Majestic Twelve: The Best of Legend of Korra

We’ve tackled the worst of Legend of Korra and while this show had lots of problems in its development, it had many miraculously great episodes. The best of these episodes are even better than some of the best of Last Airbender in many respects and, to me, allows this show to stand side-by-side with its predecessor as one of the best shows you can ever see on TV. But no more introduction, let’s just get right to it with… 

#12 – Book 2 Episode 10 – A New Spiritual Age

While I knocked an episode to the worst list for fan service, I suppose I’m going to come off as a hypocrite for putting one episode on here for fan service. But I can’t help it that I actually love Iroh that much. And it helps more that his explanation for being there kind of makes sense. He was always a spiritual character and for his decision of an afterlife to be a part of the Spirit World actually works. Though I have to wonder if he can leave the Spirit World to see his nephew through the portal? Does that bring him back to life or would he just die immediately one he leaves? Either way, Zuko could go visit him, but it doesn’t seem like he does… the ungrateful brat.

But this episode was good because it finally allowed Jinora a major role in the show. It also gave us some insight to Korra through her spiritual journey. Plus we get to see more of the Spirit World, as this is our first time there the entire series (and thankfully, not the last). But it has its flaws. The journey through the Spirit World feels incredibly fast. And Iroh, while cool, being the wise sage who can answer all your questions does feel like an exposition cheat. But I can’t get over how cool it was to finally get back to the Spirit World after years of waiting since Aang when there last. Great times.

#11 – Book 3 Episode 11 – The Ultimatum

At first, I hated this episode. Prior to this episode, I was sympathetic with the Red Lotus because I agreed with their creed to a degree (rhymes were not intentional). The idea of the monarchy was bad. The rulers of the world needed to have their roles reevaluated. And when they eliminated the Earth Queen, I was all for that for reasons I’ll get into later. So when The Ultimatum happened, I was initially bummed out because they had gone from sympathetic anti-heroes with a noble cause to being straight-up cartoon villains attacking the weak and innocent new Air Nation as an attempt to lure Korra out of hiding. I was mad when I first saw this because of how my love for the Red Lotus was quickly burned away. But I thought about this episode more and actually have come to the conclusion this is still a very solid episode.

Yes, the villains become more villainous and that’s a downer. But this is the episode in which the Air Nation fights for their very lives and right to exist. Tenzin puts his life on the line to keep his people safe (something the Earth Queen would never consider). And the scene where he states he will fight so long as he breathes carries even more significant weight following the events of Long Live the Earth Queen where Zaheer took away her last breath and suffocated her to death (again, rhyme unintended). This also shows just how far Zaheer is willing to go to make his gloriously mad vision come to life and this is an episode with moments that actually get me close to tearing up a but just for Tenzin’s final act of heroism this season. It’s literally breath-taking.

#10 – Book 1 Episode 4 – The Voice in the Night

This is another episode I didn’t care for the first time around. It was an episode that contained several episodes worth of character development crammed into 20 minutes of screentime. Fear is something that all heroes face at one point or another in their quest to figure out who they are and what they have to do to be heroic in the first place. Aang went through similar problems throughout the entire series when facing the Fire Lord, Azula, and even Zuko. And while that was a theme that played through multiple episodes across multiple seasons, we get it all shoved into one episode in one season, again, because Nickelodeon basically fucked this show over from day one.

Despite that being the case, this is still a damn fine episode. We get to see the corruption of Tarlaq beginning to take effect as we are introduced to the sleazy slimeball councilman. We see Korra’s inability to truly grasp how terrifying the situation is and this puts her in a dilemma that’s well beyond her control. We even get a truly frightening moment in which Amon could just end the series right there and then, but chooses not to for very logical reasons of not wanting to make more enemies too quickly. But this also helps establish the tone for the reason of the criminally short season to make everything come off as oppressive, dark, and have a sense of noire about it. Truly a spectacular episode that just needed more time to bake before it was properly ready.

#09 – Book 2 Episode 11 – Night of A Thousand Stars

This episode is just pure unadulterated fun that I enjoy watching over and over again. This episode is mostly the antics of Bolin as we see the entire culmination of his Nuk’tuk Adventures in the new movers he and Varrick have been putting together earlier in the season. We also see the conclusion to the mystery/conspiracy that was ruining Asami’s company and the exposing of season two’s second and far more interesting villain, Varrick himself. There are lots of great moments that let this episode shine brighter than almost any other season two episode because it’s just fun from beginning to end filled with good, well-timed laughs and a fair bit of action that fits the lighthearted tone of the episode. Plus seeing Varrick’s plan both take place and get foiled by Bolin (the hero he built up) was pretty damn awesome. Only downside is that Mako gets released from jail, but that’s not enough to hurt this episode at all. It’s just a damn fun time.

#08 – Book 1 Episode 8 When Extremes Meet

A lot makes this episode work and helps it pull Book One together in ways I never expected. One of the big mysteries surrounding the series was wonder who Amon was and how far he was willing to go to control the city (or the world). And this episode gave us something like a red herring by making us think that Councilman Tarlaq might know more about Amon that we were initially led to believe. But, more than that, we were also reintroduced to the creepy and disturbing feat that is bloodbending. What also helps bring this episode together is we get a new Team Avatar officially started and we get to see just how this new world clashes with the actions of the Avatar now that big government is a thing and the once worldwide hero known as the Avatar must work in conjunction with them or there will be a clash of power. Tarlaq’s attempts to slow her down and arrest innocent citizens for nothing also shows his descent into his power-crazed fantasy, which helped lead me to believe that he could have been playing the role of Amon all along to gain power on both fronts. This didn’t pan out, but boy was I close.

#07 – Book 4 Episode 11 – Kuvira’s Gambit

Book Four really had a lot of amazing moments going on and it’s really hard to pick just a handful from that season. But Kuvira’s Gambit was a solid episode building up to a fantastic finale. The initial reveal of the mecha-giant blew my mind away. The betrayal of Bataar Jr when Kuvira decided to fire the weapon on him was heartbreaking, though fully expected. Korra’s idea to keep him away from Kuvira as a punishment was ingenious. The entire stealth operation was pretty fun to watch too. This episode is just full of great moments that the series had been building up to for years. I remember seeing this episode and thinking that with so many loose threads dangling, how the hell can they possibly end this in a single episode? Then we got that two-part finale and everything was pretty much resolved. There’s not much more I can say about this one. Thematically, it works. Animation is among the best in the series. The story and stakes get raised to eleven as we draw closer to the end of everything. This is the episode that sets things up for the ultimate climax we’ve been waiting for and it definitely pays off.

#06 – Book 4 Episode 2 – Korra Alone

You may remember that Zuko Alone was among my best Last Airbender episodes and there was good reason for that. An episode devoted entirely to the exploits of Zuko and seeing how things still don’t turn out well for him, even when he does good simply because of his heritage was a sad but revealing episode in many ways. It served to illustrate just how powerful that parallel narrative structure was in Last Airbender and makes that series stand out as one of the best. While Korra Alone doesn’t have that same level of gravitas to it, this is more of a haunting episode as we see Korra recover from the events of Book 3 and try to get over the physical and mental anguish she has suffered for two plus years (in narrative time).

The best part of this episode, to me, was the introduction of what we're calling Phantom Korra. It’s never explained what this apparition was, but fact of the matter is that it was genuinely scary to see this thing stalking Korra and hold her back from being her strongest. At first, we’re led to believe it’s a purely mental ailment that represents her lack of confidence. But then we discover it’s a physical thing that others can actually see and this thing can hurt her. This specter was one of the coolest moments of the show and it’s a shame we didn’t get more of it and that its existence wasn’t fully explained or understood… But that’s the best part of a monster is that not everything is understood and that lack of knowledge and understanding makes it even scarier.

#05 – Book 3 Episode 13 – Venom of the Red Lotus

I can’t tell which finale had more intense action between the Book 3 Finale for Legend of Korra or the Book 3 Finale for Last Airbender. Both had some of the most fierce and powerful battles ever seen in the Avatar series and I could sit and rewatch them over and over again with all of the great moments being relived time and again. The key difference that I think allows this episode to stand tall is that while Aang was fighting for his life and was pushed to his limit, he was at his full-power with nothing holding him back other than his decision to not kill the Fire Lord. But Korra had another set of handicaps she was playing with. The poison forced her into the Avatar state to stay alive, but she needed to remain out of that form to prevent the Avatar Cycle from ending in the event she did die. 

The result is an explosive rage monster that, in the end, wasn’t strong enough alone to deal with Zaheer and the poison at the same time. But you can’t say the battle wasn’t entertaining to see.

The Red Lotus is entirely dismantled in this episode with final action scenes from both Bolin and Mako actually being fairly entertaining themselves. The rescue operation for the Air Benders was fun. But what let’s this episode stand out above almost any other episode in the entire series are the final moments of the show, after the fighting is done. Yes, the non-action scenes are what make this episode special. We see a broken and crippled Korra crying over her sacrifice for the Air Nation. We see Jinora rising up to take a larger role as the next Airbending Master. We see the damage that’s been done by the Red Lotus and what needs to be done to rebuild from there. It’s a dark and bitter ending that is played off perfectly and makes for a spectacular shot and left much speculation to how Book 4 would go. I still get chills seeing those final amazing moments of the season.

#04 – Book 1 Episode 3 – The Revelation

By far the best episode of Book One without question. The Revelation was a very simple episode in which Bolin is kidnapped by the Equalists when he took up some sidework to drum up money for the Fire Ferrets by working for the Triple Threat Triad’s security team. This leads Mako and Korra to launch an impromptu rescue operation to save him from an Equalist Rally where the true powers of Amon were revealed he could take away the bending of anyone seemingly with just a simple touch. This was scary to think a power that was exclusively the Avatar’s could be done by what we thought was a non-bending normal guy. What helped brings this all together was just the fact it set up Amon perfectly for the rest of the season. Not to mention that the actual rescue of Bolin was visually cool with Korra’s fog being used to help Mako get to the stage to save his comic-relief brother. A fun episode that first establishes the true dark tone the new series was aiming for and it works spectacularly.

#03 – Book 3 Episode 10 – Long Live the Earth Queen

There are lots of things to like about this episode. Starting with the less interesting (but still great) moments and working our way up, the entire escape from the Earth Queen’s forces by Korra and Asami helps establish a couple of great things. First, they make a great team in ways where both Mako and Bolin would fall drastically short. Second, they manage to work well with their captors to get out of the desert they get stranded in from their escape attempt. Plus their make-shift sand-sail is pretty fun to see work out as the outrun a giant sandworm (that’s basically what that monster is). But the true gem of this episode is the event that takes place in Ba Sing Se.

For those who’ve seen the episode already, you know what I’m getting at. The Red Lotus goes to the Earth Queen to trade Korra’s friends in exchange for Korra herself. While the deal is initially good, the Red Lotus turns down the deal when Korra’s transport goes down and they assume the Earth Queen won’t keep up her end of the deal. As a result, Zaheer murders the Earth Queen and sends Ba Sing Se into a chaotic downward spiral that doesn’t get fixed until Book 4. But it’s the moment when the Earth Queen is murdered that still stands out to me. Seeing Air Bending used in such a brutal and terrifying way is something I never would have expected prior to this episode. And in a kids show, seeing a woman, no matter how horrible they are, gasping for air as she sees her life slowly slipping away is horrifying. It sinks in the reality that this show isn’t just for kids and, in some ways, I think the creators wanted to evolve the show into something deeper and darker that the shackles of Nickelodeon simply wouldn’t allow. It’s sad that this episode is one of kind and shows just how powerful this show can really be with the creative team behind it.

#02 – Book 2 Episode 7 & 8 – Beginnings

The lore and history of the Avatar World is something I’ve wanted to know more since it first started. My favorite thing in games is when I can take time to sit aside and read the in-game lore in Scan Logs of Metroid Prime or the walls of saferooms or Rat-Man dens in Left 4 Dead or Portal. You learn about the world and how things got to where they are in less direct ways that cutscenes offer. But any way to learn more about how the world functions and how it is what it is generally gets my attention. So an episode devoted to showing Korra how the Avatar Cycle began and why it exists was absolutely perfect for me on that regard alone.

Not only was this episode playing right to my core interests, but it also had a unique art-style to represent the entire backstory of Avatar Wan and his acquisition of both the four elements and the spirit of Ravaa in his quest to stop Vaatu. And that art-style looked really good, making me want to see a whole mini-series on just Wan alone. Seeing how the Lion Turtles played a part in the creation of the Avatar and the four nations was something I didn’t fully expect, but this leads me with more questions. They said there are many Lion Turtles. Does that mean there are more than four? And, if so, are there more than four elements that can be controlled that we just never heard of yet? These episodes are amazing and give lots of insight to the way the world works and seeing the old-school spirit world in the Spirit Wilds was pretty damn fun too. I could go on about this episode for so much longer, but we’re not done yet and I want to keep this to a reasonable length.

#01 – Book 4 Episode 12 & 13 – Day of the Colossus / The Last Stand

What other episode could we possibly pick for this? Yes, finale-wise, Legend Of Korra was very hit-or-miss for a while. Even the finale of Book 3 had its flaws, so it stood to reason that Book 4’s finale could be just as problematic. But unlike previous seasons, there’s no Deus Ex Machina that popped out of nowhere. It was just an episode devoted to bringing down the mecha-giant and then the aftermath of that. Everything that happened in these episodes had been previously hinted at and built up within the narrative to some degree. Even the reappearance of Hiroshi Sato, while a bit surprising, wasn’t entirely unexpected given his strange reappearance in an earlier episode of the season (note, you don’t show a gun in scene two and not have it go off in scene five). The only thing that could be close to a Deus Ex Machina was Korra’s ability to stop the laser weapon, but given her reconnection to Ravaa and her powers over the spirits becoming more powerful than ever, it wasn’t that big a curve ball and actually felt like a natural progression of her abilities (unlike Bolin’s sudden Lava Bending in Book 3).

The animation is the best it’s ever been. The action was the most intense it has ever been. The story was as entertaining as it has ever been. Every character from Meelo and Zhu Li to Varrick and Korra had at least one big moment in the finale, allowing you to enjoy the last moments of every character. Even the old minor characters get brought back in the aftermath for a few minor visual gags and that’s pretty damn cool. This episode literally has something for everyone who watches this show and didn’t disappoint on any level other than perhaps scale.

Seeing an ending to Avatar that doesn’t have the same “World Shattering” stakes that Last Airbender has seems to be disappointing certain people. But one thing people seem to be ignoring is that the world was in danger. I long ago mentioned how Legend of Korra took place in a time-period very similar to our 20-30’s during the age of industry when cars were first coming into their own. By that logic, this episode and the entire season feel like an homage to WWII. We have Kuvira as our Hitler taking over the Earth Kingdom in her mad quest to restore order after the fall of Ba Sing Se, very similar to Hitler’s goals in the economic fall of Germany post-WWI. Not to mention that explosion near the end bears a visual resemblance to the nuclear explosions that ended WWII in Japan. Had Kuvira succeeded and manage to get out of the Earth Kingdom, the rest of the world would have fallen. So while the stakes didn’t feel as immediate as they did with the Fire Lord in Last Airbender, they were, to me, still fairly substantial.

But we can’t leave this discussion without mentioning the madness that engulfed the internet, KorrAsami. First, let me just say that I was all for this idea back when it was hinted at in Book 3 and have been on this bandwagon for years. That being said, fucking Christ nothing ruins a show more than a fanbase that can’t shut the fuck up for five minutes about something awesome. While you can debate about how Korrasami is or isn’t a thing due to the subtly it is presented in, I’m with the side that agrees the relationship is canonical because that ending shot, while still subtly, has heavy implications that we really can’t ignore at this point. But, guys, while I’m happy that you not only love the show and are approving of homosexual relationships in great shows, can we not get out of control with this one? I’m seeing posts regarding Korrasami in comment threads about things that are 100% unrelated to Legend of Korra, Avatar, or homosexual relationships and for as much as I love the enthusiasm, it’s fucking annoying. This is why non-fans refuse to be fans. Because people like this ruin the hell out of it. Why do you think I refuse to watch past season one of Game of Thrones? The fans. Firefly? The fans. Star Trek? Because it’s boring as shit… and the fans also fucking annoy me. Cool your shit and enjoy the show, but don’t force it to be in every conversation simply because of how amazing it is.

So that’s my top twelve episodes for Legend of Korra. Damn what a wild ride. I wish I could list more episodes, but I won’t. I’ll let you judge what you think the best episodes are and maybe you’ll agree. Maybe you won’t. But most of us can agree this show was amazing despite many production problems. If another series in this universe comes around, I will not hesitate to watch it or anything made by these guys because they are talented and amazing. I hope they find a better network to deal with in the future because they deserve so much better than dealing with Nickelodeon anymore. Thank you guys for letting me write so much about this great show. With that, I’m done writing about Legend of Korra… for a while at least.

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