Avatar S3E17: "The Ember Island Players"
Looking back with a hilarious meta-episode | Grade: A
Thanks for tuning in to my fifty-seventh of 61 daily reviews of Avatar: The Last Airbender! Yesterday, we watched S3E16: The Southern Raiders.
This one is for the fans. And I am a fan (if the whole blog thing didn’t tip you off), so I love The Ember Island Players. In the final filler episode, our last chance to breathe before the four-part finale, we’re blessed with an episode that fully embraces camp to review all the events that brought us to where we are today.
With classic Avatar lightheartedness, it’s done in a total parody of the recap genre and of the show itself. Our heroes, including newest Gaang member Suki, are hiding out from Ozai at his own abandoned mansion on Ember Island. They find a flyer for a play called The Boy in the Iceberg, and head to the theater to watch their own story. Unfortunately for them, and but so fortunately for us, the production is comically inaccurate, exaggerating everyone’s features.
Aang is played by a bald-cap-wearing, peppy woman. Dopey, toothy Sokka only speaks in meat jokes. Katara becomes a busty woman, prone to sobbing and spouting “overemotional speeches about hope all the time.” Melodramatic, stern Zuko must “capture the Avatar to restore my honor” while portly cake-gobbler Iroh only wants to “capture another slice.” The only person who’s happy is Toph, who is portrayed by a six-foot, yoked man who sees by “releasing a sonic wave from my mouth.”
The whole thing is a lot of fun, allowing Team Avatar to step into the fans’ shoes. It also gives the writers a chance to slip in scores of nods to fans’ in-jokes and reactions, and to realities of the production. Director Giancarlo Volpe has clearly a ton of love put into every scene of the play, even taking care to match the look and sound of past episodes with each set. Unsettlingly for our heroes, the play ends in the future, with the death of Zuko and Aang and victory for Fire Nation.
The only real development that happens this episode is some tension between Katara and Aang, who feels upset and jealous over the play’s winking Zutara moments, and the insistence of Katara’s actress that Aang is “like a little brother to me!” Katara finds him moping outside, and he acts, frankly, immaturely, pressuring her with his feelings for her. Even worse, he then tries to kiss her after she tells him she’s preoccupied with the war and “a little confused,” and she storms off. I’ll discuss Kataang a bit more in the Friends of the White Lotus section.
There’s not much more to say — you’ve just got to enjoy the show. I’ll leave you with some of my favorite pictures and quotes.
I’m going to take a one-day break, and I’ll see you this weekend for the grand finale: Sozin’s Comet! Share your own thoughts on this episode in the comments.
Spare observations
The poster for The Boy in the Iceberg looks familiar.
“My heart is so full of hope that it’s making me tearbend!”
“I must capture the Avatar to regain my honor!” “Well, while you do that, maybe I'll capture another slice.”
Zuko’s actor is voiced by Derek Basco, older brother of the real Zuko’s voice actor, Dante Bosco!
“Oh, Jet, you’re so bad.”
“It's The Great Divide! The biggest canyon in the Earth Kingdom!” “Eh, let’s keep flying.”
“Goodbye, Sokka… and yes, I did have pickled fish…” Yue’s actress in the play is actually voiced by Suki’s voice actress!
“My name is Toph, because it sounds like tough.”
“I see everything that you see, except I don't ‘see’ like you do. I release a sonic wave from my mouth. [Prolonged, ear-splitting scream.] There. I got a pretty good look at you.”
“Zuko, it's time we had a talk... about your hair.”
The audience yawns at The Drill, which fans apparently found boring. Agree to disagree.
“Did Jet just… die?” “You know, it was really unclear.”
“I hate you, uncle! You smell, and I hate you for all time!”
“Avatar State, yip yip!”
“Ow! What was that for?” “That’s how I show affection.”
“The scar’s not on the wrong side!”
“Ohh no, another fan with ideas.”
Friends of the White Lotus [SPOILERS]
The ending of the play hints at Zuko’s Agni Kai with Azula and Aang’s showdown with Ozai.
Aang’s actress will briefly cameo in Sozin’s Comet!
Finally, let’s discuss the fate of Aang and Katara. There are a lot of criticisms of their relationship: that it’s too one-sided, that Katara acts like a mother to Aang, that Aang is younger than her, that it’s “too expected.” I generally disagree that it’s one-sided, and though Avatar smartly keeps their relationship on the back-burner (it would strain the group dynamics too much), there are certainly hints across the series about Katara’s burgeoning attraction to Aang, like in The Fortuneteller, The Cave of Two Lovers, and The Headband.
But certainly it’s odd to watch Aang’s behavior here and then have their next (and final) scene together be their kiss in the finale. Though Aang does act immaturely, I think we have to understand this through the lens of him being a child, and give him license to be immature rather than projecting our understanding of adult relationships. Didn’t you ever pine for a crush at that age, without necessarily communicating your feelings in a responsible, mature way?