I didn’t remember how much of Avatar was told in parallel stories. Aang is our protagonist, but Zuko is a sub-protagonist, and his story unfurls in evocative ways, too. The Story Enneagram for this episode has double numbers because we’re experiencing two stories.
ONE
At a lakeside overnight camp, Aang wakes Sokka. He’s ready to get home today, for the first time in 100 years.
Cut to Zuko docked at a Fire Nation shipyard for repairs.
TWO
As soon as Zuko disembarks, he’s met by Commander Zhao. Now, this guy is Trouble. Zuko lies to him about how his ship sustained damage. (It was the Avatar, remember.)
Cut to the team flying toward the Air Temple. Sokka is hungry and the food storage is empty. This starts out as a typical Sokka bit — he represents us normies, surrounded and outnumbered by magic — but it is also Trouble. His hunger will set the Eight in motion.
Katara warns Aang to be prepared. The Fire Nation is ruthless. Aang shrugs off her concerns.
THREE
The only way to get to an Air Temple is to travel by flying bison. We have an Appa moment as he takes them to the Temple. And, there it is: a mysterious, fantastical home in the clouds.
FOUR
In the Fire Nation tent, Zhao reveals that he interrogated Zuko’s crew and knows the truth. The Avatar’s been found.
Meanwhile, at the Temple, Aang shows them the compound, remembering his life there. We meet in memory his beloved master, Monk Gyatso. Tranquility, joy, and beauty were abundant at the Air Temple.
SWITCH
Aang is ready to open the Avatar door, sealed with an air-bending lock, for the first time.
FIVE
After the door swings open, the team steps forward into the dark.
Meanwhile, Zhao chastises and shames Zuko. Ah, the real villain of the season has revealed himself. This is the episode when you know that Zuko is sympathetic, and that his character arc will be important.
Back at the Temple we see the interior of the locked room. A spiral of statues, winding up the walls and out of sight, greets the team. Each one is of a former Avatar, Aang’s past lives. Front and center is Aang’s immediate predecessor, Avatar Roku. If we didn’t understand before, we see clearly now that Avatars reincarnate in an ordered procession: Water, Earth, Fire, Air. Roku was born into the Fire Nation.
During this tense moment, a shadow appears. It turns out to be a lemur, an animal that used to be ubiquitous at the Air Temple. Sokka, who’s been complaining of hunger throughout the episode, says, “Dinner!” and gives chase.
SIX
Aang, who doesn’t want Sokka to eat the lemur, chases after. This is what I’ve got for a Six. At the end of the episode it becomes clear that only three beings from the Air Temple culture have survived: Aang, Appa, and Momo the lemur. At the Three we had such promise of a beautiful, happy place hiding in the clouds. At the Six we see an empty place, barren, with Aang running to rescue the only living thing left.
SEVEN
With the chase ongoing, we flip to the Fire Nation. Zhao is still humiliating Zuko, calling him a failure. Zuko challenges him to an Agni Kai, a Fire Nation duelling ritual. (Zuko always had and always will have an impulsive temper.) We learn, with a close-up of Zuko’s damaged left eye socket, that there was another Agni Kai that he’ll never forget.
The Aang storyline doesn’t have a clear Seven. While chasing Sokka, Aang stumbles into a room filled with burnt Fire Nation corpses and armor. Sitting in the center of it all is the skeleton of Gyatso. Aang, devastated, begins to glow. On the one hand, you could say that Aang decided to let loose his anger and pain, going into the Avatar State. On the other, he doesn’t know how to control it and it can’t be a conscious decision. This is what we have, though, because the next events are climactic.
EIGHT
All the statues in the locked room have glowing eyes. It’s totally creepy, eerie, and Katara dashes out for Aang.
Distant temples, representing each element, begin to glow. At the Fire Nation temple, the attendant says, “Send word.” Everyone now knows the Avatar has returned.
Aang explodes into a storm air ball, like a tornado, that blows Katara back.
Meanwhile, Zuko and Zhao square off for the Agni Kai. Uncle Iroh watches, coaching Zuko to remember his basics. After being beaten down, Zuko comes back, focuses, and takes down Zhao. It’s a great battle of fire bending. As Zuko walks away, Zhao rises and launches a sneak attack. Iroh grabs his foot and stops him. We get a little hint of Iroh’s power, which is thrilling. He’s proud of his nephew, Zuko. This storyline in the episode resolves very nicely.
At the Temple, Katara talks Aang down out of the Avatar State. She also knows loss by the Fire Nation, and now the three of them are each other’s family. Aang settles and collapses, realizing that he really is the last airbender.
NINE
No Nine for Zuko, or you could say that Iroh’s blessing was a Nine, tacked into the story at the appropriate place. This Nine is all Aang’s. He looks at the statues, particularly Roku, and wonders how the last Avatar could help him when he can’t talk to him. Obviously, this is an open-ended question to be answered later.
He names and welcomes Momo (Sokka was never actually going to eat him), and they fly off. The Southern Air Temple disappears behind them into a swirl of mist and clouds.