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| Sunday, August 2, 2009 05:40 PM |
| On the Viewer - Avatar: The Last Airbender (Book 3, Volume 2) |
 by Fëanor |
"The Avatar and the Firelord"
C'mon, Sozin was totally murdered by his son, right?
Woah. I love the secret way you have to enter the Dragon Bone Catacombs. Very cool.
Ah, I see, Zuko and Aang are going to be learning about a story out of the past at the same time, from two different angles: the friendship between (Firelord) Sozin and (Avatar) Roku. That's a bit of a surprise! Very interesting.
Aww. Aang and Roku were friends with the same guy. "Some friendships are so strong they can even transcend lifetimes."
Roku: "And being the Avatar doesn't hurt your chances with the ladies, either."
Sozin wanted Roku to help him expand the Fire Nation's empire across the world, to "share their prosperity with everyone." Roku wouldn't have it. Thus their friendship turned into a feud. In the end, when he could have saved Roku, Sozin instead chose to let him die so he could pursue his vision for the future. It's a powerful moment. I'm particularly moved that Roku's dragon laid down and died with him.
Woah! Sozin and Roku are Zuko's two great-grandfathers! Roku was his mother's grandfather. Iroh wants Zuko to help restore balance to his family, and to the world. He gives Zuko the royal artifact that Sozin gave Roku. Zuko really is at the heart of all of this strife, which explains why he's so at war with himself. He's more important than I realized.
"The Runaway"
Katara betraying Toph to her enemies?! I know they don't always get along, but that seems unlikely. Now we flashback three days to see how we got to this point. Toph and Katara get pissed at each other while training Aang and start mud wrestling. Hot!
Oh no, the shell game! Toph says she can beat it with her earthbending. Nice. Uh oh, now they're turning their scamming into a business. Ha! They even pulled the old, "you hit me with your car!" gag.
Katara is psychoanalyzing Toph. She might be dead on, but it's not really helping things.
Sokka is trying to come up with a good name for the assassin guy. His first attempt? Sparky Sparky Boom Man. Oh, Sokka. And he bought himself a messenger hawk! Its name is Hawky. But he also found a wanted poster for Toph, who's known as "The Runaway." Toph is bribing him to keep quiet. But of course it comes out eventually.
Aang: "I gotta say, Sokka, you continue to impress me with your ideas." But their plan to send a note to Katara and pretend it's from Toph doesn't work out, for obvious reasons.
Aww. Sokka and Toph have a moving talk about parents and friendship and Katara, which Katara overhears (apparently by chance - or did Sokka plan that?). It heals the rift between the two girls. Then Katara decides she wants to pull one last big scam with Toph - the ultimate scam! Awesome. This is going to turn into The Sting. And obviously this explains the opening scene. Unfortunately, as one might expect, everything goes awry! Katara is sold out to the assassin guy, and Toph is thrown into a wooden prison cell.
Heh. Sokka tells Momo and Hawky to behave, and puts Appa in charge, who lays down the law with a quick roar.
Wow, Katara's waterbending with her own sweat! Pretty brilliant. Love how she ambushed the assassin with a big load of ice around his head. And Toph cracked him in the skull with a rock and made his crazy head powers backfire! Awesome. Excellent episode. Lots of action and character development.
"The Puppetmaster"
The "Previously on Avatar..." section is flashing us back all the way to the first episode. Interesting.
Our heroes are telling ghost stories around the campfire. Katara tells a good one about her Mom. But something creepy really is going on here. People are disappearing in the woods...
The old lady running the inn seems pretty nice, but could she be part of the mystery? Holy crap, she's from the Southern Water Tribe! That's random.
Heh heh. I love Aang sharing food with Appa, and Appa sharing it with Momo.
The old lady's a pretty masterful waterbender. I don't quite trust her yet. And there's why - she sucked the water out of the flowers and killed them all. She says her ultimate technique can only be done during the full moon. Yep, she's the one behind the disappearances. She's learned bloodbending. That's extremely creepy. And explains the title of the episode. She's been taking control of people and locking them underground to die. Another look at how war can twist people. Katara is finally forced to use bloodbending against Hama to defeat her. Eee. Pretty disturbing episode.
"Nightmares and Daydreams"
It's almost time for the eclipse and the planned invasion of the Fire Nation! Aang doesn't feel ready. Heh. He has a nightmare in which he's dressed quite a bit like that dude in Dragonball. He's there to confront the Firelord, but the Firelord is huge and menacing - and Aang isn't wearing any pants!
Zuko's in the lap of luxury while Aang is training for all he's worth, desperate and paranoid that he's not ready. He's having the nightmare again. This time there's a math test! Brilliant. Man, he's wearing himself out something brutal.
They each try to relieve Aang's stress. Sokka puts on a fake beard and pretends to be a psychiatrist. D'oh.
Zuko is also feeling the stress, sort of. He feels like he's being left out of things by his father and his sister again.
Aang's latest nightmare is his worst ever - surreal and scary, although also kind of funny. Some clever parody stuff in there. A giant Momo attacks him! Later, he has a daydream about professing his love to Katara. That would probably help a lot, actually.
Heh. Sokka really is going through with his crazy plan to build armor for Appa.
And now, a conversation with Momo! And even Appa talks to him! Momo and Appa are arguing, then suddenly start fighting, dressed as samurai, while the koala-sheep cheer them on. So awesome. Oh man, this is getting weirder and weirder. Aang is really losing it.
Meanwhile, Zuko is finally realizing that although he can pretend to be the perfect prince, it'll never really be him.
Ha ha ha. In the final dream, it's Firelord Ozai who isn't wearing pants! Excellent.
"The Day of the Black Sun, Part I: The Invasion"
Given the fact that there's still a whole other disc of episodes, I'm pretty sure this invasion is not going to go well. Steeling myself!
All their friends from previous episodes have been gathered together to help out in the invasion. Excellent!
Aww, a new glider for Aang. It even has a snack compartment!
Aww, Sokka screwed up the war planning meeting and his Dad had to take over.
Wow, Appa's armor looks good!
Aang's going old school for today and shaving his head.
Yeah, I had a feeling the Fire Nation was going to be ready for them.
Holy crap, Sokka invented submarines!
Finally, Aang kisses Katara! Good call.
I think Zuko's finally leaving the Fire Nation.
Heh heh. Aang uses the snack compartment.
Wow, they even have torpedoes, and kick-ass tanks.
Awesome war sequence. Lots of very cool ideas in here. Hugh even put himself together a giant seaweed monster. Nice.
Sokka's got some nice moves, just like his Daddy.
The city is empty. This is all a huge trap. They're just tricking the invasion force into wasting their chance to use the eclipse to win. Argh.
A very action-heavy episode with a few moments of character development, but still great. Looking forward to seeing how they turn things around in the following episodes. |
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