The Legend of Korra Recap | Season 3 Premiere

The Legend of Korra Season 3 Premiere: Episodes 1-3

WELCOME, FRIENDS! It’s time for a new season of The Legend of Korra!! I love how this awesomeness was basically dropped on us with almost no warning or waiting. Like, BOOM KORRA NEXT WEEK. *dances like a lunatic* I’m always ready for more Korra and Team Avatar. Always.

So obviously the great news is that there are new episodes of The Legend of Korra to recap! HUZZAH! But the BEST news is that the founder of these recaps, Lisa @ Lisa is Busy Nerding, has returned to us and will be recapping along with me! YAYY!! Since, you know, she started them in the first place and is gracious and awesome enough to share. We will be alternating weeks, so I’m starting us off and then Lisa will have you covered for next week’s Episode 4, and so on.

Now, usually we get two new episodes smooshed together at the start of each season, but this time around the awesome people at Nickelodeon decided to give us THREE. AN HOUR AND A HALF OF KORRA. For the fangirls like me, this is excellent. For the recapper, WHEW, that’s lots of recapping. Especially when I usually go heavy on the details. So in order to keep myself from going nuts and to keep you guys from going blind reading my recap, I’m going to try and keep this one as short as possible. When I pick up again for Episode 5, things should be business as usual. Sound good? GREAT! I love you guys.

With all of the housekeeping out of the way, let’s get down to recapping!

To refresh, Book 2 ended with Korra bringing spirits back into the human world. Harmonic convergence and her fight with Unalaq/Vaatu resulted in some major changes in Republic City and the whole world. Also, Korra and Mako broke up. ALSO, Korra has lost the ability to communicate with the past Avatars. She’s all alone now. Episode 1 begins two weeks later.

Episode 1 | A Breath of Fresh Air

We find out right away that some weird things are happening in Republic City. Biggest of all? Spirits wandering around. Second biggest? There are these weird vines growing over everything, destroying buildings and roadways. Third biggest/possibly number one biggest? THIS:

BUMI THE AIRBENDER. Source

This is Tenzin’s brother, Bumi. Airbending. AIRBENDING. Bumi is not a bender. Or, at least, he hasn’t been one before this. As a world-building refresher, the only airbenders left are Tenzin, his children, and Korra. The Air Nation has been decimated, so Bumi’s new gifts are great but also troublesome. HOW? When Bumi tries to tell Tenzin that he can airbend, it doesn’t work on the spot and no one believes him UNTILLL he finally manages to do it at the dinner table. People are like, O_O.

Meanwhile, the vines. They’re a real problem.

Spirit Republic City, with vines. Source

This is NOT the spirit world. This is Republic City, partially overtaken by vines and wilds from the spirit world. Korra has spent the last two weeks since harmonic convergence trying to find a way to clear the vines and get the President and the people of Republic City off her back. They are, perhaps understandably, irritated, impatient, and worried that their homes will be, or have already been, completely destroyed. Nothing Korra tries works, and her relationship with the President is souring rapidly, as evidenced by a very tense press conference. They both have hilariously low approval ratings.

We learn that Mako has been living at the police station instead of on Air Temple Island with everyone else because he’s avoiding Korra and Asami (if you recall, Asami and Mako kissed at the end of last season while Mako and Korra were kind of on a break). He gets a call about an airbender lashing out but Mako doesn’t believe it right away. Until he almost catches the airbender, who is terrified, before he runs away, airbending as he goes. O_O. Mako and Beifong show up at Air Temple Island to fill Tenzin in, and then they realize that there are new airbenders popping up. There’s a super awkward moment between Mako and Korra, who has offered to help find the rogue airbender. LOL these two.

Korra gets an idea about using spirit bending to get rid of the vines, and it seems to work at first. YAY! Then, it backfires and the vines return even worse than they were before and Korra has to save an entire building of people. BOO! Foiled again. The good news is that Korra is with Asami on her way to these vines and they have a nice girl chat in the car about kissing Mako. Love that they are friendly now.

Tenzin also has a pretty deep, emotional moment with his kids talking about the new airbenders. He has great hopes that this is the resurrection of the Air Nation, and admits that the new airbenders will need lots of help and instruction. He wishes that Aang could be here to see it. *sniffles*

The gang finally catches up to the rogue airbender who is hiding out on top of the Kyoshi Bridge. Korra talks to him and saves him from falling off the bridge. She introduces him to Tenzin. HOWEVER, the President is still super pissed that Korra can’t get rid of the vines and so he banishes her from Republic City when she tells him that she can’t get rid of the vines or the spirits. Team Avatar leaves to go find new airbenders.

Meanwhile, we end the first episode on a rock high on a thin plateau surrounded by other rocks. There is a prison cell there with just one prisoner in it. He’s talking to his guards, distracting them, and then he busts himself out and traps the guards inside. The guards are the White Lotus, and the prisoner is a completely badass airbender named Zahir. Who apparently was not a bender before. He proclaims that this is a dawning of a new age: one that does not include the White Lotus or the Avatar. OMG NERVOUS.

ZAHIR. Source

Episode 2 | Rebirth

Episode 2 begins with Team Avatar leaving Republic City on one of Asami’s sweet airships to go find new airbenders in Ba Sing Se. There are reports that new airbenders are popping up all over the Earth Kingdom. Mako hesitates, thinking that he needs to stay in Republic City with Beifong, but it takes a plea from Bolin to get him to go. Ba Sing Se is the home of their grandmother and where their father was from, and they have a chance to see their long-lost family. They all leave together.

Meanwhile, out in the middle of the ocean, another prison is being monitored by the White Lotus. The guards think their shift change is coming, but SURPRISE! It’s really Zahir (whom the guards recognize by name), come to break out the earthbender prisoner, Gazan. This guy turns earth into lava. I have never seen a bender do this before. Zahir and Gazan bro out for a second, and Zahir says he has harmonic convergence to thank for his new airbending, and he takes it as a sign that their path is “a righteous one.” (PS. These benders are HUGE dudes.)

GAZAN. Source

Korra and Team Avatar are making their way around the Earth Kingdom, trying to gather up new airbenders. Tenzin thinks that they will be excited to leave and join the new Air Nation at the Air Temples. But the first new airbender they meet is not having it. He won’t leave his family, and Team Avatar gets their first taste of how hard it will be to gather the new airbenders together. The second is a hipster with a hilarious mom that wants her son to LEAVE THE HOUSE. Neither of them join Team Avatar.

They continue their trek across the Earth Kingdom, meeting new airbenders and striking out with each one. Until, that is, they come to a town and meet a young airbender named Kai. He says he’s an orphan and that he’ll come with them to the Northern Air Temple. But when some guys follow them and start attacking the airship, Korra finds out that the guys chasing them are in fact law enforcement, and Kai is a thief who is at that moment making off with a huge sack of money. He swears that harmonic convergence has changed him and so Korra agrees to let him come with them anyway. Kai has a little meet cute with Jinora as he’s walking on the ship, but Mako is NOT happy about accepting a criminal into their midst.

We’re at another prison–this one suspended in the air over a fire pit–and Zahir and Gazan bust out a waterbender named Ming-Hua. She is armless and uses water as her limbs. Whoever these benders are, they are WORKING the White Lotus guards at every turn. They have a brief chat about how they busted Ming-Hua out before Zahir’s girlfriend. If you’re keeping track, we have an air, earth, and waterbender. Zahir’s lady friend is therefore a firebender. They’re breaking her out next (and last).

MING-HUA. Source

BUT YOU GUYS. BEST THING HAPPENS.

ZUKOOOOOO!!!! Source

LOOK WHO IT IS!! IT’S ZUKO!!! AHHHH!!! Don’t let my excitement fool you, though. He’s just shown up at Ming-Hua’s prison and found out that three of the White Lotus’ prisoners have escaped. He’s not thrilled. Zuko tells the guard that Lin (as in Lin Beifong) needs to be warned and that Korra needs to be protected. Then he jets off on his DRAGON NBD.

OMG OMG. Zuko’s dragon is FIERCE. Source

(WHEW. ONLY ONE MORE EPISODE TO GO!! *PASSES AROUND SNACKS AND WATER*)

Episode 3 | The Earth Queen

Kai and Bumi’s airbender training is not going so hot, despite Jinora’s training. And despite Bolin’s excitement at visiting their father’s home for the first time, Team Avatar arrives in Ba Sing Se and is greeted with a pretty disappointing sight: the stinking slums of the Lower Ring.  When they arrive at the palace of the Earth Queen, they are met with a bossy, mean, ridiculous, entitled…well, here:

Ugh. This lady. Source

The Earth Queen seems affronted that Korra has shown up at all, and assumes that she wants something. However, she holds a grudge against the last Avatar (Aang) and isn’t in a giving, forthcoming mood. She thinks the United Empire (that would be Republic City and environs) actually belongs to the Earth Kingdom. EEP.

Korra finally gets around to asking the Earth Queen about the airbenders in Ba Sing Se. The queen says that she might consider helping Team Avatar find more airbenders, but first she asks Korra to see to the safe delivery of one of her tax collections. She’s got a barbarian problem, you see. Korra has no choice but to see to it. She and Asami go off to get the tax money and are attacked by “barbarians.” Even though Korra and Asami defeat them, as they are retreating, they shout that the tax money belongs to the people, not the Queen and Korra wonders if they aren’t right.

When she brings the money back to the queen, Korra asks to meet with the airbenders, but the queen says that Korra’s reports are wrong. There are no airbenders in Ba Sing Se. She basically kicks Team Avatar out. Korra gets pissed and vows to find the airbenders.

Meanwhile, all Kai notices at the Upper Ring is the jewels and money pouches. Obviously, this new leaf he keeps talking about is not turning over very easily. At some point while everyone is waiting around for Korra to talk with the Earth Queen, Kai goes missing. Bolin and Mako try to track him down and find him going around using his airbending to steal things from people. They lose the little brat eventually and wind up in the Lower Ring, where they unknowingly wind up getting into a scuffle with their cousins.

Their family brings Mako and Bolin back to their home, where they meet their grandmother (YAY!), who has no idea that her son and his wife are dead (SOBS). She has a really nice chat with Bolin and Mako about her son and Mako GIVES HER HIS FATHER’S SCARF. I can’t even lie, I cried when this happened.

Some other news that Mako and Bolin get from their family? One of their neighbors started airbending and was taken away by the queen’s guards and hasn’t been seen since. There’s a rumor that the Earth Queen is locking the airbenders up somewhere. DUN DUN DUNNN.

Lord Zuko and his DRAGON land in the Northern Water Tribe lands and ho ho! Look at who’s running the joint now!

Desna and Eska, Unalaq’s creepy twins. Source

Zuko (who is their uncle, apparently) arrives and tells them that he needs to check on a secret prison out in the middle of nowhere. He arrives there to find the prison still in tact, its prisoner–a firebender named Pa-Li who can create explosions with her mind–still in her cell. She taunts Zuko and seems to know that he’s shown up because Zahir is free.

Since ditching Team Avatar after faking like being a good person, Kai is living it up thanks to the spoils of his thievery. Until, that is, some soldiers belonging to the Earth Queen show up and take him prisoner. They throw him in a cell crowded with other people and tell him: “Welcome to Her Majesty’s Army, First Airbending Regiment. From now on, you live to fight for the Earth Queen.” O_O

WHEW! That was lots of Korra to digest! But what an awesome three episodes! So many things going on. I’m obviously incredibly excited about the return of Lord Zuko and his amazing dragon. But these criminals are just so captivating! Who are they? What did they do that got them arrested? Why can they do things that other benders cannot? Also, this airbender army. WOWZAH. I feel like the Earth Queen is going to use these airbenders to attack Republic City and reclaim those lands for the Earth Kingdom. Thoughts? 

Don’t forget that next week’s recap will be provided to you by the lovely Lisa!