The Beach

This episode has always been one of my favorite episodes, and everytime i watch this show, I always look forward to watching this!

From a storytelling perspective, not much is happening, instead its a character centered journey, with slow scenes interrupted by bursts of action!

Since Zuko is my favorite character, and the best written, I am glad he gets a lot of attention in this episode! Ever since his return to the fire nation, he has fealed conflicted! The scene with him as he admits that he feels frustrated over himself, is my favorite!

The humor is also great, as well as the action as combustion man makes his appearence!

This is one of the weakest episodes of avatar! The story just slows down to a hult and gets replaced with our fire nation antagonists....playing volleyball, kissing and teen high school party movie cliches! And even focusing on a bit on zuko and that one girl who's relationship I never even cared about. Plus throughout the episode the characters are so mean-spirited I mean I get their fire nation but to get that for a full episode?! And then sure we still get tiny scenes of our main gang (aang and others) but honestly not enough. The only redeemable parts here are with Zuko where you can see more of his feelings shine. And there are some good ideas here but execution is everything. So if tales of ba sing se is an example of how you can do an amazing filler episode this is an example of a bad one....

I want Zuko to be with someone better than his current gf.

I see surprisingly a lot of hate on this episode. But I loved this episode, we finally get a better background of the antognists of the show, and they really shine in a very subtle but a very impactful way. It is important to note about Zuko, Azula, Tai Li and Mei and that is they're Teenagers not just that but they group in the Elite part of society. I guess that really isn't so relatable to the majority (and maybe why some don't really get it) but reinforces the idea that even though they grew up in wealthy families they all had hard lives with little to no freedom not understanding Basic human interaction as well as dealing with very high expectations from their families. These things has taken a toll on each one of the characters and each one copes with this pressure in their own way. It's really great to see all of them try to act as "normal" teenagers and I greatly sympathize with and the way they open about themselves at the end was really moving. As for Ang and his squad they get hunted by an assassin who finds them thanks to Angs indescretion. It's frustrating at times seeing Ang fooling about even though he is supposed to be the saviour of the world but we must remember he is a kid and it's to be expected. Really great episode overall though I guess it's not for everyone.

Episode 5 of the Avatar: The Last Airbender, series 3 Book of Fire. Shows the 4 antagonists (Ty Lee, Mai, Azula, Zuko), on a forced holiday to a beach island called Ember Island. Where this episode shines is that it gives the audience the an understanding of who and what the antagonists are. Where the series has focuses on the protagonists, it gives the audience depth to the antagonist's' characters. What has made the characters the way they are. It seems slightly slow at first, the protagonists run into a hit-man from hell which can blow things up with his mind (better than it sounds). Not the best episode in my opinion, but the touching and insightful scene at the end gives it a 7 out of 10.