The Skinny
This episode is about to be AVATAR-HEAVY. Our Avatar was largely absent from last week’s episode until the end, which revealed that the dark spirit who attacked Korra while she was on her way to the Fire Nation didn’t kill her. Instead it dumped her on an island somewhere, all of her memories WIPED. She doesn’t even know she’s the Avatar, and her friends don’t know where she is. This was a BIG two-part episode, friends, but let’s focus on Part 1 first.
The Breakdown
Korra is being dragged through the forest/jungle to what turns out to be a healer’s hut. We find out that Korra has been infected by a dark energy that could KILL HER AVATARNESS!! Gasp! Korra is muttering something: Rava, Brava? I’m not sure what exactly. But we don’t get much time to figure it out before the healer begins her healing. To help cleanse Korra of the darkness, she puts sinks Korra just under the surface of a huge underground pool. During the water treatment, Korra has some kind of mirror image vision thing where Aang appears to her, and then all of the most recent Avatars from each element, including the last Water Tribe Avatar (who looked a lot like Korra’s dad). They tell her that she is the Avatar, and she must reconnect with her Avatar spirit. If she does not, darkness will take over the world. She must got back to the beginning and find Rava/Brava. So, NBD.
Korra’s spirit is sucked through some spirit wormhole, and this is our first glimpse of Wan. He tells Korra that he is not Rava, but he can help Korra find her. Then, he proceeds to tell Korra the story of his becoming the first Avatar.
Wan is on the run from some guys for stealing stuff and he’s making them look silly. He runs off with his loot doing all kinds of gymnastics. Turns out he stole some food, and even when Wan thinks he’s gotten away, he gets caught instead and thrown into some pig slop. YUCK.
Later, as Wan returns home. His brother, or a friend, is waiting for him and Wan shares his meager food loot, complaining that he got beat up for nothing. He brings some food over to a curtained-off area where we see someone named Yao (I think) who–I’m not kidding–is sprouting tree branches. Like, off his body. He’s becoming a tree. All kinds of animals show up looking for food and Wan shares with them. Wan is tired of eating crap. He decides to devise a plan to steal some MAJOR grub, but his brother/friend tells him that if he gets caught, he’ll be banished to the spirit wilds (methinks this is IMPORTANT), and the Yao tree shoots up and sounds frightened at the prospect. He tells Wan that he should stay away from the spirits unless he wants to turn into a Wan tree. Wan’s friend tells him to accept that they’re at the bottom of the totem pole of life. Not happening.
In the town square some time later, a soldier is trying to recruit people to join “the hunt” and look for/vanquish spirits. Wan is the only volunteer, and the soldier laughs at him. It takes a little cajoling, but Wan is admitted into the hunt. Off they all go into the wilds.
A small group of men and soldiers are walking through the woods when the leader pulls out a horn and blows it. They are facing the town where Wan lives and at the horn’s sound, the whole town begins to rise. Turns out the place is built on the shell of a HUGE turtle. The Lion Turtle, and he grants their party the power of fire until they return with more food. At first, it seems like this is more than Wan can handle. He kind of gets a little freaked out and asks to go back home. The soldier sends him off. Except Wan is a sneaky little SOB. He’s not scared at all. He smirks and runs back home without returning to the Lion Turtle to give back his gift of fire. I predict this will not end well.
Back at his house, Wan shows Yao tree and his friend his gift of fire. He’s SUPER impressed with himself. His friend admonishes him that he can’t steal from the Lion Turtle. Wan doesn’t really care so much.
Wan assembles a group of other disgruntled citizens, but his friend is one of them. He reminds Wan that he’s not allowed to bring fire into the city and begs him again to go back to the Lion Turtle and return his gift. Fat chance, boyo. Wan has had just about enough of living on the fringes. He and the rest of his band cover their faces go after the big, bad Chu family. Wan starts shouting and the brothers who Wan was running from earlier laugh when he demands they give up all their food. He uses the fire gift on them and the rest of the men run into the house, Wan burning stuff as he goes, including the soldier back up the Chu brothers gather.
But, again, the Chu brothers catch Wan and bring him before their father, the ruler of their city. He orders Wan to give up the names of the other guys who were with him, but Wan refuses. Papa Chu banishes him, and he pleads with the Lion Turtle to keep his fire gift. The Lion Turtle bans him from ever returning home, but allows him to keep his fire gift. Wan leaves on his own.
In the spirit wilds, Wan is getting a little freaked out, and then he steps on a little talking frog, who suddenly grows huge and chases Wan off. These spirit wilds are CRAY. Wan eventually collapses and is SWALLOWED by quicksand. He doesn’t sleep, and is wandering around the woods, even during the day, bugging out. He’s running away from some bugs when he falls down a huge cliff and winds up on a little island in some lagoon. This weird talking animal won’t let him pass. When Wan uses fire against him, the animal freaks out and tells him to leave.
Meanwhile, a parade of animals walks past Wan to get onto the oasis. Wan tries to sneak past the talking animal disguised as a bush but it doesn’t work. The animal tells him to return to the Lion Turtle, but when Wan tells him of the banishment, the animals tell Wan to go find another city to live, and so Wan heads off to find another place to live.
On his way there, he sees an animal caught in a trap. At first, he is all ready to use his fire gift to cook the animal up, but then he changes his mind and goes to free it. Of course, who caught this animal? That’s right. The hunt that kicked Wan out for being a wuss. Just as the soldiers approach their loot, Wan jumps them and tells them he’s going to free the animal. This, friends, leads to the very first FIRE-BENDING FIGHT. Kind of RAD.
Wan is just about to lose, when the animal leader from the oasis shows up and saves Wan’s buns and brings him back to the lagoon and puts him into the water to heal. The animal tells Wan that he was able to inhabit one of the soldier’s bodies briefly, but doing so for any longer would’ve killed the soldier. Turns out he saved Wan because Wan saved the trapped animal. Wan decides to stay in the oasis to live with the spirits and learn more about them.
Back in the Lion Turtle city, only one soldier returns and tells the people that the spirits–aka, the talking animals–saved Wan and protected him.
At the oasis, Wan is working his fire gift with the help of the spirit animals and a GORGEOUS white dragon. Some soldiers must’ve gone back to, I don’t know, see Wan? And they say in a voiceover that Wan has become very proficient with his fire, using it as if it was an extension of his body. Wan sends the soldiers away with his gift.
In the Lion Turtle city, Wan’s friend and the Yao tree are gathering the other poor people together, telling them that with fire, Wan is able to live in the wilds, and they don’t have to stay in the city anymore. If Wan can do it, so can they, and so the people leave the city with their fire gifts.
Rava and Vatu, eternally struggling. Courtesy of www.cap-that.com
Meanwhile, Wan is ready to go and find other cities. He leaves the oasis and rides off. He journeys far, and eventually stumbles onto a spirit war! Like, a DARK SPIRIT war. Except one of them is light. It’s like the elemental spirits. Wan tries to stop them and the fire spirit pleads to Wan for help, and he eventually frees one spirit from another. The light spirit tells Wan that he “saved” the wrong spirit and let the dark one leave. The light spirit is Rava. Wan freed Vatu, the spirit of darkness. Rava was keeping him under control and keeping the world in balance. But Wan set the bad guy free. Wan freed chaos into the world, and he set the human and spirit worlds into turmoil.
Meanwhile, back in real time, Korra has found Rava. SUCCESS.
WHEW! THAT’S SO LONG. Part 2 coming shortly!
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