Here we are, folks, at the Crossroads of Destiny. As Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender closes out its second season, the Gaang finds themselves in the crystal caverns beneath Ba Sing Se as the second act of our grand story brings us to its “all is lost” ending. With only 7 episodes this season, albeit each being 60+ minutes, there’s a lot to wrap up in this final hour in the Earth Kingdom.
Zuko and Katara finally have their come-together moment in a cell in the crystal caves. This is one of the best scenes in the original show’s Season 2 finale, The Crossroads of Destiny, and it plays out here in an expanded way that worked very well for me. In this adaptation, Zuko unleashes a lot more of his anger and fury at the Fire Nation, matching Katara’s hatred of them in an interesting way. When it finally comes time for her to offer to heal his scar with the spirit water, I buy it a little more. I think the key to this scene really is the actors – Kiawentiio and Dallas Liu have developed a rapport and are obviously very comfortable playing off each other now in a way that they were not last season.
Meanwhile, Sokka has been tossed into a different cell along with The Mechanist, who was absent from this whole storyline in the original. Continuing to impress me in his expanded role, Danny Pudi and Ian Ousley have also developed good chemistry and keep each other from falling into despair. Their chat played out well, and by the end you really see Sokka’s ingenuity shining with the father-like support from The Mechanist. Although a totally new scene, this one hit well for me, too.
In a very different story from the Nickelodeon show, Toph’s mother comes to Ba Sing Se, lies her ass off about accepting her daughter, and then drugs her tea and stuffs her in a metal box to drag back to their home. In the original, it was the bounty hunters her father hired who did this, which was easier to swallow. This scenario is much more tragic – Lady Beifong shows herself to be a hateful, controlling sociopath for whom I will not accept any redemption. Since she wasn’t really a character at all in the cartoon, only showing up in the comics that followed the show’s run, this is basically just a new character. Toph, of course, breaks out, with Miyako delivering her iconic line “I am the greatest earthbender in the world!” in a way that just didn’t hit.
In the original show, this scene played out so smoothly because Aang was with Guru Pathik up in the Air Temple learning about how to control his chakras and enter the Avatar State. As the Guru teaches Aang that all things that seem separate and different are actually one and the same, Toph concentrates on her metal prison. The Guru then says, “Even metal is just another part of the earth,” and we see Toph have the same realization and become the world’s first metalbender. In this show, because we have not met Guru Pathik, Toph kind of just gets angry and suddenly knows what to do. It’s a lot less cool.
While Elizabeth Yu is still not quite reaching Grey Delisle’s performance as Azula (who could ever do that?), this next scene is probably her shining moment. In a replacement scene for when she takes command over the Dai Li in the throne room, she gathers together a dozen generals from the Earth Kingdom to appear in front of Long Feng. They do, and she, with no remorse or hesitation, uses lightning to kill all twelve of them instantly in front of Long Feng. This is when he realizes that he is not on her level, and yields command to a 15-year-old girl. Azula rightly clocks that he works in shadow and deception because he simply doesn’t have the guts for direct confrontation as she does.
Aang and Iroh make it into the crystal caves to rescue everyone while Azula is shown to have taken full control of the Dai Li. Long Feng, powerless, speaks to Aang one last time before slinking off into the shadows. This is interesting because at the end of Book 2 in the cartoon, Long Feng is in an Earth Kingdom prison. I assume him being on the run means he will reappear in some way in Season 3. Aang frees Appa, who is very expensive to animate, and our favorite bison disappears for the rest of the episode. To be frank, I’m not even sure what the point of his kidnapping was in this version of the story, because they remained in Ba Sing Se the entire time without experiencing the inability to travel, and Appa’s Lost Days never took place.
Aang, Iroh, and Toph break Sokka, Zuko, Katara, and The Mechanist out of prison, interrupting Katara from healing Zuko’s scar. While the others escape, Aang, Katara, and Zuko face off against Azula in their legendary battle in the crystal caves. Here’s where things get not great – in the original cartoon, Azula tempted Zuko with restoring his honor, manipulating him to join her and turn on Iroh. In accepting Azula’s path to honor, he ensured he had lost his. It’s tragic, thematic, and when it happens, you are angry at Zuko but have no trouble believing it happened.
In this version, Azula has a conversation with Zuko where she seems to earnestly and honestly bond with him over the shared trauma of losing their mother. This, I suppose, is what gets Zuko to turn on Aang in the fight, but I’m now so confused about who Azula is supposed to be. I think the Netflix show has weakened itself by making some of these characters too nuanced. It’s okay for the Fire Lord to just be an evil man – there’s a lot of real, evil men out there. Yes, Azula became a manipulative psychopath partially because her mother saw her as a monster, but it also doesn’t mean the show needs to make her sympathetic. She’s not! She just killed a dozen innocent people in cold blood in front of us!
After Zuko turns on them, we get a pretty poorly CGI-animated battle that I rolled my eyes at, despite the CGI in the rest of the season being pretty good to great. Now again, so much context is missing. In the original, Aang can’t enter the Avatar state because he refuses to let go of his earthly attachment, Katara. Azula hits him with lightning while he’s distracted by her. His love for her is what ends up getting him killed in the Avatar State. In this version, I don’t know; he just fights harder, and Azula gets a lucky shot in, and he dies. Okay? What do I take from this?
Iroh sacrifices himself to Azula, and the Gaang escapes on Aapa, with the Fire Nation seizing full control of Ba Sing Se behind them. The season closes out with the Fire Nation having successfully taken over the world, Aang dead in Katara’s arms, and Zuko having turned back to the dark side of the Force. To really hammer in that Empire Strikes Back feeling, the Netflix show ends there, whereas in the cartoon you do see Katara use the spirit water to bring Aang back to life before the credits roll.
I really enjoyed the first half of this episode, and a lot of the one-on-one conversation scenes like Zuko and Katara, Sokka and Sai, and Iroh and Aang were great. The second half of the episode has confused me thoroughly. I feel like Zuko has shown a lot less struggle in this version, and it’s almost hard for me to believe he’d actually join Azula after his experiences in this iteration. I suppose Season 3 will tell us if this all rounds out into something, but as it is, Season 2 closes with a sense of themes that have gone untold.
