Review: The Legend of Korra “The Terror Within”

Last week, Korra help mend a family, as well as learn to Metalbend. What can’t she do?

Thankfully, after Korra took a back seat for the last three episodes, the time is right for Korra to come back into the fold. This is great news, because the family problems of the Beifongs, and the mismanagement of the Airbenders were too much of a distraction to the real reason we’re all watching. Zaheer is coming, and shit is about to get serious.

Spoilers!

Korra and Bolin are training with Wei and Wing. Korra is becoming a real pro with Metalbending, but Bolin is still stumbling around. They clean up, because it’s Opal’s farewell dinner. At the dinner, Bolin is getting real upset because Opal is going to the Northern Air Temple, but she tries to make him feel better by saying they’ll be together soon. Varrick is trying to pawn his Airbender Finder to Asami, but she’s not interested. On the other side of the table, Mako is stuck with Aiwei, who knows Mako doesn’t want to be near him. Su has a speech, congratulating Opal for all of her accomplishments, and wishing her well on her journey. Soon, Opal is off to the Northern Air Temple,and the city is closed off for the night.

During the night, Zaheer and his gang have infiltrated Zaofu, and Pabu knows something is wrong. Zaheer and the gang make it into Korra’s room, and knock out Naga first, then Korra when she goes to fight. Bolin sits up to tell Pabu to stop, but he notices Zaheer carrying Korra. This wakes up Mako, and they go to fight. Su, Lin, Wei and Wing all make a makeshift cage to capture the group, but that doesn’t do much, because Gazhan Lavabends a moat of lava around the cage causing the makeshift cage to fall apart.  This fight is really a lot better than I can tell you. You have to watch it to see it.

Meanwhile, P’Li and Ming Hua are causing a distraction so there is no way to cross the moat. Lin and Su can drop in, but Bolin needs to hit P’Li in her third eye to stun her powers. It’s close to the same move that Toph used when she faced off against the Combustion Man in the original Avatar. Lin and Mako have a miscommunication, where Lin thought Mako said everything was clear to drop. Bolin hits his shot just in time, giving Lin the opening she needs to get in and get Korra. Zaheer sees this, and chases after Lin and Korra, only to get knocked out of the air by Su. Zaheer gets to the ground, and escapes.

Back at the Beifong estate, Aiwei is quick to place judgement. and quickly agrees with Korra when she says it was a guard. Aiwei goes through the guards until he gets to Hong Li, whom he detects is lying. This causes Su to get worked up into a fervor, then Aiwei suggests to check Li’s home. In Li’s home, they find a letter and a log book. Mako wants to confront Li now, but Aiwei wants Li to sweat it out.

Back at the Beifong compound, Mako is still wondering why they aren’t questioning Li now, and Varrick pops up, thinking that the evidence may be too convenient. Varrick can smell a conspiracy, saying how he would do exactly everything he did to Mako last season, and all fingers are now pointing to Aiwei. He’s the only person who can keep a secret in the city, so that’s a little suspicious. Korra, Mako, Asami, and Bolin go looking around Aiwei’s house looking for evidence. Mako realizes that a book shelf moves, and they find a secret route behind the shelf. Aiwei walks in, and the group confronts Aiwei about the passage.

Aiwei offers Korra and the group tea and seats, and they start to discuss. Li’s age doesn’t really add up to getting mixed up with Zaheer and his gang, and Aiwei keeps saying that it was Li. Aiwei finds the pot out of place, and the shelf not entirely in place, so he confirms that the Avatar doesn’t know what’s coming for her. Lin and Su show up, and they tell Su Aiwei was the traitor. Korra, Mako, Bolin, and Asami want to hunt down Aiwei and Zaheer, but Lin and Su want Korra to go back to Republic City. Back at the compound, Su wants Korra to find Aiwei so Su can bring Aiwei to justice. Su will deal with Lin so Korra can go.

Hey, look guys! The main character of the show is back! And she’s doing stuff, like getting kidnapped, losing the person who set up the kidnapping, and still learning to Metalbend. So, Korra’s back, but she doesn’t do anything constructive. She’s actually the damsel in distress, and the episode is all about the kidnapping, and whoever let the kidnappers in. With Zaheer, P’Li, Ming Hua, and Gazhan being MIA for most of the last couple of episodes, I was expecting this fight to go on longer than it did. I was very disappointed by the kidnapping angle, and I was hoping it would go longer. However, we haven’t seen any of Zaheer’s gang go nuts with their powers, yet, especially Zaheer. Everyone can do some kind of advanced bending, like Gazhan’s Lavabending or P’Li’s Combustionbending, but what does Zaheer do?

I have a feeling that the main fight was cut early, and the Aiwei bit was forced into this, because everything lost flow in this episode. The episodes without Korra didn’t seem bad, but this episode just stopped everything in its tracks. It’s rather fitting, because after this, there will be no more Korra on Nick. This episode had so much going for itself, but it went nowhere, and nowhere fast. The fight looked beautiful, especially with Gazhan’s lava creeping out from under the cage. The explosion in Aiwei’s house was done well also, especially with the slow motion work. Speaking of which, it feels like Aiwei’s treachery as done just to do it, and you knew it was coming right after he started speaking.

I like the nods to past happenings in the series. It keeps the continuity going. For instance, when Varrick told Mako how he would frame someone, it was exactly how he framed Mako last season. During the fight in the courtyard, Bolin had to use the “pebble to the third eye” shot that Toph used in The Last Airbender. The subtleties here make long time fans really happy, and new fans will want to run to see the older episodes after hearing this from word of mouth.

This was a marginal episode, but there were a lot of broken pieces that didn’t have to be broken. Hopefully, this is just the beginning to how nuts Zaheer and his gang can be.