A whole lot happened in the first season finale of 'Legend of Korra,' but was it too much, too soon?

So I think we can all agree that, generally speaking, Legend of Korra is an all-around great show. And since it’s from the same people who did Avatar: The Last Airbender, I kind of expected a lot from the season finale. I mean, Avatar always gave us real gut-wrenchers, so Korra was probably going to do the same thing, right? I was so convinced of this, in fact, that I purposefully didn’t watch it until Monday because I was home alone for the weekend and didn’t trust myself to be able to handle my emotions properly.

It turns out that was kind of unnecessary. You see, as great as this season of Korra has been episode-to-episode, season finales tend to put in perspective overall season arcs, and the fact of the matter is, Korra suffered hugely from being only 12 episodes instead of the usual 22-24. If Korra wants to tell the same sorts of epic stories that Avatar did, they need more than twelve episodes to do it, because the pacing on this series was all off. It didn’t strike me until the season finale, but Korra has been stuffed almost too full of plot and left no time for character development. Like, where has Bolin been for the second half of this season? Do we know anything about General Iroh Jr.? I mean besides that he can use his firebending like a jet pack and looks like a Disney Prince? I felt like there were a lot of things I got in this finale that I didn’t earn, either. Like, how is Amon already dead? Why are Mako and Korra already a thing? Because I still have no idea what Korra sees in him and none of his problems had time to be fixed. Character-wise, Asami probably suffered the most from this shortchanging, and she really deserves some emotional wallow time next season, because her life kind of sucks. But plot-wise, Korra reaching the Avatar state when she’s not supposed to be in touch with her spiritual side at all felt especially egregious.

The story Korra seemed to set out to tell was a good one, but it was so jam-packed that character development completely suffered, as did the writing, which was basically all exposition in these episodes and very little else. And the thing is, it didn’t have to be that way. What this season really, really needed was an episode like “Tales of Ba Sing Se” in the second season, which served no real narrative purpose but made the viewer so much more attached to the characters that even the tiniest things that happened to them packed a huge emotional punch. Looking back, I’m pretty sure each episode we’ve had could have been broken down into a few, and the storyline could have proceeded more naturally. The pacing should have been that the planes attacking Iroh Jr.’s warships should have been its own episode. Amon and Tarrlok’s backstory should have been another. And the season should have ended where I was positive it was going to end — Korra frees Tenzin and his kids, but gets her own powers taken and “kills” Amon. And then the entirety of season two should have been Korra on her own, the way Aang went on his own in season 2. She should have struggled with reaching the spirit world while the benders in Republic City struggled with how to proceed now that Amon was gone, and while Tarrlok and Noatak hid away. Because that was another thing — Tarrlok’s transformation was way too easy, and while his murder-suicide of him and his brother could have been devastating, instead I sort of shrugged and went “eh, better that they’re dead now.” Instead, we have two more seasons to go and I really have no idea what’s left to even accomplish in the plot. In fact, if I didn’t know there was going to be a second and third season, I’d think that this was a series finale instead.

It’s not that these episodes were bad episodes, it’s that they weren’t very satisfying season finales. They couldn’t possibly have been for a story as high-concept as the one Korra was trying to tell. High-concept stories take time to mature and grow, and while Korra is a great show that’s started laying some great groundwork, this season’s finale tried too hard to do too much, too fast.

Photo Credit: Nickelodeon