Monsters of Television

“You can’t be afraid to mix it up sometimes.”

Damn you, Daniel Dae Kim! You turned out to be Gavin Park and not Jin Kwon!

Anyway, apart from my feelings of voice casting betrayal, “The Aftermath” offers a bit of place setting for the remainder of the season after Amon’s big showcase at the pro-bending final. But it kind of zips by, too. Perhaps it was just my mood, but I felt like the episode was a little disjointed between the “Sato-mobile racing!” and “Law & Order: Republic City.” The two halves didn’t quite fit for me, and I generally preferred the second half to the lighter first half (though Bolin and Pabu still manage to slay me).

So Sato, Asami’s dad, was working with Amon. He built the shock gloves and had also developed some well-armed and generally bending impervious mecha suits (I’ll circle back to those in a moment). Sato’s motivation is that a bender killed his wife, and now he wants to see every bender pay for this wrong.  It’s a bit of a classic motivation that the political situation Amon has created would turn into full-blown zealousness.

But that fact is that, well, it’s not bender-based oppression, and I’d have to think that non-benders kill non-benders all the time, too (human beings are terrible, after all), but you don’t see Amon wanting to do anything about that potential crime rate (or the crime rate that all the new tech he’s flooding the streets with will cause (if I were  among the  bending criminal element, I would be buying it and using it instead of the bending).

And clearly some people are, at least, able to see beyond this Asami’s shocking her father is a pretty pivotal moment for her character since it puts her firmly on the team (finally, a non-bender!) and represents a break from the lifestyle of wealth and high-living she’s previously had. Her development (whether she’s Amon or not) may be the show’s stealth weapon (like Zuko’s in A:TLA), and I’ll be curious to see what the show does with her in the future.

The Big Daddy-like mechas are the type of war machines that do pose a threat to the bending community (and the community at large) due to their destructive capabilities. I just hope they’re not too common in the coming battles with Amon’s forces since they seem a little tough on the power scale (though it was pretty awesome to see Tenzin air bending in battle).

While I did say I preferred the second half, I did have problems. Lin and Tenzin are a little too gung-ho about not only trusting Korra’s overheard information but trusting the fake informant. It’s easily explained by the heightened feeling of defeat from the previous episode, but their recklessness felt a tad more motivated by the need for this plot to happen than it did out of character work.

But I do rather like the results. I like that Lin has decided to go vigilante, which will hopefully make her a more common fixture in the show (more Mindy Sterling is never a bad thing), and I also liked that she’s upset that she had to leave her colleagues in Amon’s clutches (as I saw them being carted off, I wondered if they were going to be addressed).

The rest of the episode never really fired for me. The Sato-mobile racing wasn’t that exciting or engaging, and while I liked Bolin and Pabu exploiting the Sato family butler (that poor butler), it still generally felt disconnected from the other half. Perhaps more time could’ve been spent establishing their lives at the mansion, slowly unfurling Sato’s allegiances, but as it stands, it all still felt a little rushed.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• “NO! NOT MY CABBAGE CORP!” Thank you, show. Thank you so very much.
• “You gotta get him for me.” Tahno’s depression was probably the only bit in the first half that I found really compelling.
• “Do you think your Dad knows about this tunnel?”
• “What swell, scary factory you have under your mansion!”
• Korra’s slack-jawed response to Asami taking down her dad and the Lieutenant was a good visual gag.
• No new episode next week, presumably due to the Memorial Day weekend.