Season Finale Review: Legend of Korra “Light in the Dark”

So, this is what the last ten or so weeks have lead to, in the universe old struggle between light and dark. Who wins? Jump in to find out!

 

Spoilers Below

The President is putting his troops in position, when Vaatu breaks into the physical world, right in front of Republic City. Obviously, normal munitions do nothing, and Vaatu goes right through everything.  Vaatu pays special attention to the Aang statue, knocking it over into the bay. Tenzin, Bumi and Kya find Korra, Bolin and Mako, and rush them into spirit water. With Raava dying, Korra has no connection to the past Avatars, and the cycle is broken. In Republic City, Vaatu is cutting the city apart. During the destruction, Varrick escapes by a flying contraption.

Back in the Spirit World, Tenzin is trying to console Korra and get her back on her feet by giving her the same advice Aang gave to him. She starts to come around, and Tenzin takes her to the tree that Vaatu was imprisoned in. The tree ties the physical and Spirit World together. She sees all of her memories inside the tree, with Tenzin guiding her. He tells her to use the cosmic energies to bend the energy within herself. So, she spends some time in the cosmos, and becomes infused with the cosmic energies. She then uses them to get herself to Republic City.

Vaatu is still remodeling Republic City, until he catches a Mega-Korra sized blow to the face. Now that Korra is fused with the cosmic energies, she is having a much easier time with Vaatu. However, once she goes to rip Vaatu out of Unaloq, Vaatu gains the upper hand. Back in the Spirit World, everyone that’s still there makes a stand to protect Korra’s body while she is fighting Vaatu. Back at the fight, Korra is getting rocked, again. This time, Vaatu is trying to pull Korra’s soul out of her cosmic body. As Bolin is about to get flung around by an evil spirit, the twins finally show up to help. In a weird way, Bolin and Eska kind of work this time around.

By the way, there is a lot of jumping between the Spirit World, and the fight between Korra and Vaatu. So, it could get a little confusing. Anyway, Jinora comes back to the physical world,  with some sort of omnipotent light. It turns out that it revealed the Raava was inside Vaatu, not destroyed. Korra is able to seal away Vaatu, or destroy him. I couldn’t really tell. Either way, they high-tail it out just in time for them to save everyone still in the Spirit World, who are backed up inside the tree. When they get back into the Spirit World, Korra kinda looks like Dr. Manhattan from The Watchmen. Well, Korra goes back into her body, same for Jinora. Korra, with the help of all of her friends, saved the world. Raava and Korra are fused again, all is well.

The twins, after getting the news of Unaloq getting…sent away, or destroyed, or sealed, or who knows, are rather relieved. Apparently, they even have limits to how deplorable of a person on can be. Bolin got his heart broken, because Eska is going home to help fix what her father did. As for Korra, while she is fused with Raava again, the link to her past lives seem to be gone forever. She has a debate with herself whether to close the portals, because maybe Wan was wrong in closing it. Back home, Mako finally breaks the news to Korra about the fight they had that led them to break up. Thankfully, this is over for good. She decides to keep the worlds together, so spirits and humans can live together.

Ok, so everything got wrapped up into a neat little bow. However, where the hell do they go from here? I mean, they make Korra into a cosmic entity seemingly able to destroy any being possible. She is above and beyond anything we have seen. From Aang to Wan and back again,  she is easily the most powerful entity in the Avatar universe. While that’s all well and good, it seems the only way would be to strip her of her powers again. Can you really use that plot hook 3 seasons in a row? However, I think the wrinkle that she no longer has the connection to the past Avatars was rather clever. That was something that I didn’t forsee.

Again, I love how the twins come full circle. They actually show emotion instead of being rather robotic. I approve of that, wholeheartedly. I also think that the fact that they never mentioned what came of Varrick after he escaped leaves a big hole to fill for book three. Again, I approve, because I loved Varrick.

As for the season itself, it did a lot of good in the later half, starting with “The Beginnings.” That was our high point of the season, but everything from then on forward was truly awesome. However, The first six episodes almost got me to stop watching, it was so bland and unoriginal. The rebelling against your superiors for the new hot thing has been done a million times in a million and one ways. I wasn’t impressed then, and given how well the rest of the season was, I am a little more pissed that the season started off so bad. Hopefully, book 3 hits the ground running. Because, while the season ended very high, I was let down as a whole. On a whole, I felt that Korra as Dr. Manhattan was a little much. Again, you make her into this omnipotent being, where there are few ways out. Does she corrupt herself with having this power? Who opposes her? Does Amon come back? If you ask me, I think they sacrificed cohesion for book 3 for an over the top ending for book 2. Only time will tell whether it was the right decision or not.