Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender Hits A Wall In Season 2
If there was any time to throw out the playbook, this wasn’t it.
For all its virtues, it’s always been pretty obvious that Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender wouldn’t save the world as definitively as Nickelodeon’s original series. Its first season had a low bar to clear: after the travesty that was M. Night Shyamalan’s 2010 film, all it really had to prove was that Avatar could, in fact, be adapted in live-action at all. It passed that test with relative ease, and got a little extra credit from culturally appropriate casting and a keen dedication to the source material. Fans’ dogged desire for an adaptation that respected the original series was potent enough to paint over any flaws. As Avatar’s title hero moves from the relative cakewalk of Season 1 and into a more tumultuous chapter, though, one has to wonder if we were too lenient on the show in the first place.
Season 2 reunites with fledgling Avatar Aang (Gordon Cormier) after a generous, if vague, time jump. One supporting character mentions that it’s been “a long time” since the events of Season 1, but that much was clear from Cormier’s abrupt growth spurt. It’s the first of many changes to the original cartoon that Netflix’s Avatar deploys this season, but the only one out of the show’s control. One can’t stop a 12-year-old kid from maturing into a teen, though subtextually, it might work out in Avatar’s favor. An Aang in the throes of puberty lends a more literal sense of angst to this darker chapter. The other directions Avatar takes this time around are harder to forgive — but more on that later.
Aang’s a little older, but not much wiser, in Avatar’s new season.
With the departure of showrunner Albert Kim comes the arrival of two new producers at the helm, and, it seems, a new perspective on adapting the source material. Season 1 was hellbent on retaining as much from the OG Avatar as humanly possible, beat for beat and bar for bar — but Season 2 doesn’t want much of anything to do with its predecessor. It’s not the wisest time to throw out the playbook: Book 2 is the most crucial chapter in Aang’s journey to become the Avatar (the once-in-a-generation warrior with the ability to bend the four natural elements), and stealthily, the best season of the original series. Sure, the action-heavy climax we’ll eventually see adapted in Season 3 might stick the most fiercely in fans’ minds, but Aang’s impending fight with Fire Lord Ozai (Daniel Dae Kim) — the dictator intent on global domination — means nothing without all the little challenges he faces on the road to the Fire Nation. Most of those speedbumps manifest during his time in the Earth Kingdom, one of four sovereign nations within this alternate fantasy world.
The return of Sozin’s Comet — which appears once every century and amplifies the strength of firebenders tenfold — pits Aang on a race against time to achieve his destiny. But his adventures in Season 2 have less to do with mastering earth, the next element on his to-do list, and much more with his emotional and spiritual well-being. Avatar 1.0 tore Aang’s sense of self to ribbons, rebuilt it, then darn near deep-fried it. He’s manipulated by one would-be mentor after the next, briefly loses his strongest connection to his Air Nomad heritage, and struggles routinely with his relationship to the Avatar State, a kind of power-up that connects Aang to the cumulative knowledge and strength of his past lives. Avatar 2.0 is eager to put Aang through the wringer too, and ditto for his supporting cast, but it’s almost searching for ways to “update” this tale where none need apply. Jabbar Raisani and Christine Boylan, Avatar’s newly christened showrunners, clearly want to make Avatar their own — but without an understanding of why the original worked so well, Season 2 crashes into a wall of its own making.
Avatar gains the perfect Toph in Miyako, but Season 2 doesn’t know what to do with the Gaang.
If Avatar’s first season got away with the remixing and reworking of certain plot points, its second totally abuses that privilege. Not only does it wrangle handfuls of plot-heavy episodes into hour-long amalgams, but it scrambles the order of events entirely. That this season sees Aang’s companion Katara (Kiawentiio) become the Painted Lady — a secret identity that was originally introduced in Book 3 — sounds like a small thing to complain about. The same goes for the events of the season’s opening episode, in which Aang, Katara, and her brother Sokka (Ian Ousley) trek across a treacherous region called the Serpent’s Pass. But these events weren’t just done for the sake of it in the original Avatar; they were dominoes falling in each character’s respective journey. Even without a crystal-clear knowledge of the beats of Book 2, our story here feels awkward and overwrought. One can’t escape the sense that the new Avatar has removed load-bearing elements of Aang’s arc and replaced them with “Peak TV” facsimiles.
That’s not to say there aren’t glimmers of the old show — or, barring that, a compelling new story — in Season 2. As our hero goes through the motions of his anxieties with the Avatar State, Cormier reminds us all why he makes a wonderful Aang. He rises above clunky dialogue to find the emotional core in Aang’s newfound struggles, and he plays perfectly against Miyako — a welcome addition as Aang’s earthbending teacher, the blind, belligerent Toph Beifong. If one thing remains unchanged between cartoon and live-action, it’s Toph’s ability to propel this story into the stratosphere. Miyako clicks effortlessly into the ensemble, and she suffers the least from the series’ need for novelty.
Still, it isn’t quite enough to save this season. Once the “Gaang” reaches the Earth Kingdom capital of Ba Sing Se, where a city-wide conspiracy waits to test the foundations of their friendship, Avatar buckles under the weight of its bloat. Season 2 is clogged up with dueling visions of what the show should be: a slavishly faithful adaptation, a radical reimagining of the cartoon, and (said with love) a walking, talking manifestation of the original’s many memes.
The Fire Nation remains the focus of Netflix’s remake, to the show’s detriment.
It’s the antagonists that remain Avatar’s best feature in Season 2, sometimes to the series’ detriment. Chin Han does great work as Long Feng, Ba Sing Se’s top bureaucrat, making the most out of a meatier role (even if it does highlight Aang’s frustrating passivity). Avatar also beefs up the sympathy for the Fire Nation’s royal family: Kim offers a quieter, more calculated side to Ozai whether the series needs it or not. Ditto for Elizabeth Yu, who steps into the spotlight as Princess Azula. She’s another character defanged in the pursuit of nuance — whatever propulsion the season has screeches to a halt every time she revisits her plan to win Ozai’s approval, schemes to capture her brother Zuko (Dallas Liu), or hints towards the psychological power play she faces in court. There’s not a weak performance in the bunch, but aside from Liu and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee — who’s once again in amazing form as Iroh, the angel on Zuko’s shoulder — so much of it feels like excess baggage.
Plenty seems to be happening in Avatar Season 2; people are certainly leaping headlong into battles and making ambitious plans. But every time the dust settles or the board resets, we’re no closer to understanding who these characters are or what they truly want... even if, in many cases, they’re literally spelling it out for us. It’s a waste of a cast that’s always been game to tell this story right. Hope for this series seems all but lost: it’s not a crime to forge a new path, but Avatar needs to commit to it wholeheartedly before launching into its next phase.
