City of Walls and Secrets
This episode has a lot going for it in terms of themes and issues: Social division and classism, government brainwashing and propaganda, surveillance states, censorship, and paranoia.
The party have finally arrived at Ba Sing Se, but are met by a tour guide named Joo Dee, who seems to recognise them. She takes them on a tour of the city while remaining oblivious to Sokka's requests to an audience with the Earth King. After being given a six-week waiting period for an audience, they attempt to search for Appa but find Joo Dee hindering them at every opportunity. Meanwhile, Zuko and Iroh secure jobs at a tea shop in the Lower Ring, but Jet becomes determined to expose their identities as firebenders.
While the multiple walls of Ba Sing Se have a Minas Tirith vibe, their purposes are a little nefarious. The outer wall serves as the main line of defence, behind which lies the farmlands which feed the city. We then have an inner wall, behind which is the Lower Ring, populated by newcomers to the city along with the artisans and craftsman. It's clear that the standards of living are pretty low, and crime is rampant. Behind another wall is the Middle Ring, which houses the financial district and university. Finally, we have the Upper Ring, which houses the aristocracy. According to Joo Dee, the inner walls are used to maintain order. We also get introduced to the Dai Li, Ba Sing Se's "Cultural Authority" (secret police).
Speaking of which, Joo Dee is creepy. While she presents herself as a tour guide, her perpetual grin and pleasant demeanour are unnerving. Toph immediately deduces that she's acting as a handler, while people they speak to are intimidated when she shakes her head at them. The party learns from a neighbour that the Dai Li have forbidden any discussion of the war within the walls of Ba Sing Se.
There's a great black tie infiltration sequence as the party sneak into a function at the palace for the Earth King's "bear". Not a platypus bear, skunk bear, or gopher bear, just a bear. There's some great slapstick as Aang gets exposed, but he and his friends are promptly brought before Long Feng, the Cultural Secretariat of Ba Sing Se and a Machiavellian politician of the first order. Here we learn that the Earth King is merely his puppet, and he threatens to expel the party if they discuss the war.
While all that's going on, Jet's obsession with Zuko and Iroh results in him challenging them to a fight in the tea shop. We get a cool sword fight between Jet and Zuko, and we see how much of a badass Zuko is without firebending. It's promptly cut short when Jet is arrested by the Dai Li, and the episode ends with him being brainwashed.
All in all, it makes me excited for what happens next.
Tales of Ba Sing Se
Looks like I'll be waiting to find out what happens next. This is pretty much a filler episode, comprised of a series of vignettes featuring a day in the lives of individual characters. I'll be going through each vignette individually. I'll have a lot to say about some, and others...not so much.
"The Tale of Toph and Katara" follows Toph and Katara as they go on a spa day. Not really much to this one. Although the Gilligan cut of Toph being forcibly given a pedicure is actually kind of horrifying when you realise it's akin to getting her eyes scratched out. It's cathartic to see them dealing with a trio of bullies who make fun of them afterwards, but we also get to see Toph's hidden depths behind her tomboyish nature as she talks about how she doesn't normally care about her own appearance since she doesn't.
"The Tale of Iroh" follows Iroh on a shopping trip for "a special occasion" while dispensing sage advice. He gives a vendor advice on caring for a particular flower and cheers up a crying child with a song called "Leaves from the Vine" about a young soldier returning home. There is some humour when he sees a group of kids playing an earthbending ball game and break a window, telling them to admit mistakes when they occur, but when it turns out the owner of the window is quite large and looking to commit violence, he immediately advices them to leg it. While catching his breath in an alleyway, he's confronted by a mugger, disarms him without using any bending, and then buys him tea and talks about a career path. We then get to the final scene of the vignette, which is regarded as one of the most poignant moments of the entire series: he erects a memorial to his son Lu Ten for his birthday, sings "Leaves from the Vine" but breaks down into tears before he can finish. We close on that, with the added caption "In honor of Mako", Iroh's original voice actor who died during the production.
"The Tale of Aang" follows Aang as he helps relocate a failing zoo, but it turns out that logistics is more of an art than a science in his plan. Most of the vignette is dedicated to seeing the different animal hybrids that populate the world, and the chaos they cause when they escape. And yes, that includes malicious destruction of cabbages. We also see how his earthbending has developed as he builds enclosures.
"The Tale of Sokka" follows Sokka as he gets kicked by an ostrich-horse and ends up in a womens' poetry club and gets into a haiku rap battle with another attendee. I think this is the funniest of the vignettes from the sheer absurdity of the situation I just described in the previous sentence. Sokka wins the battle, but then goes one syllable over and gets thrown out by the bouncer.
"The Tale of Zuko" has Zuko going on an awkward date with Jin, a regular at the tea shop who has a crush on him. Seems fitting that today's Valentine's Day. Again, there's not really much to this one, other than showing how Zuko struggles in social situations (he initially thinks that Jin suspects him of being a firebender), especially when he has to hide his past. That Fire Light Fountain does look pretty though.
"The Tale of Momo" has Momo looking for Appa. It's an evocative story, without any dialogue (other than human speech which Momo perceives as gibberish). He dreams about Appa and finds some fur in Sokka's bag. He later encounters some false sightings (such as a cloud or a tree with white blossoms on it). He's pursued by some feral cats scavenging in an alley, briefly dances for a street performer, and then gets captured and nearly sold to a chef along with his pursuers. But when he escapes, he also frees the cats and they show him a bison footprint. It's an important clue that Appa truly is somewhere in Ba Sing Se.
Phew, that took some time. This episode was up and down, with vignettes that were great and some that weren't as great. If I had to rank them, I'd say that Iroh's was definitely the best one by far, followed by Sokka's, Momo's, Katara and Toph's, Aang's, and Zuko's. Sorry Zuko.
Anyway, I'll join you again tomorrow as we resolve the missing Appa thread.
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