Man, that was a manic episode! During this episode Tarrlok’s credibility as a villain was established as he lorded his power over a whole bunch of non-bending innocents, arrested ¾ of the new Team Avatar and kidnapped Korra. We also discover that he’s a blood-bender, and may have played a part in the scene of Korra’s flashbacks. You know, I’ve been watching a lot of One Piece lately, the Enies Lobby arc, to be precise. It has taken the Straw Hat Pirates and the Franky Family nearly ten episodes to get from the main entrance of Enies Lobby to the courthouse… Really puts things into perspective!
I’ve got to say, I didn’t think much for what the new Team Avatar was doing, defying the police and the task-force in favour of what can only be described as vigilante justice. I mean, what’s that going to achieve? Sure, you’ve roughed up and captured yourself some chi-blockers but, they’re just Amon’s grunts! You’re not going to get much valuable information out of them, even if you did bother to interrogate them, which it doesn’t look like Korra (who will, inevitably, be the one to face Amon, so would’ve benefitted the most in doing so) planned to do. As for defying the authorities, that wasn’t going to help much in the grand scheme of things either, was it? Surely it’d be wiser to all stand together against the threat, rather than to start picking each other off? And no-one’s gonna band together with a bunch of raucous teenagers as opposed to the actual authorities, regardless of the nut-job that’s leading them, so basically I just had no idea what Team Avatar hoped to achieve in their exploits! But, it turned out none of this mattered ‘cause Tarrlok had totally wiped the floor with them all by the end of the episode.
In quite a few of my previous posts I’ve mentioned just how brilliant a villain Amon is, how well thought out all of his moves are, and how intimidating he is but, you know, Tarrlok’s probably more the traditional villain. Whereas Amon’s just doing what he thinks is morally right (and you can totally see where he’s coming from, even if his methods are a little cut-throat) Tarrlok’s just doing what he’s doing either because the power has gone to his head or because of some kind of grudge (which his reaction to Korra’s “You’re just like Amon” would totally imply), in other words, whilst Amon’s acting on behalf of others, Tarrlok’s acting on behalf of numero uno! But, that by no means makes him a petty villain, he just got full-on evil all up in dat shit! I mean, he’s a blood-bender! Goodness knows what this means… He can’t have got that scary old lady to teach him- she’s been locked away, and I highly doubt Katara would have taught it to anyone when she was so horrified with the ability. I guess it’s possible he just picked it up by himself, but that wouldn’t make for a very interesting explanation, would it now? So the producers obviously have something else planned. I reckon it has something to do with the scene from Korra’s flashbacks, where someone with an uncanny likeness to him (but can’t be him ‘cause he’d have since aged considerably, but hasn’t) seems to be exhibiting the ability on old Team Avatar. Perhaps it was his father? Perhaps his father, who looked as though he’d earned himself a one-way ticket to life-long incapacitation, had passed down his resentment to his son? But Tarlock’s deal is with non-benders, so I’m not entirely sure that fits. Maybe the guy was on trial because of something that happened with a non-bender? Hmm, in any case Tarrlok’s character has definitely expanded outside of that ‘power-hungry-douchebag-with-3-(why not just have 1?)-ponytails’! Korra’s very good at making powerful enemies isn’t she?
Speaking of Korra making enemies, looks like she’s definitely not in Asami’s good books right now! No doubt at some point Asami’s jealousy will come to the forefront, and she’ll ceremoniously screw Korra over, enabling me to gloat that she was a rotten egg all along! Providing she ever gets out of jail that is…
Looking forward to seeing how Korra gets out of this mess! It’s not as though her friends are in any position to bail her out, so maybe Tenzin will actually do something, for once, and rescue her? Seriously, for an all-powerful air-bending master, he’s done nothing but be beat up and have Tarrlok and the other spineless counsellors (who I think should be replaced by those two old Konoha counsellors from Naruto who always disagree with everything Tsunade suggests, could be useful in this case) walk all over him! I wanna see him unleash some air-bending fury!
Tenzin getting mad is the last thing I think we’ll see happening. If he goes mental then Korra has no chance of wising up and learning air bending.
All the plot points concerning Tarrlok are very open at this point and I suspect they will all get tied up nicely in the next few episodes.
I am hoping that Aang helps Korra out her current mess. She is probably on her way to another part of the country so hopefully we get to see some new settings.
I love this new Avatar so much I’m sad to see it go next week. I hope they bring some more back but with travelling some more, confined to a city storyline seems a little limiting.
PS. Logging is es so much effort.
PSS. Exams~? Reasoning for no new posts.
PSSSSSSSSS. Getting my Skype messages?