Despite my great disappointment in Season 1 of Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko’s beloved animated show, the first episode of Season 2 was so shockingly different under the new showrunners Christine Boylan and Jabbar Raisani that it has made me hopeful that this version has a reason to exist. Episode 2, “A Fight Once Begun”, penned by Raisani, continues that trend, firmly beginning to diverge from the source material in interesting ways.
The second episode of Season 2 is arguably the most important one Netflix has made yet, as it incorporates two of the most beloved episodes of the entire original show into one – Zuko Alone and The Blind Bandit. Season 2 has radically altered the order of events from Book 2 of the original show, but I firmly believe that if someone had not seen the cartoon, they would never know. It’s once again smartly done, smoothly fitting these two stories together along with storylines from The Chase and The Serpent’s Pass. Raisani and Boylan have definitively found a balance in bringing the characters we know and love into a new story, rather than rehashing a definitively worse version of the one we already know.
As in Zuko Alone, this episode is filled with flashbacks of Zuko and Azula’s childhood, featuring Lily Gao (The Expanse) as their mother Ursa. She is depicted as she was in the original, a strong-willed and nurturing woman who would tear apart anything that stands to hurt her children (much like her namesake, a mama bear). Ozai is shown pitting Zuko and Azula against each other, even as five-year-olds, to their mother’s great disdain. It’s also made clear without saying it out loud that Ozai abuses his wife, whether physically, verbally, emotionally, or all of the above. In another major story divergence, Ursa spirits away her children in the night in an attempt to escape her husband, but is caught before making it out of the Fire Nation. This was intriguing because in the original, she and her husband work together to fake her death in order to save the children’s lives and make Ozai the Fire Lord at the same time.
In the present, Zuko, starving, steals food from a pregnant woman who is asleep. He soon arrives at a small impoverished town and meets a young boy whom he saves from getting shaken down by thug-like soldiers. In exchange, the boy brings him to his house, where he is given a meal and a place to stay for the night. We meet his older sister Fei and learn that their brother is off fighting on the front lines against the Fire Nation, and Zuko is treated to his first real look at how his people have decimated the lives of the rest of the world. Fei is a character new to the Netflix show, who is kind of a rewrite of the character Song from the original show, but I suspect this isn’t the last we’ll see of her. She and Zuko certainly have some chemistry, although I cannot tell how old she’s supposed to be (the actors are right about the same age, though).
This story plays out very differently, with Zuko being offered the opportunity to stay there with Fei and do handywork around the farm. Essentially, the life of simple but honorable poverty, the one his uncle had told him about, is offered yet again. But upon hearing that the Avatar is nearby, he abandons this idea and runs to find him. While this is a pretty major rewrite of the events of Zuko Alone, arguably the fan favorite episode of the whole series, it still gets the same points across about the character. He rejects the life that keeps happening around him in pursuit of a life that is already over, just as he did in the original. Zuko remembers his mother telling him to never be ashamed of who he is, and later in the episode, when he reveals his identity, the young boy that so admired and looked up to him throws rocks at him and screams that he hates him, despite Zuko saving their village. He is finally reaping what his family has spent three generations sowing.
Meanwhile, the Gaang is searching an Earth Kingdom village for an earthbending teacher. One strange thing I noted is that when they finally enter the Beifongs’ house and see the flying boar crest of the family, Katara remarks that it’s the insignia they’ve been seeing everywhere. However, up to that point, there was no insignia shown anywhere and no one had commented on it. My only supposition is that a scene was cut late in editing where they learned about the family crest. Regardless, this story plays out the same way along the major beats, introducing us to another fan favorite character, The Boulder. I was not super sold at first on this live-action iteration played by Kelemete Misipeka during the Earth Rumble wrestling scene; the cartoon version was named after and physically designed to look like Dwayne Johnson, and his personality was based on Randy Savage, so many were hoping The Rock might cameo here. Misipeka did all his own stunts, as he was too huge for a body double, and had fun with the role – I will reserve judgement on him for now.
We’re also introduced, finally, to the last major character that will round out our main cast – Toph! Played by newcomer Miyako Cech (known professionally as just Miyako), The Blind Bandit herself finally meets the Gaang after showing that she is someone who waits and listens before striking – a master of neutral jing. I have a slight problem here, because in the original, Aang is so certain she must be his teacher because of the vision he was shown in The Swamp, an episode that was either cut entirely from this iteration or will happen later in the season. Because that didn’t happen, there’s not really a good reason Aang is this desperate for her to be his teacher, but it’s not that big of a deal.
Regardless, Miyako presents Toph pretty much as she was in the cartoon: a headstrong, no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners badass that has mastered feigning frailty and high-society etiquette to survive. A perfect personality to round out the Gaang! It’s worth noting that while actress Miyako is not blind, every second she was on set she was accompanied by blindness consultants Joe Strechay and Cara Lee Hrdlitschka to ensure that she was playing a blind character not just accurately, but respectfully. Miyako is also notably the only other child actor in the cast besides Dallas Liu (Zuko) to have been a mega-fan of the original show before being cast, and had wanted desperately to play Toph since this adaptation was announced seven years ago. I think she does well in this episode, but I really feel that I need to see more of her before I’m 100% sold.
Toph’s escape from her parents plays out differently this time, with her confronting her mother about it without her father there, and then running away in plain sight of them. Her parents still insist she’s been kidnapped by the Avatar, and set earthbending teacher Xin Fu and The Boulder after them as bounty hunters to bring her home. I really enjoyed the dynamic of these characters in the cartoon, so we’ll see what happens, but I was not super impressed with this iteration of Xin Fu yet either. He is a sort of mishmash of the characters Xin Fu and Master Yu from the original, and was portrayed by the iconic voice of Sab Shimono – he kind of doesn’t leave an impression in this version.
The emotional moment at the end of the episode where Azula strikes Iroh with lightning as a distraction and Katara tries to heal him is done perfectly. Liu once again proves he is the acting anchor of the show, delivering his “LEAVE!” with the same gravity that Dante Basco did. It was almost enough to bring out a tear – almost. Overall, I continue to be impressed with the momentum that Season 2 is bringing and how effectively the new writers are both ignoring and undoing the wrongs of Season 1.
