Beifong dinners are always awkward.
While Bolin, Opal and Lin fly into the Earth Empire to save the Beifongs from Kuvira, United Republic prepares for an attack. In hope of convincing the spirits to support the defense, Korra visits the spirit world.
Tropes:
- Actually a Good Idea: After having suggested absurd, inane ideas in the last episode that only ended up receiving silent, skeptical reactions from the other world leaders, Wu suggests starting an evacuation of civilians in the event of an attack by the Earth Empire, which Raiko concedes with this trope name word-for-word.
- The Alcatraz: Kuvira's factory and re-education facility
- An Aesop: Toph's reluctance to fight at the end (even though she does for one last brawl) hammers home that she is indeed old and she can't fight like she used to, same as Katara. However, she brings up the point that the old people and the previous generation can't keep doing everything forever. Sometimes, the older people must step down for the young to step up and take charge. It's possible for young people to find new ways to solve problems such as Aang did while energybending.
- Audience Surrogate: Bolin asks the question on everyone's mind: who is Lin's dad? Unlike the big brouhaha over where Zuko's mom went, Toph gives a straight answer. Said answer is blunt and anti-climactic. Bolin reacts accordingly.
- Berserk Button: Lin got rather tense when Bolin asks Toph who Lin's father was.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Korra asks the spirits present at the Tree of Time to aid Republic City against an enemy who is perverting spirit power to her own desires, since the spirits now live in the human world and should help defend their new home. However, the spirit who addresses her points out that Korra's call to arms is not so different from Kuvira and Unalaq, who also tried to use spirit power to defeat their enemies. Ultimately they decline to help Korra, despite her good intentions.
- When it comes to Lin and Toph's argument, Lin is right that Toph should have told her about her father earlier (and how Toph never bothered to understand Lin's emotions), and Toph has a point about how Lin is holding onto old grudges.
- Butt-Monkey: Book 4 Chapter 10 was not kind to Bataar Senior. First, he's forced into a situation that causes his acrophobia to paralyze him. Then he blows the stealth cover they had when he's forced out. Then he gets no respect from his mother-in-law.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Lin finally unleashes decades of anger and frustration with her mother.Lin: After I patched things up with Su, I figured maybe I should try to reach out to mom. But now that we're together again, I remember why we stopped talking. You make me furious, and you don't even know why. And when I tell you, you don't care. Once we save Su, you and I are finished.
- Can't Argue with Elves: What Korra's request for help from the spirits amounts to. They compare her to Unalaq for trying to recruit them despite the fact she asked them for help rather than any kind of trickery, and refuse to accept her reasoning for why they should help stop Kuvira from abusing their power.
- Changed My Mind, Kid: Close to literally when Toph saves her family from Kuvira's forces.
- Continuity Nod:
- When trying to get the spirits to join the fight, Korra brings up the fact that they helped Unalaq. The spirit in charge blames this on Unalaq misusing Vaatu's power.
- Toph cites Katara's absence in the Water Tribe civil war when justifying her own desire to let the next generation handle things.
- The carrot spirit Wan befriended when he lived at Aye-Aye's oasis, or at least a member of his kind, shows up at the Tree of Time .
- Toph points her finger in an authoritative gesture while not facing the person she's addressing, as she obviously does not care which way she's facing.
- In a nod to the comics, Toph mentions that she used to have a metalbending academy.
- Kuvira never expected such a betrayal from Zhu Li. She miscalculated — Zhu Li loves Varrick (and human life in general) more than she fears her. Princess Azula could definitely sympathize with how that stings, given that she found out Mai tricked her the exact same way seventy-odd years ago in "The Boiling Rock."
- *Crack!* "Ow, My Back!": Toph mentions that her back is killing her after she had to pull of her big Earthbender move to save her family and asks them not to tell Korra.
- A Day in the Limelight: After being Out of Focus for the season, Lin gets to see some more action and Character Development in this episode.
- Death Glare: Lin's face snaps into a violent glare when the subject of her father is brought up.
- Deconstructed Trope: Turns out, people don't take it well when they grow up without their father or their mother. Lin may be in her fifties at this point, but she's still very angry she never knew her biological father, as childish she looks about it.
- Dented Iron: Just to drive the point from the pilot home, the reason the surviving members of the Gaang haven't had large roles in this series is sad, but simple: they're old, and can't fight as long as they used to. While the original series did feature a team of Old Masters retaking Ba Sing Sé by themselves (one of whom was a centenarian), and although we saw Zuko still has it, not everyone will age that well.
- Drama-Preserving Handicap: Part of the reason the Greatest Earth Bender Who Ever Lived doesn't get involved more is because her age has been catching up to her. That's why she stayed out of most of the fighting. Toph also says this is why Katara didn't fight when the Northern Water Tribe invaded her homeland; she can't kick butt like she used to, at least for the prolonged periods that a war would necessitate. It also explains why Zuko lost against the much younger Ghazan in "In Harm's Way", but there were several factors involved.
- Dumbass Has a Point: Wu suggests evacuating Republic City because of the spirit vines growing hostile and Kuvira's impeding attack, which Raiko and Mako concede is a good idea. Mako gets annoyed when it turns out that it was just to impress Korra. However, despite his rather selfish reason, the evacuation itself is a rather thoughtful plan.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Baatar Jr. is horrified when he thinks he might accidentally kill Opal with the spirit vine cannon. Lucky for him, a surprise attack by the rest of his family knocked it off target and spared her, and gave Kuvira the results she needed.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- As mentioned above and below, Baatar Jr. may have locked up his own family, but was aghast when he saw Opal in the firing path of the spirit vine cannon. He just didn't have it in him to truly harm them.
- When Baatar Jr. hears that the cannon he's working on is overloading, he agrees to shut it down despite his frustrations. He is not going to keep a test going after seeing how destructive the energy from spirit vines is.
- Fake Defector: Zhu Li has no respect for Kuvira, and only pretended to switch sides in order to hurt her operation and potentially save Varrick. Bolin didn't want to believe at first that Zhu Li betrayed him and Varrick, but he knows Zhu Li never makes mistakes.
- Forgiveness: Opal finally forgives Bolin after Zhu Li says even though he sided with Kuvira, his heart was ultimately in the right place. Lin also begins to let go of her mother's parenting choices, like not telling her who her father was.
- Foreshadowing: This will not be the last time the cannon fails to do an emergency shutdown when the trigger switch is reversed.
- Funny Background Event:
- Of a sort. After Raiko meets with team Avatar, Tenzin, Prince Wu, and Varrick, all but the latter bow when being dismissed. It takes him a second after looking around, but he then bows to Raiko too.
- Toph backs out of her hug with Lin when Bolin cuts in. As the camera stays focused on her, Bolin and Lin fall against each other and Lin pushes him away.
- Though Opal and Bolin are technically in the "foreground", the heated just-offscreen exchange between Lin and Toph in the audio track is the center of attention compared to Opal and Bolin apprehensively watching the exchange.
- Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: In classic Toph fashion, she makes no eye contact and singles out Kuvira with an accusatory pointer finger, accusing her of "giving Metalbenders a bad name".
- Good All Along: Zhu Li only pretended to switch sides so she could sabotage the new spirit weapon.
- I Regret Nothing: Played so straight that Zhu Li says this literally verbatim. After her treachery is discovered by Kuvira, she does not even try to hide or apologize for it.
- Innocently Insensitive: Toph's reveal of the other half of Lin's parentage. Lin absolutely flips her lid at her mother for the uncaring attitude over it, causing the cavalier attitude in Toph to crack for a moment as regret over failed parenting comes back to haunt her.
- Instant Armour: Su turns a random sheet of metal into makeshift armour in the middle of her fight with Kuvira. It ends up working against Su when, after being thrown by Kuvira's whip, Kuvira uses the armor to metalbend her off the cannon.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Kuvira doesn't stop the group from leaving at the end of the episode, apparently deciding that picking a fight with both the Avatar and Toph at the same time isn't worth it.
- The Last Dance: Toph knows she will reach her endgame and is past her prime, but a threat to her family is worth one last fight.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Zhu Li warns that Kuvira will attack Republic City in two weeks. There is a two-week interval between the release of the episode on nick.com and the two-part finale.
- The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Bolin can't contain himself when he meets his hero Toph. Aided by her actually being impressed (for her) at him being a lavabender.
- The Mole: It turns out Zhu Li has actually been sabotaging the spirit vine project on behalf of the good guys.
- Motor Mouth: Both Lin and Toph can't stand Bolin's trivial chattering. Toph even calls him a "gum-flapper".
- Never Mess with Granny: Toph proves that even in her 80s, she can still kick some ass. She's able to knock out all of Kuvira's troops in one attack, and even gets Kuvira to stand down and let the Beifongs escape. She then deconstructs the notion, as she points out how the original Team Avatar members that are still alive are getting old and aren't as capable in battle anymore, which is why they haven't been as prominent (with Toph citing Katara not taking an active role in the Water Tribe Civil War as an example).
- "Not So Different" Remark: The spirits call out Korra when she asks them to help her and the city, saying that it's what Kuvira is doing, and that Unalaq was asking the same thing while he was using them.
- Not So Stoic: She tries her best to hide it, but Lin's tirade really stung Toph.
- No One Gets Left Behind: Bolin settles on this when he realized Zhu Li was trying to sabotage Kuvira all this time, and wanted to rescue her along with the other Beifongs.
- One-Woman Army: After an impressive battle Toph decides to rescue her family, her first attack cowers them into letting her leave.
- Passing the Torch: Toph officially retires the old Team Avatar and leaves the heroics to Korra and her friends, and the other Beifongs.
- Pet the Dog: Baatar Jr. seeing Opal in the spirit weapon firing line and yelling that they need to stop the firing sequence.
- As mentioned above, Toph giving Bolin a genuine compliment, ("Maybe you do have some talent.'')
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Short, sweet, and to the point, from Toph to Kuvira. A harsh rebuke from the progenitor of metalbending herself.Toph: You give metalbenders a bad name!
- The Reveal: It's revealed that Lin's father is Kanto. Deconstructed in that he is some random guy with no significance in-universe or out; missing parents are not automatically indicative of a special lineage, and finding out who they are is seldom going to be as shocking a revelation as it typically is in fiction. Just because the audience know the two characters, doesn't mean they'll hook up together.
- Schizo Tech: Bataar Jr. pulls out what looks like printed circuit boards from a compartment on the Spirit Cannon during the near-explosion caused by Zhu Li's sabotage.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Toph takes this attitude twice — once in the battle against Kuvira and her troops, which she doesn't act on, and again after the battle is all said and done, admitting it's because her geriatric back is ailing.
- Self-Deprecation: Toph's reference to "that civil war nonsense" may be another dig at Book 2.
- Ship Sinking: Toph had no canonical love interest in Avatar: The Last Airbender, but obviously that didn't stop people from shipping her with various characters from that show. When it was revealed Toph's daughter Lin would be a major character in The Legend of Korra, there was a lot of speculation that Lin's father would be revealed as one of the male characters from the previous show, Sokka being a popular candidate (there's a fan theory that he's Suyin's biological father). This episode sinks all of those theories, though Suyin's father is still not revealed, and of course it's also possible Toph might have had a separate relationship with a character from the previous show, one that didn't lead to any kids. It's still clear that Toph didn't end up in a Happily Ever After type of romantic relationship with anyone, as she prefers to live by herself in the swamp.
- The Snack Is More Interesting: As Lin and Toph have at each other over the campfire dinner, Bolin watches the heated exchange while stuffing his gob with noodles.
- So Proud of You:
- Mako tells Wu this after the before-mentioned Dumbass Has a Point moment, adding that Wu seems to be growing into a king Mako would actually like to serve. Then subverted when Wu admits he only did it to impress Korra, forcing Mako to retract his previous statement.
- Toph gives one of these to her daughters at the end of the episode after admitting she wasn't the best mother. She later closes by encouraging everyone to continue their heroics.
- Tailor-Made Prison: Since four of the captive Beifong family are earthbenders that can also metalbend and three of them would undoubtedly put up a fight given the chance, their prison is a wood cage held by ropes suspended over a deep chasm.
- Take That, Audience!:
- Toph's comment about her and Katara being too old to fight comes off as a jab towards the fandom that had complained about Katara's lack of presence in Book 2.
- The reveal that Lin's father was just a random guy we've never heard of—all Toph says about him was that he was a nice guy but that things just didn't work out. Definitely a dig at the people expecting some grand epic story.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Kuvira sought to execute Zhu Li with the spirit energy cannon.
- Those Magnificent Flying Machines: Asami and Varrick reveal a concept design for a two-man flying machine modeled after dragon-butterfly spirits. It does not look like it should be capable of flight.
◊ - Wave-Motion Gun: Baatar Jr. has assembled a massive cannon to channel the energy of the spirit vines.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Raiko tries to demand Asami and Varrick produce spirit vine technology to counter Kuvira's version of it. Varrick shoots him down for ethical reasons, while Korra refuses to allow Republic City's vines to be exploited because of how they reacted to Kuvira harvesting them.
- Wham Line: Zhu Li informs the group that Kuvira plans on attacking Republic City in two weeks.
- You Have Failed Me: Once she's outed as a traitor, Zhu Li is tied up at the test site for the spirit vine cannon. Bolin and Opal manage to get her free.
- You Monster!: Zhu Li calls Kuvira this.
