Summary
Avatar: The Last Airbender adds a beloved character to the ranks without skimping on the action or the drama, and Season 2 is already heating up sufficiently.
Some people don’t have a great deal of luck, and I’m starting to think that Prince Zuko is one of them. Sure, you can make the argument that he kind of deserves everything that’s coming to him, but even though Episode 2 of Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2 is very much about the long-awaited inclusion of Toph Beifong into the main roster, it makes a concerted effort to humanize Fire Lord Ozai’s wayward son, and if we’re being honest, it does a pretty good job of doing that.
Granted, Toph’s still the stand-out. But Zuko provides the necessary texture and moral complexity that you don’t really get anywhere else, since Aang is so uncomplicatedly charming and heroic all the time. He’s one of the most valued characters in the franchise for a reason, and you really start to get a sense of why that is here, however much fun Toph provides.
A Fight, Once Begun
The title of this episode comes from Fire Lord Ozai, something he said to Zuko and Azula when they were children, which kind of sums up the pair of them: “A fight, once begun, only ends when one wins and one loses”. In other words, he was pitting his kids against each other from the very beginning, a dynamic unveiled in flashbacks that emphasise Azula’s innate evil and Ozai’s cruel mistreatment of them both, though especially Zuko, on account of his perceived softness.
These flashbacks reveal that the siblings’ mother, Ursa, tried to spirit them away from Ozai, but ultimately failed, giving their family dynamic an additional layer of tragedy that resonates in the present day. And in the present day, after falling out with Iroh in the premiere, Zuko has set out on his own, but he still can’t stop himself from intervening when he spots injustice. This is what leads him to a young boy named Peng, who introduces Zuko to his sister, Fei.
Zuko shacks up with these two, allowed to sleep in the barn in exchange for fixing things up around their little home, and Fei seems to take a romantic shine to him almost immediately. But the past is never far behind. Fei, like most people in this world, has a tragic backstory related to the Fire Nation that Zuko feels personally responsible for, and Zuko’s single-minded obsession with capturing Aang to restore his honour leads him to out himself as one of the architects of her misery.
A New Recruit
Aang and the others, meanwhile, stop off at a town to resupply the refugees. They need money to pay for things, though, and since they don’t have enough, a bending match called the Earth Rumble with a big purse seems like the best way of winning some cash. This is where we catch our first glimpse of Toph, who is masquerading as a fighter named the Blind Bandit. She takes on a hulking combatant called The Boulder, who talks about himself in the third person.
Aang immediately decides that Toph, whose blindness means she has embodied the neutral jing that Bumi was talking about, is going to be his earthbending teacher. As luck would have it, he’s immediately approached by Ji Shen, the executive secretary of the Beifong family, who invites him to their home for a meal since their wealthy family has been friends and benefactors of the Avatar for generations. Toph just so happens to be their daughter.
She’s reluctant to help Aang, though, despite his trying to compel her to go with them. But she has lived a sheltered, coddled life — her parents don’t even know about her bending abilities — and it’s obvious she’s going to eventually make the right decision. She just needs a little bit of persuasion.
Crossing Paths
Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2, Episode 2 provides this persuasion by having every group run into each other at the same time. Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee are on Aang’s trail and happen to bump into Sokka and Suki, and they fight until Katara and Appa intervene. Peng also rushes home to tell Fei that the Avatar is in the village, which Zuko can’t ignore. When he goes to check things out, he runs into Azula and then Aang, which kicks off a three-way battle in the middle of the market.
Naturally, everyone else, including Toph, also gets involved to try to fight off Azula, who shows off her ability to lash blue fire and summon lightning. It seems like she’s going to be able to get the better of the entire group until Iroh shows up and intervenes, though he does admittedly take a lightning bolt to the chest for his trouble.
Of course, Toph decides to disobey her family and leave with Aang and the others. In response, her parents send The Boulder and Ji Shen to retrieve her. Meanwhile, Zuko carries a badly injured Iroh away, after rejecting help from the others. Once again, he’s on his own. Hopefully, things go a bit better for him this time, but I wouldn’t count on it.
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