Giant Mara expository blab-fest in 5...4...3...2...1....
So. SO. So. I'm not entirely sure what think about this show anymore. Every episode contains such a bizarre mixture of genuine excellence and woeful miscalculation that I'm having a tough time forming a coherent opinion. However, since it's 2 o'clock in the morning and I can't sleep, I might as well go ahead and break things down and see whether my fellow 'DOJers (well, mainly Mary and Katie, since you seem to be the ones posting in this topic at the moment) agree with me.
1st up: the characters. WHAT A FREAKIN' MIXED BAG OF AWESOME AND SUCK. Like Katie said, Varrick and Zhu Li continue to be effing hilarious and, in my opinion at least, steal practically every scene they're in. The Platypus bear gag had me in stitches....I mean, "Zhu Li, do the thing!"? JesustapdancingChrist. Aside from Varrick's glorious eccentricity, I love how his character effortlessly lampoons issues of capitalism, consumerism, Hollywood vapidity, and even freaking political corruption in the form of campaign contributions...all while being light-hearted and non-anvilicious. Hallelujah and here's your gold star, writing team.
I love you, Varrick
I also found myself quite interested in the sibling relationship between Bumi, Kya, and Tenzin. Although it's sad to see the Kataang kids harboring resentment about their childhood, I do buy the idea that Aang could've been SO excited and relieved to produce an airbender child (and therefore ensure that his entire race and culture did not die out) that he inadvertently spent less time with his other children. That seems like a pretty natural reaction, and while it's unfortunate that it played out that way, I can't really blame Aang for being blinded by his desire to share his heritage. While there was obviously some bad blood and immature squabbling between Kya, Bumi, and Tenzin, there was also love deep down, and I think that's a fairly accurate portrayal of the complexity of familial relationships.That said, I don't really understand how Katara fits into any of this, and I find it disconcerting that she seems to have been written out of the narrative as a decisive actor. She is the only member of the gaang who isn't shown to have a statue in republic city (yet), and I have a hard time believing that Katara would be cool with Aang taking Tenzin on trips, but not Bumi and Kya (especially when we know that she is bossy and maternal and no doubt very involved in the lives of her kids and husband). From what little information we have, she just seems...oddly passive.
It's not a serious issue, though, since the story really isn't about them. The bigger problem here is that the show has done a crappy job with Tenzin's immediate family. With the exception of Jinora (who I hope receives more screen time in the future), none of Tenzin's family seem like real people to me. They just seem like filler characters. It's especially noticeable with Ikki and Meelo, who both strike me as caricatures of kids instead of actual kids. This is odd considering that the original Avatar series did such a great job developing child characters into interesting, multifaceted human beings, sometimes in just a few episodes. Ikki's voice actress annoys me to no end (I've never met a child who sounds like she does..her voice sounds like an adult trying to imitate a child), and although Meelo's antics are often funny, he pretty much never breaks out of his role as "the fugly weird kid". I sense that the writers were trying super hard to explore family themes in the last two episodes ("being in a family is tough, but deep down we love each other!"), what with the sky bison tea party and lemur training and all, but it just kind of fell flat. I think part of the problem is that I just don't care enough about these kids to feel invested in their family drama. Tenzin is more interesting as a teacher than as a parent, Pemma basically contributes nothing, and Meelo and Ikki have little in the way of personality or motivation. The subplots in the last two episodes did not remedy this. I know nothing more about Tenzin, Ikki, or Meelo than I did before. Plus, we already saw the "being in a family is tough, but deep down we love each other!" thing with Bumi, Kya, and Tenzin, so why does it need to be rehashed? It was done better the first time. It's not like it's such a revolutionary concept that it needs to be explored twice...especially when you only have so many minutes in an episode. You need to make them count.
Honestly, this season seems to have a LOT of family-related themes, what with the brotherly betrayal between Unalaq and Tonraq (what is LoK's deal with villainous waterbending brothers anyway?), Korra's intense desire to protect her homeland and family, Eska and Desna's co-dependence, the Kataang kids' issues with their upbringing, and Tenzin's fatherly struggles. The problem is, I didn't care about any of these family groups to begin with (except for the Kataang kids, but that's mostly a holdover from A:TLA), so seeing them threatened/pulled apart/strained/whatever didn't tug at my heartstrings like it should've. Instead of "feels!!, I've been more like "yawn". You need to develop the bond between these characters on screen so that I feel upset when that bond is threatened...for example, I never saw Korra's home life, so how was I supposed to get truly riled up when her family was split apart? I mean yeah, I feel for her, because who wouldn't be upset over their dad getting thrown in jail...but it just doesn't tug at my heartstrings like it would if I had previously seen a bunch of flashbacks from her childhood or something. Which (in a roundabout sort of way) leads me to what I believe to be this show's biggest problem: insufficient and/or inconsistent character development.
Let's start with Eska and Desna, because what the heck.
I started off the season really wanting to like these two, because their designs are way cool and their initial introduction was pretty funny. But soon enough, the whole thing just turned into yet another joke at Bolin's expense, because apparently the writers have decided to make him the buttmonkey of the series in lieu of anything more substantive. Which pisses me off, because Bolin is one of my favorite dudes and deserves better. But yeah, back to Eska...and it really is just Eska, because Desna has spoken like, 5 lines of dialogue in the entire show and really has no personality outside the fact that he's Eska's twin. Why, why, WHY did they have to turn her into the controlling psycho girlfriend archetype? Why couldn't she have just been weird, or socially awkward, or clueless, or culturally insensitive, or too attuned to the spirit world to understand the human world, or...something?? It's impossible to take her seriously as either a good guy or a bad guy because her entire personality revolves around a throwaway joke, and it's not even funny. I suppose I have a stick up my ass when it comes to this sort of thing, but I just have to ask myself: why? What is there to be gained from playing an abusive relationship for laughs? Are we supposed to find it amusing that Bolin is terrified of someone he's dating? She's a girl, so it's funny instead of effed up? I don't get the logic here.
Eska (and Desna, I suppose) could have still been weird as hell and yet contributed something meaningful to the show. They could've done a lot of the same jokes (the 'feeble turtleduck' line, the 'initiating contact with another woman' line, even the skull betrothal necklace, if Eska had no concept of "normal" style and genuinely thought a cranium would appeal to a man) without portraying Eska as a controlling whack-job. It could've even been endearing, seeing an androgynous, cerebral girl trying to pursue a muscle-head like Bolin.
Could've still been funny without the problematic abusive girlfriend angle
I was really disappointed that the source of conflict between Korra and her cousins was Eska's sudden and over-the-top emotional freak-out over having her "boyfriend stolen" or whatever. Really? That's why these three awesome benders are going to clash? What a lame motivation. When I read the profiles for the twins on Nick.com months ago, their bios seemed to suggest that they were "creepy, but super spiritual", or whatever...except I'm not getting that from them at all. They just seem unbalanced...and it especially disturbs me that Eska's instability is so stereotyped ('women go crazy after breakups'!). It's a shame, because Eska could've provided an interesting foil for Korra and perhaps even taught her a thing or two about spirituality. At the very least Bolin and Eska could've developed a friendship, learning things from each other along the way, and if the writers had decided to throw romance into the mix, they could've addressed the question "how do you date a person who's so close to their twin?". Furthermore, if Eska and Desna had been allowed to develop some sort of relationship with Korra and/or Bolin, it would've made their loyalty to their father more complicated. Imagine, for instance, if Eska decided to side with Korra and the south during the civil war, and Desna decided to side with Unalaq? Pitting twin against twin and family loyalty against peer loyalty makes for some compelling drama...all in all, it just seems like a wasted opportunity.
Lin Beifong and Asami continue to be awesome, although sadly under-represented. It's kind of frustrating, because Asami is this kick-ass, world-traveling businesswoman who single-handedly manages a large corporation AND can fly airplanes, and yet she's given very little screentime. There seems to be no attempt on the writer's part to deal with or even acknowledge what happened between her and Mako last season (perhaps they finally realized how shitty the love triangle was), but the lack of apology/resolution makes it difficult for me to forgive Mako and move on with his character arc. Mako's character is less shitty this time around - the "adorkable" angle, with him writing cheesy cop lines and awkwardly trying to be a supportive boyfriend, seems to work for him, but it still doesn't make me forget what an asshole he was to Asami. The few scenes we've had of him in the police headquarters peaked my interest; it's clear that he's not popular, and I was intrigued by the fact that his fellow cops ridicule and seek to discredit him. I doubt his life as a cop will get much development though...so many fascinating subplots and ideas crop up in this series, only to be hastily abandoned because the narrative is so darn overstuffed as it is. Sigh :-/
And yeah...I guess that brings me to Korra, and how her decisions seem to be pissing off so many of the fans. I personally don't think her decisions have been all that bad - just her attitude. I don't really blame her for remaining blind to her uncle's machinations for so long (after all, we all have a vested interest in thinking the best of our family members, especially when they tell us what we want to hear). I thought it was freaking GREAT when she hunted down that water tribe judge and shoved his face in Naga's mouth, because 
, that is a hella efficient way to get the truth out of someone 
I also don't think Varrick's plan to go behind the United Republic president's back was a bad idea per se, and I don't think Korra was wrong to pursue it. Why? Because that's how freaking politics works. Can't get support from some hoity-toity elected official? Go directly to your buddy in the army, circumvent the official channels, and make tons of money in the process. That's life, dude. I couldn't really understand why Mako considered this to be so immoral/dangerous that he ratted out his friends, when in the past he never came off as that much of a hardcore lawful good type of guy. I'm also not entirely sure whether the narrative was advocating Mako's point of view, or if the writers were just using the whole debacle as an excuse to break up Mako and Korra.
LoK seems to be trying to take a more nuanced approach to things like war, diplomacy, etc., but they don't seem to be willing to push it far enough, and the instances of nuance (e.g. sophisticated questions of foreign policy) clash with the less refined storytelling aspects (e.g. one-dimensional portrayals of psycho ex-girlfriends). In other words, there's such a strange mish-mash of silly humor, simplistic family values, teen angst, and shades-of-gray politics going on, that the show's moral stance becomes confused. I oftentimes don't know what ethical or thematic point the narrative is trying to make, and yet I don't get the sense that this is deliberate. And unfortunately, the show just isn't cerebral enough to make stuff like diplomacy and political maneuvering exciting. To be honest, I repeatedly find myself wishing for longer, more intricate fight scenes. The different fighting styles and the AMAZING combat choreography was a huge part of the reason why the original series was so damn fun to watch, and it seems to be sorely lacking in LoK. There's just so little bending 
I can watch teen drama and political crap anywhere...I want to see it combined with fireballs, icicles, air blasts, and flying chunks of rock, dammit! 
More of these sequences, please
Anyway, as I was saying, I'm not upset with Korra over her decisions this season; I'm upset with her "persecuted protagonist" mentality. Since very few people are actually out to persecute her, it just makes her seem like a huge asshole. Her "if you're not with me, you're against me!" attitude is incredibly harmful and counterproductive, as is her unwillingness to listen to any information that might contradict whatever scenario she's already concocted in her head (i.e. "screw you, Mako, I'm going to disregard your eyewitness testimony about those firebenders because I KNOW it was the North who did that bombing"). Watching a main character behave like this is SO damn frustrating, and I don't see the need for Korra to be her own worst enemy when she already has so many external forces working against her. Flaws and mistakes are one thing...screw-ups and rash decisions can endear a character to the audience if handled correctly, but in Korra's case it just comes off as obnoxious. I wish they'd focus more on her confusion about how to handle the no-win situation she's in, and make her a little more cognizant of her own vulnerabilities and weaknesses, especially her inability to find non-physical solutions to problems. A tiny bit of introspection and AWARENESS would go a LONG way to making her character more likeable, even if it took her a long time to address her shortcomings.
......................
And wow, holy crap, I've written a lot. Way more than I intended to I hope at least one person reads it because Jesus I guess I'll end on a positive note by sharing my favorite joke of the season thus far:
Because OMFG this gag was this brilliant. I mean, talk about a schtick with a ton of levels:
1) Parodying the propaganda fims of the early to mid 20th century
2) Making fun of over-sexualization in Hollywood movies
3) Lampooning racist casting by showing blatantly non water-tribe actors dressed up as (inaccurate) water-tribe heroes
4) Muscly fanservice oohh yeaaah
This whole season has been worth it for that joke alone oh, and this one too
~*Mara*~ = ^.^ =
Apart from a few FB posts about it, I'm very out of the loop. 
And I'm super glad I didn't have to sit through any more of Tenzin's family drama 
