Following the spectacular “Beginnings Part 1 & 2” which managed to begin the redemption process for LoK, I fully expected the show to go back to BS mode following the last few episodes being pretty damn great. Thankfully this isn’t the case and for the first time I feel like the show has found its footing and knows where it wants to go but not without some lingering issues keeping it down.
Continuing where the last episode left off, “The Guide” continues all of the various story lines set up previously and manages to push them all forward at a brisk pace. Korra meets back up with Tenzin and his family in order to stop Vaatu from being freed, Mako continues his investigation of Varrick and we get too see more of Unalaq doing his evil thing.
The Korra & Tenzin dynamic was easily the best part of the episode for several reasons. Tenzin comes to terms with something that’s been bothering him his whole life which made him a sort of disappointment in the eyes of his father and with this we get some very good character development for him. While Tenzin was always Aang’s favorite he was never able to go into the Spirit World and that’s always been a sort of mark of shame for him.
This is something he has in common with Korra and its nice to see these two finally find some common ground given how very different they are from each other in terms of personality. It was also nice seeing Korra finally admits how this whole mess was her fault and judging by the way she acts this episode it actually seems like she’s (gasp) finally had some character development! I don’t think it’ll stick if they go the Book 1 route again but we got an episode where Korra is actually acting like a mature and non bitchy person.
It was a great little character arc for him to go through mostly because they don’t make Tenzin to angsty or beat us over the head with it. They didn’t unnecessarily drag it out over multiple episodes and instead chose to resolve it nicely and quickly which was the smart move.
If Book 2 has done anything right its showing us what kind of relationship Aang had with his family, how it affected them and them all seemingly getting over these emotional problems that have been plaguing them since they were little kids. The writing for the adults and the adult & kids relationship remains strong and I wish we could get a show devoted solely to this.
Mako’s sub plot was probably the worst because everyone acted like kind of a dumbass in it. I can buy Bolin not believing Mako’s story about Varrick being the guy behind all these recent events and the argument about explosives possibly being stolen did make sense but everything after that made no sense.
Varrick offers Mako a job as his security guard and even subtly threatens him if he refuses, you’d think Mako would play along with this just for the sake of buying himself time to get some more evidence and keep Varrick off his ass for a little while longer but he refuses. Later on Asami and Mako are having a moment when Currently Sole Remaining Stupid Bitch AKA Lin Beifong comes into his home with the two obviously corrupt as hell police officers and they arrest Mako.
First of all I really have to ask, how in the fuck are these two twats not in prison by now?! They’re so obviously evil and corrupt they might as well have a signs saying “WE ARE EVILZ LOLOLOLOLOL” coming out of their asses. Who in their right mind would let these guys work in the police for crying out loud? Then Asami actually believes them when they say Mako was behind the robbery of her warehouse!
The sheer level of stupidity displayed by her and Lin is simply astounding, Lin doesn’t surprise me since she’s always been a moron but Asami actually starting to think what they say is true is ridiculous. I know she has a lot of reasons to be loyal to Varrick and while Mako’s shady past may give her some cause to be hesitant, I still don’t buy she would believe these two idiots. It doesn’t help that this whole story has been done to death in other shows and this one sure as hell wont do anything cool with it I can guarantee you that much.
I also found it problematic that Mako and Asami don’t really ever sit down and talk about where this relationship is going. They just sort of get back together and that’s it. It casts Mako in a bad light (again) since he broke up with Korra just a week ago and now he seems ready to jump in back with Asami. A scene where he actually looks back at his relationship with Korra and another where they discuss it would have been greatly improved this.
Unalaq gets some screen time and we get too see more of his relationship with his children in that we see here he clearly doesn’t give a damn about them. It’s not anything particularly new or surprising and honestly if it was cut out it wouldn’t have affected the plot in any significant way.
On a side note, why is no one wondering where Korra is? She’s been gone for over a week and yet no one seems to particularly care. Sure she was a bitch and all but them being okay with her disappearing off the face of the earth seems very bizarre to me.
We can also breathe a sigh of relief as the Studio Pierrot has finally left and Studio Mir is back! The animation quality has returned to Book 1 levels which is blatantly obvious throughout the episode. Character designs remain consistent from scene to scene, the character models don’t stick out badly from everything else like they used too and the scene where Korra spirit bends was simply breathtaking.
The humor remains consistently good thanks to good ol Bumi and Tenzin. Both of them had some very funny sibling banter and interaction but the scene where Korra does a recap of recent events and Tenzin simply proclaiming “I knew this would happen!” was hysterical.
“The Guide” may not have been as good as “The Sting” or “The Beginnings Part 1 & 2” but it was none the less a solid episode that managed to push the plot forward thanks to some clever character development of both Korra and Tenzin but was ultimately brought down because of Republic City sub plot going into cliché territory.
THE GOOD
+ Korra & Tenzin get character development
+ Animation is breathtaking
+ Humor remains consistently funny
THE BAD
– The two scumbag corrupt cops are about as subtle as ninjas who use chain guns for stealth kills and…
-… Asami actually believes these two twats
– The evil father story is getting very old
FINAL VERDICT: C+
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