Review: The Legend of Korra “Long Live the Queen”

The Earth Queen has Korra and Asami, while the Red Lotus has Mako and Bolin. Looks like Team Avatar is in dire straits. Shitty video player aside, here’s “Long Live the Queen!” Don’t worry, we talk about the bad video player too.

You know, I was sitting here, writing this review, and I became very sad. The Earth Queen came back, and I couldn’t be any sadder. I thought she was a throwaway character when I watched the first batch of episodes she was in, and my thoughts about her haven’t changed. The Earth Queen is still a cut out villain with her weird Airbender fetish, and she still wants her secret police. So, the obsessive overlord trope is alive and kicking, folks. She becomes more obsessed with the Avatar than the Airbenders, and that’s what leads to a really dark turn in the series. But more on that later.

The Earth Queen’s really shows so when you see Korra locked up in the Earth Queen’s best Hannibal Lecter rig, complete with face mask and upright gurney. The special details here really show. However, you see Asami’s ingenuity really shine in “Long Live the Queen.” Asami more than makes up for her blunders last season with Varrick, and when the focus is on her, she becomes the star. That really hasn’t happened a lot, due to other outside circumstances. In season one, Asami was the damsel in distress because of her father, and in season two, she fell for Varrick’s trap and lost her company for a few episodes. I am glad to see her shine.

What really rocks here is Henry Rollins. Whenever he speaks in this show, it’s a mix of power and a silver tongue. He makes the character Zaheer believable as a borderline omnipotent entity as he scours the land in search for the Avatar, and the way he talks to the Earth Queen is masterful. God damn, he’s awesome! I’m trying not to bring down the other members of his gang, but the jump from Gazhan, P’Li, and Ming Hua to Zaheer is as much as the jump from normal benders to the gang.  The amount of screen time this quartet hasn’t has is a crime, and easily contends with Amon as the best villian of The Legend of Korra.

In the span of about three minutes, Zaheer goes from the villainous man he was made out to be, to the Liberator of Ba Sing Se. The Earth Queen foolishly underestimated what Zaheer can do, and Zaheer incapacitated the Earth Queen as well as he could any other person. Ba Sing Se really didn’t stand a chance as soon as Zaheer drove the box truck inside the city wall. I am curious to see how long until Ba Sing Se burns to the ground from the chaos.

I can speak of how great Zaheer is, and how great of a villain he is, but this was what he needed to prove he is that evil of a man. The Red Lotus, as a group, has finally taken that step to be a true menace in “Long Live the Queen,” and it was long overdue. The badass escapes Zaheer and his gang had over the first three episodes can only carry them for so long. For a bit, I actually thought they were going to be protagonists helping the Avatar. Razing a city to the ground defeats that notion real quick. Next Friday can’t come soon enough.

You can catch the video here!

Now, that the episode review is done, let’s talk for a second about this video player. I have used many video players in my time spent on the internet, and most of them work rather well. When you can scroll through the video without problems, I’m okay with it. However, Nickelodeon managed to screw this up as well. When you need to scroll back in the video to catch something you missed, you shouldn’t have to scroll to the end of the video (or beginning, same point) then go back to where you were. Otherwise, it just goes to the closest commercial break. The launch of Korra on Nick.com has been the worst debacle that has been seen in some time. This needs to be cleaned up, and quickly.