zuko’s momentous decision to leave his uncle. That Four beat was unnecessary, and detracts from the strength of the others.
If I’m to rewatch this episode, it’s to see Iroh as Zuko leaves him. It’s sad, but important to the season. The other reason I rewatch is to see Avatar Kyoshi in the Eight. A bender trained in four disciplines at the height of her power is magnificent. Until the finale we never get to see Aang like this; that’s not the nature of his story. Kyoshi’s weapon-fans and her boots, her air and earth bending as she moves an entire land mass, is thrilling.