The second season of The Legend of Korra is a weird one to say the least. The first few episodes leading up to Avatar Wan range from utter stupid bullshit to just barely mediocre, the ones that take place after are pretty damn enjoyable and manage to capture many of the things that made the original series so beloved. With a pretty even 50/50 split there it falls to the finale to decide on what kind of note the season will end on.
Following Raava being killed by a Vaatu empowered Unalaq, Korra is left powerless as he insane uncle turns into a Mega Zord and starts tearing the ever loving crap out of Republic City in classic giant monster movie fashion. All seems lost until Tenzin conveniently remembers the tree in which Vaatu was imprisoned in is also the Avatar universes version of Yggdrasil and Korra uses it to reach her own Mega Zord form in order to defeat Unalaq.
They duke it out Pacific Rim style until everything seems lost but wait! Jinora appears literally out of no where and does…. something which gives Korra another power boost and she is able to kill both Vaatu and Unalaq in under a minute. With the world seemingly at peace now, Korra decides to leave the spirit portals open so that man and spirit can both share the world in harmony.
The finale is in many ways a representation of the quality of Book 2 Spirits. There are a lot of things to like about it, and a fair number of things to dislike but like, none of the bad is glaring enough to destroy to ruin it. That being said the good also isn’t strong enough to make the flaws negligible leaving us with a mixed bag.
My biggest problem with the finale is how predictable it was and how it fell back on the classic Avatar style of using convenient Deus Ex Machina to help the hero win a fight they have no chance in hell of winning. Tenzin just so happens to know about the tree that kept Vaatu in prison and how it’s able to let the people inside of it tap into massive cosmic power. Korra just so happens to be able to fully connect to her spiritual self and Jinora just so happens to be able to find a piece of Raava to save her just when the villain is about to win.
Putting aside the sheer amount of conveniences, I could literally tell everything that was going to happen throughout the entire episode. Everything from Korra finding a secondary power source to defeat Vaatu to him nearly killing her (again) to Deus Ex Jinora saving her last sacked was so obvious you’d have to be an idiot not too see this shit coming a mile away. Only one thing happened in the end that caught me by surprise and it’s something that will either live or die by how well it’s handled in the following Books.
Another issue I had was the scope of the battle. Vaatu wants to engulf the entire world in darkness and I was really hoping to see him or at least some of his minions attack places like Ba Sing Se or the Fire Nation. Instead the battle was entirely at Republic City and Unalaq had no real long term effect on the place. Sure he decimates the United Republic forces in spectacular fashion but his attack on the city itself is pretty tame.
He summons vines that spread all throughout the place but beyond that he never really attacks the city directly. You never see him just walking through the place and knocking down buildings like they’re nothing opting instead to remain in the harbor. How great would it have been to see him go Godzilla on the place and just wreck the whole place? Him destroying Aangs statue falls flat when instead of seeing him just tear it down entirely to demoralize the enemy he just picks it up and tosses it into the ocean. I really wish they just went completely balls out with the battle and really let Republic City have it but sadly they don’t and the battle losses a lot of its tension because of it.
Despite all of these problems there were a fair number of things I genuinely liked. The action scenes all looked absolutely beautiful with some really clever choreography going on. I’m always amazed how they’re able to find new ways of using elemental bending and making it look both cool and spectacular all at the same time. In fact the whole thing simply looks drop dead gorgeous with the laser blast between Korra and Vaatu easily being the most visually eye popping thing during the entire finale.
It also had some genuinely funny bits in it such as everything involving Varrick, Desna and Eska. Varrick is just hysterical is every scene he’s in but the bit where Korra apologizes to her cousins made me laugh so hard I could barely breathe. She tries to say she’s sorry but the two just give her a stone cold response by telling her if she seriously thinks they give a damn about Unalaq biting the dust.
But it’s the scene at the end between Mako and Korra that made instantly like this episode a lot more. Given how the creators were again trying to make me hate Mako through the love triangle BS. I was pleasantly surprised to see the two of them realize they just aren’t cut out for one another and decided to break up at the end. It was a mature decision from both of those characters who have had the bad habit of acting like complete idiots when it comes to relationships.
Korra deciding to keep the spirit portals is another interesting plot development which could turn out to be great or just awful. Upon first seeing what she chose to do I thought it was the stupidest fucking idea she’s had in a while. I thought her experience with Wan would help her realize spirits and man can’t live together but at then I started to consider all the future possibilities that could be explored with this ending.
On the one hand there are malevolent spirits who would have no problem ripping humanity a new one like Koh and to giant spider Grey Delisle who drags Tenzin, Kya and Bumi to the fog of eternal mind fucking. On the other hand benevolent spirits such as Iroh or even the dead Team Avatar members could considerable help humanity if another threat came (which it well) to destroy the balance.
It’s an interesting idea that is going to have to be one of, if not THE main points of the next two books. The fog of eternal mind fucking already showed us what happened to some of the villains such as Zhao and with the spirit world being open too all the possibilities for more old foes to return is pretty big with Azula being the most likely.
Grey Delisle recently stated she’s voicing a very bad girl character for Book 3 which could be a new Team Avatar member but could just as easily be Azula. Plus if you take into account Azula disappearing at the end of the Search Part 3 into the spirit forest, its not entirely impossible that she could have ended up in the spirit world and has been trapped in for 70 years now. Considering the fact she was already bat shit insane in the Search, being in that fog of eternal mental rape would make her even crazier.
Also if her choice ultimately ends up causing more harm then good it’s going to give Korra a natural way to develop even further as a character in the following books. A big issue of this book was Korra needing to be made into a complete unlikable bitch just so she can have some character development. With this ending the writers won’t have to resort to such a thing.
In conclusion the finale had some stuff I liked, some stuff which seriously detracted from it and it managed to setup some interesting story possibilities for further seasons. I will say this season is a big improvement over the first one with the show finally finding a consistent level of (good) quality following „Beginnings Parts 1 & 2“ but still suffers from some of it’s own as well as its predecessors inherits problems.
THE GOOD
+ Mega Zords in Avatar
+ The visuals are still top notch
+ Better action scenes than most block buster movies
+ Korra and Mako fully breaking up
+ Desna and Eska not giving a damn about Unalaq dying
THE BAD
– The world ending invasion is only at one location
– Attack on Republic City is too tame
– Far too predictable
– Too many conveniences and Deus Ex Machina
FINAL VERDICT: C+
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