Review: Legend of Korra “The Guide”

I am literally praying to Avatar Aang that this episode is remotely close to the last episode.

Spoilers Below

We start the episode with Jinora chasing around a small spirit, just as Tenzin is gathering everyone for a tour of the Eastern Air Temple. When everyone is gathered, Korra shows up, apologizing for being wrong about Unalaq. They realize that the easiest way to close the portal was to close it from the inside. This seems to start the “What is everyone else up to?” portion of the episode. Unalaq is trying to hatch a plan to open the Northern spirit portal, Bolin is stuck upside down in the studio, Asami is meets up with Varrick, and Mako finally shows up. Mako lets everyone in on the plan, and just like the Police precinct in prior episodes, no one is buying his story. As he walks away, two of Varrick’s goons show up to take Mako to him.

And back at the plot, Korra and Tenzin are trying to get into the Spirit World, but to no avail. They tried using literal bells and whistles, meditation and incense, and private meditation. Finally, Kya is noticing something off with Jinora. Tenzin fails as third time, revealing he has never been to the Spirit World.

Revelations are coming swift and fast this week. After a little coaxing by Kya, Jinara tells everyone that she can see spirits, and they could lead Korra to where she has to go to get into the Spirit World. Just a note: the animation of the spirits leading the group out of the meditation area is very superb. Korra decides to follow the spirits just as the scene cuts away to Unalaq and his creepy twins. He finally lets us in on his plan, to use bending to open the portal. The twins are starting to waver, especially after Unalaq shows no concern for Desna after he gets hurt by the portal.

Meanwhile, Varrick has Mako in his office, questioning him about Mako’s theories of how he is behind the attacks on his ships and the Southern Tribe’s cultural center. Varrick wants Mako to join his security team, to protect Asami and Bolin. The world is really dangerous, apparently. Mako refuses, and storms out. Now, Korra and the Air Temple group, complete with the spirits, go to where the spirits say that it’s best for Korra to enter the Spirit World. We get a slight recap of what happened in the last episode. The spirits go to what turns out to be an ancient air bender meditation circle. During a cleansing ritual, Tenzin releases thousands of evil spirits that lived there. She realizes that the only way to solve this was to cleanse the spirits. When they get cleansed, the meditation circle is cleansed itself, and is ready for use.

Asami meets Mako in his apartment to get some food, but is interrupted by  Lin and two detectives. They find a bag that has money and explosives. It seems that Mako just got set up. Tenzin is getting pissed again, because he doesn’t want to realize that Jinara is the one who is to guide Korra into the Spirit World. They make it in, just before Unalaq is shown doing the bidding of Vaatu.

Ok, so, after the very straight forward story of Wan, we’re back to shoving too much stuff into this five pound bag. This show is so much better when they stick with one plot line, and only diverge a couple times. This episode went all over. We’re finally getting somewhere with Mako and his quest to bring down Varrick, so that’s a plus. I find this is more interesting than trying to figure out how more convoluted Korra’s arc is going to be.

What we do get out of this episode is actually pretty good. All of the plots are finally moving towards a finale in a couple weeks or so. This season is so condensed, that we honestly need more time to digest everything going on. Unalaq’s story is finally going somewhere, thank god. I thought that he was just going to unleash hell with Vaatu. I’m calling it here, Unalaq becomes the antithesis of the Avatar. I can’t lie here, that would be pretty badass. We get 5 episodes in 3 weeks, so things will ramp up quickly.