Review: Legend of Korra “Original Airbenders”

It looks like Tenzin has his hands full with his new recruits. And of course, Bumi is no help. Find out if Tenzin makes this work after the jump!

After two episodes without Tenzin and his new recruits, it’s a good thing we finally get to see what’s been going on since all of the Airbenders split from Korra’s group. The last two episodes were almost exclusively about Lin and Su’s sibling rivalry, and while I thought they were great episodes, it’s good to get a change of pace to something a little more lighthearted. Anyway, here’s “Original Airbenders.”

Tenzin is testing his students on the history of Tang Zhu, and Otaku is the only one who cares. Bumi then takes the opportunity to break the monotony by mocking Tenzin. Later, Tenzin wows the recruits by flying his bison overhead, and makes everyone interested in Airbending for a minute. He then kills their hopes by saying that it takes a lot of training, and there aren’t enough bison. Kai finds a wild herd of bison, but Tenzin tells him that they’re wild and it will take a lot of time to train them. Kya and Pema arrive, with new recruits and grave news about Zaheer coming to Air Temple Island. Kya tells him that he stole a necklace belonging to Guru Laghima, but before the story can go further, Korra calls on the radio system. Korra tells Tenzin that the airbender in Zaofu was Su’s daughter, Opal. Korra then tells Tenzin how to get Bumi to help control the new students.

Meanwhile, Kai and Jinora are looking out over the air bison, and Kai wants to go down there. Kai talks Jinora into going down with the bison, with Kai going flying towards the baby bison. He doesn’t heed Jinora’s warning of saying away from the babies, and almost gets trampled by one of the momma bison. Jinora saves him, and they fly away. When they are safe, Kai asks Jinora why she doesn’t have the her tattoos yet, and plants the seed that she should. Kai tells Jinora that she can do everything Tenzin can do, and on top of that, Jinora has her spiritual powers as well. She seems to agree with him. Something here is telling me that Kai is still up to something.

Back at the temple, Bumi is telling an old war story to some of the other students. Tenzin walks up, and breaks up the party. Tenzin asks Bumi to help with getting respect from the students. In the next scene, JK Simmons (the voice actor for Tenzin) tries to channel his inner R. Lee Ermey, and takes a different route of teaching. Tenzin is going to break every student down, so he can build them back up again to be the Airbending students he wants them to be.

Tenzin and Jinora fly up the mountain with grace, while the rest of the students have to go through the 10 mile hike way up the mountain. Tenzin tells the group that this is the perfect opportunity to practice meditation and breathing techniques. They make it back to the temple, where Tenzin tries to get them to do a balancing drill on top of poles, and they all fail miserably. The next step in breaking the students is shaving their heads. When Tenzin says it’s a personal choice, the one student he already shaved seems a bit upset. Since no one else wanted to shave their head, Tenzin then has the cadets go through his obstacle course. Jinora tells her father that he’s pushing them too hard, but he wants nothing to hear of it.

The first student makes it through the first obstacle, until she gets railed by a watermelon to the head from Ikki and Meelo. Kai, however, seems to be going through the course with ease, even when he bowls over a person and ends up in the cactus patch. Bumi is the last person on the wall, but falls off. Bumi has had enough of Tenzin’s new attitude, and quits after falling. JK Simmons then shows a hint of JJ Jameson when he loses his mind after one of the students wants to visit his family. The students start to complain more and more, and Tenzin has had enough. He needs time to himself and leaves Jinora in charge. Jinora brings up getting her Air Master tattoos, and how Kai thinks she should get them, but Tenzin tells her that she’s just a little girl, she loses it and walks off. Tenzin then leaves Ikki and Meelo in charge.

Kai walks up to Jinora, and apologizes for getting her into trouble. Jinora lays the blame solely on her father, but Kai finds a way to cheer her up. They go flying over to where the baby bison and spirits should be, but end up getting captured by another new group.  They’re poachers, and they are about to take them back to Ba Sing Se with other captured Airbenders and bison.

Back at the temple, Tenzin is reflecting on how bad he has failed, but Pema tries to put things into perspective. Just because they can Airbend, that doesn’t make them Air Nomads, and then Pema tells Tenzin about when she moved away to become an Air Acolyte. Pema tells Tenzin that they all need time to adjust. Tenzin then walks out, and tries to apologize to Bumi, who is having none of it. Tenzin then asks where Jinora is, and two of the students say she flew off with her boyfriend. Tenzin immediately thinks of Kai, and he rushes off. Back at the poacher camp, Jinora is trying to make sense of why the poachers are hunting the air bison. Their reasoning is simple: money. Jinora can’t use her spirit powers, but she sends a message to Bumi for help with a spirit. Bumi riles up the other students, and they take off for the camp.

Bumi has more opposition when he gets near the camp, because most of the students are rather scared. But before the students make it to the camp, Kai escapes, and helps starts to help the bison, but is caught almost right away. His distraction got the students in, and a big fight ensues. The leader starts to drive off, with Kai, Tenzin, and the mother bison in hot pursuit. Kai flies into the cab, with the other bison stopping the vehicle. After the poacher gives up, Kai rages out, and starts beating on a defenseless person. Tenzin, however, commends Kai on his technique. Tenzin continues with the gratitude for Bumi, who was able to communicate with the spirits and have them lead everyone to Jinora and Kai.  Tenzin even thinks about letting Jinora getting her master’s tattoos as the episode comes to a close.

This episode was funny for the first half of the episode, but takes a left turn into Moralsville. We all know that Tenzin has the righteous stick up his ass, but his apologetic attitude at the end leads the episode into a story about how he needs to get over it. This is a story that we’ve been over before,  but he doesn’t really do anything about it until now. I know I harped on the changes in characters in “Old Wounds,” but this seems rather unnecessary. Tenzin’s stricter attitude is the perfect counterpoint to the more free spirit and fun loving attitude of Korra, Kya, and his kids. It just seems like the show is going to turn into a drum circle with everyone singing Kumbaya until Zaheer and his gang (who were all no where to be found here) come in and annihilate everyone.

This episode has me split. I really enjoyed Jinora being influenced by Kai, and being more assertive. I even liked Bumi taking a leadership role finally, and rallying the students together to save Jinora and Kai.  But I think Tenzin being less stoic and more lenient may be a detriment, since there is no one really grounding the characters. Even Lin is lightening up a bit, which is just weird to me. And why the hell didn’t Tenzin go off on Kai for making Jinora ask about her master’s tattoos? Tenzin’s writing was rather inconsistent here.

On the whole, I enjoyed the break from the Beifong feud. The look into the culture that Tenzin wants to bring to these students; life is fascinating, and something we haven’t seen in the series, not even with Aang. But Tenzin’s inconsistencies nags on me. Also, Zaheer and his gang not even being anywhere near this episode was weird, considering he found out where Korra is. You know that Korra can’t be staying in Zaofu forever, and Zaheer will be in hot pursuit as well.  All in all, this was a good episode, but had glaring inconsistencies.