Summary
“The Water Falls, the Stones Emerge” makes the most of having all of the characters in the same location, using the peculiarities of Ba Sing Se to further multiple subplots and arcs at once.
Ba Sing Se is good and bad for Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2. Having all of the cast in the same place, in a location that seems scientifically designed to develop all of their individual subplots, is a good thing, and Episode 4, “The Water Falls, the Stones Emerge”, makes good use of the opportunity. The downside, though, is that the pacing suffers, especially since many of the plot turns here are so obvious that the fact it takes so long for them to happen becomes frustrating. There are still tons of upsides, of course, but either way, I’m glad that the episode ends in a flurry of action severe enough to rattle this new status quo. You can have too much of a good thing.
There’s also so much going on at once that the episode needs to begin with a montage just to check in on everyone. With the action having shifted to Ba Sing Se, Aang is still learning to earthbend, and now doing a much better job of it, Sai is still missing, Iroh and Zuko are working menial jobs and keeping their heads down, and Katara has taken to spending her nights as the Painted Lady, doing secretive good deeds around town to try and counteract the blatant prejudices that underpin the capital’s social fabric.
We Knew He Was A Bad Guy!
Sai’s disappearance predictably becomes one of the key dramatic cruxes. Even though it’s a bit ridiculous that nobody is more worried about not having seen him for a week, the fact that he’s missing does eventually get noticed. Zei tells Sokka that disappearances aren’t exactly rare, either. The Dai Li tend to spirit people away in the dead of night if they sniff out anything that might pose a threat to the king’s rule.
When Sokka recruits Aang to help investigate the matter, they bust into his empty house, at which point Joo Dee arrives out of nowhere to tell them that he has been employed as a royal engineer, a lucrative and coveted position. How convenient! Naturally, nobody believes this, so Aang asks Long Feng about it. He reveals the truth of the matter — Sai was arrested by the Dai Li on suspicion of being a Fire Nation spy, and Aang is seemingly also being followed by the Dai Li. Long Feng is careful to remind Aang that if this is the case, he needs to be seen to be keeping his head down.
But he would say that, wouldn’t he? After following his own stalker for a bit, Aang realises that he’s actually being pursued by General Sung, whom he met at the royal party. And she has some bad news. The Dai Li controls the entire city, Joo Dee is his Dai Ling handler, and — this in a bit of a whisper — Long Feng is the Dai Li’s commander. They’re all answerable to him, and he has been playing Aang all along to keep him away from the king.
Guilty Conscience
Needless to say, most of the refugees that Iroh and Zuko are now living amongst are victims of the Fire Nation. In one solid scene, an earthbender chisels the names of the dead on one of the city’s giant exterior walls, and while the guards quickly obscure the damage, it’s enough to throw Iroh for a serious loop. A good chunk of Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2, Episode 4 revolves around the different ways in which Iroh and Zuko grapple with their grief after having the consequences of their complicity laid starkly in front of them.
For Iroh, that largely means being very introspective and sad, and trying to break bread with the people who, once upon a time, he would have perceived as enemies for entirely arbitrary reasons. But for Zuko, it’s a little more complicated. Through Jet, he learns that there is a Fire Nation district within the lower ring, for those who have turned away from Ozai’s rule. And the district is being blamed for a building catching fire that, in truth, had nothing to do with them. Jet and some of the other refugees plan to hold the Fire Nation to account for it, and Zuko warns them in advance. When they don’t listen, and the attack takes place anyway, he arrives in disguise to fight the attackers off.
Katara is also there, as the Painted Lady, but when she uses her waterbending to protect Zuko, Jet identifies her. But it’s interesting how these parallel arcs led two very distinct characters to take justice into their own hands, in their own ways; if Zuko’s hero arc wasn’t obvious already, it certainly is now.
And Another Thing
Elsewhere in “The Water Falls, the Stones Emerge”, Toph is approached by Lau Wong, who has evidence that her parents, through their business associates, have been supplying the Fire Nation war effort. To protect their reputation, she exchanges something with him, though it isn’t immediately clear what. Sokka sees her, though, and they have an argument in the form of haiku, which is pretty novel.
Meanwhile, Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee attack the Kyoshi Warriors, who are spying on the Fire Nation camp that General Tran has set up to carry out the operation that Azula devised. However, he tells her that Ozai has postponed the attack indefinitely due to unfavourable timing, which she’s not exactly happy about.
Proving her tactical bona fides again, Azula manages to sneak into Ba Sing Se, along with Mai and Ty Lee, disguised as the Kyoshi Warriors, using Tran as their pretend hostage. All roads must converge, and now the fox is very much in the henhouse. This doesn’t bode well.
