House of R - Netflix’s ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Winners and Losers

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

Mal and Jo are back in the world of 'Avatar' for a look at Season 1 of Netflix’s new live-action adaptation of ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender.’ They talk winners and losers as they go through four things that worked and four things that didn’t in this divisive show (17:32). Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Associate Producer: Carlos Chiriboga Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Social: Jomi Adeniran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Did Don Draper really buy the world of Coke? Did Tony Soprano really die? Or just order more onion rings? The finales of our favorite shows can make us argue, make us cry, and make us crazy. From Spotify and the Ringer, I'm Andy Greenwald, and this is Stick the Landing, a new podcast where we'll be telling the story of modern TV backwards, one fade out at a time. Find Stick the Landing on Wednesdays on the prestige TV feed, on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. The playoffs are here, and you can appreciate it.

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I've chased down every hint of the avatar. It's my destiny. I'm not someone who can stop the Fire Nation. I don't want the responsibility. You don't have to do this alone. You have me, Tara, and a flying ball of fur. What more do you need? To House of R.

Joanna Robinson joining me today. She's the Agne to Mike. Did I say this last time we did an Avatar podcast? Maybe. Rubin. Hi, Mallory. How you doing? Joanna Robinson The Moonslayer herself. Hello.

We're here to talk about Avatar, the last episode, AirVendor, Netflix's eight-episode live-action adaptation of the animated series. If you want to hear our thoughts on the animated series, a show we love dearly and truly. We did a top 10 moments for that show, like a week and a half ago thereabouts. You can go listen to that if you want to. If you want to get our general sense of our fandom for the animated series. But today we just wanted to take you

through the Netflix Live Action series. We're not doing a deep dive because it's eight episodes. We're not sure where everyone is on their watch, that sort of thing. So we thought we'd bring back an old Ringer classic, which is the winners and the losers of Avatar the Last Airbender. We picked eight, four winners, four losers,

four elements, four kingdoms, eight episodes of the show. There's a lot of numerical synchronicity here. Malo, how do you feel about this format? Are you excited to declare winners and losers? Yeah,

I love a winners and losers rubric here at the ringer. It's a, I'd say a part of the soul of the ringer universe. So this is our first house of our winners and losers experience. I'm excited. It feels right. And I think it's a nice way to chat about a show where some things worked and some things didn't. We have some notes. And we have some things to celebrate as well. So we'll be talking about those things

today. Parking reminders generally, June 2 is upon us very soon. We are so excited. The whole ring reverse plus house of our crew went to go see it last night I got to see everyone that was so fun wonderful van commentary on Doom 2 is sort of everything you want in a theater

so great time so the Midnight Boys we'll be doing double doing coverage this week they'll be doing a look back and then they'll be covering they'll have their instant reaction to Dune 2 the Mint Edition is doing speaking of Avatar the Last Airbender

a cartoon to live act Here comes the pitch episodes. So I want to listen to that over on Midd Edition. And then we, the House of Our Lovers, Spiceheads Galore, lovers of Aracas. We'll be doing our double-dune celebration next week. We'll be back on Monday with the Deep Dive. And then we'll be doing a Hall of Fame. This is the introduction of this idea that we've been talking about for a really long time.

Second episode. Oh, yeah, yeah. We did the Loki. Thank you. We did Loki. Just as we celebrated Loki. we shall be celebrating Paula Trades,

a character that we think is fascinating. We want to talk about. Madim, welcome into the house of our whole fame. So, Liza al-Ga-Im.

Welcome, welcome. So yes, Hall of Fame I can't wait for that. For Paulotrides next week, as well as our Dune to Deep Dive. Over under

three hours on the, on the Dune Deep Dive. Vegas has taken it off the board. Yeah, okay, great. Um, wonderful, wonderful. Molly Rubin, if folks have thoughts about Dune, a three-body problem, which is further on down the road, this avatar, an apple that they ate, a refutation of Minichheim's great thread about apples over on Twitter.

Salient insights from a brilliant mind. Some briny pickle takes, like where should they put all those thoughts and dealings? Yeah. So a few things. If you have some missives that you'd like to say, the inbox is always open. Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com. Send your thoughts.

If you don't have thoughts to send, but you want to hear thoughts from us, follow the pod on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're at it, check out the ringer versus various social media handles. The ringer versus on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter. Did the ringer verse gang take a group photo with the Dune Fuck It Bucket Bucket,

you'll have to follow on social to find out. Did I travel down to L.A. and buy the bucket just for the photo opportunity? Did Mallory Rubin? As soon as she got her bucket, which she was very fearful of because she was like, I put my popcorn in this.

Has this been washed? Has it been washed? Has other people, have other people touched it? But she said that first. The second thing she said was, I can't wait to take our photos. And as they were sitting waiting for the movie, she's like, I can't wait to take our photos.

after. So the photos exist because of Mallory Rubin willed it to be. They're pretty tame, I got to say. You know, if you told me to like fist the bucket for content, I would have. Spoiler warning and adult content

warning, ringer, Rhyr, Hasabar. The adult content warning came a little late today. Too late. Too late. I think. This is a kid's show, I so apologize. House Bar contains adult content occasionally. Great stuff. Probably not too bad today, but we'll see. No promises.

Spoiler warning. Yeah. All the way up through the eighth episode of the live action. And what we say, dare we say, some dribs and drabs from the animated series as well. Because some of the season one live action show dips into later episodes of the animated series. And I cannot promise that we will not reference those things as we talk about this. Is that sound fair? Mallory?

Yes. I think that anything that happened in the animated series in season one that was not included in this is fair. game and anything that was actively moved forward from future seasons as fair game, we will do our best to limit slash avoid spoiling long-term character arcs and plot points. That won't happen. Or will it? Mostly. We might have some contextualization. Yes. That accounts for where certain characters go, but we're not going to be like in episode. Correct. Seven of season three at the 11 minute mark. Correct. All right.

I don't think. After that, smooth introduction and flawless, spoiler wording and we definitely remember to ask you where people can follow the pod. But here we go to talk about eight episodes of the Netflix series. Showrunner Albert Kim is the mastermind behind this season after the original animated series creators left. We'll be talking about Mike and Brian a little later in this podcast,

and I'm really excited to talk about them. But like, that's something to just bear in mind that whatever's going on here is something that the original creators are like, that's not really our interpretation of our story. Or that's not really what we want to spend our time doing. That's just something that I was thinking about while I was watching the show. It doesn't let's just go now to our opening snapshot. So yeah, we just wanted to use like brief overall thoughts on the show. I would just say like with with as I indicated on several like prep pods

this or or hype drafts or whatever it was. I was really, really, really worried about this show because Brian and Mike left. And I will just say for my like big picture or thought is that I didn't dislike it as much as I was worried I was going to dislike it, which is why we have four solid winners, I think, to talk about this week or at least three and a half solid winners talk about this week. I was really, really worried about the show. And then I was watching it and I was like, oh, I like that.

And I like that. No, I don't mind that. And that's actually like a nice adaptive change. I know some people are completely out on this. And some people who have never seen the animated show are like really into it and excited to like learn about this new world. So there's a whole, I've seen a whole mix of reactions, uh, to this show. Molly Rubin, where are you sitting this fine Monday morning?

You know, I thought this was a mixed bag. Yeah. Which is why we've once again landed on our winners and losers rubric for today. I genuinely did not dislike. this season of TV or think that this was like, let's say in Avatar the Last Airbender movie-esque abomination. Like we have seen, we know what a true failure to execute a live action adaptation of this story looks like.

That's not what this was. I found things to like in this. I found things to enjoy. Ultimately, I found myself like because we have not only seen the original series, but have such a deep and abiding affection for it, unable to stop thinking about it as I was watching this, which is reasonable and I guess predictable for people who love the animated series.

So like on the one hand, I can't put myself into the position of somebody who is coming into the Avatar universe for the first time. As you know, that was one of you just alluded to this. One of the things I was excited about in the run-up to the show was not only seeing this show and seeing how Netflix brought the world to life, but like what a Netflix banger can mean for people discovering a world. And like my hope remains that people who watch this for the first time, this is their first introduction to the Avatar universe,

are excited to hopefully go watch the original animated series. Go watch Cora and fall deeper into the world. I think that if you don't have an attachment to the original source material and you came into this cold, maybe things about it don't work, but I think probably it's a pretty enjoyable experience. Some of the changes I actually think are okay. And some of them I am utterly perplexed by and confounded by. I was thinking a little bit about Asoka watching this, not like, which is different, obviously, because even though this is not a beat for beat for beat recreation of the,

first season of the animated series, as we'll discuss, like the condensing and reordering of some of the plots is something that was on our minds watching it. But broadly, the redoing the thing we've already seen in live action, the Asoka Live Action show is not a redo of Clone Wars or Rebels. It's a new story. But I was thinking a lot about that initial acclimation period, even with performances that we ultimately ended up in some cases really enjoying,

where just you're seeing somebody brought to life. by a different performer in a different way, and it just takes you a while to get used to it, right? So, like, as is often the case revisiting it, I found that a little bit easier to hang with, but ultimately just some of the performances I thought captured. I'm okay with everything being different. Like, it has to be definitionally.

I actually think attempting, like, a cosplay of the original would be a mistake. Like, giving the performers room to do their own thing is probably necessary, or it always is going to seem like mimicry or, like, a pale imitation of the thing we got before. But I think just definitionally the truth is going to be that some of those performances and some of that is how the characters are brought to life by the performers

and some of it is just how the characters are written and what they have to do in the story, like what the actual scripts are, what the material is that each character's working with. Some of that just worked better than others, and we will hit that as we go today. So, yeah. On the cosplay front, it's interesting to me, one of the more alarming trends I've seen, mostly on TikTok, I haven't been spending a lot of time on Avatar TikTok, but are people comparing this to the M. Night Shyamalan movie and claiming the M. Night Shyamalan movie was better. And I can only chalk this up. Absolutely not.

I know. But I can only chalk that up to similar thing as what happened with the prequels, which is like a generation who watched the M. Night Shyamalan movies when they were kids and maybe had never seen the animated and they sort of grew up with some light affection for it. but I'm actually, I'm not putting the prequels and prequels are better than the N. Night Chamel and Avatar movie, let me be clear. But that generational thing of like, the generation who like went to the movies as kids to see that movie with like the eyes of children are like, maybe that movie wasn't so bad. I can hang with that when you're talking about some wig and costume issues because on the cosplay front, we're going to come back to wakes a little later. But like on the costume front, this is what. what made me believe that both believe that Albert Kim,

who ran the show and the various people working the show, were huge fans of the animated series. Because the costumes and the wigs and everything are like meticulous recreations of the animated version. And what I will say for the M. Night Shyamination in the movie is that like the costuming and the wigs and stuff like that were just sort of like a nice adaptation into what this would look like in a more realistic live action world.

I can give it that, but I can't give it anything else in this life or the next. No quarter for that movie, which is terrible. I rewatch that movie this weekend. It is astoundingly bad. I mean, it is, I think, one of the worst things ever committed to the public record. It is, in every respect, it misses the mark. And so again, this is absolutely leaps and bounds superior to that. It's the way that they say, Ong and Avatar.

Ophatar. All of the pronunciations being different for absolutely no reason. Everything about it is just utterly confounding and befuddling. So I want to just make sure I'm being clear on the cosplay point. Like, I don't actually mean, I think your point about the costumes is a great one. I mean like the performers. No, I was just, yes, the ending here. Use to the word.

Yeah. I felt better about the people who weren't trying so hard to be the, original versions of themselves. And those are like the places for me to celebrate. Whereas someone like the young actor was playing Saka, like there's a lot to enjoy it in his performance, but there are times when I just felt him like Serrani just sound exactly like the animated version. And I'm like, well, you don't have to, man. You could just do your own thing and that works too. So anyway, we'll talk about all of this.

But yeah, I mean, overall, I would say the problem, we talked about this in our prep pod and Dave and Neil and I talked about this a lot on trauma. by content last week when we were talking about live action adaptations of animated series. A live action adaptation just has

this extra burden of meaning to justify its existence. When a perfect thing exists like the animated series, so why does this live action version exist? The most optimistic

interpretation is Mallory's, which is like, what a way to introduce a whole new subset of people into a world they may not ever check out because they're like,

I don't want to watch a Nickelodeon kids animated show or whatever. So that's a bright and sunny idea. The more cynical look is this is an IP cash grab, you know? I don't think that's why they did it. I just think that could be one of the benefits on it. IP wars, streaming wars, this is just our new reality. So I don't believe this show justified its existence,

but I wasn't angry at the end of it that I watched it. That's where I land at the end of the day. Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimphaya, gusalcumab, taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques psoriasis,

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Nars, better together. Visit Sephora to shop now. So let's go now, shall we? to our four winners and four losers of Avatar the Last Airbender, Netflix's live action, eight episode series. Mallory and I have each picked two winners and two losers each,

though we roughly co-sign each other's picks. It's not like we're objecting to anything, but I think you will be able to tell, at least in one instance, who picked which entry. We're just going to start, we're going to alternate, we're going to start with a loser only because I want to end with a winner.

So we end with an upbeat, celebration of the world of Avatar, but that means we're starting with a loser, and it is my go first, I suppose. And this is the only time we're centering on, like, one character. And I have actually seen some people enjoy this depiction of this character. But for me, this version of Iro misses the mark in a very significant way. So for me, a loser, this depiction of Uncle Iro.

And I think the reason it stood out to me so much is when we heard about the casting, and Paul Sung-Hung Lee, who we know from Mandalorian and Kim's convenience, seemed like perfect casting me, especially his work on Kim's convenience, where he plays, you know,

a character who is referred to as Appa. He is so wonderful and warm on that show. And so I was like, oh, yeah, that's Iro for sure. And then he shows up here. And first of all, he doesn't look quite right to me because he looks to like neat and tidy. I need my Iro to be a little shabbier than what we got here. But mainly, we start promisingly there is some like funny business with like I see some snacks I want and stuff like that. but overall, I feel like they decided to,

this is true for a lot of characters, they decided to zero in on one aspect and ignore the full-bodied richness of a character. And for IRO, they focused in on the emotional connection to Zucco, the, you know, sorrow around the loss of his son, all of that. And the emotional connection with Zuko, the avoncular father figure, all of that sort of stuff, that comes through.

but I was missing the full picture of Iro, which is that he is like silly and weird and funny and people constantly underestimate him because of that. That whole other aspect. And that is why Iro is like one of our most cherished characters because of all the notes he plays. And so to see an actor who I know is capable of that, be given material that only lets him do a fraction of this,

beloved character. And Iro, I think, is like the spine of the show in many ways. It was a real mess for me. How did you feel, Holly Urban? Yeah. So of the eight selections that we have landed on today, I think this is the, certainly the one where we have the largest gap in our feelings. And honestly, maybe the only one of the eight where we really have any differing opinion on

it, I think we're pretty aligned on the. on the rest of them. I don't I don't necessarily like as you're laying that out it's hard for me to dispute a single part of that. I think that the Iro

performance worked a little bit better for me because actually of what you're identifying, which is that broad decision to focus in on the one thing, which I think is a limitation of the adaptation on the whole, without a doubt.

the thing that they centered on here, how Zuko and Iro's respective trauma and loss has brought them together, connects to, again, if you'd like to hear more of our thoughts on this, please check out our prior podcast where we discussed our favorite moments from the original animated series. My single favorite thing about the original show.

And so I, like, I am such a sucker and such an easy mark that, of course, it won't surprise you to hear, that as we are watching Iro sit at his son's service, tears streaming down his face, as Zucco gives him not only the medal, but this beautiful insight about what Luton gave to Zucco, not just physically and literally,

but this lesson, this important thing, and they break out the cords, leaves from the vine. We were watching this on the couch, and he was like, how dare they? I agree.

Yeah, and you too, he was, I told, I previewed your take on this for him and he was very happy. Um, I was just like, a wreck.

It really got me. So that part of it worked for me. I think that broadly what you are identifying about the absence of the quirkiness and the oddity is totally right. And I, I felt that too. It connects to a large, feeling that we have about the season that we will be discussing later on today's episode.

Take a little moment like the Omashu arrival, where Zuko, of course, can't spare a moment, right? And Iro is so excited to sample the offerings, taste some delicious meat, right? Of course, and it's always tea time. Yeah. But also just to like steep, not just the tea leaves, but to steep in a culture, right? And I gather it's charm is lost on you. And he says that to Zuko. Like those are the kind of moments in addition to the quirkiness that I would have loved more of.

Because as you're saying, Aero is like the beating heart of the story, the character who does, and a lot of other characters do this as well, but who's so almost seen by scene minute after minute. reminds us like why it is worth, not just fighting actively, but rooting for and believing in other people, like in trying to make your way forward. The fact that he can do that, I love the point that you're making about people underestimating him. And, you know, we get a little bit of that his confrontation with the deeply resentful and bitter Earth Kingdom soldier, right, who is carrying his own wound and is like, well, I'm just going to pummel you and you're going to take it. and that's not what is waiting for him on the other end.

But it's not nearly as present here. And I think you're right that that's something we're missing. What I will say is that, you know, rewatch, like, watching it all the way through and then watching the season again, when I restarted, I was like, oh, no, I was being too hard. Like, there's Iro. Like, at the beginning. And then that whole facet of him goes away, I would say, in like the back two thirds of the season. Like, we get some glances of it at the beginning. And then it's like, no time.

for this, which is a common... Also connects to another thing we'll be discussing today. A common feeling season. I think also what I love, you know, what is helpful in something that is not wonderful adaptation of something you love, is it helps you better understand why the thing you love worked in the first place.

So thinking about the missing elements here, I would say part of the beautiful richness of the Avatar animated characters, and we touched upon this a little bit in our Golden Trio's episode that we did, where we were like, well, it's hard to put these kids in one slot because they're constantly sort of like moving all over the place. There's not just their characters arcing. I think what's true of most of these characters is that they have these contradictory dual facets to that, you know, like, Katara is the sweet emotional girl until she's like, fuck, angry, scary, you know, and like, tough and, like, tough and hardcore until she's, like, wounded and she's not. And so all these characters have so many layers to them that you get to see. And each layer and each facet that feels almost contradictory makes it so much more rewarding.

So like the depth of emotion that Iro has for Zuko and various other people that he meets and the sensitivity and the understanding hits that much harder because he is often so like focused on tea. And so you're just sort of like, oh, but actually he knows. So he knows exactly what matters, which is tea, hot tubs, noodles, and the people that you love. Right? So all those. And pie show, of course. Okay. So yeah.

That is my first loser, Iro, and I'm going to pair it with a winner. Because while we're talking about the adults in the show, I want to highlight two people that I think just knocked it out of the park entirely. And they are both alums of a TV show that we talk about occasionally. You might have heard of it. It's called love. I mean, out of it, lot. But the legend Daniel Day Kim, who played Jin on Lost, and Ken Leung, who plays Miles on Lost, are here as Fire Lord Ozai and Commander Zhao, respectively. I want to start with Daniel Day Kim.

Okay. Who was, I would argue, the biggest name attached to this show, right? You know, other than, like, you know, George DeKay is doing a voice and, like, you know, there's some voice acting. stuff like that, but I would say of the live actors, Daniel DeKim is the person that people were like, oh my God, Daniel DeKim is doing this. Worth remembering that this man is in his mid-50s and when he takes this shirt off for the eye and five, he has a six-pack. He looks incredible.

Unbelievable. But I think additionally, and he's like, not everyone is able to work with the elaborate wig and like facial hair that they're given and he is like making the ozai wig, the cartoon accurate Ozai wig and like lengthy goate

absolutely work. Like doesn't look silly. It looks right. Daniel's Kim is great. He's a great actor. This is almost a writing win because they did a complicated pass in direct opposite to what I just said

about the oversimplification of certain characters. They did a really complicated pass on Ozai here. where he reminds me a lot more of a Logan Roy than he does necessarily a fire lord Ozai. The Masks episode where we get the Zucco flat, the main Zucco flashback. And we get some of Ozzy's motivations we're doing,

which is not just like he's an evil asshole. It's he genuinely believes in toughness and tough love is what his child needs here. Daniel D. Kim is giving some like some empathy and tenderness in this horrific thing that this father does. It's all like sort of in the, like he genuinely does on some level believe that this is the best thing for his son.

And then added to that is the way in which he's manipulating Azula, his daughter, and pitting his children against each other in a way that Fire Lord Ozai doesn't directly do in the animated series. We also get an Ozai, Iro interaction, which we never get in the animated series.

It's very enjoyable. That was really cool. Yeah, I just thought it was like, oh, you know, like you're, obviously you hired D. Dean and Day Kim, let's give Dianna Day Kim more to do than just cackling evil, which again, Mark Campbell in the animated is great at. We know that that's something he loves and knows how to do. But this is just a much more complicated OSA, and I love that for me. What do you think, Mallory?

Easily one of the highlights of the season and a pleasant surprise in the like anticipating run-up where we're excited, of course, the Daniel Day came as in the show. But I think that for me at least was paired with the question of, okay, we have a lot of anxiety collectively

about what is not going to make it into this season. Yeah, the episodes are long, but there's only eight of them. And so we just understood we know how these seasons are made, right? There's going to be this, like, condensed, propulsive, plot-driven aspect of the story. You moved, like, Ozai is, of course, a presence,

a figure, this looming specter from the word go. But Ozzy as a character who is actually in scenes, saying things out loud. This moved, like, way up, right? His role is a prominent figure. Yes. And so while I was very excited to see Daniel Day came in the role, I was like, what will this come in?

place of. There was not a second that he was on screen that I was worried about that. And in fact, it would have loved to have even more time with him because I thought he was riveting broadly. I think Fire Nation was a win of the adaptation. I think there are losses inside of that. We just had the discussion about Iro. I don't know if we want to talk about this now or maybe there's a better place to hit this later. Did not particularly enjoy the rendering of the Oslo May. Ty Lee Trio have some thoughts and questions and notes about that that we'll get to at some point today. But, we've already discussed Iro,

pretty fond of the Zucco performance. I think Zucco, I think Dallas New was the best of the main kids. Like, easily. Yeah, I thought his performance was great. And again,

like we were alluding to in the opening snapshot, the Zucco animated performance is an iconic one. and he's a cherished and beloved character. And so you have that initial, like, wait, this isn't what I'm, just my mind is programmed to receive. But as soon as that ceased, which was like, honestly, like a scene or two. I'm just like, this is a pretty compelling magnetic performance that captured the spirit of the character as well.

I thought it was better than Dev, which is not fair to Deb because Dev is inside a horrible movie. The material that Dev had to work with was again, absolute travesty. I never in my life said, I thought this person was better than Dev Patel because Deb Patel is one of my all-time everything always.

I thought Dallas Liu as Zucco was a complete triumph for me. Yeah. I really was taken by him. He's a trained martial artist, so like his fighting, like his fighting work, especially the Agni Kai,

I just thought looked incredible. And Van made this great point on the Midnight Boys, which is that he had the advantage of often working against, he was working opposite Ken Lung, Daniel Day Kim, and Paul as Iro. Like, he was working against these accomplished adult actors most of the time. You know, he has some stuff with Ang, et cetera. But, like, most of the time he's working with adults. That helps, I think.

And I agree with that. But I just, like, I do, like, looking back, I think Masks was my favorite episode. And it's, like, very much a Zuko episode, you know. Yeah. The Zuko backstory stuff, I thought, was incredible. I agree. And then you built, I loved that point about being paired with the adults. And then you get the change of pace of a moment like Ang asking Zucco about the, which hair he uses and his brushes.

And it's just, I don't know, like pretty much everything with Zucco worked for me. I also think, like I was saying earlier, I think that is part of why I didn't mind the Iro rendering as much because it's just so deeply connected to Zucco. and I was such a fan of the Zucco adaptation. But so the Fire Nation win, Fire Nation win, Ozai win, Committer Zhao, we'll talk about in a minute, win. So overall, I thought the Fire Nation was more successfully rendered than certain other groups. Ozai, there is like an absolute chilling quality

to what we are witnessing. And whether it's a moment of pride and triumph or a moment of just, judgment and ridicule, your heart is racing and your stomach is clenching in the same way. I felt just as sick watching the glistening in his eye when he saw Azula channel lightning for the first time, as I did hearing him say to Zuko, his son who he has tormented and maimed, I have made a mistake. I have sheltered you and it's made you soft like your mother. Like, this is just a hideous thing.

And the depth, as you're noting, that informs our ability to understand what's fueling a person's, how could a person behave that way to somebody they should, that they should be charged with caring and nurturing and protecting and guiding. And then the contrast of Iro showing up on the boat, like, home, all I need is here. That was great. The highlight of the season. Yeah.

And then the added, I gasped at that line in the added context we have of, like, knowing what happened with Zucco's mom. if we are fans of the animated series in the comics, like, then you understand where Ozai's come. I don't know. I thought it was, I thought it was really well-written,

well-performed character. Taylor Day of Kim, maybe has never played a straight villain, at least that I've seen. And so, you know, like a really fun moment for him. Ketalong, like, I think is my favorite thing

that happened in this show. This is a deranged performance. I mean, that is a sincere compliment, obviously. Jal Lung, as voiced by your love and mine,

Jason and Isaacs in the animated series, like we love Jason Isaacs. I would never give him a single note. I think his job is fine, but his job winds up being like a kind of like somewhat unmemorable season one sort of like mini boss on our way forward

because Azula and Ozai like looms so large later in the series. I'm not going to be forgetting this Zhao anytime soon because like the absolute genius this actor has and he did it on lost he's not on everything he does it in an industry

he like doesn't everything he's ever done I can't wait for industry to come back is he is just so effortlessly funny he has this just dry as toast delivery of just like the most you know I was just like rewatching it and I was like

on the page cactus juice in the desert in this season Joe just on the page the most like boring lines and he would just deliver it with this like ironic lilt that I just was just soaking up. I absolutely loved him. It's funny. I heard from someone, I can't remember it was an email I read or tweet and I apologize, but like they felt like they wanted to give the

Watchables award to Ken for being like seeming like he's in a different show than the show we're watching. I don't agree, but I see where they're coming from. But this is like the humor I was often looking for. And I'm like, I'm getting it from Zhao of all people. But I was just, I just thought it was scrumptious. It wasn't surprised. Wonderful. I thought he was immensely entertaining and supremely unhinged.

I love a delusional striver. Love a delusional striver. And that is one of the tweaks in the adaptation. or amplifications that I thought was really smart. Because I love the way you're, the mini boss framing for original season one is exactly right and perfect. I don't think there's ever really a moment watching it.

Sometimes it can be hard to separate where you know things are going from how you felt about it in real time. But I don't really think there's a moment where you're like, this is ultimately who the threat is, right? You sort of know you're waiting to move beyond him. And especially in a,

a story where purpose and motivation is so central for the characters we're investing in. Understanding that in equal measure for the people opposing them on the other side is really crucial. And you pair that with a character who is not only willing, but eager to weaponize the dynamics and interplay between other people and use that for his own ends. Like a moment where he says to Zuko near the very end of the season, The winner is the one without the scar from Daddy? Like, this is savage.

Savage. So good. It was incredible. So good. It was incredible. And to your point about the comedy, I think that across the season, one of the things that inhibited me from really, really, really, really luxuriating inside of a specific scene episode, the season overall, is that the writing occasionally just felt so clunky and ham-fisted.

and not just, as is often the case, in a moment of exposition. Often, unfortunately, in the moments that are supposed to be deeply emotionally resonant, Zhao was kind of the opposite, where everything he said had a crackling intensity to it, and the zingers, they came saying. I was trying to think of my favorite, because he had a few really funny, loony lines. I think, I wonder what they'll call me when the news reaches Capitol City. I quite like Jowl the Conqueror. It should have some flair.

Best summed up what worked about the character. So, that was truly great. Truly great. All right. Also, Fire Nation, great. Also, I don't know. I need to say it again, but I will watch Lost. What a great show.

Okay. Treat yourself. Loser, I'm going to hand this one over to you, Mali Rubin. next loser number six. I'd say thank you. But you're too angry. It pains me to have to share first loser of the day, Joe.

Amy lover of a magical creature. We're losers today, folks. There is not even close to enough Momo and Appa in this show. and it is something that we need to discuss for a moment. And something that I cannot understand. I mean, I can.

I do actually literally understand. It's incredibly expensive to render these creatures. But they are sidelined for such vast stretches of, again, a short season that they're, like, largely absent. they're basically not in the Earth Kingdom run. It's like, where are they doing? It's like, I mean, I guess why would they, I suppose, but they can't do it opposite last days? Because like, why would you even notice he's gone when he's always gone?

So thank you for saying this, because this is something I was thinking of. We talked a lot on our top moments primer pod about how, like, one of the things that's so wonderful about both APA and MoMo is that they're just always there. Right. Whether they are actively the focus of a given plot point or moment, they're present. And part of that is like the charm of just seeing whatever mischief Momo is up to at a given moment. But part of it is reinforcing the theme that they are a part of this family. They are a part of Team Avatar. And so it actually is concerning and troubling to me that that is not conveyed here. We get, we do get some cute moments. Like it's fun. to see Appa fly in to the rescue, of course. Momo, Momo land on Saka's head.

Yeah, Momo landing on Saka's head. Delightful. Momo stealing the food in episode two, delightful, throwing boulders at Fire Nation Warriors with his tail. Hilarious. But holding the food like he's mimicking how Saka is packing. Great stuff. Digging up the egg corn in episode five.

momo in the palm of his hand showing our heroes that it is possible to believe in hope momo with the little soot particle cough warning in episode seven we get just enough to i think actually feel even more keenly what we are missing now the oppus last day thing like when lost days not god perish the thought not last days god That's funny. I thought you said lost day. I was like, it's more than one day,

but you were like last day. Many, many weeks. The anguish that we and the characters in the show experience when APA is missing is, is basically the reality of this series of TV so far where they're just not present and thus not stitched into the fabric of the family in the universe.

The reason other than just loving Apa, particularly loving Momo and craving them and thinking that, They were so cute when we got that. Momo in particular I thought it was just darling. This is a real worry spot for me, as you know. Like, I actually get beyond the just, oh, I love a cute animal bit. It's not a bit.

It's just real. It's just life. I'm sensitive to the risk of genre stories of fantasy stories, failing to understand something crucial about a bond like this. Like, it's very John and Ghost to me. It actually genuinely matters that APA and MoMA, MoMo are present for these characters and helping them find the courage in themselves to move forward throughout the day. So that's kind of the big picture.

Can I, before you get to the next point that you're about to say, it's like major, major thing that you want to talk about, I just want to, I just want to ramp up to it to say, yeah, watching this and I was like, okay, I was watching my screeners. I watched a bit before you. And I was like, because there were things that worked, I was legitimately worried.

And you were sort of more optimistic about the series than I was. I was a little worried that like you were going to love it. And I was not. And then we were going to have to pot about it. And I would feel like I was letting you down, but not liking a thing as much as you liked it. Oh, that wouldn't let me down. I know, but I worry about it.

I know you wouldn't. But like in my head, my like figment of my imagination head, Mallory would be. And so I was like, oh, no, what if Mallory like loves this? and I'm not really like loving it. Oh, no. And then, you know, noticing in general the absence of Momonapa. And then a thing happens for the end of the season. I was like, oh, they're dead to Mallory.

Oh, it's over for them in Mallory's eyes. So Mallory, what happens at the end of the season? At the 13 minute and 45 second mark of the season one finale, a crime occurs. A crime. committed by the people who made Avatar the Last Airbender season one. Call the streaming covers. For Netflix.

I believe that everybody who is in any way responsible for what unfolded here should be jailed. I believe that. What's the phrase that you've texted me and all of us in all caps several times? I believe I said maimed and killed. Several times. I was very upset about this. At 13.40, 45, Momo, peril unfolding all around us, up in the north,

flies in the hero that he is to rescue a hapless young member of the Northern Water Tribe. We barely bring myself to say this. We then get Momo screeches as the subtitle. And he is crushed beneath rush. And Saka goes over after insulting him. Yeah. And pulls out his limp form. Crumpled body.

Yeah. And U.A. and Saka carry him into the oasis, the healing waters, and view him with life again. Then we get a cute moment. We get a little Mo Mo Mo Mo Chitter. And Saka nuzzles him and hugs him and pets him and Mo Mo Mo Purrs. And that part's very sweet. But the fact that we were made to suffer through a Mo Mo Mo Mo Injury, one of the fucking like seven moments that Momo is on screen. And by the way, you know what one of the other ones was?

It was Saka saying that and Saka saying he wants to eat Momo as part of the canon. And that's fine. Yeah. But cutting, like the, the Thronesian gray scale to pie filling cut equivalent of Saka's saying that Momo looks like chicken and then cutting to somebody grilling a slab of meat is, that was in episode two, 615. That is not acceptable. And this is like, remember when Grogo, we had to see Grogo in the crosshairs?

Yeah. in sanctuary. I do. This is if they had like fucking actually pulled the trigger and shot him in the face. That's what they did here to Momo. Welcome. Like I, that was like almost like a Charlesworthy level rant and I loved it from you. What are we doing here?

I had the channel Charles for that one. This really would be bad. I know. My sweet Momo, protect him. I think a problem, I mean, not everything's going to have the budget of something else or whatever, but I do think you're very spoiled by the puppetry of the Star Wars shows, which means that we get constant grogo, tons of creatures that just like look like they're actually there and are, you know, are just, like, thank you.

Star Wars, you're not always hitting it out of the park all the time when your TV shows, but what you're doing on the puppetry level is phenomenal. and it means that Grogo gets to, like, we, Moe should be there as much as Groku is there in the Mandalorian. Yeah, and I think this gets to this larger point of the ability to properly adapt from animation to live action

because genuinely, like, we could be cognizant of the cost of the CGI rendering all we want. If you can't have two of the most central figures, I mean this sincerely, in the story, why do it? Yeah. And like, when you think about puppetry, like, think about a character, Whenever I, Opah, one of my favorite characters of all time,

but I always think about Falcour, the Luck Dragon, who the never-ending story film, like they have very similar vibes to me. And, you know, Falcour, one of the best puppets of all time, is just like, you know, again, just there and around. And, you know, just, anyway, yeah, if you can't do it, why I do it? That's a great note. Okay.

Number five is back to me, one of my winners. and I'm going to say bending effects. We already mentioned the abomination that is the M-night Shyamalan movie. There's so many things wrong with it, but I would say just slightly under the fact

that they pronounce it on and Avatar and maybe under the fact that Momo, that Ava looks like an absolutely hideous monster in that movie is the absolutely laughable bending

that happens in that movie that is like slow that is like, slow, that is like, like the Earth Kingdom doing just like an entire Haka routine just to lift one rock. Like it's so embarrassing in that movie. And you're just like, again, if you can't do it, why do it? That applies to the bending and that.

Like if you can't make bending look cool with whatever axis you have to digital effects, then you can't do an avatar story. This is not really what we're talking about. But you know what drives me fucking crazy on the bending effects front for the first? So they make the nonsensical choice to implement. that Fire Nation vendors have to have fire around to pull from. And then, you know, it builds this moment where I wrote, it's like, oh my, he, he, he created his own fire. Okay.

Ridiculous. But if you're going to do that, which you shouldn't. But if you're going to. And there is a climactic battle between the Fire Nation and the Northern Water Tribe. And you are the Northern Water Tribe. would you have fire everywhere just everywhere little nestled flames waiting for your enemy all around oh my god i forgot moving um so this open like i when this season opens and we are you know in the long ago part of history.

And I had some like disorienting like why are we doing this? What for what reason? I ended up not hating that again, I think because seeing Air Nation alive and vibrant again just like gives us that whole what do we what do we lose? What do we miss? That sort of thing. Spending time in the Shire.

I thought Kiyatsu worked really well. But we're not here to talk about Kiyatsu and Air Nation at all. Yatou coming through. Yeah. Some real. Giazoo was wonderful. Shire energy, you're right. But it opens with a bending fight.

It's the very first thing we see, as if Albert Kim and all of his, the folks work in the show are like, we need to let them know right away that we are not going to give them what M. Night Shyamlan gave them. We know what we're doing. And I think the bending looks great.

I think it looks phenomenal throughout. I have no notes about any of the bending, not fire bending, not water bending. Definitely not earth bending looks great. The like stomp-up slice off, which is like one of my favorite earth-bending moves, like all of that just I think looks fantastic. I think the only thing that I've seen people push back on the betting front

is that they think Aang is able to like fly too easily when he should be like more, it should be harder for him to glide. But I think he does that in the animated series all the time. So it's not really a note that I have. But yeah, I just, I thought, I thought it looked fantastic. I thought the fighting overall, I think there was a little bit of an,

I guess when we open with that fight, I was a little, and we'll get to my big note for the season a little later, but I was a little worried at some of the rumors that I heard that Netflix was sort of chasing, wanting to have, as everyone has, their own thrones. And I was like, are they wanting to make Avatar into a Thrones-esque show with like darker, grimmer violence and stuff like that?

And they're, you know, when you're watching people get burned alive in live action, it is a different experience than watching it happen in a cartoon, and I will concede that entirely. But when it comes down to, like, I like the fight action of the show. Once again, I go back to that Agni Kai sequence, which I thought was just phenomenal. This all works for me.

I thought it was fantastic. What do you think, fine? Yeah, I'm a fan as well. And sometimes a trailer dupes us into thinking something is going to be great, and then we're let down. I don't know. Let's just throw out Sierra Invasion. is one property where that happened, among many others.

Remember that moment in time where we were all like secret invaded? Oh, platitudes. I actually thought of the platitudes moment a couple times while watching this stuff. Why was you bring up secret invasion? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I know. You saw it up in Zoom.

And then you're like, I'm just going to drop these two words. Blatitudes. All right. Every now and then we see a trailer, we're like, looks dynamite, and then it's a huge lot down. I thought the avatar trailers were, particularly the final, not the one that came out like a day before the show, but the one that was like around our hype draft were encouraging.

But the bending effects, I actually think it fell into that opposite camp where you see something just in isolation, you see a little snippet of it, and you're like, is this going to look right? Like you've got a little Instagram reel of 10 seconds of Ang air bending over a boulder and like the internet is freaking out. In the flow of the show, I agree. It was successfully executed. And I thought overall, the show looked pretty good.

The sets, the backgrounds, Omashu, like, look amazing. And I think like the temples look really good that they went into. yeah, like the big Avatar Kiyoshi, like statue, like all that sort of stuff. Like, I thought like, AAPA, Momo aside, digital effects, and also production design-wise, like, we were, yeah, I thought we were doing a great job. Yeah.

Yeah. So there was a worry, like, would they be able to pull that off? And then I think they did. So that was a relief. And yeah, you mentioned earlier when we were chatting about Zucco that you could just, I mean, really tell that Dallas is. a trained and expert martial artists in those sequences. It was the street fight in Omaschu between Zuko and Ang,

just like, I thought that was an interesting example of where you could just, I mean, I don't actually know if this is right or what I'm talking about, to be clear, but it seemed to me sitting on my couch at home with no expertise that they were actually doing. It was just like, that's him. Flip it and spin in. And maybe it isn't, but it really seemed like it was. So that was cool. Also, I mean, while we're talking about fighting, and we'll come back to her, of course, but Saka and Suki, real highlight.

Like when, you know, when they're training and then when they like team up, the fan fighting is all great stuff. Okay. Back to Malibuven for another loser. The loser. Okay. Here is the next loser. Side quest. We've been kind of teasing this throughout the disqual.

discussion today. This is something that we were worried about heading in, and I think we were proven right in that concern. Overall, I will say, I understand the decisions in like the repackaging and restructuring of the season. But that doesn't mean that we're not not missing something because of it. The condensing of the plot and the pacing, there are like a few different elements of what was lost with the many side quests that we were deprived of. Now, was there ever a scenario where we were going to get all of these?

Like, of course not. But if we think about what is missing in their absence, like, I think this is really like a miss. And I wonder if just inserting or tweaking, inserting a couple of these or tweaking a couple of these or tweaking a couple aspects of this would have like opened up the story in the world because I think making the world feel a lot smaller

was a big symptom of this. There's just a few examples. They don't find the water bending scroll on the pirate ship. So not only does that mean the pirates aren't in the story, sad, it means like the upshot of that. It's not a discovery our characters make, but also Grand Grand just has this thing.

And withholding the information? Withholding it from her, like, why? It's depriving us of something that also deprives the characters of something. Bizarre. Is there a rum in a season like this for the Great Divide Journey with the Waring Tribes? Okay, probably not. That's like a lot of new people that you need in the show. But what do we lose?

we don't get to glimpse not only like what regular life is like for more people in a certain community, a different community than the few we get to see, but what it means

for like the cracks and the fissures to fan out and spread when people are left alone to just stew in their resentment. No fortune teller episode. We don't get to see... I really miss the fortune teller episode.

Huge miss. Like how an entire community can be... buy into a shared belief that becomes a shared delusion and what it means for our characters to confront that and what it shows us about them and how they think and how they're all on journeys of change, but how are they changing other people around them while also respecting their traditions and their lives? And I think what's brilliant about, like, the Great Divide episode is not my favorite episode, but what's true about both that episode and the Fortune Deller episode

is Qatar and Saka come down on the exact opposite sides of like the conflicts. in both of those episodes. And so it's, like, important to see these siblings encounter the wider worlds and figure out who they are in relation to all these things that they mean and how they're different, but also how they are family and water tribe and the same at the same time.

And so, like, you miss, I think a lot of these side quests, really, the absence of them, really hinder the Saka and Katara development. I agree completely. So this is an Ang-Zucco thing, but the other thing I was really missing was thinking about what this change meant was the storm, which is episode 12 of season one. I agree with you about masks being a highlight of this season,

and I thought those, as I mentioned, the Zucco backstory reveals were great, but it did make me question again what I felt at the opening of the season, which is why are we getting this ang backstory here rather than building towards, it because I think the entwined reveal of Zucco and Aang's history in the storm. And again, on the sidequest front, you're pairing that with like Zuko, it's not a

side quest, but we watch him help. His crew, we see Aang have to confront a person out in the world who's like, I blame you specifically for this. And then Aang have to bring himself to reveal to Katara, this thing that he has been holding on to. I'll say also on the changes front, I try, I did not used to always be very good at this. I try to be open-minded about changes

and like not needing to strictly, strictly, strictly, strictly adhere to a text. I think Ang just like, I need to get in the air to clear my head, I think better up there, rather than actively running away and carrying that guilt with him. I'm now smuggling this inside of the sidequesting

where it doesn't really belong, is a change for the worst. I found that quite strange and puzzling. On the condensed... the condensed plotting aspect. Jet and his freedom fighters, we meet them in episode 10 of the animated series. Teo and the Mechanist,

episode 17, up in the Northern Air Temple. These are not connected plot lines or locations, and not only are they not connected to each other, they're not connected to Amashu. All of that is brought in to the Omasho sequence here. And then Secret Tunnel, character swap,

making this a little like Throne Zian, an incest for me by making this a Katara Saka journey instead of a Katara Ang journey, bizarre choice, but also that's brought up from season two. I hate that. We can't wait for that. I just don't understand that. Why does everything have to happen in

Amashu in two episodes here? As you know, I love Supertunnel. And the Amashu Secret tunnel. Melange plots is like the most egregious of the like let's cram, let's just push everything Earth Kingdom into sort of like one big mixing bowl.

But having the Secret Tunnel like singers, but not having that like, not having the bulk of the, being that like that being like the B or C plot almost of that episode, I was like this is wrong. This is incorrect to me. Right. Because not only are you like, why is it here, you're like, oh, they already know they're not going to have the space for that in season

two. So it like plays the anxiety forward in a way that made me anxious. But there are things that worked for me like, um, suck and Qatar being stuck in the spirit world. You know what I mean? Like rather than being like ill or like, you know, there are some various things where I was like, okay. Like they're off the board because they're here and not over there. I like that too. And especially, like, it's, as you know, I find it delightful when Momo's like tasked with trying to bring them just can't get over the water.

He's like bringing them all this other shit instead, iconic. but making them, putting them on an active quest to face this this defining truth from their past versus just like, I've got a fever and I will have one until I suck on a frozen toad

was, I agree, a good change. On the sock and guitar front, though, that's the next thing I think we, this gets back to what you're saying, a couple minutes ago, like, with fewer side quests, fewer new places, fewer characters were meeting,

or characters who we are meeting in the season still. I'm about to mention Batu. But in a, different way. We lose something here. We don't get the Bato of the Water Tribe, episode 15, like this entire thing where Batu comes into the story in the present day. And Aang is the one suddenly who is on the outs, who feels like he doesn't belong with this group of people. He's the one tagging along on someone else's journey. I

I feel like that's like a crucial, crucial, crucial aspect, not only of what we learned about Aang, but of their dynamic as a group and, like, who is willing to make a sacrifice or an adjustment for the other person and when? And there was a lot of stuff that I thought we lost on the Aang front with the absence of certain side quests. Like, we don't get the deserter plot, right, from episode 16. We don't get Zhang Zhang. We don't get Aang learning to firebend, his first attempt, which is this, like, deep and lasting scar. There are other aspects of the season that I thought effectively tapped into Aang

fearing his power. I liked when he was reflecting on the other air nomads being afraid of him because his power was so vast. I thought that was really, really sad. But Aang trying to bend fire, hurting his friend,

and genuinely carrying that trepidation and fear and anxiety of what he is capable of doing. to the people he loves for into season three. Yeah. Series is huge. So like, do you absolutely need a side quest to achieve that? No, there's probably another way you can do it.

But if you're not meeting, if you're not seeking out a firebending master on a side quest, then when's that happening, right? So you're just losing all of these little things that I think are such important early notes for the characters. And also just like, Ang acting as, like, tour guide for Saka and Kataro, have never left the village. And so Ang will be like, oh, we'll go here. here, they have the best noodles here, or we'll do this, or have you tried the tea from here, and finding things have changed, right, because he's been on ice for a century, but also,

like, sometimes things are the same. And he's just like, oh, we got to go visit these springs, or we've got to do this. Like, if we're on the road, we're got to do this. And, like, in a preseason interview, I believe it was Albert Kim, who was talking about this idea of, like, you know, Ang has a vision. Ang sees this. So he's just like, go, go, go. And it's just like, again, I want to be understanding of the idea. It's not, it's not Albert Kim's decision that this is an eight episode, hour long season. And, you know, that is a Netflix decision. And so what do you do to make that make sense when you have to strip away all this stuff?

You make it a more propulsive kind of, we got to get here now kind of quest. But you just, you miss the depth. I mean, it's funny. I was just convinced a friend of mine who loves television and watch The Tons of Television to watch Avatar the last year better for the first time. And I was like, hang tough. Hang tough with the beginning of season one. It's like silly and childish, but like it gets better.

And I'm just sort of like, you just got to hang with it. And like these are 20 minute episodes, the little bite-sized ones. But like, seasons are long. And by the end of it, you just like really feel like you've been with these people, you understand these people. And they've spent time together. you feel that passage of time of them being together, companions and all these different circumstances. So by the time they get to the Northern Water tribe, like they are such a on the road for a long time family.

You get this with like, you know, with like Lord of the Rings because there's a difference between the fellowship just like starting out and like everything that Sam and Frodo have fucking been through by the time that they get to Mount Doom. You know what I mean? It's just like time investment in in the journey, time evolving sort of thing. Yeah, absolutely. And I think like the depth, but also then the whimsy and the hang. And like, we're going to talk more about that also in another category coming soon. But Ng is a character who arrives at Kyoshi Island and wants to ride the elephant coy. And that is like important, right? You know, there was that little, we get a couple. You know, Ang's like, is that so bad, right? Just like being a kid. And he and Kudara, even though they can bend, like, just splashing each other with water. You get a few moments where you see that these are just children with the weight of the world

and the fate of mankind of the four nations, like on their shoulders, but not enough of it. And again, I missed that here, but it really, honestly was on my mind more, like, forecasting and thinking ahead because, you know, we won't get into the, like, plot particulars here, but you think of an episode like The Beach in season three, one of our favorites. Amber Island players. And Brian That's the other thing I was going to say The show works in part

Because we and the characters Have those reprieves From like the unrelenting, unceasing Stress and horror Of everything else that's unfolding. Tales of Bossing to have those moments. You know, yeah, just like being Just like being...

That one's just incredible. I love that one. You know, just like being kids in the world. And on the kid front, there's also what we're missing And, you know, we don't actually have a... category for these people, though they might tuck under the next one. But like, a lot of the things

you miss that are stripped out have to do with like Ang's crush on Katara and trying to impress her. And like all of like that's largely missing. I feel like that can just bring us into our number three, which is a Mallory winner. I finally am a winner. Yeah. Get us with your winner, Mallory. Young love. Yeah. Joe, young love. And not you, Katara and Ang, but what else? Young love, okay, chemistry, electricity, that draw that a young person feels to another young person, great. I thought actually the season did genuinely like an exceptional job of portraying that

in multiple different, with multiple different character pairings. But the bigger win here to me was the effectiveness of the new perspective the characters gained from each other inside of those connections. let's hit some of them. Saka and Suki, I mean, if you made me pick my single favorite thing from the season, this would be in the consideration set, which I think is a shock because,

just because, again, when we're thinking of, and I don't know, maybe I'm spending too much time talking about what we were worried about heading into the season. Like, I was excited for the show. Yeah. I guess it was in our moments primer where you mentioned some of the interviews and the concern that was bubbling in the fandom

about the softening of the rough edges for Saka and, you know, removing this like very heavy early season one focus of the Saka sexism and what he has to work through on his own arc. And I was kind of like, if that's not here, when he meets Suki, like, is this kind of work? I thought these two were incredible together. The moment where, like, the, the, they were so charming.

The moment where Suki comes in and Saka is, like, taking a little sponge bath. And he's, like, covering his chest. And she's just, like, looking him up and down. And then later, they're about to kiss. And the bell rings, and she says the bell, and he says, you hear it too. That was just incredible. The dancing and the training sequence, Suki removing her makeup,

like, these were charged electric moments. And Saka still had his false bravado, even though it wasn't weighed down with the like, oh, but I doubt you. It said he was doubting himself. And so it actually ended up, I thought being, like, quite effective for me. Not only was I the thing I dreading

not like a detriment to me, I actually thought it really heightened this interaction. and they each teach each each other something, right? This is crucial. Like, what does Saka do for Suki? We hear her saying to her mother, like, early in the episode, it's not that I'm too young, I just, I haven't seen the world. And then she's telling him, just giving like real. Now I know. Ariel, I want, I want vibes. Yeah, yes. Wandering free, wish I could be part of your way. Off. Kiyoshi Island.

from once in my life. Bringing the world to me. That's what she says. How romantic. Yeah. Maria Zhang, who plays Suki, is, like, in my top five for the season. I just thought she was wonderful. So good.

And, like, since we had a tough hang with a lot of the younger actors in this season, I want to highlight, like, I mean, I actually didn't look up her age. She's probably, like, in her 20s or whatever. But, like, I thought she was a wonderful Suki, not just looking at the part, but just sort of, like, and in contrast to, like, the overall. Umashu, Earth Kingdom, Jamalaya. We're spending this whole episode on Kyoshi Island. So we are like digging in.

So we get additive stuff for Suki, her relationship with her mom, this, this like indication that she's not seen the wider world. Yeah. What's the tradeoff when you have this pride, but also you feel like so isolated and deprived? Thinking about Suki's storyline going forward in the show, that's great track delay for that character. Absolutely. Yeah.

So I loved all of that. I thought the fighting with the fan looked incredible. I thought all of that was great. My only note is that we didn't get Saka in the like in the Kyoshi makeup and dress. I know. Sad. We were. We were cheated.

We were cheated. I loved that episode. I had someone asked me. That was one of my favorite episodes of the season. Yeah, I had someone asked because Avatar Kiyoshi is like one of my top tier favorite characters of all. all time. So like to get her not, we get her like right away in the first episode, we see her. And I was like, there she is. Avatar Kiyoshi. And then to have her manifest, that was like an adaptive change. I didn't mind at all. I thought that was like really cool. And like to watch

her mastery of the four elements. And so to give us something to like look forward to when Ang figures out how to master all four elements and what that can look like in a fight, I just thought that was. That was awesome. I like to like, because obviously we get a lot more Giyatsu in this season. And I was initially a little like, oh, are we going to get this instead of more time communing with prior avatars? But I ultimately ended up really liking that balance because Aang either learns and accepts or learns to cast aside a lesson from a prior incarnation of himself, another avatar, but also then is centering so fully what Giazzo has taught him over. time and that idea that like you can teach yourself something but also you need to learn something from other people like that felt like a successfully executed balance that I and also like the avatar is

not the only one who has something worth hearing. I thought that was all really good too. In terms of Suki and Saka and the lesson going the other way, like I really, I love this aspect of belief and Saka's belief in himself and Suki like giving him this gift of saying I think you're a real warrior. Like this is the I'm just the guy in the group. who's regular. We talked about that line and what that moment means to us

from the original series and for them to have a conversation here about well, like, we're not vendors and Suki to help him see the beauty in that and like,

yeah, you have to be better but also like here's why it can be so cool if you are and like you can be I thought was awesome. I really liked

the Saka performance. I thought he was great. I thought he was better in the front half than he was in the back. I think like the back sort of lost interest in him a little bit or like, you know, but I actually really like the UA stuff. So maybe I take that back.

We'll get there momentarily. But yeah, I think all the main trio, like if I think if I had to write the, let's say, quartet of kids, for me, it's like Zuko, Soka, I don't know, guitar anger just sort of like didn't hit the way that I wanted them to hit. So there we are. Speaking of Qatar, let's chat about Qatar and Junker. Jet for a second here. No hot haroo in this season. Very sad. Deeply, deeply dismaying. But Jet is here and the flirtation is instant in the wagon. So Katara is, you know,

taken with the Freedom Fighter camp and their way of life and this idea of like taking it to the man. And I thought the thing that was cool about this again in terms of like, it's not just about the yearning tendrils, right? It's like, what do you learn from somebody? Maybe even if things and badly was an important thing to highlight. So she has to, after the brief disagreement with Katara and Saka, she has to concede, uh, my boyfriend is in fact the bomber.

Oops. We all make mistakes. He did not put that in his profile. He's a little bit of a fixer up there, but you know, whom's among us is it? That scene where... Jet is encouraging Katara to think about her mother in life, not just in death. I really liked.

And then hearing Katara in the tunnels where, again, I don't know why they were there here, but let's focus for a second on what they're talking about when they are. Saying to Saka basically like, yeah, he was the problem, but he still helped me see something important that I'm now carrying with me. And then, I think most crucially, it wasn't just a liquid. what the cute bad boy taught me moment, it's that Katara was able to pair that with belief in herself. It's not that she needed Jet, right?

Something was unlocked, and then it became about her. So, like, when he says, look at the power you have, that's because of me, and she said that wasn't you, that was me. I thought that was one of the stronger Katara moments in a Katara season arc that on the whole in this series did not really work for me. Also, I thought that the Jet performance was fantastic. The guitar miss for the season is a bummer. It's a bummer.

It's really tough. Guitar is very important for why I love the original series. It's really disappointing. Want to talk about June and Iro for a second on the Young Love Group? I mean, I wanted to slide June, smuggle her in here. it's at least a nice reverse because like iro perving on june is like the only iro note that in the original series that you're like what's going on my guy like this is a little so the fact that the live action's like let's flip it in june is like hardcore flirting with him i thought was like

really funny and cute let it go because your dad's kind of cute great stuff but like the um on that like cosplay print or like and whether you mean like literally in the look or in the actually imitation. This was like the one case where I was like, this is just like such an stunning one-to-one translation, Arden Cho as June. Like, just, you know, it's a minor character from the animated, but like looked perfect, acted perfectly.

Just like, I was like, there she is. That's June. And I don't need that to always be the case with live action. But in this case, it was an example of like an exact one-to-one translation that worked perfectly for me. I loved, I loved June. I thought she was wonderful. That's all.

Speaking of Wigs. Areas where there were some tweaks. Let's talk about Saka and UA. What did you make, obviously, of the wig? We need to clear out for wig watch TM with Joanna Robinson TM, but also related to the wig

because the wig is so present in the rendering of this fox, the silver fox, in the spirit. realm. I loved the fox thing because like first of all I loved I liked the look of that digital caricature, the fox, but also I like this idea of pulling you a like into the story earlier. So it's not just like Saka literally just met her. You know, it's sort of like they have this mystical connection from earlier. I know you from the spirit realm. And so it just like puts a little extra accelerant on

their connection so that you do feel the poignancy of the loss a bit easier than you do I do in the animated version but like let's say in the M. Night Channel version where I'm like you literally just metter Saka. Like what are we doing here? Yeah. Amber Midthunder who plays

UA who was phenomenal in prey and also in Legion like is an actress I think is wonderful and, like, of all the young actors, the actor that I am most familiar with, having seen her in these other things. And I thought she was wonderful working her ass off against one of the worst wigs I've ever seen in all of time and space. I thought of you immediately. Yeah.

Immediately. I thought of you when Momo got crushed. You thought of me when you saw that crispy, crunchity wig. It was the- Like, we might need a side pod just on this wig. This is a moment when I was like, in contrast to the June thing, I was like, how did any of you professional people look at that animated wig and say, let's recreate it strand for strand, beat for beat. No one will notice that it looks insane. How did you put it on Amber's head and say, maybe not that? So like, it is more cartoon accurate.

it is quite cartoon accurate but UA's look but should it be is no it should not UA's look is the most other than Jett who is Jet and his cohort are like drawn anime

style in a in a let's be like people call Avatar anime it's not in anime but Jet is drawn in an anime style and then UA is kind of drawn

an anime style very like Sailor Moon like her hair is ridiculous it looks great in animation it should never have been attempted in a live action show. It's just absolutely reprehensible. And the fact that Amber Mid Thunder was able to make UA like soft and warm and human and charming and compelling

underneath that abomination is just a further testament to her. She's wonderful. But the wig has got to be. Got to go. Astounding. Astounding. Everything else with UA. Great, though. I love this little Cloudberry kitchen chat. Looks delicious also. It did look delicious. Imagine being able to just instantly make your own iced dessert because

you're a water bender seems great. But I loved Saka nervously flubbing his way through this interaction. Like the just a girl and ordinary moments. Very cute. On this like Young Love opening up new perspective front, I think the

UA moments and not did every line work no I think like he's not the boy of my dreams was pretty tough I missed asshole

Han I was what I was like did we need to soften Han into like no reason sweetest

angel also RIP to Han and to that sweet little trainee who was like Master Katara I'm here to help

and then she was like let me know if you see a fireball coming, even though they're actively engaged in war and the fireballs are everywhere. And then she just pieced out and that kid died. Dried. Brutal. 100%. Brutal. Good job. Massacre. Brutal. U.A. and Saka talking about her connection to the spirit world. And Saka saying, so you pop over there just for fun and he's like baffled, right? Because he just had this immense

traumatic experience in the fog. And she's like, wouldn't you? It's magical. Like when you meet somebody in your life who makes you think about something in a different way, that's a beautiful thing. It's awesome. And to capture that. I met you. And you just changed my life, Mary? I would love to go into the spirit world with you, Joe. That would be beautiful. So that was just all. And like, Coe would take my face like, the instant I walked in there. I'm not interested in interacting with Coe. I will say, that. It's a pass for me personally, and it sounds like for you as well. It's worth the risk to be a live moment with UA and Saka. I just thought was great. And like one of the more effectively rendered like pretty

on the nose lines that UA somehow made this like perfectly magical little kernel of wisdom and insight about the human experience. So they were great. I think that Saka on the non, like, lust and love front, but just more of, like, a friendship or mentorship front, which I'll smuggle into this category, even though, again, this is a very different kind of relationship. I did really, like, even though I'm like, why are Teo and his father here in Amashu just confounded by it, I really liked the conversations between the mechanist and Saka, and I thought that this, like, focus on you've got Teow and Ang, and then Katara and Jett and Saka and

Sai, and everybody's having their conversation basically about. a parent and a child and legacy and what you inherit and carry and then the own path that you forge. And the mechanist saying to Saka, like, you're an engineer. It's not always to find, it's not always easy to find your path in life, but when you find it, you must embrace it. And saying that to him not as like a mandate or a challenge or a threat, but like as an opportunity, as an invitation, an invitation to be who you are. I thought it was great. And like, I wish me had had more moments like that in the series, because it's part of, the real beauty and heart of the show.

I didn't miss Ang and Katara as a romantic focus of this season, I'll say. I don't miss it, but I'm like, are we not end gaming it then? Like, okay, I don't know. Just like Ang Katara, they need to do, if they're going to do a season two, which I'm sure they are, like,

we need to do some work on figuring out how to, like, not only are those kids like, you know, and Ann, Azulamay and Tai Lee, like, Are you kidding me? Like, not only are those kids, like,

not really the best at reading their material, so, like, could use some acting help, which is available to them and they can have it. The writing for Katara is just... This was, I think, the biggest... Absolutely. ...noting off. And absolutely appalling to me that this is who they think Qatar is.

I don't understand what happened there with the material Katara got. It's upsetting. Yeah. It's just a complete... characterization of who that person is. So, which brings us to my final loser. Brings us nicely to, yeah.

A loser that I'm calling T-O-N-E tone. This is the big note I have, overarching note for the whole season, eight episodes, which is the tone is just off. It's just wrong. And I actually don't think we need to linger too long here because we've just put a lot of bricks in place for why. Mischaracterization, lack of side quests, rushing certain things,

all that sort of stuff. And the ramped up action, which works in a lot of ways, but when it's out of balance with everything else, then it doesn't feel like Avatar to me most of the time. So serious, so deadly serious, that you miss the lightness, the breathers, the joy, the thirst for life. This is an adventure.

This is a Roach movie show story. This is like, you know, you have to be joyously celebrating this incredible world that Brian and Mike built in this Avatar universe. It's so inventive. It's so beautiful. Of course, it's like lifting from a... a million different mulage of Asian cultures,

but like putting it all together in a really unforgettable, just like bold and captivating and I want to go to their kind of way. And I don't get, this just like gets sort of dulled down around the edges into like

so many Netflix, young adult fantasy stories that we've seen that just sort of feel interchangeable. It just doesn't, it just doesn't, yeah it's just a miss on the tone for me and and like and again just makes you really better appreciate how hard it was to capture what they captured in the original and how the original series can be

so silly sometimes even too silly like you know all this sort of stuff and then like absolutely rip your guts out make you cry make you think about things spiritually and emotionally and like what is family and and and who am I? What is my purpose and all this sort of stuff? Like I, I guess the biggest triumph of this show is that it made me so much appreciate how wonder, which I never thought I could appreciate more, how wonderful the three seasons of the perfect TV series, plus I love Cora as well, plus all of Cora. And they'll always be there for me.

So, you know. I could not agree more. This is, man, where's our Adder Penguin sled race? You know, like, when there's a little joking, and I'm using the word joking, pretty liberally, I think, exchange at the end about how Saka's stomach is in his brain. I'm kind of like, but this wasn't a part of the character and the story. season, the fact that this is like inescapable, no matter the level of urgent peril that they are in, is like the specific balancing act and magic of the story. Cabbage Guy is kind of an interesting

example of this to me in the season because like cabbage guy's there. He has to be. Secret tunnels there. Secret tunnels there. Like, but they almost felt, cabbage guy felt like, okay, if we don't have cabbage guy, here there will be an active revolt. But so he feels more like a wink to us and an Easter egg than a cabbagey thread tracing through the shoots of Amashu and the bridges and tunnels and connective tissue of the story. Like cabbage guy is such a sensation from the original series, not because it's

a shock when he suddenly appears and laments the destruction of his cabbages. It's because it's exactly the kind of thing that you expect to see in every frame, even though you don't totally know or understand why. The surprise becomes the expected, and that is the magic of the show. So for that to be absent here is palpable and sad. But it does bring us to our final winner of the day. Yes. Which is, in addition to your right and beautiful point about the original series of being a winner again, this is connected, Avatar Studios.

Because the OG creators, Brian and Mike, who mentioned a few times, who left as you noted this adaptation, Paramount, Nickelodeon Parent Company, back, Avatar Studios formed, and the slate, folks, it is as full as op a saddle. There is so much animated goodness coming our way. Now again, to circle back to the very beginning of the pod, if this is your first experience with the Avatar world, this is just purely good news for you, right? You can go watch the original series if you want. You can watch Cora. We would highly encourage it.

If you're not going to do that, that's okay. These new movies in the series will still be there for you soon. October 2025, the slate. begins. We are getting movies and shows, Joe, we'll run through them in a second. If you're an obsessive, a loyalist to the original series and this Netflix show did not work for you, then again, this is great and welcome news because there is this balm on the horizon. There is the healing power of the water bending awaiting us. We will be whole. The women of the northern Our whole modern tribe are here to heal you.

They're here to heal us. Joe, you want to run us through the impending slate? And we should say, if anybody doesn't want to know what the future slate is, because hearing, oh, character X has a movie might tell you a future plot point about character X. This is a good time to bounce. Okay, this is, I did my best to hunt down the most recent news. but it's all a little nebulous. There's nothing like on the official Avatar Studios website. There's like some information paramount.

So this is the best we know to date is the original. And some of it I think was screwed up by, you know, the writer's strike and all this or stuff like that. But we're in theory supposed to get a TV show and a movie every single year. Like what? A bounty. Feasting. An embarrassment of riches.

So as my mom. I already mentioned, the one date we do, the firmest date we have is October 10th, seven days after my birthday, 2025. We get the adult Ang gang movie, which is Ang, and Katara, and Zuko, and Saka, and Taf. And hopefully, Suki, though, she's never in the, you know, the art for this, but bring Suki along. What is she doing? A grown-up adventures of, of Eng and Go. I'm so excited for this. This is going to be in theater.

So we get to go to the cinema to experience this. And I'm, I could have me more excited. What will the novelty popcorn bucket look like? I don't know. Will it be like a furry little opah that we get to like cuddle and snack from? Like, what will it be? I don't know. It should probably be Mo Mo Mo, like, holding the popcorn for us because he's such a, he's such a foodie.

He's such a culinary enthusiast. Movo loves a snack. That's true. So, so excited for that. Also, so the first TV series we're getting is a new Avatar series. And as you know, the Avatar cycle, you know, goes through the elements.

So it was fire before it was Ang. Ang is air. Cora was water. We were getting an Earth-Bendr avatar series said to take place approximately 100 years after Cora, which I don't understand this sentence, which would be said in the Avatar universe equivalent of modern day. I don't know what that means.

Maybe because they're thinking about the fact that, like, Cora had elements of like the 1920s in it. So maybe like, you know, 100 years later brings us to the 2020s. I can kind of see that thought. You know what I mean? But I don't think we necessarily need to worry about present day or not. We're getting an earth bender, an earth avatar. And given how much I love Kiyoshi, I am stoked for this.

I love Bolin. I love an earth boulder. I love Bollin. I love Bolin. I love Bolin. Are you kidding me? Love. So an Earth Avatar series, that allegedly in 2025 will

see if that timing plays out. 2026. Hold on to your hats and glasses because we're getting in theaters, once again, a Fire Lord Zuko movie. It's different from the adult Ang gang movie.

This is focused on Fire Lord Zucco. Dante Basco, I believe, and it's not been like officially confirmed, but he's doing like an official podcast with him currently. So like, why, why wouldn't you if you've got him? hired Dante Basco back as the voice of adult Zucco. And this is listed as their second film. So like 2026 is when we think this is going to come out.

In the running for number one pick, if we ever do like hype draft for the decade. The Five Lord Zucco movie? What if the Fire Lord Zucco movie is about a secret affair between Katara and Zucco? Then it will be the best film ever made. The Zutara movie. Okay. And then last and not least, we don't have any dates for any of these,

but we've got two unknown spinoff shows that they've sort of announced her in the works, and we don't know what they are. There's the legacy of Yang Chen novelization that people are wondering if they want to do about the previous airbending avatar, if there's going to be something about that. I've always wanted more stories about Juan, the first avatar. Stephen Yen voices him in a wonderful two-parter. in Legends of Cora, just incredible television, the Juan origin story.

So I would love to get a full, I've always wanted a full Juan season or show. So that would be my wish. Do you want like a all-momo all the time show? Adventures of MoMo, I mean. Yeah. Who says no? Sign me up immediately.

True Who says no territory. I think all of this sounds exciting and wonderful to be back in the animated world, to be with the original creators. but also like I think to scratch the itch that some people are really feeling right now of like should this have been a new story not a different spin on a story we've already seen

like to know that we'll be going into different parts of the timeline with characters we're already deeply attached to and invested in and meet new characters entirely is just very appealing and also is this a story that just belongs in animation just because of the like fantastical nature of this world I mean we believe in live action fantasy deeply obviously we talk about all the time on this podcast, but like, when watching, especially Kora, I would say both of them, but like,

really especially Kora, some of the animation in that show, it just will like absolutely take your breath away. It's art. So the prospect of more art from Brian. And for Brian and Mike to be like, no, this is not what we want to do. Now we're in charge of something called Avatar Studios and we get to decide what our world that we created look like. Last but not least, TBD, don't have a date on it.

untitled Avatar Kyoshi film. It's supposed to be 2024. It's now been pushed off TVD. But I need it now or just after now is when I need the Avatar Kiyoshi film. So yeah, we're, we're, the winner of this is the fact that we've got many more stories to come in this university. University of, we love. And even if like Netflix season two and season three, if they get to make it of the show is not quite scratching that edge, we do have other things. coming that will. So that is how we were choosing to end this episode on a winning upbeat for a

universe that we love. Mali Rubin, thank you so much for joining me today on this journey. Jewel of my heart. Jewel of my heart. That's you. That's you. We went back next week with Double Dune, double dose of Dune. Yes. I can't wait to pot about Dube Part D with you. We fucking love this movie. on unbelievable. The hype is unbelievable. By,

like, believe all of the hype. And see this on the biggest, loudest screen you can find. Like, please. I'm rarely a, see it on the biggest screen person as Joe knows, but even I,

even I have to say that this time. There's like, there's some incredible. Okay, we'll talk about it more next week. I'm so excited for me to see it. And I'm so excited to talk about it. So come back.

and listen to us to do that. You can listen to Midnight Boys. They've got their double-dune thing going on. Follow us on the pod, follows on social. Thank you so much to Carl's Chirooga for his work on this. Thank you to Jomey O'Donneron

for his immaculate social work, always, including taking the selfie with the popcorn buckets last night at the theater. And thank you to our dinner, Rangipal. We just had his, can I say? Am I allowed to say? He just had his Bachelor Party weekend,

that things are personal information about Arjuna that he didn't say, could say on the podcast. Happy bachelor's party weekend Arjuna and we'll see you all soon. Bye.