Avatar: The Last Airbender

Avatar: The Last Airbender

I’ve always thought of Avatar as the animated version of The Wire: The show I haven’t watched that everyone says is the best thing ever.  My wife and I finally binged the whole thing over the last month or so.  My random thoughts:

• It’s not the best show ever.  It wouldn’t make my top ten list (not that I’ve compiled it).  But it is really good.

• Katara is the best.  She’s like the Rey of the Four Nations - Super capable, badass, and the star of the show.  

• Her romance with Aang is super forced, and doesn’t feel like something that would realistically happen between a 6th and 8th grader.  

• On the other hand, Sokka’s relationships w/ Yue and Suki totally work for me.

• As a whole, I’m surprised by how much I love Sokka - He’s the powerless Xander of the team, and his brand of humor could so easily have been annoying.  Instead, he’s hilarious and proves himself to be just as important a member of Team Avatar as the others.  Sokka’s Master is one of my favorite episodes of the show.

• Speaking of favorites, Blind Bandit stands out as the first episode that was truly outstanding.  Toph rules.  

• Appa rules.  Yip yip!

• As such, Appa’s Lost Days is the worst episode of the show.  I have no desire to watch Appa lost, scared, hungry, and alone.  

• Iroh is hilarious.  I love that the Order of the White Lotus is basically the old guy Avengers of the Four Nations.

• Azula’s descent into madness came far too quickly at the end.  Reminded me of Daenerys in Game of Thrones - There’s a way where it could have worked, but the execution failed.

• The final Aang/Ozai battle is totally Dragonball Z, in a good way.

• The musical score for the final Azula/Zuko fight is excellent.

• Reading the summary, I totally thought The Ember Island Players would be a horrible clip show.  Instead, it’s the funniest, meta episode of the whole run.

• There are far too many plot holes for this show to live in the top tier of shows for me.  

• Cabbage Man!

• The hybrid animals are somewhere in the top ten best things about the show.  Turtle ducks!  Pig sheep!  Pig cows!  So inspired, brilliant designs, flawless execution.

• This really is a hilarious show.  The humor is top notch.

That’s all I’ve got for now.  I don’t need to rewatch it anytime soon, but I’m going to love watching this with my daughter when she’s old enough.