Each tale, amazingly, has a mini-Enneagram. How charming!
The Tale of Toph and Katara
ONE
Aang shaves his head, Sokka shaves his meager mustache, and Katara arranges her hair loops.
TWO
Cut to Toph in bed, her hair like a wild animal pelt.
THREE
Katara suggests a girl’s day out.
FOUR
At the Fancy Lady’s Day Spa, the girls are pampered. (A pedicure for Toph, whose feet are her connection to seeing the world, does not go well.)
SWITCH
(The torturous parts of the spa day end; the beneficial parts begin.)
FIVE
A mud soak and a sauna session are successful. The girls enjoy being together.
SIX
In makeup, Toph and Katara leave the spa refreshed.
SEVEN
Snooty ladies in the street make fun of Toph.
EIGHT
She bends a hole in the walking bridge, dropping the ladies into the river, and Katara bends a wave that rushes the ladies away, screaming. Regardless, Toph is affected by the cruelty. As a blind person, she mostly ignores appearances she can’t see. Katara reassures her.
NINE
In appreciation of her friendship, Toph punches Katara in the shoulder.
The Tale of Iroh
(Oh, no. Whew. This one gets me every time.)
ONE
In the city streets, Iroh approaches a picnic basket vendor.
TWO
Smiling, Iroh says the basket is for a special occasion, and makes his purchase.
THREE
On one of the display baskets a moonflower droops in a vase. Iroh pushes it out of the sun, where it opens its bloom. The moonflower prefers partial shade.
FOUR
At a musical instrument vendor, Iroh is distracted by a mother trying to console a crying toddler in the street. Playing a lute, Iroh sings as he approaches the child: “Leaves from the vine, falling so slow; like fragile, tiny shells drifting in the foam; little soldier boy, come marching home; brave soldier boy comes marching home.”
SWITCH
Iroh smiles as he sings, and the boy stops crying, yanking Iroh’s beard in happiness.
FIVE
Still walking through the streets, Iroh comes upon teens playing a bending game of soccer. One of the kids sends the ball through someone’s window, breaking the glass. Iroh kindly advises them to admit their mistake. At the window hole, a large, angry face yells at the boys. Iroh changes his advice: run. He dashes away with them.
As he hides in an alleyway, a ruffian with a blade accosts him. Iroh notices a patch on the man’s pant leg. He advises the man on his weak fighting stance and bests him. After helping him up, Iroh then shows the man a strong stance.
SIX
Cut to Iroh sharing tea with the man as they sit against the alley wall. He’d make a great masseur, Iroh advises.
(Iroh, helping small plants and poor men find their comfort zone. It’s a clever Three/Six.)
SEVEN
(The decision for Iroh’s day has already been made. We are only at this point discovering what the decision was.)
EIGHT
At sunset Iroh reaches a lone tree on a hillside outside the city wall. He stacks rocks to make a table and arranges the items from his picnic basket. Briefly he lingers over a paper. It’s a print of his son. He lights incense and wishes his son a happy birthday. Weeping, Iroh sings the soldier boy song.
NINE
The camera pulls out to show the hillside as Iroh sings and cries through the last of the verse.
And then, as if we weren’t already broken up enough, a placard says: In honor of Mako (Iroh’s voice actor, who had recently passed).
The Tale of Aang
ONE
Aang flies over the city.
TWO
He ends up in a section of town with caged animals.
THREE
A caretaker explains that the Dai Li won’t give his zoo money because no visitors come, and no one comes because the zoo looks so run down.
FOUR
Aang asks about a particular animal, a rabbiroo. The caretaker wishes he could free her. Aang immediately has the idea to take the animals beyond the city walls into the open space between it and the outer wall.
And then Aang brags that he’s great with animals. Moving them will be no problem.
SWITCH
Cut to loose apes destroying property. Large animals threaten the townsfolk. The rabbiroo eats the Cabbage Man’s inventory.
FIVE
Aang takes in an air bender’s breath and blows on the bison whistle, sending a sound blast across the city. The animals race to him and follow him as he glides through the city on his air bubble. Guards earth bend the wall open as the animals rush through.
SIX
In the outdoor area Aang earth bends enclosures for the different animals, making a natural zoo. Children dash from the city to see. The rabbiroo has a pouch full of adorable babies.
NINE
The caretaker congratulates Aang and says he should work with animals more often.
(There is no Seven or Eight. The ending is abrupt and weird, with not much payoff. If I’m remembering correctly, that’s because this episode’s purpose is to lay pipe for Appa’s story. We can’t see Aang give a super burst on that bison whistle without wondering if Appa can hear it.
I’ve labeled the finished zoo as the Six, reflecting on the ratty zoo at the Three that no children want to visit. Alternatively, I could say that the finished zoo is the Eight. It completes the Two — the animals have no proper home — as much as it completes the Three. Really, these beats needed to be separated and dealt with quickly. It wouldn’t take much reworking.
As it is now, Aang’s Tale feels more random than the others’. And the showrunners really shouldn’t have followed their powerhouse, Iroh’s Tale, with something this clunky.)
The Tale of Sokka
ONE
Sokka walks the city streets at night, tossing his boomerang.
TWO
Walking past a window, he looks in. Men nearby load a wagon.
Women in formal wear kneel to hear a haiku presentation by a lovely young woman. Sokka is smitten.
THREE
The wagon’s steed bridles and kicks Sokka through the window, startling the women.
FOUR
His explanation inadvertently has the pacing of a haiku. They laugh and applaud him.
SWITCH
The leader takes it as a challenge, a poetry competition.
FIVE
Counting on his fingers, Sokka comes up with a banal but successful poem. The leader retorts a more sophisticated poem. As the two go back and forth, the women in the audience ooh. Sokka invents one that has him slapping his booty at the end; the leader invents one where she squishes a plum under her foot.
SIX
(A reminder of the men out the window loading the wagon, maybe just one of them looking in, doesn’t happen. When the man comes in at the Eight without this Six beat, it’s jarring.)
SEVEN
Feeling awesome, Sokka goes with big gestures and a bragging attitude.
EIGHT
At his last poem, which he thinks he’s nailed, the audience goes silent, looking on with sour faces. Sokka, counting on his fingers, realizes he missed the haiku formula.
Out of nowhere a man comes in and tosses Sokka out through the window.
NINE
Sitting in the street where he landed, Sokka wistfully says, “Poetry.”
The Tale of Zuko
ONE
At the tea shop, Zuko warns Iroh that someone has guessed their secret.
TWO
The girl at the corner table knows they’re Fire Nation, Zuko says.
THREE
Closeup on the young woman who looks innocent, shy, and sweet.
FOUR
Iroh, who’s seen this customer often, suggests she has a crush on Zuko. Before Zuko can protest, the girl is at the counter, ready to pay for her tea. She asks Zuko’s name. (“Lee,” he says.) Her name is Jin. She asks him out. Iroh butts in, saying his nephew would love to.
SWITCH
That evening, as arranged, Zuko steps from the tea shop to meet her. (His hair is slicked into the most atrocious, hilarious hairdo, and he wears nice clothes.) Coming up, Jin says he looks cute and musses his hair. Zuko cringes, saying it took his uncle ten minutes to fix it. (Hahaha!)
FIVE
They dine together at an outdoor plaza. He’s terrible at making conversation and yells at the waiter for calling Jin his girlfriend. When she asks where he’d been before coming to the city, he says he and Iroh were in a traveling circus. He juggled. Passing him condiment pots, Jin asks Zuko to teach her. He throws them, misses the catch, and breaks them all.
SIX
Good-natured, Jin invites him to see her favorite place. She pulls him through the alley toward the Firelight Fountain, where the light reflects in the water. When they get to the plaza, though, the torches surrounding the fountain are unlit.
SEVEN
Seeing her disappointment, Zuko tells her to close her eyes and don’t peek.
EIGHT
He bends, shooting fire into each lantern and lighting it up. She opens her eyes, marveling. Taking his hand, Jin leans in for a kiss. Zuko lifts a tea shop coupon in between them. (It was Iroh’s idea, he says.) Undaunted, she gracefully accepts the voucher and tells him to close his eyes. With soft lantern light shining between them, she kisses him and he kisses her back.
Then he steps away and turns his back. He leaves her alone in the plaza.
NINE
At home, Iroh looks expectantly out the window. Entering, Zuko slams into the bedroom. After a beat, he opens the screen and answers Iroh’s question: The evening was nice.
The Tale of Momo
ONE
Appa flies up through the clouds, Momo riding on his head, to a berry-laden tree.
Eating, they look content until Appa flies close to Momo and bellows. Lightning strikes, and Momo wakes from his dream.
TWO
He hides in a knapsack, then pokes his head out. Hanging over his brow is a piece of Appa’s hair.
THREE
Momo flashes back to his dream. They fly together, and Appa bellows.
(The Three/Six mirror, although tenuous, is that Momo’s friends are in trouble.)
FOUR
Momo startles. A storm-darkened shadow that looks like it could be Appa’s crosses the lawn. We see that it’s just a cloud, but Momo ties Appa’s hair to his wrist and flies out to follow.
Disappointed, Momo sees another Appa. He flies over, only to find the top of a cherry blossom tree peeking over a building. Sad, Momo continues flying through the city streets.
SWITCH
When he stops for a drink at an alley water barrel, large cats attack him. He flies, but the cats, agile, follow and jump at him.
FIVE
Running, Momo ends up in a man’s hands on a plaza. A little hat is strapped to his head and he’s tossed into a monkey act. He immediately improvs an eclectic dance and the crowd applauds. The cats break up the show, one of them grabbing onto Momo’s legs and bringing him down.
Momo is surrounded by the cats. At the last moment a net captures all of them. A man puts Momo in a cage in the back of a wagon. He slides a bolt into the cage door. The wagon starts to move as Momo cuddles with the Appa fur on his wrist.
The wagon parks. It’s a butcher’s shop, with processed chickens hanging from the rafters. Momo watches from his cage as the driver and the butcher argue. Whatever they’re saying, Momo only hears gibberish.
SIX
In the cage next to Momo’s are the three cats, meowing and clawing.
SEVEN
Momo pulls the pin that locks his cage. As he hops away, he stops and looks back at the cats. They look very sad and pitiable. Momo pulls their pin.
EIGHT
The two men approach a wagon with empty cages and open doors. Momo and the cats dash across the rooftop. They sit together, companionable and rubbing cheeks, while overlooking the city. One of the cats pulls the Appa fur from Momo’s wrist. Momo gives chase.
Making sure Momo is following, the cat drops the fur in a large depression in the ground. The cats watch as Momo lies down next to the fur. Rain falls.
NINE
Pull out to show that the depression is an Appa footprint in a deserted plaza.
(We’re ready to hear Appa’s story, which is the next episode. They’ve milked our heartbreak for him as long as they could, lol. No matter how ugly Appa’s capture becomes, we just want a resolution. It’s time.)