Bit of an odd couple of episodes today.
The Beach
I've heard that it's quite common in anime to have a "beach episode", and I guess that influenced this one.
Zuko, Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee are sent on a trip to Ember Island while the Fire Lord meets with his advisors. Ty Lee attracts a throng of admirers, Zuko and Mai bicker, and Azula just scares everybody they meet. After winning a game of beach volleyball, they get invited to a house party but don't reveal their true identities. Meanwhile, Aang's party is attacked by Zuko's mysterious assassin; a "combustion bender" who can fire explosive projectiles out of a third eye.
There's not really much to say about this one. Most of it is dedicated to the villains' day out, but it's clear that none of them have any idea about how to behave like normal teenagers. I must admit, Azula flirting is kinda funny, especially with the weird looks she gets with her proclamations.
After Zuko gets jealous of somebody else talking to Mai, they have an argument and she dumps him. We follow him walking back to his family's summer home, during which time we get flashbacks of him visiting Ember Island during his childhood, and even then we see that he likely spent more time with his uncle than his father.
Anyway, our antagonists later make a fire on the beach and have a heated discussion, during which we gain some insight into their characters: Ty Lee has a desire for attention which stems from growing up with five identical sisters who all had the same name, resulting in her joining the circus so she wasn't part of a "matching set"; Mai reveals that her parents gave her whatever she wanted as long as she behaved and acted "proper", leading to her bottling up her feelings and growing emotionless; Zuko is angry at himself because having his father's approval like he always wanted doesn't feel right, expressing his underlying guilt for his actions at Ba Sing Se; Azula expresses being hurt by the idea that her own mother thought she was a monster. This creates one of the most powerful scenes in the episode.
There's still a bit of action as Team Avatar escape the combustion bender, along with Team Fire Nation playing volleyball and trashing the party.
All in all, this episode is filler, but it's worth it for the campfire scene.
The Avatar and the Fire Lord
Bet you thought there was going to be a confrontation, didn't you?
Aang is visited by Avatar Roku in a dream, who tells him to come to his island on the summer solstice so he can learn of the war's origins. Meanwhile, Zuko receives a mysterious letter telling him to learn his destiny through the death of his great-grandfather. A hidden message on the letter directs him to a secret history kept by the Fire Sages, where he finds the last written testament of Fire Lord Sozin.
This is basically an origin story, similar to "The Storm", but with Aang and Zuko learning the same story simultaneously. We learn that Roku hailed from a Fire Nation noble family, where he was a close friend of Prince Sozin. During a celebration of their shared 16th birthday, the Fire Sages informed them that Roku was the Avatar. Roku left to learn the other elements, returning to the Fire Nation twelve years later and reuniting with now-Fire Lord Sozin, who stood as best man at his wedding. But Sozin expressed a desire to expand the Fire Nation's inluence and hoped Roku would be on board with it. Roku warned him against disrupting the balance, but then learned that he'd established a Fire Nation colony in the Earth Kingdom. In response, Roku confronted Sozin in his throne room and defeated him, but spared him out of their old friendship. 25 years later, a volcano erupted on the island where Roku lived, prompting him to evacuate the island's inhabitants. Sozin arrived and offered to help, but as Roku succumbed to poisonous gases, Sozin left him to die so he could carry out his expansionist policy. Knowing that the next Avatar was an Air Nomad, he utilised the power of a comet to carry out a genocide, but always feared "The Last Airbender".
The episode is largely dedicated to the flashback, but it's a pretty deep one. It's rather touching to see how Roku and Sozin were once friends. In fact, Sozin gave Roku his ceremonial headpiece as a keepsake when he left. To see Sozin leave Roku for dead at the end is heart-wrenching. The beginning of the season had Roku expressing his regret over not killing Sozin outright, believing that Aang has inherited his mess.
There's still some funny moments. For example, we see Roku learn airbending at the Southern Air Temple, where he was good friends with Monk Gyatso, and they both made their fair share of mischief. There's also a funny moment when Roku is having a "rock surfing" race with his Earthbending teacher, Thud. We see Thud race ahead to the top of the hill and enthusiastically cheer over his victory...only to see Roku has already beaten him and brewing a cup of tea.
If there's a message we can get from this episode, it's the old chestnut that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and that power can corrupt. Sozin originally confided his grand scheme to Roku in the hopes that he'd share his ideology as a subject of the Fire Nation. He later played that card as a threat when Roku confronted him, but Roku claimed his Avatar status overrides his nationality. It certainly conveys a "Neutral Good" vibe about working with authority figures but not being beholden to them.
While "The Storm" created a strong origin story for Aang and Zuko, this one also did a good job establishing the origins of the war. There's also another pretty deep reveal on Zuko's side of the story, but I'm going to keep that one a surprise.
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