Legend of Korra Recap: Skeletons in the Closet & Endgame
This is it folks! The one-hour season finale of Book One of The Legend of Korra! It seems quite polarizing to the fans. Some love it, others hate it, and then there are those who think it has lots of flaws but still enjoyed it. Which am I? Who cares! Let’s do this!
The Equalists have taken over Republic City, the symbol of the Equalists is everywhere. Hiroshi Sato is letting the people know they have one and will wipe out bending. Wonder what all those bombs did to non-benders? I don’t see how the population would still be so on their side after being bombed too.
Korra and Mako are in disguise as Equalists foot soldiers and head underground to meet back up with Asami and Bolin, who are also aided by Gommu, the homeless man last seen in episode one with his sparkle bush-home. Amon is hard at working at debending while Team Avatar awaits the arrival of the United Forces. When they do arrive, it’s too late before they realize it’s a trap!
The Equalists have underwater mines come up to attack the ships and Hiroshi’s latest invention of the biplane has the fleet overwhelmed in quick order. You gotta hand it to Hiroshi, the guy is a genius when it comes to machines. Korra is fighting underwater, redirecting torpedoes while General Iroh is above firebending down as many planes as he can. Korra has to save Iroh after he takes a missile on a boat and the two flee back to the underground shanty town of the homeless.
Iroh has to warn Commander Bumi (Tenzin’s brother!) and Gommu is the telegrapher they need. The team plans to take out the airfield so the planes can’t take out Bumi’s fleet. Korra tells everyone she isn’t going with them so she can take on Amon, Mako agrees to go with her and the teams part ways. Korra tells Naga to watch out for Bolin and I think we see Mako and Asami break up (I think? It was kind of vague).
When Korra and Mako get back to Air Temple Island in their Equalist disguises the Luitenant lets them know they will be security at the rally at the new Arena. While they wait for this event to occur they hide out in the attic of the Temple. Tarrlok is being held prisoner up there and we get a big revelation. The reason Tarrlok is such a special prisoner is because he is Amon’s brother.
Turns out Amon is from the Northern Water Tribe and Tarrlok put this together only recently that it was his brother. We are treated to a flashback of Yakone getting surgery to change his face and hiding out in the Northern Water Tribe where he met a woman that would give him two waterbending children, Noatak and Tarrlok. Yakone was still a monster, just with a different face and was harsh to his sons in their training and would eventually teach them the ways of bloodbending, despite Tarrlok’s hatred of it.
When giving his kids his origin and loss of power, Yakone has a shadowy Hitler toothbrush mustache as he tells them they are his vengeance. The boys would train on animals out in the snowy wasteland so they could learn his moonless techniques. Noatak would master the psychic style of never having to do any real movements to bloodbend, shown by lifting a pack of wolves. Anytime I see someone lifted by bloodbending, it makes me cringe, you are being lifted by your bodily fluids, OW.
The straw that broke the camel-giraffe’s back was when Yakone had the boys bloodbend one another and Tarrlok refusing due to how awful it felt. When his father is about to beat Tarrlok, Noatak bloodbends his father. Explaining how bloodbending isn’t the most powerful, it’s the Avatar, the Avatar can take away bending all together. Noatak asks Tarrlok to join him and flee, but Tarrlok wont leave his mother behind, so Noatak leaves him behind. Tarrlok’s family withers from the loss of Noatak and his father dies a few years later.
Tarrlok explains that when he was debended by Amon, he realized it was his brother’s style of bloodbending. Amon is Noatak, who has learned how to take bloodbending to a level of chakra-blocking. Tarrlok apologizes for what he has done and explains that it is likely his brother’s desire to rid the world of bending since bending is what ruined his family. Mako pieces together that Amon can bloodbend his way around attacks by messing with the other person’s movements. Korra realizes that if she can reveal Amon for who he really is, he’ll lose his favor with the nonbenders.
Meanwhile, Asami, Bolin, Iroh, Naga, and Pabu find the airfield and prepare to attack, but our three humans are taken out by a hidden electric fence in quick order. Back at the rally, Amon is confronted by Korra about being Noatak, the son of Yakon and brother to Tarrlok, by Amon’s reaction we see it holds something to him. But when Amon takes off his mask to show who he really is, he’s some pale scarred face guy. The people are immediately against Korra for being wrong and to make matters worse, Amon has Tenzin and the Flying Airbenders tied up on stage!
Oh god, no.
We go back to Asami, Bolin, and Iroh and see Hiroshi try to bring Asami back over. She fights back and says how he’s become something her mother would hate and he let’s them know he intercepted their warning to Bumi and will destroy him. When left alone Naga comes in and shows they don’t need a metalbender and busts them out of their cell. Asami finds a Mecha-Tank on their way out and seeing as it works like a forklift (how lucky, still, I love Asami’s cool skills so whatever) and takes to become MechAsami. (I do punny portmanteaus, you gotta deal with it).
Korra and Mako fight off the Equalists so that Korra can reach Tenzin and the Flying Airbenders to release them and Tenzin is one of the few people to hit Amon. Korra and Mako stall Amon so the Flying Airbenders and Tenzin can get Pema and Rohan out of there. Unfortunately, Amon IS Noatak, so he bloodbends Korra and Mako in quick order, then… he takes Korra’s bending away.
Over Republic City the biplanes are heading to attack but General Iroh is lightningbending the planes down. Just cause they take down one plane doesn’t mean he can’t firebend himself some rocket propulsion so he fly to the next plan to take over. As I’ve seen on the internet, he is Iroh Man with how he flies, Stark Style. As he flies and crashes a plane into the Amon-masked Aang statue, the blast from the plane causes the mask to fall and show Aang’s face to the world again.
Iroh is only around at the end of the season and shows he’s amazing.
At the airfield Bolin is fighting off Mecha-Tanks and with the help of Naga is able to take them down by her quick thinking. Asami is taking down the ships when Hiroshi meets her in his own Mecha-Tank to fight. Asami points out it isn’t even love that drives Hiroshi, but hate. As he gets Asami on the ropes Bolin comes in with the declaration that Hiroshi is a horrible father, allowing Asami to get back up and as she agrees with Bolin, she ensnares her father.
Amon is gloating over Korra and Mako when the Lieutenant comes in and see that Korra was right, the Lieutenant does Lieutenant things (read: get knocked out in short order). But it gives Mako enough time to break through his bending and lightningbend Amon right in the face. As he grabs Korra to flee, Amon bends Mako and begins beating him up. When he’s about to take Mako’s bending away, Korra is pushed to the brink and airbends!
Airbending! Finally!
She may have lost her other bending, but she can finally move air! She blasts Amon right out of the building and out into the waters far below.
The people see Korra blast Amon into the water and are enraged that she killed their leader. When suddenly a very unmasked and unscarred (and pale as hell? What happened to Noatak’s brown skin? Brown people don’t go THAT pale due to lack of sun exposure) Amon as he waterbends himself to safety. The people turn against Amon, while Mako tries to blast him, Noatak gets away and we see he takes Tarrlok with him.
Amon is shown to be the bloodbender, Noatak
Joining back with the others Lin is empathizing with Korra over losing her bending and we meet Bumi, for like 10 seconds. Which is an amazing intro, but still, I want more of this guy. As we see Tarrlok and Noatak leaving on a speedboat (really cool one at that) the brothers talk about starting over and living life like the good old days. Tarrlok notices there are Equalist tazer-gloves on board and I thought Tarrlok was going to taze Noatak and turn them both in to the authorities, instead he takes the glove and blasts it into the boat’s gas tank, causing it to explode. Wow, that’s on the list of darkest things this kid show has done. Remember, this whole series began with the genocide of a people, so you know… it’s for the kids.
Dark moment!
Back in the Southern Water Tribe we have everyone waiting patiently for Katarra to try and heal Korra’s bending back. Sadly, Katara isn’t able to and we find that while she can still airbend, she has been severed from the rest. Korra is confronted by Mako and she tells him to leave and get on with his life and with her not being the Avatar, she needs no favors. Mako admits his feelings for her (see this is why I think that was a break up earlier, otherwise this is ultra skeezy). Korra flees and Tenzin tells Mako she needs to be alone right now.
Look at all those Avatars!
Korra goes out to a cliff side and cries; as she sits it looks as though Tenzin has come to comfort her, but no, it’s Aang. Aang and all the other Avatars. As he explains that as she reached her lowest point, she was ready for her greatest change. (So wait… was Korra going to commit suicide at that cliff? Is that her at her lowest point? Since she knew a new Avatar with all bending could be born?)
Awww
He heals her and we see Korra go into the Avatar state and regain her power over all four elements. Mako watching on in awe and Korra goes to him and admits her feelings as the two kiss. Korra returns to give Lin her powers back (YES) and Tenzin is proud of (capable of bending all elements and in tune with her spiritual side) Avatar Korra.
If second season is nothing but having to deal with Bumi, I’d be happy.
That’s it! The end of Book One! What did everyone think? I know that these episodes have some real mad and others still feeling alright. I think I’ll save my opinions for next week, where I will review the show as a whole. I will watch all 12 episodes back-to-back and then review the story and see how it was as a whole. See you all next time my fellow hotmen!
