LOK: The Calling Review

Hey everyone. Here’s the next episode review, and I have decided to officially start using the format that I’ve been using for my Star Wars Rebels reviews. Sorry for the sudden change but I have found it more comfortable to use and less rigid. Enjoy!

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Jinora, Ikki and Meelo

So this episode can be more or less split in two. The first is Korra’s further journey into repairing herself, whilst the other half to fill the gaps was the search for her by Jinora, Ikki and Meelo, who have all naturally gotten older and are therefore given more responsibilities. Considering how often immature Ikki and especially Meelo act during the mission it’s hard not to get a bit critical of Tenzin’s decision, but I’m willing to buy the idea that this was something of a last resort, what with the Air Nation being overstretched.

In any case their moments were the weakest part of the episode, but by no means were they bad. Their interactions during the mission were believable as siblings and it’s cute to see how they’ve subtly changed – and for most part not changed – during the timeskip.

Ikki in particular got an interesting part as being the middle child she feels left out and useless. Understandable considering that her older sister is an Airbending master and her younger brother is incredibly proactive and takes a lot of attention. It’s fitting then that she’s the one who finds out where they can find Korra, so the whole thing seems to have been wrapped up as well, which I liked.

Meelo was...annoying at times I must admit. He did try my patience, but I acknowledge that he’s probably supposed to be like that. He is just a child after all and clearly wants to prove himself. His youth also justifies some of the stupid things he does like getting rid of all their food; he’s not old enough to truly appreciate how much danger he’s put them in and is too fixated on proving himself. I even liked that sweet scene with the village girl, which was a lovely moment of ‘puppy love’ that was just sweet.

So all in all it was quite good, even if it veered into fillerness at times...though could they please drop the fartbending? It wasn’t even funny when they did it the first time.



Those Two Guards...

Yep. You can guess why they were left at the outpost.

Their inclusion was...a bit weird I suppose. They honestly felt a bit like they were from a completely different animated series, but they were quite likeable in their silliness, and they fitted quite well with the siblings less darker part of the episode. At the same time I’m glad they didn’t overstay their welcome and once their part of the story was done then that was the last we saw of them.

Korra’s Flashbacks...

Oooh that was haunting.

Whilst looking for food, Korra is sent face to face with three different flashbacks; One when Amon took away her Bending powers, the second when Unalaq forced Raava out of her body, and the third when she was poisoned by Zaheer.
The thing in common with each flashback: it depicts her against her enemies when they’ve done her great harm. Amon took her powers, Unalaq took away Raava and Zaheer poisoned her with Mercury, leaving her in the state she’s in now.

It’s an undoubtedly powerful scene, because it shows us – which Toph later explains - that even though they’ve all been defeated Korra is still fighting them internally. She’s been hurt by them and she’s still not emotionally gotten over any of those fights. It’s very PTSD-like in how the emotional scars of those events still haunt Korra to this day and she still carries them around every day, weighing her down.

This leads to another great moment, where...

Toph’s Speech

After Korra’s flashback Toph talks to Korra about the concept of Balance and does so by making her think back to her villains. She points out that for all their lunacy each villain wanted something good. Amon wanted equality between Benders and non-Benders, Unalaq wanted to bring back the spirits to the human world and Zaheer wanted absolute freedom for everybody. The problem with each one of them was that they were internally unbalanced and resorted to incredibly extreme methods to achieve their well intentioned goals.

This is a great moment not only because it teaches Korra about the importance of Balance but it also forces her to look at her past enemies in a slightly new light. As explained before she only regarded them before with contempt and fear, but with this scene she clearly comes to acknowledge that for all their insanity they had well intentioned goals behind them.

This obviously also applies to Kuvira, someone who wants peace and order within the Earth Kingdom once more but through her imbalance has become a tyrannical lord in herself. I daresay this will come up in subsequent episodes and I’m quite excited to see it get explored.

The Great Banyan Grove Tree

It’s no surprise that it showed up since we’d confirmed this was the same swamp Aang and co. visited in season 2, but it’s great to see the Great Banyan Grove Tree in its centre and used as a plot point. It’s a great bit of continuity frankly.

It’s also a great callback that Korra used it to get into contact with Jinora, much like Aang did in season 2 to find Appa and Momo. Great stuff!



Korra Getting Out The Mercury

So in this episode Korra finally has the last bit of Mercury taken out of her and she’s once again able to get into the Avatar State. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t iffy on this, but I’m thinking that Korra’s journey of recovery is still not down in spite of this, so I’m reserving my feelings there.

What I did like was that Toph had Korra take the Mercury out herself. I’ve said before that the whole forgotten bit of Mercury felt a bit like a copout considering what was implied in the second episode, but I like that Korra had to get it out herself. This was something she had to go through by herself and Toph couldn’t just do it for her; she had to take the steps to make herself better.

We see that she’s still struggling with the memories of being poisoned, but she still manages to take out the mercury which shows she’s finally starting to recover. It’s a great feeling of relief for both Korra and the viewer since we’ve seen just how much she’s suffered and how difficult recovery has been for her.

How she will continue to recover is still yet to be seen. Will the ‘Other Korra’ return or will she still have issues in fighting? Time will only tell but so far I’m overall quite satisfied with where they’re going with Korra’s recovery.

Toph

Well if I were to hazard a guess this is the last episode Toph will be in. I may be wrong of course – hope I am – but I can see this working as a final episode for her.

If so, then damn was it great to see her again. It was incredibly nostalgic and hilarious seeing her act like she did when she was a child. She was definitely harsh with Korra at first but seeing how proud she was when she helped herself recover was pretty damn heartwarming, as well as that sweet hug!

Maybe we’ll see her again – maybe with a reunion with Lin and Suyin – but if not then so long Toph! You were always everyone’s favourite Earthbender.



Overall

Overall I definitely enjoyed this episode, probably more than the last one. Admittedly not a lot happened and the bits with the siblings ventured into filler territory at times, but the bits involved with Korra’s recovery were great and it’s fine to see progress being made there.

Granted, now that Korra has left it’s gonna be interesting to see her get involved with the current events with Kuvira. By the look of things the next episode will be involved with Zaofu and Kuvira’s invasion of it, so it’s probably gonna be an exciting episode. Till then!