Korra 1×08: When Extremes Meet
Y’all said you’d be interested in seeing me review The Legend of Korra from a newbie’s perspective. Who am I to refuse my readers?
Legend of Korra 1×08: When Extremes Meet
Full episode available at Nick.com
Episode Summary (from Wikipedia): “When Korra, Mako, Bolin and Asami begin patrolling the city independently, they discover the lengths to which Councilman Tarrlok will go to stop the Equalists, including arresting innocent non-benders. When they try to stand up to him, Tarrlok has all but Korra arrested. Later, when Korra decides to face him one-on-one, Tarrlok reveals his true colors, using the power of Bloodbending to overcome and confine her, and has her taken out of the city.”
My initial thoughts: Another good, well-paced episode. The writers aren’t being subtle, are they? Politicians using fear of extremists to gain power for themselves. Indefinite detention without due process. Riot police rounding up protesters en masse and hauling them off to jail. The politics in this show are starting to feel almost too realistic for my taste.
It would be nice to see the other councilors do more than just act like Tarrlok’s mindless puppets. I wonder if they’re being controlled, or if they’re just not important enough for speaking parts.
I like the “official” formation of Team Avatar, and the Avatarmobile is a nice touch. It was fun to see Korra’s team make Tarrlok and his task force look like incompetent fools, but you also see Korra’s inexperience with politics. Tarrlok is far more devious, and is fighting and scheming on levels Korra doesn’t understand. Learning airbending is important, but she also needs to start studying political intrigue, and quick, or she’s going to get destroyed.
It feels like things are coming to a head, and I’m looking forward to seeing it happen.
The romance: Ikki babbles to Asami about Korra liking Mako, which leads to several anime-style emotional explosions. (My son was rather confused by this.) Both Asami and Korra take the time-honored approach of pretending that didn’t just happen, but you see Asami watching Korra and Mako in the mirror of the Avatarmobile later on. As with so much else, they advance the story with just a few well-placed scenes and lines instead of dwelling on it. Props for that. But I mentioned before that the love triangle isn’t my favorite part of the show. Can’t we just have two strong female protagonists who aren’t in conflict over a boy?
Confused newbie says huh? Bloodbending, eh? That’s new. I had heard about this particular power online, but this is the first time I’ve seen it. As with so much else, I think it was presented just about perfectly. We see that it’s nasty, dangerous, and that theoretically you can only do it with a full moon … but Tarrlok has apparently learned some new tricks. All of this is accomplished quickly, with no drawn-out exposition. Well done!
What throws me off more are Korra’s flashbacks. I recognize Aang, but I’m not familiar with the other characters, and the flashbacks are so short that I’m left with a vague sense that something just happened, but no idea what. (Kind of like every Michael Bay action scene ever.)
Thoughts from the seven-year-old: “I think the councilor was really as bad as Amon. I also think he shouldn’t have the right to make all those laws. He arrested innocent non-benders, and he even arrested three of Korra’s friends just so he could get to Korra. The councilor was doing exactly what Amon said was bad about the benders! I think there might be an episode where Korra figures out what avatar Aang was trying to say to her. My favorite part was when the boy [Meelo] was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it! … What are we doing?'”
Predictions: Beating Tarrlok in combat isn’t going to work; Korra needs to find a way to destroy him politically, first. Lin Bei Fong is gonna be pissed when she sees what Captain Saikhan has been doing with her police force. I have no idea who Amon really is, though I’m assuming he’ll be someone tied into the previous series. I’m guessing and hoping he won’t be someone directly taken from that series, though. Tarrlok’s reaction to being compared to Amon was interesting too, and makes me suspect we’ll see that Tarrlok’s motives aren’t limited to just being an amoral, power-mad turd. Finally, sooner or later, I expect to see an attack on Air Temple Island, and I look forward to seeing Tenzin’s kids and the air bison and everyone else kick serious butt.
Joe Selby
June 5, 2012 @ 9:54 am
What throws me off more are Korra’s flashbacks.
Tensin touches on this. An Avatar has spiritual access to all the past Avatars that have ever existed, something at which Korra has failed at (she’s a spiritual failure not just an airbending failure). The flashbacks are Aang’s memory. You’re left confused because she’s left confused. Once she finally manages to contact Aang, it’ll make sense. Or perhaps it making sense will allow her to contact Aang.
Darrin
June 5, 2012 @ 9:57 am
Don’t worry about those flashbacks. Those of us who’ve seen the 1st series recognized who the characters must be, but not the situation shown. I’m sure all will be revealed once Korra can access her past lives for advice. It is probably the key to the entire series.
And yes, Bloodbending is very bad. So far, we thought only Tenzin’s mother Katara was the only living water bender who could blood bend. I’m wondering who taught Tarrlok the technique.
LauraA
June 5, 2012 @ 11:41 am
We spent nearly half an hour re-watching and discussing those flashbacks and concluded, among other things, that the actions depicted there may have happened around the time of Aang’s death and Korra’s birth. We didn’t see Aang in them, though. Could Aang have been murdered?
Ken Marable
June 5, 2012 @ 12:48 pm
Thanks for the newbie perspective! I also want to echo some of the comments, that for those of us who watched the original series, it’s not clear what’s happening in the flashbacks either (although I still haven’t seen this episode yet, but if it’s anything like the past ones, the grown up versions of the characters are recognizable but that’s it).
Cool that they are using bloodbending. One thing I like about this series as a follow up to the first one is that there are several things that characters in the original series were the only (or one of only a few) people who could do them. Now each has started becoming whole organizations. Bloodbending, metalbending, chi-blocking, and even Aang’s spirit bending to remove bending ability is back. Kind of illustrates how individuals can have a large impact over time. Just need to see a group of swamp monsters from bending the water in the plants. 🙂
Annalee
June 5, 2012 @ 1:35 pm
Yeah, the flashbacks throw me too, and I’ve watched Avatar:TLA all the way through several times.
The people we’re seeing in the flashbacks are Aang’s original “Team Avatar.” Most notably, the woman in the police uniform is Toph Bei Fong, Lin’s mother.
To me, it looks like what we’re seeing in the flashbacks is somebody blood-bending their way out of a courthouse in broad daylight (which should seriously not be possible–water benders draw their power from the moon, so they’re more powerful at night and when the moon is full, and it takes All The Power to bloodbend). I’m guessing this is the person Tarrlok mentioned several episodes back, when he said Aang didn’t hesitate to take some guy out forty years ago, and Tenzin was all “How dare you compare yourself to Avatar Ang!”
My brother thinks Tarrlok might be Amon, and two of my Korra-watching buddies think they might be siblings. I don’t think that’s what’s going on. In TLA, the creative team showed a real talent for not taking the obvious kids-show route through plot-town, so if Tarrlok and Amon do have some kind of history, it’s probably something a little less contrived.
In TLA, they were really good at ‘layering’ villains, so that there were bigger bad guys moving behind the more immediate bad guys the heroes were facing (not in a ‘minions’ way–they would just introduce villains in the background before they moved them up to the front). I’m wondering if that’s what’s going on with Tarrlok and Amon. It might turn out that one of them is the ‘bigger’ villain, or it could be that they’re both just the warm-up act to an even bigger bad we’ll see later.
Also, +1,000 on wanting the love triangle to go away. I love Asami and I love Korra and I really want them to actually be friends who work together and respect each other, and not spend their time fighting over Mako.
Annalee
June 5, 2012 @ 1:48 pm
I’m pretty sure the air bender we’re seeing in the flashbacks is Aang. Because:
1. In the intro sequence, all of the benders shown at the beginning with their elements appear to be avatars–Kiyoshi for earth, Roku for fire, and Korra for water–so the air nomad we see (who has the same beard as we see in the flashbacks) is probably Aang.
2. When Tenzin runs up to Korra as she’s waking up from the first flashback, she sees him and says “Aang?” Since she knows Tenzin, it wouldn’t make sense for her to confuse him with Aang unless she’d just ‘seen’ Aang.
3. In the flashback outside the courthouse, where the airbender in the flashback is chasing the guy, his arrow starts to glow–which wouldn’t happen unless it was Aang avataring out.
Also keep in mind that Korra is about seventeen. Toph was only a few years younger than Katara, and Sokka was older. To me, they both (and Aang, assuming that’s him) appear too young in the flashbacks for the events depicted to have happened seventeen years ago.
I think we’re seeing the fight Tarrlok mentioned a few episodes back, when he was putting together his task force. He referenced a threat to Republic City that Aang dealt with 40 years ago, which is about the right time frame for how old Sokka and Toph (and Aang, again assuming that’s him) appear to be in the flashbacks.
Jim C. Hines
June 5, 2012 @ 3:30 pm
I could buy the siblings theory, but I don’t really see Tarrlok as Amon. I might have misread the fury on Tarrlok’s face when Korra told him he was just like Amon, but my sense was that Tarrlok really does hate the guy. (Which adds weight to the idea that they have a history.)
Jim C. Hines
June 5, 2012 @ 3:31 pm
From what I’ve told, it feels like bending has evolved and moved forward hand-in-hand with the technology from the first series, which is very cool.
Annalee
June 5, 2012 @ 4:41 pm
Yeah, my brother thinks the look on his face was “oh hell she’s on to me,” but I read more rage than fear there. Whatever else is going on with Tarrlok, I do think that he really genuinely hates Amon and wants to bring him down. Given his clear contempt for non-benders, this may be no more than the abject terror a bigot might feel at facing someone who can turn them into the class they consider less-than (see also: heterosexists who think Teh Gay is contagious).
If they do have a history (and I find it likely), the question becomes: why is he withholding information from the police and the rest of the council? Being the guy with the inside scoop would appear to serve his power plays. So if he and Amon have a history and he’s not talking about it, what’s he hiding? I mean, obviously he’s hiding bloodbending, which is not a skill he’d have much of an opportunity to come by honestly. But would talking about his history with Amon bring that to light, or are there other skeletons in his closet?
As far as the siblings thing, I believe I remember Amon saying at the rally that he was from the Earth kingdom. I could be making that up. If I’m not, though, it would strike me as silly for him to claim to be from the Earth kingdom if he’s from the northern water tribe. For such a long-term cover, it’d make more sense to keep it as close as possible to the truth. The northern water tribe is pretty big, so saying he was from there wouldn’t be enough to give away his identity.
Annalee
June 5, 2012 @ 4:42 pm
There is a distinct posibility that I think way too hard about this show.
Jim C. Hines
June 5, 2012 @ 6:08 pm
That’s part of the fun 🙂
Jim C. Hines
June 5, 2012 @ 7:04 pm
See, if this keeps up, I’m going to end up going back to rewatch every episode from the beginning, just to try to catch all of those little details that become important later on.
Not that this would be a bad thing 🙂
Annalee
June 5, 2012 @ 10:11 pm
Thanks for posting about this today, instead of over the weekend.
I don’t have a TV, so I watch the show online on Monday nights.I’ve been feeling like I’m missing out on the fandom, because everyone seems to get all their fan-analysis out of their system over the weekend. It’s really nice to have people to talk about it with on Tuesday.
Darrin
June 6, 2012 @ 7:13 am
I think Amon is one of Zuko’s kids/descendants. Imagine life in the royal palace being a non-bender like your mother. You could grow up hating benders.
Longwing
June 6, 2012 @ 11:28 am
They’ve definitely emphasized that evolution. In TLA, each element had an advanced or experimental form.
– Toph Bei Fong invented Metalbending by refining Earthbending.
– Firebenders had lightning, but only a few firebenders could master the technique, most of them members of the royal family.
– The Waterbender Hama invented Bloodbending, and taught the technique to Katara under extreme duress (she wasn’t a willing student).
Compare that with Republic City:
– The entire police force (founded by Toph) knows how to Metalbend.
– The city is powered by Firebenders throwing lightning (as we saw in an earlier episode)
– We’ve seen one (possibly two) Bloodbenders, neither of them Katara.
The one exception is Airbending. Aang invented one unusual technique in TLA, an airball he frequently rode on while running to/from something. But it was hardly a rare or unusual technique (his entire temple adopted the technique before the events in TLA). As Aang was the last airbender, the mere survival of airbending is the best the discipline could have hoped for.
Annalee
June 7, 2012 @ 12:48 pm
We did see Tenzin using his own form of airball, but he was inside it, rather than on top of it.
It’s also unclear (at least to me) if spirit-bending is an advanced form of airbending, or if it’s a special avatar-thing (well obviously it can’t exclusively be an avatar thing if Amon is doing it, but I seriously doubt that dude’s an airbender either).