Netflix has finally released its second season of the live-action series Avatar: The Last Airbender on the streaming platform. After a 2-year hiatus, the live-action series returns with a brand new season that adapts the second season of the original Nickelodeon animated series titled “Earth”. The first season of this live-action adaptation received a lukewarm response from fans and critics alike when it debuted back in February 2024, earning around 60% on Rotten Tomatoes. While almost everyone agrees it was leagues better than the 2010 film The Last Airbender by M.Night Shaymalayan, as we wrote in our season one review. Most still found it a flawed show with some potential to build upon in future installments. The main criticisms from fans and critics were the use of The Volume stagecraft for the first season, the overlapping storylines, and, finally, the extremely clunky dialogue. Season two is sitting at around 65% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Part 1: The Characters
:: Major Spoilers Ahead ::
The writing between seasons 1 and 2 does make some improvements, but it still falls into the trap of overexplaining the lore in a single scene rather than just showing it. For example, Toph explains how she “sees” with her earthbending despite being blind, then immediately goes into her entire backstory with the badgermoles. However, a vast improvement in character development came with Katara (played by Kiawentiio). A major gripe from season one was that she wasn’t very fiery and was a background character. Now, she is front and center in the story, including her improved arc in “The Painted Lady”. Many fans might criticize the decision to bring the season 3 character arc into season 2, as it takes away from Katara learning that Fire Nation peasants also suffer from the war. However, they completely rewrite the story to make her a vigilante who protects Fire Nation defectors living in the Ba Sing Se slums. Which essentially accomplishes the same thing. They also vastly improve the fight choreography, especially with Katara, considering the final fight between Katara and Master Pakku in season one was pretty horrible.
Another great change was Iroh’s arc as he returns to Ba Sing Se for the first time since he tried burning the city to the ground when he was still the royal Prince. In this adaptation, they teased the consequences of his actions in season 1 during an argument with an Omashu guard. In season 2, Iroh (played by Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) comes face-to-face with the guilt of the thousands of lives he had murdered under his command. He also learns that his brutality made many desert the Fire Nation, including the introduction of Jeong Jeong. He also learns that when Jeong Jeong deserted his regiment to disobey Iroh’s order, Lu Ten was killed. Iroh is indirectly responsible for his own son’s death. Something that I had as my headcanon during the original show. That Lu Ten actually died during the Siege of Ba Sing Se under Iroh; however, in this series, it’s much more nuanced and indirect via Jeong Jeong’s desertion.
A make-or-break character for almost every fan was going to be the introduction of Toph Beifong. If they don’t land the character, then it will completely ruin any goodwill the show had going for it. As many can guess, actress Miyako knocks it out of the park as Toph. She is never anything more than a direct, snarky, sarcastic version of the character from the original series. There’s not a single scene that isn’t Toph. Even watching her eye movements as she learns to play a blind character was incredibly accurate. The production team gave her semi-blind grey contact lenses to help simulate the character’s actual blindness. The second standout is Zuko (played by Dallas Liu). He brings over everything fans loved from his take on the character in the first season. This time, actually makes you despise the character, something that was missing from the first season. Gordon Cormier is also much better as Aang after a few more years of acting, though it’s not anything groundbreaking.
An unavoidable fact in a live-action adaptation is the age differences among many of the actors between seasons. Something fans have pointed out as a negative part of the show. While most wanted Gordon Cormier to play Aang at age 12 for all three seasons, as in the animated series, that would never have happened when dealing with real-life actors. They were able to mitigate this roadblock by using an in-universe timeskip to account for everyone looking older. Offscreen, Aang becomes proficient at waterbending, which he doesn’t even try during season one. Which, again, was a weird choice by the writers and a major gripe among fans. However, by the time we meet up with Aang and Katara again, they are both fairly good at it. This unavoidable fact about real child actors was already taken into account in 2010, when director M. Night Shyamalan conceived the proposed movie trilogy. In the film, Sozin’s Comet was going to return in 3 years to account for the child actors growing up, and the same concept applies here. However, the exact return of Sozin’s Comet remains a mystery, as it’s not as finite as the “end of summer” in the original series. Fans don’t realize that other young adult projects already account for the characters’ ages organically, in Harry Potter and Percy Jackson. In those stories, every novel is a year later; this series needed to do the same and not be beholden to the original series’ timeline. A second timeskip may occur in season 3, when Aang is in a coma following the season 2 finale.
Characters that take a step back this season are most notably Sokka, Princess Azula, and Jet. Sokka (played by Ian Ousley) was there for the entirety of the season as the comic relief. Unfortunately, many of his jokes don’t land as they did in the first season. Since they completely cut the “The Desert” arc from the second season, they try to shoehorn the Cactus Juice scene into this show. It just wasn’t very funny and extremely forced. Sokka’s character development throughout the season is that he is still dealing with the loss of Princess Yue from the season one finale. Something that was never really discussed in the original series, beyond a single episode. Unfortunately, Ian Osuley’s range during these dramatic scenes is just limited.
The other two downsides were Princess Azula (played by Elizabeth Yu) and Jet (played by Sebastian Amaurso). Yu isn’t necessarily a bad actress, but she overacts to make herself out to be “the bad guy.” It’s a common gripe across multiple projects, including Moses Ingram as Reva Sevander in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series, and even Dev Patel as Zuko in the 2010 movie The Last Airbender. Though Azula’s mocking side glance to Zuko when covering her eye was actual perfection. Also, her pure brutality was a major positive for her character compared to the original series. Most notably, when she murders the Ba Sing Se generals during the coup attempt by Long Feng instead of just arresting them. We never see Azula’s extreme evil side in the original series for obvious reasons. Mai (played by Thalia Tran) and Ty Lee (played by Momona Tamada) are also given a bit more to do in season two, but not by much. Though Ty Lee getting punched in the face by Katara was pure comedy gold.
Jet is also a major letdown, as he really does nothing throughout the season other than complain. The Dai Li don’t even abduct him at any point or make him a double agent, like in the original series. While the writers give him a hero’s death in The Library to save the gang, it seems unearned, though at least definitive this time. Also, what happens to Longshot (played by Nathaniel Kong) and Smellerbee (played by Wes Valarao)? Jet’s fellow Freedom Fighters are on the boat with him, headed to Ba Sing Se, and then disappear for the rest of the season without an explanation.
Part 2: The Storyline
Another major gripe among fans was the overlapping storylines across several episodes. The condensed timeline is simply unavoidable in a live-action show with a limited number of episodes. Netflix wasn’t going to greenlight more seasons unless they limited the episode count. This is the same issue fans have with Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: multiple storylines crammed into a single episode. However, in Avatar: The Last Airbender, the worst episode in season 1, according to fans, aside from the Spirit World episode, was “Omashu”. This episode crammed multiple original show episodes into one, including Omashu, Jet, and the Northern Air Temple, all set in a single location. In season 2, the second episode, “A Fight Once Begun,” combined “The Blind Bandit,” “The Chase,” and “Zuko Alone” into a single episode.
This type of overlapping storylines continues the rest of the series as almost everything happens in or around Ba Sing Se. We at Knight Edge Media previously reported that because they built Ba Sing Se, they would need to use it more than a few episodes. At the same time, I don’t mind that they made Lake Laogai nothing more than an underground state prison in the crystal catacombs, rather than a literal lake. It still would have been nice to happen under an actual lake. This series also completely changes how the Dai Li controls its citizens, using literal torture instead of simple (and unexplainable) hypnosis. This very real take on the state police gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “There is no war in Ba Sing Se.”
Adding the Great Library in Ba Sing Se was a byproduct of the lack of episodes and overlapping storylines. Because everything must be in or around Ba Sing Se, they enter the Spirit World simply by going to an abandoned house in the city rather than embarking on a grand adventure in a vast desert. They also bring all the heroes into the spirit world after establishing this in season one. Having all the heroes in the Great Library gives us some forced exposition from Avatar Kyoshi (played by Yvonne Chapman) and Avatar Yangchen (played by Dichen Lachman) at the same time. Many might not like Avatar Kyoshi when she speaks to Toph about the comet, and also drops easter eggs from her novels. Though it should be noted that Avatar Roku spoke directly to Jeong Jeong in the original series, so it’s not without precedent. During this time, we also learn, offscreen, about fellow Freedom Fighters Pipsqueak and the Duke’s deaths between seasons one and two, as well as the all-important information for The Day of Black Sun, as they did in the original series.
Once again, another byproduct of the overlapping storylines is the complete cutting of “The Guru” from the series. The writers decided to let Yangchen give Aang the sage advice the Guru originally gave. Unfortunately, it was more just a warning about dying in the Avatar State, like Avatar Roku gives him in the original series. In this version, Aang never learns to detach himself from the world and master the Avatar State. This deep emotional beat is severely missing from this show. It is no different than Luke Skywalker choosing to save his friends and leave his training with Master Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back. That deep emotional internal strife is what made the original animated finale so memorable. If anyone could understand what Aang is going through as an Airbender, it would be Yangchen over the Guru, but the writers dropped the ball on the execution. Then the final episode speed-runs through the last few animated episodes and crams them into the season finale, which, again, is a byproduct of the reduced episodes. The final duel between Aang, Katara, Azula, and Zuko feels like a “greatest hits” carbon copy of the animated series.
Finally, a great change the production team made between season 1 and season 2 was dropping the use of the Volume set for filming. The original season was forced to film on a circular stagecraft due to COVID-19 regulations in the industry. Unfortunately, it made the world look very fake and added 6 months of post-production to edit it. Now, they moved back to traditional real-life sets in Vancouver, which makes the world feel much more magical. Fans pointed out that the extreme saturation in the trailers actually makes sense in the context of the series. The scenes in the Upper Ring are much brighter and more colorful than those in the Lower Ring, with extreme saturation. They will continue this into season 3 as they finally film on location in Iceland for a decent chunk of the final season. They also allowed the characters’ clothes to be much more lived-in than the squeaky-clean ones used in season one.
4.0 out of 5.0 stars
All in all, Netflix’s second season of Avatar: The Last Airbender did improve on many of the gripes and issues fans had with the first season of the live-action adaptation. Unfortunately, the lack of episodes and overlapping storylines will hurt the series as it enters its final season. It’s not the production team’s fault that Netflix reduced the episode count to just 7 in both seasons. It’s severely limiting where the heroes can visit, as everything must happen in a single location. However, the characters themselves took a massive step toward resembling their animated counterparts. Hopefully, season three will be the best of the three as everything comes together for the final war with the Fire Nation.
