Cut to later, with Korra wearing airbender garb. With the sleeves rolled up, because she always has to show off her muscles. Tenzin lets us know that Korra was unable to airbend before, and Korra again lets her confidence slip and agrees. Tenzin figures that it's because airbending opposes her natural way of thinking, the way earthbending did for Aang. Well, I guess we can put Master Katara's "elemental opposite" theory to bed then.
The pair approach a collection of free-standing gates in a pattern. This is oddly reminiscent of something that was in The Last Airbender movie, only there it was 20x stupider. Also, Tenzin's children are here; joy. Jinora explains that the goal is to get through the gates without touching one, and Ikki pipes in that you have to do it while they're all spinning. So Tenzin spins the gates and then talk about how Korra must be as a leaf, allowing the wind to move her through the gates. Jinora demonstrates how to move through the gates, then Korra gives it a try.
Jazz music mocks her headstrong attempt, as she is battered around and ejected from the array. Tenzin's children attempt to give her advice, but to no avail; Korra's attempts to just charge through don't work.
To be fair, as a day 1 lesson, this seems rather needlessly brutal. On the plus side, at least he isn't rolling a 2-ton boulder at her...
Cut to Korra, back in her watertribe gear, trying to airbend at a newspaper showing Chief Beifong's face. That doesn't work. She gets frustrated and firebends the paper, disintegrating it. Korra then considers that maybe she's not supposed to be an airbender. Well, that's a point for character consistency; both she and her predecessor were willing to give up on their hard element after a single day of trying.
Given the evidence from ATLA and here, obviously the Avatar Spirit is a quitter.
Korra hears a radio announcer broadcasting a Pro-Bending match. Some OWLs are listening to it, so she hides on the roof to listen as well. We hear a lot of things that we don't understand yet, references to character and team names we've never heard, but the announcer is building up to a climatic moment. Then Tenzin appears and shuts off the radio, then asks Korra to make her presence known. Korra tries to Rules Lawyer her way out of it, but Tenzin isn't buying it and sends her to bed.
Cut to the next day, where Tenzin is meditating with his family and Korra. She doesn't get that the whole meditation thing involves no talking, so she starts talking. When Tenzin says that the purpose of meditation is to embrace freedom, Korra reminds him that she's not allowed to listen to the radio. She finds all this mental stuff pointless, but Tenzin tells her to be patient and she'll work it out. Korra apparently has the patience of the average house fly, so she walks off.
That night, Korra sneaks out of her house and swims across the bay to the Pro-Bending arena. She is accosted by some guy, but while she's explaining why she's in the restricted area, we see a guy in a uniform notice this, slick back his hair, and come to Korra's rescue. He tells the other guy that she's with him, then Korra and he have a bit of back and forth before the other guy leaves.
The guy takes Korra to a high area overlooking the arena. Korra's entranced at the place, while the guy introduces himself as Bolin. Two other guys enter the room, with one of them asking Bolin not to bring his "crazy fangirls" to their locker room anymore. Bolin wants to introduce his brother Mako to Korra, but Mako is dismissive. Bolin says that Mako gets that way before a match, then goes out to play.
We learn that this team is the Fire Ferrets, which we heard earlier in the radio broadcast. They're facing the Tigerdillos. It's hard to actually describe what happens during the match, as it's all very chaotic and relies on rules that were never exposited for the sake of the audience. But it looks interesting and feels like a real sport that someone could invent in-universe.
The main point is that Mako is left alone in the ring at the end and lets his opposing team tire themselves out by dodging everything they throw at him. Granted, I don't know how that works, since dodging three guys attacking you is a lot more exhausting than what any one of those guys do, but this is ATLA logic so it works. Mako's able to perform a solo-All Kill by ejecting his opponents from the arena.
Bolin's the first person to get back to Korra, and she's really enthusiastic about the match. Mako and their third member, Hasook, show up. Mako heaps abuse at Hasook, saying that he sucks, which... is entirely true. He stunk up the match and will not be seen again after he walks out the door. Don't let it hit you in the ass on your way out.
Maybe in Book 2, we'll meet him again. I'm sure he'll have found entirely new ways to fail at life by then.
Mako barely acknowledges Korra's presence, which annoys Korra. Anyway, she asks Bolin to show her some of his moves. He's willing, but unsure about how his earthbending will work with her waterbending, but he's sure that they'll work something out. In bed. Korra then declares that she's an earthbender, for the sole purpose of dragging out the reveal of herself as the Avatar. Oh goody, I was running out of reasons for hating you, Korra; thanks for adding being a preening jackass to that list.
Cut to the trio in the gym, practicing. Korra throws a few stone disks around; Bolin compliments her technique, but points out that she's too flat-footed and would have limited maneuverability in the arena. He shows her how to stay mobile, only planting himself at the moment he wants to attack. Mako pays Korra a minor compliment on her technique adjustment, but Korra crawls up his ass for his previous douchebaggery. So he leaves the two to their bending.
Korra's smiling face at easily getting Pro-Bending styles is quickly contrasted by showing how she's still failing at airbending. In a fit of rage after being banged up by the gates, she burns the whole place down. OK, whoever it is that decides who gets to be the next Avatar needs to be shot for giving the ultimate power in the world to this crazy woman.
Tenzin points out that she just destroyed a two thousand year old relic (which somehow survived the Fire Nation attack), but Korra is completely unapologetic. She blames Tenzin for her failure to learn airbending after a few days, calling him a terrible teacher, then walks out. Cut to dinner, where Tenzin is unsure of how to deal with Korra being... well, Korra. He speaks the page quote, with the given answer.
Meanwhile, Korra snuck out again to go see the Fire Ferrets play. Only they won't be playing because Hasook didn't show up. Oh no, such a tragic loss. Korra wants to swap in; naturally, there are rule questions about whether she could be allowed to play, but Korra promises to just waterbend. Bolin's all for it, but Mako doesn't want to be made a fool of out there. But Korra gets to play over his objections because... her name is in the title.
In the match, Mako tells her to focus on trying not to get knocked out. Naturally, Korra and Korra's Ego don't take kindly to that, so when the bell rings, she immediately knocks someone over the side of the ring. Which is a foul, thus forcing Korra back one zone. When it starts up again, Korra quickly commits an over-the-line foul.
Wow, who would have thought that the rules of Pro-Bending would be something a player would need to know? And that's why I like this show. Korra's arrogant, gets in over her head, and is shown to be much less than she thinks she is. Why is this so hard for other writers to do?
When their opponents start ganging up on Korra, she earthbends in desperation. Which may be a foul; the ref isn't entirely sure, for obvious reasons. Meanwhile back at the Air Temple, Tenzin overhears the announcer being astonished that the Avatar is playing, so Tenzin decides to head over there.
The judges decide that she can play, but only as a waterbender. Despite her skills, she's quickly ejected from the ring by a series of attacks. As she pulls herself back out, she sees Tenzin looking down at her. He's clearly pissed and orders her back to the temple, but she tells him that she's staying. Then she decides that she doesn't need airbending. Tenzin points out how stupid that is, but Korra says that she needs to learn "modern styles of fighting."
Korra, you are now making me pine for the days of Aang's reluctant hero phase. That's right, Aang was doing better than you at being the Avatar by freezing himself in ice for a hundred years while the world burned.
Tenzin reminds her that being the Avatar isn't just about fighting, but she blows him off and returns to the match.
In the third round, Mako and Bolin get backed into a corner, while two of their opponents double-team Korra to remove her quickly like before. She gets knocked to the edge of the platform, but then... she suddenly starts dodging everything and performing near-perfect airbending forms to stay in the ring. Their opponents tire themselves out from all of this, allowing the Fire Ferrets to All-Kill them and win the match.
Sure why not.
Mako congratulates Korra, calling her a natural. But Korra's a bit less celebratory, as she says that someone else taught her that. Cut to her meeting with that person and apologizing for being, well, Korra for the last half-hour. She does admit that she said unpleasant things and took out her frustrations on him. Tenzin apologizes for losing his temper and even pays her a complement for her skills in the ring. He says that Pro-Bending worked out as a way to teach her airbending forms. How dramatically convenient. She runs off, saying that she's joined the Fire Ferrets and will be playing in the championship tournament.
We close the episode out with Mako looking out from their apartment on top of the arena. He's looking towards Air Temple island almost wistfully. Korra just so happens to be looking back, though too far away to see each other. While sweet music plays. Oh for the love of God, no!
Bending, Professional
That was a pretty good episode. We get a deeper look at Korra as a character, and like looking under a rock in the forest, it's not a pretty sight. She's impatient, arrogant, and somewhat self-absorbed. But just as last episode, these elements do not translate into her getting everything she wants. She was almost as much a load to her team has Hasook (though at least she didn't run into a teammate and get them both booted from the ring), and they won only when she finally forced herself to use what she'd learned.
I'd say the biggest weakness is the way it presents Korra's airbending moves. It's just... too good. There's a clear moment when she decides to try it, which is fine. But once she does, not only is she crisply executing these maneuvers she's never been able to do before, she's doing them perfectly and never getting hit at all. It would have been better if she'd gotten hit a few times while doing it, but notably much less than she ever had been before. And with decreasing frequency. Thus, you're showing that she was learning and using airbending forms, but without her going instantly from the whipping boy to OMGWTF Awesome!
One of the really good elements of this episode is how they deal with Pro-Bending as a sport. They never directly explain the rules. Instead, they present the sport with commentary and expect the viewer to work the rules out for themselves. Indeed, one of the reasons why Korra is such a screw-up initially is to explain exactly why people don't do those things.
But even better, the first match is really designed to help teach you what the basic rules of the sport are. They show off the rules of territory and position, of being pushed back and so forth. It shows off an All Kill by having Mako come from behind to win, though in a slightly contrived way.
Now, it's not perfect. One of the rules I didn't get initially was exactly how rounds, score, and the All Kill rule works. The main thing that wasn't clearly stated was that the rounds are timed; that could have been stated by the announcer just saying that a round ran out of time. The winner of a round that ends in a time over is based on who is in the enemy's territory. That wasn't particularly clear to me; it seemed more like a round ends when someone is thrown out of the ring, since that's what seemed to end the very first round we saw.
But still, it works better than most. There was clearly effort put into trying to make it work with as little exposition as possible. And for the most part, they succeeded.
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