Hey youtubers it’s Charlie, since comic con was last weekend and Korra just went digital
I’m going to be combining my episode 8 and 9 reviews in this video.
I’ll also explain a little more what is happening with the show.
A lot of you are still asking a lot of questions about what the deal is.
But don’t worry, it’s not bad, nothing bad is happening.
Also I have a bunch of stuff to giveaway.
So I’ll announce which people won at the end of this video.
In case you’re just finding me for the first time.
I do Korra videos every week.
Be sure to subscribe to get everything.
I want to focus mostly on episode 9 but real quick some things worth mentioning about episode
8.
Best fight scene all season.
Team Zaheer versus Team Korra.
I feel like the Red Lotus people are so well trained, Korra is going to keep getting her
ass handed to her in combat.
It’s like fighting a bunch of Unalaq’s at once.
Meaning Korra will have to find a non-combat solution to defeat Zaheer.
It’s not going to end in a bending match.
Fire Ferrets style.
But I do think that the metal bending foozball game will come back in an interesting way.
Or at least I hope it does.
Just imagine Bolin bouncing metal discs all over a bunch of bad guys or Dai Lee Agents.
I still think he’ll learn to metal bend at some point this season.
Even though Aiwe turned out to be the obvious traitor.
I still feel like Souyin is involved somehow.
Like she’s part of the Red Lotus.
Technically they’re not an evil organization.
But she is way to sanguine about Korra’s safety, especially letting her go so quickly.
And that person in her circus photo from when she was younger.
Looks like Zaheer wearing clown makeup.
She also talked about hating the idea of the Earth Kingdom still having a queen.
So even if she’s not a full on Red Lotus member, she’s probably a collaborator.
Which is just as bad.
As for Varrick, I feel like his magnetic technology will come in handy in an unexpected way.
Like he’ll help Team Korra take down the metal benders if it turns out Souyin really
is working with the Red Lotus.
Aside from that his Airbender finding device feels like a dead end.
The only way I see it being important is in Korra using it to find an airbender in a giant
group of people.
Like find a hidden airbender who’s trying to evade them.
Like Zaheer.
I didn’t like the pacing of the episode quite as much as some of the others so I gave
it a B. Overall the animation overall was amazing, but the animation during the fight
scenes was brilliant.
Studio Mir has done an amazing job this season.
So every time I want to give Mike, Bryan and the cast a high five.
I have to remember to give Studio Mir a high five.
Moving on to Episode 9.
I’ll do this a little bit more like my traditional reviews with top 5 moments just because I
feel like we got so much more of the plot explained to us.
Careful for spoilers if you haven’t seen it yet.
I’ll explain where and how to watch episodes at the end of the review.
Starting with top 5 moments.
Here we go.
Number 5 - Bolin’s Fandom
I feel like you could single out several Bolin moments, but they’re all about him being
a mover star.
You can tell he really misses it.
Once Book 4 is over and they settle down and hopefully start families of their own, I’d
like to see Bolin start his own Mover studio.
His superfans were by far the funniest moment in the episode and while Mike and Bryan and
the writers were responsible for the dialogue.
I wonder if they’re poking fun at their fans or at Janet Varney’s fans.
They’re not mean or anything, it’s all just meant to be silly.
But I’ve met people like that.
The thing that made it even funnier was that they animated them as these hulking muscular
people.
Like street thugs who turned out to be harmless superfans.
Maybe that’s the way Mike and Bryan see the Korra fandom.
Really intense looking, but secretly harmless.
You can let me know if you agree with that but if any of you go to New York Comic Con
and you get a chance to take a picture with Janet Varney or PJ Byrne please try to get
them to re-enact that scene.
It would be like the most perfect animated gif of the real life Korra actors ever.
Going back to familiar territory now, Number 4 - The Desert Oasis Animation
This isn’t really a moment specifically, it’s just the animation during all the desert
oasis scenes.
When you see Mako and Bolin entering, Korra on the hill looking down.
It’s so beautiful the way they did it.
I know a lot of you guys who subscribed to me back when I was doing Book 2 videos really
didn’t like the animation at the time.
Supposedly the only reason Studio Mir didn’t animate all of Book 2 was just schedule conflicts
and manpower.
During the comic con panel Bryan Konietzko even said that Studio Mir had to call in some
help to animate book 4 stuff.
They’re in the middle of that right now.
It takes an army of people to do animation.
Just as a point of comparison.
When they were making the simpsons movie at fox a couple years ago.
Matt Groening said that the Simpsons people between the tv show and the movie, hired every
single animator in hollywood that wasn’t already working for another animated show.
That’s a shitload of people.
but now let’s start peeling open the Red Lotus, Number 3 - Korra and Zaheer meet in
the spirit realm
Zaheer is skyping with the other Red Lotus members in the spirit realm.
I feel like the Red Lotus has probably been using that as a global communication device
for their entire existence.
I also liked how Zaheer stalled Korra by luring her into a long explainer speech about who
they were.
He didn’t really explain his plan but I’m going to separate a few bits from the spirit
realm scenes.
As for Aiwe, don’t feel too bad for him.
Remember that Zhao is also stuck in the fog of lost souls.
They can always meetup and talk about how much they hate the Avatar.
Maybe play some spirit realm pai sho.
If Iroh can have tea parties alice in wonderland style.
Then you can totally play pai sho in there.
which reminds me.
Number 2 - Bolin gets his ass handed to him in Pai Sho by asami
It’s not so much about them playing pai sho against each other.
Pai Sho is just a metaphor for Korra’s conflict with Zaheer.
As well as Zaheer’s plot in general.
it works on all levels.
Korra for instance.
Asami says that in order to defeat your opponent, first you have to know them.
Korra didn’t totally get to know Zaheer, but I think in the next one or two episodes
she’ll figure him out and what his plan really is.
Then there’s the long game.
Careful planning and strategy.
Zaheer and the Red Lotus have clearly been planning on bringing down the governments
of the world for a long time.
Infiltrating aspects of society.
Unalaq was the wild card.
Which was also an awesome WTF reveal.
Which leads me to my number 1 moment - Unalaq was part of the Red Lotus
He was in on everything, but when the plot to capture Korra went south, he covered up
his involvement and let Zaheer and the rest of the group rot in jail.
The Dark Avatar stuff was all his own doing, he just went rogue on the Red Lotus.
So this implies that the Red Lotus as an organization isn’t evil, it’s just a group of fanatics
that are so stuck on bringing balance, that every once and a while, one of them ends up
hurting a lot of people.
Or in the case of Unalaq, almost destroying everyone everywhere.
I still feel like we’re only getting half the story.
Zaheer said Korra would eventually find out what his plan was.
He said he didn’t want to kill her, but I think we heard him say the opposite of that
in an earlier episode.
So he might be saying contradictory things.
Either way I don’t think he’s just another Unalaq, he doesn’t care about personal power.
He just cares about destroying the old world so that a better one can grow in it’s place.
Presumably, based on what he said about Avatar Wan, he wants things to be more like they
were before Raava and Vaatu were separated.
If he could find a way to bring the Lion Turtles back I would totally fund his kickstarter.
But let me know what your favorite moment was and do you think that Souyin is involved
with the Red Lotus?
Remember, there are probably a lot of them we haven’t met yet, supposedly they’ve
existed since just after the 100 year war.
Overall I gave episode 9 an A minus for finally explaining so many things.
A lot of you guys had already been talking about the Red Lotus just because of spoilers
and info from future episodes but I really like the way they used Pai Sho to inform their
splinter group.
I have a feeling the wiser members of the White Lotus like Zuko will know more about
them, but we haven’t seen him in a while.
In terms of the new characters, Henry Rollins has been amazing as Zaheer.
He is so perfect for that role.
He’s a really interesting person in real life if you’re not familiar with him.
He goes way beyond being a musician.
The only thing I’m dissapointed about so far is his companions, the other Team Zaheer
people feel like they haven’t gotten their origin story moments.
To be fair, we still haven’t gotten a full Zaheer origin story either.
We only know that at some point in his teenage years he joined the Red Lotus.
We don’t understand why he’s so passionate about their cause.
Did he lose someone close to him during the 100 year war?
Is he related to someone in the order?
It’s a bit of a twist this time, but I feel like he and his team will end up trying to
yoink Korra from the Earth Queen and the Dai Lee.
For a second I thought he might be using the earth queen as a puppet to help topple the
governments of the world.
But now it seems like she’s a completely separate entity.
And here’s an interesting thought, Zaheer is like the Joker of Book 3.
He just wants to watch the world burn….so that a new world can grow in it’s place.
But it reminds you a lot of Heath Ledger in Dark Knight.
He’s just an agent of chaos.
Plus he looks like he used to play a joker in Suyin’s circus group.
For everyone wondering what the deal is with episodes going all digital.
Mike and Bryan actually said that Nickelodeon had a plan in place before Book 3 came out
to release it digitally but then that got changed, then it leaked, plans changed again
and on top of all that.
Korra doesn’t really fit with their other programming very well.
It’s not like Spongebob, so they’ve had a much harder time marketing it.
As a result, Korra is all digital for the remainder of book 3 and book 4.
It will never air new episodes on TV again.
So here are the places you can watch it.
Every Friday at 12PM Eastern Time, new episodes are released on Nick dot com.
You can also buy episodes in the Amazon store and on iTunes.
I would recommend you just watch them for free on Nick dot com.
But if you live in another country and they’re blocked.
Just use a VPN workaround.
There are tons of guides on google about how to view blocked content from other countries.
So each new episode will air every week.
There are no more breaks before the end of book 3.
We don’t have a release date for book 4 but they’ll probably announce something
during the finale.
Quick shout out to my Korra giveaway winners.
Congratulations to James Kung.
You win the pabu plush doll.
you can pick naga if you want.
Kenneth Lor and Jojo Allen.
You guys win giftcards.
I’ll be messaging you all on your channels for details.
Since I did two episodes in this video.
I’ll be giving away two more giftcards in next week’s korra video.
I’m still catching up on all my videos.
But I’m hoping by next week i’m back on schedule.
Be sure to subscribe to get everything.
Right now click here for the comic con panel in case you haven’t seen it and click here
for my episode 6 and 7 video.
Thanks for watching, see you guys tonight.
High fives!