10.12
Checkmate, baby.
Remember the episodes where Aang didn’t appear, and we focused on somebody else like Zuko and Appa? Remember how those were probably some of the best episodes in the show, depending on how you viewed The Beach? This feels like one of them. It allows for the side characters to stretch with the lead out of the way. The show did a nice job focusing on how the North-South conflict was affecting everyone else, such as Bolin’s film career and Mako’s policing gig. And Asami gets to do something for once this season. That’s nice. Sure, she gets dicked around by romantic tension rearing its ugly head. But it’s something, at least. Still, other characters have been getting more to work with.
I know this has been overstated, but Varrick’s role this season has been more entertaining than the actual main characters. So finding out his real role in the last few minutes came off as an interesting twist. Like, we get an entertaining villain who’s been effective at working behind the scenes and playing tricks on the characters. You think he’s this Willy Wonka type of guy who’s helping Asami out with her business, but then he uses the Water Tribe conflict to reap profits while attacking targets so he won’t have to give any of his share to Asami. And by attacking places like cultural centers and ships while blaming it on the North, he can keep the war running indefinitely as an impromptu arms dealer. And if he ever gets caught, Varrick already has substantial connections with both Republic City and Future Industries to make Asami look like the main culprit instead. He’s the antagonist Unalaq should have been.
Really, it feels like the Korra writers have a wonderful plot in front of them, but they push it to the side in order to focus on Korra’s family being assholes to each other. It’s like with the original show where I sympathized more with characters like Iroh than the main cast. The staff seems more adept at writing characters I like when they’re not in the limelight. It’s almost feels like the writers have wonderful plots and ideas in front of them, but push them aside to focus on the boring main story. Though I guess that’s how I feel when having to deal with the worst Republic City cop of all time.
Even though he and Asami had something decent this week, Mako still acted remarkably stupid. You’re going to ask gangsters for help by offering them giant robots. And then you don’t have anyone guard the giant robots you currently own. Throughout all those scenes, I wondered exactly why Mako was hired to be a cop if he’s going to do stupid things like this. He just gives so many options for him to be screwed right in front of known outlaws, and expects them to help him as if they’re buddies. That’s something the goofy cop in every dumb police comedy does, not a character in a show where terrorism occurs in the first scene of an episode. The writers want to make the show seem mature by introducing that along with the spiritual extremist element, but they don’t blend with how the characters aren’t acting smart to go along with that shift.
I think that’s a key reason to some of the more inspired opinions on the show. Characters are expected to act like adults, but use kid logic in their plans. And while I could always use the “well, it is a kids’ show” excuse, that’s too dismissive to the audience. If you have terrorism, religious zealots, mid-life angst, politics, and murder in your show, you’ve given up the kid excuse. Your show is clearly trying to appeal to a wider audience outside of the Dan Schneider and Spongebob feedbag, but only on the outside instead of internal elements. Because of that, you have Bolin acting like Simon Belmont from Captain N than an actual human being. Elsewhere, Asami gets all of her stuff stolen based on a hindsight flaw anyone would’ve at least tried to avert. And someone we all know and love gets easy amnesia. What made for a clever Saturday morning show is becoming an elementary primetime series, in that it feels like a big fish has been thrown from a pond into an ocean.