After Korra receives Zaheer’s “Ultimatum”, she gets some advice from an old friend, but is it too late?
If the previous episode of The Legend of Korra made viewers question whether Zaheer is truly villainous, the newest episode, “The Ultimatum”, certainly answers that question. It’s slightly regretful that the character has lost some of his nuance, but on the other hand the end of the season is coming up and the stakes must constantly increase. And this episode certainly succeeds at creating consequences. Now the lives of those Korra cares about and the future of a nation depends on how the Avatar handles Zaheer and the rest of the Red Lotus.
The episode starts out fairly light-hearted, even against the backdrop of a city in chaos. Mostly, this is achieved through the comic relief of Bolin, which the show always relies on and hasn’t failed us this season. After Mako and Bolin deliver a disturbing message to Korra from Zaheer, she ends up getting advice from a couple of old friends, which presents an interesting question: Just how much like Aang is Korra? Will she deal with this situation in the same way as the previous Avatar?
It’s a question she needs to answer sooner rather than later; by the end of the episode, Zaheer starts to execute his plan. It’s one of the more exciting and heartbreaking conflicts in the series, similar to Book One’s “Turning the Tides”, wherein Lin Beifong loses her bending ability. Like to this week’s “The Ultimatum”, that was also the last episode before the two-part finale. If this is the episode where viewers are meant to become emotionally compromised by the antagonists, then I would say it was a success.
The Legend of Korra is now released digitally, on Fridays at 12pm, EST, on Nick.com. The site also includes the previous episodes from Book Three, with the first two seasons on Amazon (Book One is free with Prime). If you’ve missed them, make sure to check out the reviews and recaps for previous episodes.
Spoilers through episode eleven of Legend of Korra: Book Three “The Ultimatum” ahead.
At the end of last week’s episode, “Long Live the Queen”, Zaheer killed the wicked Earth Queen and “liberated” the city of Ba Sing Se. Delivering a speech about freedom, the walls of the city that had separated the different classes for hundreds of years were torn down and the cities’ prisoners freed. Predictably, this has led to the city plunging into chaos, complete with looting and fires. Mako and Bolin, recently freed from prison by Zaheer so they could deliver a message to Korra, rescue their rather large family as they escape the city. Over the next few scenes, Bolin continues to be a much needed and realistic source of comedy in an otherwise very dark situation. One moment that stood out to me in the rescue sequence was the fact that Mako and Bolin’s grandmother made an effort to save her picture of the corrupt Earth Queen. Even after being trapped in the lower class section of the city and being ruled by a leader that viewers openly saw as villainous, we are still presented with the fact that some citizens will still love such rulers. It’s one of those considerably mature concepts Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra has always included that most shows targeted towards children avoid.
After finding Korra and Asami — who Mako’s grandmother awkwardly suggests as potential romantic interest for Mako — the brothers deliver Zaheer’s disturbing message. Zaheer intends to wipe out everyone at the Northern Air Temple if Korra does not surrender herself to the Red Lotus. At the Northern Air Temple is Korra’s mentor and son of Aang, Tenzin, as well as Tenzin’s entire family and the entirety of the newly formed Air Nation.
The Fire Nation’s genocidal attack on the airbenders was well over a hundred years ago, and the future of the Air Nation depended entirely on Tenzin and his children. After the end of Book Two, when Korra left open the connection between the mortal and spirit world, a number of people started to gain the ability to airbend. Most of these new airbenders have gathered at the Northern Air Temple to train under Tenzin and have become the new Air Nation. Now, the Air Nation is facing the threat of genocide once again.
Korra attempts to reach Zaheer in the spirit world, where she knows he visits, but doesn’t find him there. Instead, she stumbles across someone we haven’t seen in some time, Uncle Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Of course, Iroh humbly offers sage-like advice to Korra, reminding her that even though she cannot contact the Avatars of the past as she once did, she does have a connection to an old friend of Aang, Fire Lord Zuko. Korra returns to the mortal world to find Zuko about to leave to protect his home and his people, which Korra respects and understands (she really is growing up). After sharing that she has spoken to Iroh, Zuko’s uncle, she asks what Aang would do in this situation. Zuko shares that few things mattered to Aang more than rebuilding the Air Nation, but at the same time Aang understood that it was his responsibility to protect the whole world, not just his personal interests.
Aang was more than willing to sacrifice himself to protect others, and even in the beginning of The Last Airbender he surrendered to the Fire Nation and Zuko in order to stop an attack on the Southern Water Tribe. Is Korra prepared to do the same? And would surrendering herself to Zaheer and the Red Lotus put the world in more danger, as they have not revealed their plans for what they will do once they have the Avatar? It is doubtful that the answer lies in acting as Aang or the Korra from Books One and Two, as either could lead to plunging the world into chaos or the destruction of the Air Nation, respectively. Korra will need to act quickly, though, as Zaheer shortly afterwards arrives at the Northern Air Temple.
It’s one of the most painful confrontations in both ATLA and LoK, as Tenzin and his siblings Kya and Bumi face off against Zaheer, Ming-Hua, and Ghazan, respectively, while the rest of the airbenders attempt to escape, but face trouble with P’Li. Kya and Bumi are barely able to keep up with the unique bending of Ming-Hua and Ghazan, especially since Bumi is still new to bending. Still, it is fun to watch Bumi resort to biting and hair-pulling. The siblings are shut down while the other airbenders try to get to the sky bison.
Kai, the troublesome thief we all seemed wary of (not for the thief bit, but for the somewhat forced youth romance between he and Jinora), steps up in a big way, taking to the air to distract combutionbender P’Li, who attacks the new airbenders from an airship. He does fairly well until he is blown out of the sky and seemingly falls to his death. P’Li then simply scares off the sky bison with a single blast, leaving me to wonder why she didn’t open with that.
The showdown between Zaheer and Tenzin is something I didn’t realize I was looking forward to, and I shared Zaheer’s excitement to see how they would match up. Zaheer has spent his life studying airbending, just as Tenzin has, but only recently gained the ability. As we have seen before, Zaheer uses airbending differently and their differing styles show clearly in this fight, where the two are evenly matched. By the end of the confrontation, they even start to make similar moves, until Ming-Hua, Ghazan, and P’Li intervene. Now, terribly outmatched, Tenzin refuses to back down and is badly beaten as the camera pans away. As painful as it is to watch, the episode closes, it is revealed that Kai has survived and is able to sneak off on a young sky bison.
Legend of Korra: Book Three concludes next week with a two-episode finale. The way the season has been going, it should finish well, but I fully expect that it will not be a happy ending. Book Four was confirmed before, but considering the changes Nick has made to the show’s release this season, who knows what the plans are for next. Still, these episodes were completed as the penultimate season to the series, and Book Two of ATLA ended in a dark place.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see the season end with Korra surrendering to Zaheer and the Red Lotus and Book Four focusing on her escaping their influence or redeeming actions she commits to prevent some other evil by the Red Lotus. Either way, I also wouldn’t be surprised to see Zaheer stick around next season. He’s proven a compelling character and up until this episode, his morality has been ambiguous. Not to mention how brilliantly Henry Rollins plays the role of Zaheer; I wouldn’t mind the character sticking around for Book Four
