One of the best Avatar: The Final Airbender rewatch begins in season 2

I really feel a little bit responsible about the best way I rewatch Avatar: The Final Airbender.

I rely the present amongst my favourite tv collection ever. At the same time as an grownup, I’m impressed by the best way the showrunners used Aang’s journey to defeat the Hearth Nation to string collectively a whole tapestry of a world affected by violence and injustice. Its characters’ tales, just like the redemption of Prince Zuko, develop into vessels to craft a narrative that’s abruptly political and private. Simply the mere point out of Avatar can immediate a gush of constructive ideas of why I like the collection and need extra. However even given all this, I battle to convey myself to look at a overwhelming majority of the present every time I rewatch it, and I find yourself skipping numerous it. Every time I revisit the collection, I begin from E-book 2, episode 6, an episode known as “The Blind Bandit.”

Right here is the place I admit — considerably embarrassingly — that I’ve began three rewatches from this precise level within the collection. At first, it didn’t begin as a aware alternative. I’d rewatch that exact episode as a result of I at all times liked Toph as a personality and simply wished to rewatch the episode the place she joins the gang. I liked the motion sequences and the fun that got here with seeing Toph in motion for the primary time, however I additionally appreciated the best way she breaks free from her mother and father’ concept that she’s a helpless little one. The factor is, while you get on the Avatar rewatch practice, even when it’s only for that episode, it’s form of arduous to get off.

There’s simply a lot of the great things on this part of the collection. Zuko struggles to determine his personal ethical compass as he takes up shelter with an Earth Kingdom household and we get a window into his childhood life. Princess Azula pursues Aang on lizard-something-back and instantly brings a newfound sense of dread and breathlessness to Crew Avatar. Aang lastly learns how you can earthbend. Earlier than we all know it, we’re on the spirit library episode, and you realize I’ve to maintain watching till Appa and Aang reunite. It’s really banger after banger.

I’m not saying all the pieces that comes earlier than that is dangerous. A few of my favourite episodes arrive earlier than season 2, episode 6. I like to see Sokka get his misogynistic ass kicked by the Kyoshi Warriors within the first season and Aang’s reunion with the bumbling King Bumi early in season 2. However I can’t assist however really feel that the showrunners actually discovered the beating coronary heart of the collection. Aang’s mission to confront the Hearth Nation comes with a stronger sense of course as he learns earthbending and seeks to recruit comrades to battle in the course of the upcoming photo voltaic eclipse. However even then, this portion of the collection exhibits us what distinguishes Avatar as a really nice tv collection. Episodes like “The Tales of Ba Sing Se” don’t do a lot to develop the plot, however they enrich the world with emotional portrayals of its characters and creatures.

Given the significance of episodes just like the aforementioned “Tales of Ba Sing Se” in Avatar, I do really feel a little bit of guilt skipping straight to the juicy stuff. However right here’s the best way I see it. Season 1 crops the seeds for lots of the tales I like within the present and develops a much-needed basis for understanding the world at massive. The tales of characters like Zuko wouldn’t hit the identical if we didn’t see him working round being an offended teen for therefore lengthy, and I’d by no means suggest a first-time viewer begin in season 2.

Nonetheless, by the second season, we’ve got a powerful concept of what the world is like by this level, and we actually get to see the present flourish and bear the fruits of so many factors arrange earlier within the story, and even plant just a few new seeds of its personal! So now, every time I begin a rewatch, I’ll simply begin from there. I think about I’d see one thing new if I rewatched it from the start of the collection, however nonetheless, I can’t assist however really feel that perhaps, simply perhaps, I intuitively stumbled onto one of the simplest ways to rewatch Avatar.