This is definitely one of the stronger episodes on the back half of the season and hopefully not too weird or off putting for any new viewers. I would question whether this was a coincidentally lucky move, though, since this episode definitely had a higher effects budget than is completely typical. I think they may…

I think this really highlights the problem with putting Troy/Britta in the backseat for the season because the relationship itself should have been the Britta story even if the breakup was a Troy story. They laid this foundation in S3 that what would be good about Troy/Britta would be that it would help her realize…

Earwormed >:(

I was pretty disappointed in this episode after last week. They actually nailed Shawn's desperation, selfishness, and self-delusions last week while still preserving him as a sympathetic character. This week he was just an asshole. I actually thought Juliet was going to point out some of the stalkery parallels between…

That's not what we were saying at all. He was originally planned as an evil character who would betray Zuko to Ozai. They discarded that plan. It's unclear where exactly in production they discarded that plan, but I personally think the first half of the first season was written with enough ambiguity that they may…

I can agree that urgency may have been lacking for Zhao's plan, since that seems linked both to Aang's return and Zuko's better tracking ability. Zhao's rise through the ranks via Ozai's favor right when Zuko is hot on Aang's trail isn't a coincidence — better to hand victory to Zhao than allow Zuko home. However, I…

I really, really hate comparing ATLA stuff to Israel/Palestine. I think it's a lot fairer to say it's about to get Hong Kong/Macau up in there.

Roku didn't shut the colonies down, though. In his great show of uselessness, he wagged his finger at Sozin and told him not to do it again before ignoring Sozin for another twenty years. Those colonies are the ones that continue into the present timeline and then into Korra, one as a Hong Kong analogue (the result of…

Well, a world without Aang is a world without the moon spirit. Zhao's plan was conceived well in advance of Aang's return, so there's no reason he wouldn't have been given the go ahead and succeeded. Zuko probably would have had little to do in the S1 time frame but wander hopelessly around the world, and then the…

@ HotLeafJuice

Kuei (kui) also means puppet in Chinese and he's directly modeled on Puyi, the last emperor of China. Guys did their research!

Oh, right! Thanks! I always forget that bit because I tend not to rewatch Appa's Lost Days. Too depressing.

I think the idea that he was going to be evil is drawn either from the art book or the Avatar Extras. I didn't really mean that they weren't sure, just that the first half of the first season is written ambiguously enough to provide them with an out and they eventually took it.

"Eventually, these priorities become so contradictory that he can no longer hide the fact that he has been, at best, merely permissive of the Avatar pursuit - and really, he has been something of an obstacle to it."

My thing with the Order of the White Lotus is, finale notwithstanding, why are we even assuming they are more than an old social club? All of the members are quite old, which means they've lived through 40+ years of war (if not the full 100, as with Bumi) without lifting a finger to do anything before now. Iroh even…

As much as it's a nice theory that Iroh has been training Zuko all along to be Fire Lord, I think it actually ends up doing little service to Iroh as a character. All his mistakes can be chalked up to his "greater plan." But how does capturing the Avatar in the pilot help Zuko become a good Fire Lord? How does…