So yeah, that was pretty awesome. Not entirely unexpected that Tarrlok is a Bloodbender, but the nature of his power, and his relation to the batshit crazy dude in the flashbacks, was nice to see. I assume Tarrlok is pissed off because Aang decided to eventually take away his ancestor’s Bending (in the flashback we saw with ancestor-guy on the ground and Aang going into the Avatar State), but we’ll see how it goes.
I also loved Korra pulling a Wolverine and calling Tarrlok ‘Bub’, since she’s clearly learning from the best when it comes to being a badass. Also, Tenzin continues to drop hilarious burns out of nowhere, and I think Meelo’s seen the Anakin and Padme scenes from ‘The Phantom Menace’ a few too many times. Still, keep working on your game, kid. I’m sure it’ll get you somewhere some day. Jinora and Ikki continue to impress, as well. Laughs were had in abundance when they were onscreen.
The plot progression was nice this episode, and it was especially gratifying to see Korra learn why political power matters. Hopefully next time she’ll think a little longer before locking horns with a power-hungry fascist. Probably not, since the cat’s out of Tarrlok’s bag at this point, but hopefully this is at least another step in Korra’s journey to understanding why being bull-headed all the time isn’t the best of approaches.
I’m not saying she should have marched to Tarrlok’s drum, mind you, but you can’t go against Korraland’s unholy combination of Petyr Baelish and Cersei Lannister without a little more forethought.
It’ll also be interesting to see what Tenzin does about all of this, since it’ll be pretty obvious that Korra’s fallen off the face of the earth, and his suspicions will be drawn to Tarrlok first and foremost. I hope he and Lin will be badass investigators for the next few episodes leading up to the finale, but who knows.
I was also glad to see the love-triangle side of things played down this episode in favor of concrete plot progression, but it’ll still be interesting to see what concrete impact Asami’s jealousy may or may not have on her character arc overall. I hope this isn’t enough to make her snap or do anything drastic (since that would be a really cliched, unsatisfying and cheap catalyst), but nothing’s off the table at this point. Hopefully the tension will be resolved by the end of the season, though, one way or the other— I really don’t want to see the romantic angle of the plot turn into a three-ton ball-and-chain that weighs down all of the character interaction.
Also, I really hope Tarrlok’s contingency plan is ironclad, for his sake. There’s a lot of different ways he could be screwed over if things go even the slightest bit south for him, and that’s a lot of bases to keep covered simultaneously.
Given how entrenched he is in the political hierarchy, though, he probably has contacts and Plan B’s out the proverbial wazoo.
Man, there’re few things I love more than a cerebral, intellectual antagonist who doesn’t just brute-force everything. The final confrontation between him and Korra is going to be awesome indeed.
And then Amon’s probably going to waltz in after the fact and seal Tarrlok’s Bending forever whoops did I just say that out loud.
And it was great to see Team Avatar finally coming together as a unit outside of the Pro-Bending ring; I figured Bryke were delaying it until the stakes were high enough for it to be suitably awesome, and they didn’t disappoint.
All in all, an awesome episode that has me really psyched for next Saturday. Good times, good times.
P.S. Looks like my little Korra fanfiction trilogy just got brutally sledgehammered in the face by canon, as I thought it might be. Good thing I was planning on just starting from scratch once Season 1 was over, yes indeed.
