Review: The Legend of Korra “Remembrances”

It’s like the writers want to have no momentum for their final season.

The jump kind of speaks for itself. The last three weeks of The Legend of Korra have been like hitting a wall at top speed. Up to “The Battle of Zaofu,” The season was moving at a brisk pace, setting up a story that could have been worthy of a grand ending that Legend of Korra fans need to have. Unfortunately, every bit of growth that Korra has shown since the end of Book Three got torched for a terribly placed, mediocre battle with Kuvira, setting up a series of episodes that do nothing but stall an ending. That’s exactly what we need for the final season.There is more stalling in Book Four than the final season of Sons of Anarchy.

Instead of going the route of giving us more of Korra being mopey and depressing (don’t worry, we get a small segment of it), we get three sets of highlight clips, each presented in different ways. There was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING NEW that happened this week, and I am pretty close to saying that it was a waste of 23 minutes the viewers will never get back. I am kind of feeling like this was where the writers were when they found out that the show was moving to an online exclusive, because there is no feeling here. There is no emotion, and nothing driving us to want to invest anything. That’s not to say there weren’t merits this week, they were so little and borderline inconsequential.

The episode is split into three very distinct segments. The first segment has Wu and Mako going over Mako’s love triangle with Asami and Korra between training sessions to get Wu a little more tough. I have a feeling that “Wu down!” is going to become a major part of my personal lexicon going forward. I drop a french fry? Wu down! What about when my character dies in World of Warcraft or Call of Duty? Wu down!  I can’t really think of a better quote to come from Wu.

However, the second segment, even though it was short, was by far the worst. Korra is literally the all powerful entity of the post-Aang world, yet she doubts herself. She doubts herself when her friends are telling her she has the ability to kick Kuvira’s ass. But she let’s one thing Toph said bore into her head, and now she can’t shake it. And now, Asami, Tenzin, and the viewers have to suffer with Korra and her inability to get over one defeat. Korra then goes into a tiff about how no matter who she defeats, there is always someone trying to seize control. Welcome to being a hero, Korra, you’re the only one who’s complaining about it.

I knew this was coming, I was hoping against it, and I still get it straight to my face. Korra needs to take a nice, long look at the world around her, and realize there will always be a need for the Avatar, like Tenzin said. Personally, I don’t know how much longer I can take of Korra and her moping around. She needs a case of liquid plot, and get over this, because there’s only five more episodes. I’m not sure how Korra is going to be able to defeat Kuvira and her mega cannon when her head is firmly planted inside her own ass.

Luckily, the final segment came along, and fast. This was Varrick and Bolin with the refugees on the ship, exchanging stories. Varrick dismissed them all, trying to concoct the plot of Bolin’s Nuktuk, spanning the entire series of Legend of Korra. This was so out there and nonsensical, it shouldn’t have been funny. But I would pay full price to see this movie being made, because it’s Bolin as the hero! He gets every female ever, and turns into the giant spirit! How is that not cool. Of course, Bolin was trying to be that guy who wants everything to be strictly to the source material. But one of the refugees said it best: “Dude, it’s a movie, don’t take it so seriously.” I would take an episode of Varrick and Bolin over anything. These two are entertaining, and can carry an episode. “Remembrances” proves that. The best part of this entire episode was Vaatu, Zaheer, and Amon plotting against Nuktuk, and shunning Unalaaq. This final segment was priceless.

Like I was saying at the beginning, this was not worth the time, even with how entertaining Varrick and Bolin. The problem here is that over two thirds of the episode went to Mako and his love triangle, and Korra and her ability to cope with anything. The first 16 or so minutes were a real drag. Wu carried most of the first part, but the subject matter of this entire episode dragged along. Did we need that now? It’s another ill-timed episode when we could be ramping towards the end of the series. We didn’t even get a hint or anything as to what Kuvira was doing with the super roots from the Banyan Grove tree. They could have placed this episode at the end, and just change the dialogue, and it would have served a better purpose. I just want to scream. Take a pass on this, kids. There are better things to waste 23 minutes on.