Should you watch this, Wiki this, or wait for the recap? Watch this!
Team Avatar goes on a hunt for Aiwei and discover that he plans to meet up with Zaheer and gang – in the Spirit World! Korra follows him there, but unknown to her and the rest of her friends, Zaheer is only using this as a ruse to further his sinister plans for the Avatar. Will Korra discover Zaheer’s plot in time?
“The Stakeout” is the 9th Chapter (episode) of Book 3 (Season 3) of The Legend of Korra. It provides us with a fair bit of backstory on the villains as Zaheer takes the time to explain the background of his evil organisation, the Red Lotus, and also nicely ties in to the Book 2’s big bad, Unalaq, by revealing that he was part of the Red Lotus too.
Although it might seem like a very talky episode, which it is, this is useful and interesting exposition that further fleshes out the villains and gives us better insight into their motivations. But don’t fret – there’s a fantastic bending battle again, and it’s not Team Avatar vs random mooks or armies – it’s Team Avatar vs the Red Lotus, and this time it’s a no holds barred fight!
Highlights
Bolin & Mako vs Ming Hua & Ghazan
This is the highlight of the episode – an all out battle between Bolin & Mako (earth and fire) and Ming Hua & Ghazan (water and earth/laval). While the bad guys barely seemed to hold their own in their previous encounter, that’s not the case anymore since they’re on the defensive. As expected, Ming Hua & Ghazan take down Bolin & Mako, but our heroes still manage to put up a good fight. It’s an excellent display of Ming Hua’s lethal Waterbending abilities and Ghazan’s virtually unstoppable Lavabending – with such powerful Benders on the side of the Red Lotus, how will Team Avatar stop them in the inevitable conclusion?
The background of the Red Lotus
I liked that Zaheer revealed the origins of the Red Lotus to Korra as a ruse to keep her distracted while her physical body was captured. Zaheer releases all this information, fully expecting that it will be of no use to Korra once the Red Lotus captures her. Unfortunately, they don’t! And that means Zaheer might have let on too much information, and provided a way for Korra to defeat him and his crew.
Also, it’s a good callback to tie the Red Lotus back to Iroh’s White Lotus organisation from The Last Airbender. Sometimes the greatest evil is a corruption of the best intentions, and it seems like the Red Lotus is just that.
Descent into the Spirit World
We haven’t actually seen the Spirit World this season, and we take an unexpected jaunt there when Korra trails Aiwei and Zaheer into the Spirit World. Although there isn’t much action there, it’s an interesting setting for the exposition of the Red Lotus to take place.
Letdowns
Paishowdown
Asami and Bolin play Paisho while staking out Aiwei. Not that I dislike Paisho, but this is an overly long scene that isn’t all that humourous, and neither does it provide anything useful that furthers the story. I’d like to have seen the Bending battle extended, rather than this pointless Paisho scene.
Search for Aiwei
The search was boring. There was never any doubt that they would find Aiwei, or if it would even be a challenge at all, so why frame it that way? We could have just cut straight to the Spirit World portion of the story – perhaps Zaheer could have given more nuggets of info about the Red Lotus.
“The Stakeout” is a villain-centered episode in that it introduces and develops the Red Lotus for us. It certainly whets your appetite, because it all but flat out states that the Red Lotus might be a much larger organisation than has been shown so far. And with the White Lotus approaching (with Lin on Korra’s tail), there’s going to be a climatic showdown between these two forces!
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