11.22
Four Ball Run
I thought this season would be 12 episodes. I remember it saying so on a few preview guides. Turns out, it may as well have. I’d hope that a lapse in an episode’s budget would just allow the creators to make something like the last two Evangelion episodes instead of what we’ve got here. Some of the best-animated works happened because the studio didn’t have enough money to do what they originally wanted, so they were forced to adapt to the situation and make something better. It’s more of a struggle, and often results in more fumbling around when done in haste, but it makes the writers get off of their comfort zones and write something other than Mako’s love life, Korra’s failures, or Varrick’s delusions.
Seriously, the first thing the recap brings up, what they expect to be the first thing the audience will remember about the show, is the Mako-Korra-Asami love triangle. Instead of the politics or spiritualism inherent in the background, or something we didn’t already know about the characters, they bring up Mako for ten minutes. I thought that part of the show would have been buried in an unmarked grave. Yes, they make fun of that aspect through Wu and Mako’s grandma, but that’s not worth making me remember that happened. A bunch of chibis aren’t going to make those memories any better. It’s good on the writers to admit they fucked up with that arc, but that self-deprecation feels so halfhearted when Mako’s taking the helm as the narrator. And if you were going to take the piss, you wouldn’t need to spend the majority of a clip show discussing Mako and his unromantic ass. Get Tenzin or Lin to reminisce about the first few seasons instead. Or maybe even have Kuvira read up on the gang’s adventures to give a look on the other side. After a few episodes of marking her up as Earth Hitler, it would be nice for her to strawman the main characters for a change.
On the contrary, we get Korra lamenting her failures for the fourth time this season. I know she’s still in a rough spot, but it’s depressing in a meta-sense if you’re going to follow up a summary of Mako’s cuckolding with Korra remembering all the times she’s failed. If you’re going to make us rewatch moments from the show, at least screen the ones that made the show interesting, not remind us of the potholes of yore. Show off that time Korra became friends with Iroh, or when Bumi learned how to airbend, or Amon’s death scene. Show the parts that people will look back to in 2024 when they bitch about how cartoons aren’t as good as they used to be. It’s self-congratulatory, but better than moping about the moments in the show that sucked. If you’re going to do a pity parade, do it earlier than the last six episodes of the series. I know I could say the same about Ember Island Players, but that was more laughing with the show’s poor moments than laughing at them. Plus, there weren’t any chibis.
And then after the Varrick sequence, I notice this was written by three different writers. While the writers have seldom shown any distinction from each other, which speaks well for an arc-based series where the characters can at least act consistent, this feels like the exception. You go from ten minutes of mocking the romantic aspects of the show, to five minutes of more Korra angst, to seven minutes of Varrick parodying book 2 with accompanying edits. If it weren’t for the clips, they would all feel like pieces from different episodes ripped apart and sewn into one. For a look back into the show, it feels disjointed. I know they were trying to go for different perceptions of the past, but they don’t compliment each other enough to make it feel worthwhile. Instead of one recollection that can spell out the show’s history and make it seem better than it actually was, there are three clashing rundowns with too narrow a depiction to really be enlightening. It’s the equivalent of three kids running up to your face and talking over each other about what Legend of Korra means to them.