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Thoughts: Legend of Korra Book 3 "The Terror Within"

Written by Joshua Hamilton Directed by Colin Heck
Written by Joshua Hamilton Directed by Colin Heck

“The Terror Within” torrential pacing and Scooby Doo hijinks continue the level of quality Book 3 has achieved. As with “In Harm’s Way”, the action heavy front half would make it easy to not really pick at things besides gushing (once again) over the quality of Studio Mir’s animation. Writing “The Terror Within” off as an action episode would, however, be disservice to the lots of little moments peppered in between the action.

Book 2 was plotted in such a way that plot points and the lore workings of these points were barely made clear episode to episode. It was opaque in the way Game of Thrones season 2 was this vast yet formless epic. It was only in totality that the form took shape and real appreciation could be had. Book 3 hasn’t stopped keeping secretes and lore from audiences or Team Avatar, we still know next to nothing about the Red Lotus (a name only figured out via HTML scraping and Episode Titles) motivations – only that it’s a lava bender, combustion bender (glad to finally have a name for that), Ming Hua, and led by Zaheer who spouts ancient Air Nomad mysticism in between lying and flying on his glider. The mystery of their motivation though isn’t nearly as annoying due to Book 3 tighter writing and use of 2 part episode arcs in the first half. Book 3 is able functioning as a television series, providing closed arcs by the end of an episode, making for an enjoyable viewing experience and allowing the Red Lotus’ phantom menace to be just that: a mysterious antagonistic force. For now that’s all the story of Book 3 requires and so that’s what they are.

The Red Lotus Strike
The Red Lotus Strike

And what an awesome force for action they have been. First with each team members individual prison breaks, and now with the first attack on Team Avatar and Zaofu. It’s gotta be the fact it took place in a dome. Surrounded by Suyin’s family, Team Avatar, and a smattering of not totally useless guards the action has a fair amount of dynamism for what boils down to something out of a cover based shooter. Not that cover dose anyone any good since P’Li can apparently bend her combustion(?) shots. After the floor turns to lava, Lin and Suyin decide to attack from above providing a small sequence reminiscent of the excellent attack on the Pro Bending Arena with high flying theatrics.

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As awesome as the action was it would be weightless if it didn’t also highlight Bolin and end the arc from “Old Wounds” and transitioning to the next plot smoothly. Bolin was kind of lost in Book 2, sure he had his “Movers” plot but in comparison to everyone else it felt like an afterthought and dumbing down of the character. Bryke and Co. have firmly reestablished Bolin is the Bro of Bros via his budding relationship with Opal and now his attempts to learn metal bending. Exploring Bolin’s insecurities in this and previous episodes is incredibly natural for a character with such bravado and during the attack it’s up to him to take the shot. Getting Opal out of the picture for now is a good call, adorable as it was it got a little cloying towards the end. Sending the love birds out on a dual homage of classic romance: “We’ll always have Kale” referencing “We’ll always have Paris” and then Opal feeding him the wrap (off screen) which might actually be the most sub textually sexual moment in this series and reminiscent of Now Voyager’s end.

Betrayal is a hard thing to handle, it’s will always be taken it personally. Making Suyin’s actions in light of one of her people turning into a rat are to a degree understandable. It dosen’t make them any less ruthless. She throws the Fall Guy Guard up against the wall, ready to take some extra judicial punishment on him now, with nary a though towards procedure. The way she talks about making those who betrayed the Clan pay is also pause for concern. For all her talk about how the Earth Queen is an outmoded governmental construct she’s acting exactly like Hou-Ting. When combined with her actions at the end of the episode, letting Team Avatar escape the city and hunt Aiwei, it starts to seem like something is up with Suyin. It’s another link a long chain of characters using the Avatar to their own ends by flattery and agreeing with them. That said, Suyin could easily be another Asami, a character everyone thinks and expects to be evil but isn’t.

As fun as it was to see the story turn into an episode of Scooby Doo, Pabu gets to be rather anthropomorphic this episode, there is an on the nose quality to the dialog that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. Adding Varrick to the mix did add a reflexive quality and in an investigation what else would you really talk about. At the very least it reasserted that Detective Mako is the best Mako (and someone should really write Noir Mako fan fic). Maurice LaMarche delivery of “You have no idea what’s coming Avatar…” was appropriately freighting. We don’t know what’s coming but that hasn’t stopped Korra and Co. running head on into it.

This is of course the final episode that will be aired on Nickelodeon the channel. The remaining episodes will air on Nick.com, Amazon, Xbox, and others according to the statement on Korra Nation. It’s an abrupt but not unexpected change, Bryan Konietzko talked about it during the recent SDCC panel. The adverb “smooth” rings the most, it was a sudden change and not exactly a smooth one. It looked sudden and without coordination with Bryke, having creators post chibi art with text boasting that the show isn’t canceled! just looks slapdash. Nickelodeon for the most part has done a good job hooking into this fandom via the tumblr an social media but it also doesn’t really treat it like a proper television series with press releases and the like because as the creators said, this isn’t really Nickelodeon fair. Nickelodeon has been treating the same as its other shows and well their demo isn’t plugged into the internet quite like this. So why would they do anything differen?

Hopefully the move to digital is a good thing and it’s an excuse for Nickelodeon to experiment in that area or looking at licensing deas ala what CBS dose with Under the Dome and Extant with Amazon Prime. Korra would be perfect for Amazon Prime, a niche but large audience and content that can be listed under “kids” and normal stuff.

I am Michael Mazzacane and you can find on Twitter @MaZZM and at weekntv.com or comicweek.com

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