Omashu under Fire Nation rule.
"There really is no fathoming the depths of my hatred for this place."
— Mai note
Aang, Katara and Sokka head to Omashu to ask King Bumi to teach Aang earthbending, only to discover upon their arrival that the city has fallen to the Fire Nation. Meanwhile, Azula decides to get rid of the royal procession and assemble a small, elite team of fighters to capture Zuko and Iroh. She chooses two old school friends to help her: Ty Lee, who is currently part of the circus and Mai, whose father was recently appointed governor of Omashu.
Tropes:
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Aang, Katara, and Sokka sneak into Omashu through large sewer tunnels.
- Accidental Kidnapping: When Aang and his friends are leading the citizens of Omashu out of the conquered city, they accidentally get Tom-Tom, the governor's son, in their camp thanks to Momo getting sidetracked by some berries. The governor believes it was an intentional kidnapping and offers Bumi in exchange for his son's safe return.
- Answer Cut: At the end of the episode, when Azula announces that she has a third target in her hunt now, the scene cuts to Aang.Azula: It's not just Zuko and Iroh anymore. We have a third target now.
(Fade to Aang.) - Badass Normal: Ty Lee and Mai both get their introductions as this in this episode, fighting the Avatar gang. Mai is a skilled knife-thrower and Ty Lee is an acrobat with chi-blocking techniques.
- Big Damn Heroes: Sokka comes back on Appa just in time to boomerang a knife out of Mai's hand after Ty Lee has disabled Katara's bending.
- Bittersweet Ending: With King Bumi in captivity (by his choice), Aang will have to find a different earthbending master to teach him, and Omashu remains under the Fire Nation's rule. However, King Bumi's subjects escape their captive city, and Aang gives Tom-Tom back to his family safe and sound.
- Blasting It Out of Their Hands: When Mai draws her sai to finish off Katara, Sokka gets his Big Damn Heroes moment by throwing his boomerang, knocking the sai out of her hand.
- The Bus Came Back: Bumi and Flopsy reappear for the first since their debut last season.
- Charles Atlas Superpower: Ty Lee officially has no superpowers, but the acrobatic style of combat she displays requires superhuman leaps and dodges.
- Chase Scene: A chase scene ensues between Aang, riding Bumi's ark, and Azula, riding a delivery crate, as Aang flees and Azula chases him down Omashu's delivery chutes.
- Cheerful Child: Tom-Tom, on account of being a toddler. Not even hurtling across Omashu on one of the delivery carts terrifies him. In fact, the only time he cries is when he's not allowed to chew on Sokka's club.
- Chekhov's Gun: The "pentapox disease" that Sokka uses to scare off the Fire Nation guards at the start becomes central to the ruse used to get Omashu's citizens to flee.
- Children Are Innocent: Tom-Tom, although the leader of the Omashu resistance argues he won't be innocent when he grows up.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Ty Lee gets her Establishing Character Moment by talking about pink auras.
- Construction Zone Calamity: The Prisoner Exchange is placed at a construction site. Guess why.
- Continuity Nod: In the flashback of Bumi surrendering, the jingle that played back in his last appearance makes a reappearance.
- Contrived Coincidence: Azula just happens to come to recruit Mai in Omashu at the same exact time the Gaang is visiting the city.
- Covered in Gunge: Sokka gets covered in whatever gunk is in the sewers when he, Aang, and Katara sneak into Omashu. Aang and Katara can protect themselves by bending the gunk out of the way, but it all winds up on Sokka.
- Cuteness Proximity: Katara around Tom-Tom. She makes Sokka give Tom-Tom his boomerang and she fawns over how cute he is.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Parallels between the Nazis and the Fire Nation have been made before. However, the occupation of a once great city with La Résistance sneaking civilians out drives home the resemblance to Nazi-occupied Europe, Vichy Paris most famously.
- Dragon-in-Chief: Azula temporarily serves this role to Mai, since Mai is technically supposed to be the one leading the negotiations with Aang, Sokka, and Katara.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Strictly from a character standpoint, given this is the second season. When the newly introduced Ty Lee uses her chi-blocking on Katara for the first time all it does is prevent her from bending. Moving forward her chi-blocking technique always paralyzes people outright.
- Egopolis: Azula renames Omashu to New Ozai, after her father, and has a statue raised in his honor.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- Ty Lee's silliness, cuteness, and playful nature are all shown in her first scenes at the circus, while her deadly chi-blocking ability is revealed near the end of the episode. Her Hidden Depths are also hinted at.
- Mai is shown to be deadpan, stoic, and quiet, and a dangerous knife-wielder.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The governor and his wife care deeply about their young child, although they really seem only like Punch-Clock Villains.
- Finger Poke of Doom: Bumi can earthbend with just his face free from his metal coffin.
- Foreshadowing: Notable on rewatching — Mai mentions that Ty Lee told her she was running away to the circus, whereas Azula clearly tracks her down and has to fake stumbling on her by accident, a sign that Ty Lee isn't as ditzy as she appears, and closer to Mai than Azula.
- From Bad to Worse: Not only does Aang no longer have an Earthbending tutor, but the whole party now has Azula & co. on their tail.
- Ice Breaker: Aang breaks a chain after freezing it twice, first when freeing Flopsy, then when freeing Bumi.
- Innocuously Important Episode: This episode establishes that a bender's bending can be disabled with precise attacks on the body, to give Ty Lee a way to effectively fight benders without any weapons. This disabling process will go on to be a very important plot point in The Legend of Korra.
- Irony: Azula told Mai's dad she would take control of the trade because she's certain he would only mess it up. Yet, for all her competency and cunning, the trade does not go as planned (it was called off on the principle that Tom-Tom wasn't worth as much as King Bumi) because of Azula herself.
- I Shall Return: Bumi assures Aang that they will see each other again, when the time is right.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Azula pities the governor for losing his son, but points out that it wouldn't have happened if he hadn't herded the citizens out of the city.
- Join or Die: Azula invites Ty Lee to join her on her quest, and at first pretends to accept Ty Lee's refusal, but that she'll stick around the acrobatic performance. During the show, Azula demands the ringleader make the performance as dangerous and intimidating for Ty Lee as possible (first setting the safety net on fire, then releasing a bunch of dangerous animals). Afterward, Azula tells Ty Lee she can't wait to see how she'll top herself the next night. Ty Lee then tells Azula she got the message "the universe" was sending her and joins Azula's team.Mai: I thought you ran off and joined the circus. You said it was your calling.
Ty Lee: Well, Azula called a little louder. - Know When to Fold 'Em: As the Fire Nation army was advancing on Omashu, King Bumi... surrendered without a fight. As he explains to Aang, it's one of the Jings — waiting and listening for the right moment.
- La Résistance: Omashu has one with the goal to rid the city of the Fire Nation. Part of the Gaang's objective is to get them all out of Omashu.
- Lesser of Two Evils: Implied to be the reason why Mai focuses on fighting Katara rather than rescuing Tom-Tom from Sokka during their confrontation. Azula implied that she would threaten Tom-Tom to prevent the hostage exchange from going through, and Mai can see that her little brother is safe with the rebels. So she does her job going after the bender while Sokka gets Tom-Tom away from the combat.
- Lies to Children: Bumi mentions off-hand that his description of positive, negative, and neutral Jing is a gross oversimplification. There are actually 85 types, for one thing.
- Meaningful Rename: On arrival, Azula declares that Omashu will be renamed "New Ozai".
- Mistaken for Disease: When Aang, Katara, and Sokka sneak back into the city and are caught by some Fire Nation guards, one of the guards spots some strange marks along Sokka's neck, which the Gaang plays up as the result of a disease called "pentapox". Too afraid of catching "pentapox", the guards just let the kids go. As it happens, "pentapox" is actually just the result of the harmlessly adorable pentapus latching on to whatever it's swimming near, with the suckers on it's tentacles leaving behind a few purplish marks, and the kids later use this to far greater effect when aiding every non-Fire Nation citizen in Omashu to escape the city by turning it into a false epidemic, then convince the guards into opening the city gates to let them all out.
- Never Say "Die":Sokka: We don't even know if Bumi's still-
Aang: What? If he's still what?
Sokka: ...around. - No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Aang saves Mai and her family from being hit by a speeding pile of bricks. In response, Mai tries to fill him and his friends full of knives.
- Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here: Mai laments that "This place [Omashu] is unbearably bleak. Nothing ever happens." Cue the assassination attempt.
- Off the Table: Before the exchange between Bumi and baby Tom-Tom can go as planned, Azula convinces Mai how valuable the Avatar can be. Mai declares the deal off and a fight ensues.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Ty Lee's blink-and-you-miss-it series of expressions between the point she hears Azula approach and the point she starts smiling is revealing.
- Katara when Ty Lee chi-blocks her and Mai brings out another knife to kill her.
- Pass the Popcorn: Mai's reaction to the "pentapox" plague is to watch while eating some fire flakes.
- Play-Along Prisoner: Bumi is revealed to be one as he can still earthbend even though he is in an iron box ("They didn't cover my head!"). He tells Aang that he's waiting for the right moment to strike and as such can't leave and train Aang in earthbending.
- Polka-Dot Disease: The sucker marks left by the pentapus are mistaken by the guards for a sign of some disease. The resistance exploits this by covering all of Omashu's citizens in them to pretend that an epidemic of "pentapox" is running through the city.
- Prisoner Exchange: The characters try to exchange Tom-Tom, who snuck into their evacuation, for King Bumi. The exchange almost goes off as planned until Azula points out that exchanging a baby for a captive king isn't really a good trade.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: King Bumi's general, who is leading an underground resistance. Despite the Avatar foiling their assassination attempt on the governor's family, the resistance saves them, understanding that they didn't know the circumstances. The general shows respect to the Avatar, explaining what has happened in the months that he was gone.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: The Purple Pentapus again, especially when one strokes their head.
- Putting on the Reich: Omashu has changed its appearance a bit to signify its occupation. Cue the characteristic Fire Nation banners and smokestacks.
- Save the Villain: Aang foils the assassination attempt on reflex, not knowing who the two parties are.
- Secret Passage: The Gaang sneaks into Omashu via the Absurdly Spacious Sewer system.
- Ship Tease: At the end, Ty Lee teases Mai about seeing Zuko again, serving as an early sign that Mai has feelings for him.
- Sniff Sniff Nom: Tom-Tom tries to nibble Momo's tail and Sokka's club. The former is how he winds up outside Omashu in the first place.
- Squishy Wizard: Katara's a waterbending master, but, once Ty Lee disables her bending, she's completely helpless. Mai lampshades this:"How are you going to fight without your bending?"
- Straying Baby: Tom-Tom likes to go on adventures by himself and naturally comes out unharmed.
- Tempting Fate: Aang says he has a "good feeling" about the trade. Smash Cut to Azula arriving at Omashu.
- That Wasn't a Request: Azula's tone makes it clear to Mai and the audience when she wonders aloud if trading Mai's brother for King Bumi is really a "fair trade" that she is not asking.
- This Is Gonna Suck: All over Ty Lee's face when Azula casually mentions she'll be watching the circus performance.
- Ungrateful Bastard: The governor and his family's response to having their lives saved by Aang: Have Mai go after them....
- Wake-Up Call Boss: Azula very quickly shows the Gaang that she is easily the single most dangerous enemy they've ever faced.
- What You Are in the Dark: The leader of the resistance warned Aang that Tom-Tom would grow up to be just another vicious fire-bender one day. On that note, Aang and his allies could've kept Tom-Tom to avoid that fate, but return him safely to his parents on the principle that they were his family and missed him so.
- Wheel of Pain: Flopsy is chained to a rotating wooden mill and forced to work it until Aang frees him.
- With My Hands Tied: Bumi is capable of earthbending despite being locked in a metal coffin because "they didn't cover my head!"
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: The rebels refuse to hurt Tom-Tom when he accidentally flies into their camp clinging to Momo. While their general says that one day he'll grow up to be another soldier, he refuses to do anything to the child.
- You Don't Want to Catch This: Pentapox! "Didn't your cousin Chang die of that?"
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Bumi isn't Aang's earthbending teacher, but someone else, who he'll have to find without his best friend.
- You Were Trying Too Hard: The philosophy behind Neutral Jing, "when you do nothing!"
- Zombie Gait: Played with. The Pentapox "infectees" all walk together towards the city gates, shuffling, groaning, and stretching out their arms. Granted, they're all fooling, but it's a fairly convincing fake Zombie Apocalypse.
