S01.E05: Spirited Away

[The Crazed Spruce]

Quote

When the group lands in the Spirit World for a rescue mission, they come face to face with dangerous threats, painful memories and a mysterious entity.

 

Edited February 22 by The Crazed Spruce

[Stardancer Supreme]

Koh, Gyatso, and the Truth! 

[thuganomics85]

Had a feeling George Takei was going to pop up in some form here and being the voice of this Koh creature is certainly the way to go!  Despite the family friendly atmosphere, he was creepily effective as a threat, and I'm curious to see how Aang will be able to thwart him.  Obviously, I suspect Katara and Sokka will be saved before it's too late, but it is certainly a way to ramp up the tension!

So, the gang puts a pause on their main mission (again), to try and help a group of town-folks who have been trapped in the spirit world.  But going into the spirit world means you have to face "The Truth" a.k.a. relive one of your worst moments.  For Katara, it was seeing her mom's death and remembering that it was to protect her, since Katara tried to use her powers and failed, so her mom pretended she was the Waterbender instead.  For Sokka, it's remembering that he only passed his test to be a warrior thanks to an assist from a friend, I think (couldn't tell what the relationship was there), and that his father expressed regret and disappointment over Sokka's leadership skills in general.  Yep, you can see why those two were easily taken over by the Koh!

I guess it was about that time for a hot, snarky, tough bounty hunter to crash the party.  Zuko is so not down with this!  But, hey, she thinks Iroh is cute, so at least he's got that going for him.  She's all about those former war tyrants turned food loving mentors that look like Appa from Kim's Convenience!

Azula is back and even more violent now since her dad has clearly seen through her attempts at trying to sway him to back Zhao and therefore her.  Ozai might be a lot of things, but he definitely strikes me as someone who would be less than impressed with her blatant attempts to curry favor.

Liked seeing Gyasto again, but despite Aang's promise, I have a sad feeling they might not see each other again after-all.

Aang is going into enemy territory!

[Lugal]

This one was kinda hard to judge because it's really half an episode.  Based on the "Winter Solstice, Part 1" but it took the most liberties and brought in a lot of other elements from other episodes as well (interesting we meet Wan Shi Tong so early).  It was much darker than we've seen, but anything involving Koh the Face Stealer is going to be dark.  And Hei Bai was even more terrifying in live action.

I like the insights into Sokka and Katara.  Sokka's backstory was changed considerably, but it worked.  He can't help but help doubt his abilities after hearing his father and Bato talking (and we met Bato!)  Katara's backstory was largely the same, but interesting they spelled it out explicitly that if she hadn't tried to waterbend, her mother might not have died, so that guilt has to weigh on her.

Contrasting that, we see how Ozai is playing his children off against each other, and the damage it's doing to Azula and Zuko both.  Seeing Azula blink away tears when mildly rebuked by her father, makes me think that Elizabeth Yu may end up being one of the standout performers in upcoming seasons.  All in all, I think it worked, but this was the most divergent from the cartoon we've seen so far. 

On the lighter notes, I did like that when Zuko was asking around in the tavern and everyone talks about where the heard about the Avatar. "It was the Pirates!"  "No it was that Canyon guy!"  Both from episodes of the original.  We met June and Arden Cho looks like she stepped out of the cartoon!  And she tells Zuko his dad is kinda cute (nice highlighting of Zuko's father figure there) which is a nice reversal of the cartoon, where Iroh was crushing on June, and who can blame him because June is hot!

[Maelstrom]

My least favorite episode so far, though it still had plenty of good points. Horror is not my thing, at all, and parts of this ep toed that line more than I personally care for. MMV.

So, Koh was creepy in the original but outright nightmare fuel here. Yikes. Can someone pass me the brain bleach? As much as Takei brings to the voice I'm still kind of sorry they didn't get Erik "Aaravos" Dellums back, I could listen to that man's voice for hours. They brought in various spirit elements from a LOT of different episodes/storylines, and I'm not quite sure if all of them were necessary to introduce here or not. But this is part one of a cliffhanger, so I feel like I can't say anything for sure until I see how it's resolved. Also, anyone have an idea who the voice of the three-tailed fox was? She sounded so familiar but I couldn't find any credits online that may have been her. Maybe I'll freeze frame the credits or something.

Katara and Sokka getting lost in their worst memories and fears reminded me strongly of the Swamp episode from season 2, and it will be interesting to see what impact this has on them going forward. (And a Yon Rha sighting this early in the run? Makes me even more eager for season 3...)

Alright, onto the fun stuff. June! She was absolutely perfect, and makes me think they somehow brought the animated character to life as a flesh and blood woman. Nyla looked pretty good too, relatively speaking of course, considering what an odd/hard to animate creature she is. (Fun fact: a shirshu is a combination of a wolf, a mole, and a giant anteater according to the Art of the Animated Series book - highly recommended for fellow nerds!)

Iroh and Zuko continue to delight, and Zuko continues to make enemies unnecessarily and drive away people win friends and influence people. Loved their interactions with each other, with the bartender, and with June - and it was a nice touch to have her eye up Iroh instead of him sleazing on her as in the original. I love how Dallas plays both Zuko's teenage impatience and superiority alongside his insecurities and bluster, I couldn't have asked for a better Zuko.

And I loved the bar room shout-outs to the Gaang's stand-alone adventures from the original that didn't make the cut here - the pirates and the canyon guide were the ones I heard most clearly. A nice touch for fans of the original!

Gyatso! He's such a lovely character, and the actor is a joy to watch. More please. The world would be a much better place if we all had our own Gyatso looking out for us. (Also, he still tries to cheat at Pai Sho even in the Spirit World).

And finally, Azula and Ozai. It's so interesting to see the characters arcs being set up before our eyes, to see the beginnings of how Azula's obsession with being the best and with winning Ozai's approval is already leading her down her dark path. So much of the damage caused within the world of Avatar comes down to Ozai's horrendous parenting skills, and I've enjoyed seeing how they approach that in this remake. Also, I've thought it was interesting that Azula's fire has been orange so far, but when she was about to lose her shit and incinerate her sparring partner, her flames turned blue for a moment right before Mai stopped her... Maybe her blue flames won't be a sign of her skill so much as a sign of her imbalance?

Edited February 27 by Maelstrom

[tennisgurl]

Interesting episode, it had some aspects of the early episode where Aang wandered through the spirit world but is also very different. I think that the creepy more horror focused aspects of the episode were really well done, but I continue to feel what I did in the last episode, that this show might be too dramatic for its own good. I love that the show is taking its characters and the conflicts so seriously and its all well done, but I miss the more wacky silly parts of the cartoon. The show certainly has some fun comedic scenes which they also do a good job with, like the introduction where Sokka apparently had some bad luck with a fire nation girl, but I miss that perfect mix of comedy and tragedy that made the first show stand out, especially for a kids show. 

Those flashbacks were impressively depressing, no wonder Katara and Sokka got sucked into Koh's sadness fog. Katara's backstory was pretty much what we saw in the cartoon, but even worse in that Katara's attempt at water bending sealed her moms fate, and, while the cartoon played coy in how Kya died, in this one the poor woman was full on incinerated while Katara watched, which is presumably what happened in the cartoon too but damn. This addition to Sokka's backstory is certainly a change, their father in the cartoon was pretty much the perfect dad, in contrast to Ozai, even if he couldn't be with his kids the way he wanted to due to the war, I can never see that version of him being so harsh on Sokka behind his back. Its probably more of the show trying to be more honest about the effects this war has had on people, that losing his wife and the stress of trying to protect his people has made Hakoda a harsher wearier person, but its still a jarring change. It certainly adds a lot to Sokka's insecurity over his abilities as a leader and warrior and need to live up to his fathers expectations. 

At least we got to see Gyatso again, who's such a great guy, alive or dead. Aang really needed to hear that everything that has happened isn't on him, and to be reminded of who he is. The actor who plays him has such warmth, seeing him really does feel like feeling warm after freezing.

Oh Zuko, the kid just cannot go a day without pissing people off, he's just a bull in a china shop who also has super powers. He and Iroh provided some much needed fun in such a dark episode, plus we got to see June, who looks like she walked right out of the cartoon. She's already way too cool and I love that in this one she's the one flirting with Iroh, I cant blame her! The shout outs in the bar to episodes that were cut from the show, the pirates, the canyon, were a lot of fun, a nice treat for the fans. 

This might be controversial, but I think I like this version of Ozai more than the cartoon, he's a lot more complex. Not in that he's in any way more sympathetic, he's just as much of a piece of shit as ever, but he's much more manipulative, calculating, superficially charming, and the way he plays his kids against each other so much more in this version makes their family dynamic more interesting. You can see so much of how his terrible parenting has messed his kids up, its so tragic how he had these ridiculously talented promising kids who he just treated as tools. 

[Maelstrom]

Tennisgurl, I'm pretty much with you re: the humor. It was an important part of the original, and I"m hoping it's not going to be largely sacrificed for the sake of this version being darker and serious. Obviously the original had some pretty dark stuff going on, whether the show addressed it directly or indirectly, but that's exactly why the lighter, warmer moments were so important. We don't need the wacky silliness, but we do need levity and lighter moments to balance the more tragic aspects. (Balance! Avatar pun!)

After seeing the following episode, "Masks," I don't feel that most of the spirit world stuff was actually necessary to see in this episode. I'm especially unsure of whether we really needed the full on tragic history of Katara and Sokka's family at this point, and I'm really not sure how I feel about the changes to Sokka's backstory. He's had plenty of trauma, he doesn't need a disapproving father as well - I too am not keen on this Hakoda being so disappointed by Sokka. We already have one questionable father in this world, and Hakoda was always the counterbalance to Ozai.

4 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Oh Zuko, the kid just cannot go a day without pissing people off, he's just a bull in a china shop who also has super powers.

LOL, well said. An angsty teenage bull with superpowers.

4 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

This might be controversial, but I think I like this version of Ozai more than the cartoon, he's a lot more complex. Not in that he's in any way more sympathetic, he's just as much of a piece of shit as ever, but he's much more manipulative, calculating, superficially charming, and the way he plays his kids against each other so much more in this version makes their family dynamic more interesting. You can see so much of how his terrible parenting has messed his kids up, its so tragic how he had these ridiculously talented promising kids who he just treated as tools. 

Not controversial to me! It's interesting, I've felt this Ozai very much IS the Ozai from the cartoon, we're just getting a better look at him here. Like, if you scratched beneath the surface of OriginalOzai, you'd get RemakeOzai. I've always thought that his horrible parenting is ultimately responsible for much of the suffering in the Avatar world for how badly he damaged both Zuko and Azula, and by extension how much their actions affected others. He's definitely played them off against each other more blatantly here, and I've appreciated seeing more of how the messed up Fire Family dynamics came to be. Thank goodness Zuko has Iroh, and maybe a gang of good friends down the line, to serve as positive influences.

[Lugal]

23 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

This might be controversial, but I think I like this version of Ozai more than the cartoon, he's a lot more complex. Not in that he's in any way more sympathetic, he's just as much of a piece of shit as ever, but he's much more manipulative, calculating, superficially charming, and the way he plays his kids against each other so much more in this version makes their family dynamic more interesting. You can see so much of how his terrible parenting has messed his kids up, its so tragic how he had these ridiculously talented promising kids who he just treated as tools.

I would agree with Maelstrom that they're the same Ozai. In the cartoon he was a menacing background presence for most of the first two seasons.  Did we even see his face before season 3?

Edited February 29 by Lugal

[MissLucas]

Cartoon Ozai was for me the weakest character of the show. I never thought he cared much for either of his kids beyond them being the means to keep the might of the fire nation going. Maybe there were moments but we got to see so little of him so late that I must have missed them. It was a good decision to introduce him early, give him more screen time and hand him to Daniel Dae Kim who managed to convince me that Ozai in his twisted way does actually have genuine feelings for his kids - I mean blink and you miss it but there were moments.

[Maelstrom]

6 hours ago, Lugal said:

I would agree with Maelstrom that they're the same Ozai. In the cartoon he was a menacing background presence for most of the first two seasons.  Did we even see his face before season 3?

They deliberately didn’t show his face before season 3 to keep him mysterious and build up the threat of him.

43 minutes ago, MissLucas said:

Cartoon Ozai was for me the weakest character of the show. I never thought he cared much for either of his kids beyond them being the means to keep the might of the fire nation going. Maybe there were moments but we got to see so little of him so late that I must have missed them. It was a good decision to introduce him early, give him more screen time and hand him to Daniel Dae Kim who managed to convince me that Ozai in his twisted way does actually have genuine feelings for his kids - I mean blink and you miss it but there were moments.

Disappointment and disdain do count as feelings, so good point.

[Trini]

LOL at the references to the episodes that they're NOT adapting!  According to the closed-captions, the volcano episode (I think that's the one with the fortune teller?) was mentioned as well.

Like someone else mentioned, this was more like part 1 of a two-parter, so I might have better comments after seeing the next half.

Wow, they pulled from several spirit world episodes from several(?) seasons, and it's been a while since I've rewatched the cartoon, so I'm a bit confused about the references. But that's not hugely important to know for this adaptation.

There is some humor in this, but I agree that it wouldn't hurt to have more.

I'm glad that Gyatso told Aang that the war wasn't his fault. He really needed to hear that , and from him in particular.

Heh - I see they're kinda playing up Sokka being a chick magnet. Well, somebody has to be, since I have a feeling they're not really going to do Zuko/Mai (and Aang/Katara is off the table).

I wasn't sure about them showing Ozai and Azula so soon, but it's good that we get to see the family dynamics before they come to the forefront of the story.

Again, I'm praising the casting: the actor for Zuko is doing really well!