Huh, this opens well with a ship getting explosives thrown onto it. Although it’d make more sense to just attach them to the sides of the ship.
Hm, they’ve given Unaloq a firebender-looking outfit. That’s clever if intentional, but they might just be going with the same spikes=evil they used to make those the firebender outfits in the first place. And also they’ve got an anti-bending field, which ditto for the reference to Amon if intentional.
Meanwhile, Lin continues to be incompetent.
We’re halfway through and still no Korra! Instead, we’ve just had Bolin creeping on the actor playing his girlfriend.
Bolin doesn’t want to help because he’s mad at Mako, therefore Mako boils him alive. And then goes to the triads for help for his plan. And he offers to tell Korra to give a criminal his bending back, which a) means Korra did not give everyone their bending back but only those she felt like (which fine, maybe now we can all shut up about it being spiritual rape) and b) that he’s basically offering weapons to the mob. Then Asami offers them her company’s stuff too. Christ.
Then he tells them he broke up with Korra, and they don’t seem to think anything of his promise to use his great relationship with the avatar to fix the bending, and also for some reason think it’s a joke, I guess because they don’t think he’d still be alive (BITCHES! CRAZY!)
Back to Bolin. More of the funny movie they’re filming!
Oh, ridiculous death traps and bad acting and
Yeah, him and scary waterbender girl? That’s got nothing on this. And then he says he’s getting mixed signals! What the fuck is this shit.
Bolin has refused to take no for an answer the entire time while she has rebuffed him to the point of rudeness. We don’t know if she has friends and family around to support her, and she has to put up with him to keep her job. She doesn’t even appear to be a bender like Bolin, and even if she had the time and skill to learn chi-blocking it’s illegal, so she has no way at all of actually fighting back. And now he’s forcing a kiss on her. And he’s smug about it afterward.
In contrast, Bolin’s girl problems? He initiated the relationship, she didn’t force herself on him at any point, and he had no external pressures on him to stick around her and not upset her – for that matter, he’s best friends with the avatar who previously saved his ass from AMON in the middle of a giant Equalist rally! And all his other friends are competent fighters too! And they all support the breakup! If he felt at all worried that she’d react to him saying he wanted to break up with actual violence, he just had to ask any of them to come with him!
But the problem is she’s giving him mixed signals! It’s totally funny that Bolin can’t understand the actor/character divide even though when she’s in character she’s just friendly and when she’s out of character she says she doesn’t like him or want anything to do with him, meaning NONE OF THE SIGNALS WERE THAT SHE WANTED HIM TO KISS HER.
But anyway, back to the other terrible people! Don’t worry about Mako and Asami helping the mob, because just like with Korra attacking the judge, it turns out they’re the real bad guys! Maybe later Bolin can grope Ginger again she’ll blurt out that she loves eating puppies whole and Bolin can excuse his behavior because she was secretly evil too! Yay people doing terrible things but the plot making it so it doesn’t matter! Also, Asami can’t fight because she forgot her stunglove.
And then we find out it was all to steal Asami’s stuff, despite the fact she was desperate for funds and just made it clear she’d sell to absolutely anyone.
And now she’s kissing him. You idiot.
Anyway now Mako can’t find Varrick immediately when he’s going to see him and then Bolin, who just to be clear, still being a smug dick and totally no remorse, mentions pyrotechnics so hey maybe Varrick’s behind it? That would be clever!
And yes! Yay show! You got one whole thing right.
It’s all pretty well set up. Varrick is the one saying that war makes profits, it doesn’t make sense that a self-made rich guy would’ve gotten there by being nice and helping out the little guy, and he’s doing war propaganda. I just assumed he was supposed to be good because everyone else is even worse and the show doesn’t think they’re evil. Also, that explains why the attack on the boat seems not to significantly damage or sink it.
So he rushes off but Varrick’s already there having just bought up her company, so he just…wanders away after making it clear to Varrick that he knows.
Finally we end with Korra washed up on a beach, so no more monster. Dammit! And also she’s got amnesia and is all weak, because I guess the show wanted to fuck with her more. I guess you could do something with the fact her response to seeing fire temple monks is panic and airbending – I’m curious if firebenders are generally viewed negatively or if she was flashing back to her past life as Aang or if it’s just the boring answer that they startled her.
The good: Uh. The film bits up to when Bolin decides sexual assault is a good idea is funny. But then, you know, there’s the scene where Bolin decides sexual assault is a good idea.
So.
The actor/character divide thing COULD have worked. If they had Bolin realize his mistake and apologize when the Ginger told him off, I could have accepted it. It wouldn’t have made me so mad. Bolin made a mistake, he understands that, and apologizes for it. Even have him not understand it’s wrong, but make it clear to the audience and paint the scene as dramatic and unpleasant and not good.
But when Bolin kisses a tied up girl, who yells at him for it, and then he insists that she likes him, I’m not okay with that. And then the show wants me to think it’s funny. I’m not going to think it’s funny, show. One person forced a kiss on another person when they were bound to a table. That’s disgusting.
Also if she hadn’t already made it clear she hated him. If she was generally friendly and he wasn’t getting BACK THE FUCK OFF every time the cameras stopped rolling, then I’d see it as an honest mistake. Also, if he showed the slightest awareness of her reaction or concern for her.
I think they’re delibrately making bolin more corrupt. Especially since varrick is behind it and is actually condoning and encouraging his foolery. I think the mako arguement and ginger scene was put in for this reason.
Hm, that would make sense but it’s being sloppily done in that case. Varrick could’ve easily given him bad advice about not to worry about how Ginger kept telling him to leave her alone, girls just like to play hard to get. All Varrick’s done is prop up his ego – that all that was stopping Bolin from sexual assault before now was a smaller ego doesn’t say much for him.
Ugh, yes, this thing.
I may have found Eska creepy, but that believably could have been social ineptness even if the narrative didn’t paint it as such. What they narratively try to pass off as hilarious social ineptness in Bolin, on the other hand, is just inexcusable horribleness all through. You can do “he thinks her acting means she likes him because he’s socially inept” without making him into a sociopath who sexually assaults her.
You know what’d solve everything? If they were nine. Nine year olds can struggle to understand the acting/real life divide. And there’d be less of the rape subtext in that a nine year old kissing another nine year old probably doing it for more innocent reasons.
[Yeah, him and scary waterbender girl? That’s got nothing on this. And then he says he’s getting mixed signals! What the fuck is this shit.]
Jesus Christ, I completely purged this scene from my memory because I hated it so much. Like, I had to look at the pictures to link up the fact that, yes, the scenario you’re describing did happen on LoK, and it was exactly as you were saying, and it’s entirely disgusting and not okay. The fact that this was supposed to be a humorous scene was just a kick in the teeth, I think, but this by far outstrips the creepy twins in terms of disgustingness and grossness and my god what the hell were the writers thinking.
…the only good part about this episode was Varrick, though, and it was the only twist in Episodes 1-6 that wasn’t hilariously obvious to the audience (what, Korra’s uncle is evil? And is responsible for banishing her father? No, that’d be absurd. It sure is Hamlet up in here).
I like the ideal of purging. I’m going to get on that.
If the show wasn’t generally shit, having the first guy be super over the top obvious evil so no one would see the other guy coming would’ve been brilliant! When he first appeared, I was wondering it he was going to screw over Asami, since I figured things wouldn’t go well for her anytime soon, but then it seemed like her bad luck quota was covered by all the other events conspiring to mess up her shipping.
Jesus christ those screenshots are horrifying.
They really don’t do it justice, it’s so much worse animated, and that’s before we get into the dialogue, which involves So… that kiss. I liked it. And it seemed like you liked it too.
I’m so glad you’re updating this faster. I’m literally watching the show A. for the twins and B because I’ve made a drinking game where anytime you point something out that I totally thought you would, I take a shot. It’s a lonely game, but fun.
as a side note, am I the only one who thinks that old fire sage is Azula?
Hm. Might be interesting, but I didn’t see anything specifically Azula about her so far.
And to think there was a “Perfect man Bolin” meme going around during the first season.
I think that just like TheArtfulDodger, I did a bit of purging, because I had completely forgotten about this little tidbit. Among all the shortcomings of the show, what they did with Bolin is one of the things that ticked me off the most. They made him so stupid I found it painful to watch, and now sexual assault. And the worst thing is, you’re the first to bring it up. I haven’t seen discussions about that anywhere else.
See, the worst part is last season’s Bolin really was! He was kind and considerate and noticed if people were happy or sad. He was up-front about his interest in Korra and asked her on a date directly instead of deciding he felt like kissing her so obviously she felt like kissing him, on that date he wasn’t Sir Gropesalot but behaved like he found her interesting as a person, and when she ended up kissing his brother he was heartbroken but didn’t start raving about mixed signals and how she was nice to him a minute ago so she owes him a relationship. And now he’s someone who sees the person he’s kissing freeze in shock, then run away as soon as they get loose looking like they want to vomit, and all he can say is that she seems to have enjoyed it.
And the worst thing is, you’re the first to bring it up. I haven’t seen discussions about that anywhere else.
It’s weird. I tried googling and I got a lot about how Bolin is the victim of Eska poor Bolin poo baby, with some people talking about how on nooo Eska will see the kiss and try to hurt Bolin because she’s abusive or maybe she’ll attack Ginger and Bolin will save her so Ginger will realize now she’s obligated to fuck him and admit she was wrong. And people speculating on ship names.
I know, and tht’s why I liked him so much. It’s like the makers of the show can’t even grasp the personnality of their own characters. In the first season, he wasn’t the brightest tool in the shed, but he was nice and considerate. In the second season, he started out really stupid, then became a jerk, and they topped it by adding a layer of creepy to the mix.
It’s because Bolin is a main character, and Ginger is just here to be hot and a comic relief. We don’t care about what she feels, she’s not important ! I think it also has a lot to do with the portrayal of the relationships. With Eska it’s “OMG CRAZY WATERBENDING BITCH SHE’S EVIL” and with Ginger it’s “lol, Bolin can’t understand women”. But that tells a lot about media and people and general…
Oh god, I hope they don’t do the I-fall-in-love-because-with-you-because-you-rescued-me cliché. Normally I would say “come on, it’s the people who did avatar, they’re more subtle and clever than that”, but if they could throw in an obvious villain AND an insultingly simple and overdone good vs evil plot, anything is possible.
Well, with how Bolin’s character degraded into Comic Relief Guy last season, I guess this is really just the writers finally admitting they don’t care about characters, just plot and jokes.
And yeah, I’m a bit worried too. When I first heard it it seemed insane – what sort of a horrible writer would think that was a good idea? But then I remembered they’d thought the kiss was a good idea in the first place.
Bolin doesn’t want to help because he’s mad at Mako, therefore Mako boils him alive.
It does feel like an overreaction, but I think they were trying to go for “flushing the toilet while he’s in the shower”.
I know, but it’s just too over the top as slapstick. You can’t sometimes have bending be used to menace, terrify and maim people and sometimes have everyone be unkillable toons, without even any cues that you’re treating it differently – like, if instead of the water all vaporizing like he’s actually getting flashfried, we saw Bolin fill up with red, beat for realization, then yelp about how hot it is and jump out.
And having it during a character making a serious complaint about his treatment because an action a while ago is having a consequence now…it’s just really dissonant to end with consequence free violence no one will mention again.
Italics?