Summary
A slightly slower episode is an improvement over the premiere, even if it continues to lack in some crucial areas.
Episode 2 of Avatar: The Last Airbender is, thankfully, a little more settled. It still moves at a rapid clip, sometimes to its detriment, but it’s less overwhelming than the Season 1 premiere because it takes some time to focus on character over worldbuilding. Of particular concern is reminding the audience that these characters, these elemental warriors destined to save the world, are still just children at the end of the day.
This theme of grief, longing, and angst manifests in a few ways throughout “Warriors”. One of them is the grief that Aang continues to feel over the loss of Gyatso, and the responsibility on his shoulders as the Avatar. After a few times inadvertently entering the Avatar State and being unable to control it, he’s worried that his attempts to help people might do more damage in the short term.
But the idea is primarily expressed through Kyoshi Island, where Aang, Sokka, and Katara head in the hopes of learning something prudent from a former Avatar. Since Kyoshi’s passing, a community has developed on the island preserving her teachings, though it’s deeply isolationist and has deliberately kept to itself for safety. Thus, the people there know little about the wider world.
Kyoshi Island
The problem with this is that we don’t spend much time on the island, and despite there being plenty of extras present, the gang only properly interacts with two of the Kyoshi Warriors – Suki, who is about Sokka’s age and immediately develops romantic feelings for him (which are reciprocated), and her mother, the village’s leader. This isn’t the right amount of time or number of angles to explore what the episode is trying to get across, though it makes a determined effort either way.
Sokka learns how to fight under Suki’s tutelage, mostly using it as an excuse to flirt, while Aang alternates between entertaining the locals with his Airbending powers and having leaden conversations with Katara about the need for learning the other arts. On the subject of Katara, her skills are coming along nicely, thanks in part to the discovery of a scroll that her Gran Gran slipped into their things. It contains the first basic lessons of Waterbending, allowing her to begin her training more formally.
This scroll is discovered when a winged lemur whom Aang subsequently names Momo goes rooting through their pack for food, and Momo crops up a few times throughout the episode for a bit of light relief – something which we can expect to continue throughout Season 1.
Commander Zhao
Elsewhere, Iroh and Zuko stop off at a port housing the local Fire Nation Commander, Zhao, to try and sneakily acquire information about the Avatar’s potential whereabouts. Zuko marches into the commander’s office like an entitled idiot demanding maps and charts, but Iroh attempts to finesse the request by claiming they’re trying to trace a particularly delicious form of squid.
However, Zhao is savvy, and by interrogating the crew he learns what Iroh and Zuko are looking for. Upon hearing a rumor of a flying cow near Kyoshi Island, he sets out to try and catch the Avatar without informing Zuko and Iroh, who figure out they’re rumbled and give chase.
Again, there’s an issue here, which is that the entire sequence of events here takes place in about five minutes total. We don’t get a sense of Zhao’s connections or his capacity for manipulation because he’s told off-screen about the Avatar by seemingly the first person he asks. And this being so obvious doesn’t do much for Iroh and Zuko either, who should have known how suspicious they were being and figured that Zhao would make this move. Unless the intention here is to make Iroh and Zuko look like complete morons – which I concede might be the case – then it doesn’t work.
Aang Channels Kyoshi
Zhao’s deception nonetheless works to get him in position for the episode’s big action sequence and the next step of Aang’s journey to understanding his powers. Through the giant statue of Kyoshi, Aang can commune with her, though it requires him to slip into a near-comatose Avatar State to do so. This means that he’s preoccupied when Zhao and his men arrive and a fight breaks out between the Kyoshi Warriors and the Fire Nation.
The fight is a good opportunity for Sokka to show off what he has learned from Suki, if nothing else, and it gives Kyoshi herself a big moment, since Aang is eventually able to channel her (he subsequently clarifies that this is only possible while in the shrines of the previous Avatars.) He also learns from her that risks are something he is going to have to take as part of his responsibilities and that the consequences for inaction will be far greater.
How does Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 1, Episode 2 end?
Kyoshi manages to turn the tide of the battle, and Zhao’s forces flee. Aang, Sokka, and Katara leave Kyoshi Island, but the villagers are glad they visited, having been reminded of a world that exists outside of their own. Sokka even gets a smooch for his trouble.
Aang now knows he needs to head to the Northern Water Tribes next since something is going to happen there that only he can stop. Sounds interesting.
Finally, Zhao strongarms Zuko into forming a partnership, since Zuko needs him to keep his knowledge of the Avatar a secret. Zhao promises to do so, but immediately rats him out in a letter to the Supreme Eminence Fire Lord Ozai, putting everyone on high alert that the Avatar has returned.
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