Thanks for tuning in to my fourty-ninth of 61 daily reviews of Avatar: The Last Airbender! Yesterday, we watched S3E8: The Puppetmaster.
This uproarious filler episode gives us one final chance to breathe before all hell breaks loose. We’re only days away from The Day of Black Sun, the invasion of the Fire Nation that has the potential to put an end to Ozai’s brutal reign once and for all. Or, it could spell doom for the characters we’ve grown to love over the past eighteen hours of TV (doesn’t that seem too short?).
At this point, like on the eve of a test that will decide your future, there’s nothing left to do. Aang’s success or failure on the big day won’t be determined by whatever last minute training he can cram in. Instead, he’ll win or die on the back of his seasons of growth, as he’s mastered three of the four elements and matured from a goofy kid into the world’s best chance at salvation.
But Aang, who usually fails to take weighty issues seriously enough, lets the gravity of the situation get to him this time. He’s a bundle of nerves as he’s plagued with nightmares of his impending battle with Ozai, ultimately opting to forego sleep entirely. As he descends deeper and deeper into an exhaustion-filled delirium, the writers let loose their imaginations, descending into pure camp to present us with a series of fantastical and often hilarious dreams and hallucinations.
In one of the funniest scenes, Aang finally declares his love for Katara, and they kiss passionately.
What are we doing?
What our hearts have been telling us to do for a long long time. Baby, you're my forever girl.
Alas, the young lover boy snaps out of his daydream and realizes that he hasn’t secured his dream girl. We’ve all been there, Aang.
The scenes with Appa and Momo are also highlights. If Aang flying Appa while a giant, Godzilla-like Momo tries to swat them down wasn’t good enough, it’s hard not to appreciate the Samurai duel between Aang’s two animal companions as the koala sheep cheer them on.
After failing to relax Aang with hot yoga, a therapy session, or a “good old-fashioned back pounding,” it’s ultimately a pep talk and woolen bed of clouds that does the trick. “You're smart, brave, and strong enough,” Katara tells him. The Avatar finally accepts that he’s ready, sleeping soundly on the final night before he redeclares his existence to the world.
There’s a brief Zuko B-plot, where he canoodles with Mai and frets about a war meeting that he may or may not have been invited to. It’s just another opportunity to show the prince’s discontent with the life he always thought he wanted.
During the meeting, I was the perfect prince. The son my father wanted. But I wasn't me.
Ultimately, this episode is nothing special, nor is it the most memorable. But it’s fun to watch Avatar lean fully into absurdity and assert its signature lightheartedness before what’s sure to be a devastatingly dramatic climax.
See you tomorrow for a double review of the two-parter Episodes 10 and 11: The Day of Black Sun! Share your own thoughts on this episode in the comments.
Spare observations
References to other media abound in this episode’s dream sequences. Aang’s appearance in his confrontations with Ozai recall Dragonball and Naruto; the scene where he dodges the giant Momo takes inspiration from Godzilla; the Fire Nation palace is depicted similarly to the Eye of Sauron from Lord of the Rings; and samurai Momo is dressed like a character from Seven Samurai. Plenty others, too. Who knew Aang was such a culture vulture?
Zuko’s palanquin bearers carry him about fifty feet to Mai’s house.
“We died because of your tiny bladder!”
Sokka’s alter-ego Wang Fire returns, this time as a therapist. Not a very good one.
“What was your dream about?” “Uh… living underwater?” “Sounds neat!”
Aang reuses his noodle drawing of Ozai from The Headband for target practice.
Momo: “You, my friend, are a few plums short of a fruit pie.”
Appa: “You've got to take care of yourself. You can't go on like this.”
“No, Firelord Ozai. You’re not wearing any pants.”
Friends of the White Lotus
Starting with The Tales of Ba Sing Se, Avatar got in the habit of using filler episodes to give a moment’s pause before a climactic episode or series of episodes. There’s only one more filler episode left after this one: The Ember Island Players, which plays a similar role.
Aang’s imagined kiss with Katara foreshadows their real one next episode.
In Sozin’s Comet, we learn what transpired in Zuko’s war meeting: Ozai and Azula hatched a plot to raze the Earth Kingdom to the ground with the comet’s power. That’s actually what spurs him to leave in The Day of Black Sun.