Netflix's Avatar The Last Airbender Season 2 Still Misses the Point of the Original

Netflix's Avatar The Last Airbender season 2 just released and it's still not very good. It is definitely an improvement on season 1, but season 2 largely continues to make the same mistakes that season 1 made. The cast and crew are clearly big fans of the original series, and while they show respect in a handful of ways, at the end of the day they just don't get it.

Before writing this, I rewatched my own review of season 1. I watched season 2 with the mentality that it was a sequel to the animated season 1, because I didn't remember specifically what happened in the live action season 1, and frankly I think the writers want you to think the same way, because looking back, season 1 had a lot of issues that still persist here.

My biggest criticisms stem from the complications of a live action adaptation in general. I hate animated to live action adaptations. I think they're the weakest form of adaptation, because you're retelling the same story while making a few changes without really providing a new experience. Each season of the animated show is roughly 20 episodes of 20 minutes each, while the live action show is seven or eight episodes of roughly an hour each, and stitching multiple animated storylines into so few episodes without losing meaning is where the writers struggle the most.

Budgetary constraints matter too. That's likely why four out of seven episodes are set in Ba Sing Se, when originally it was about a third of the season. It's cheaper to stay in one city than build sets for the jungle, the desert, or Omashu, so the writers have to find ways to hit the same story beats but relocated. Many of the same events from the animated season 2 play out here, but they're all just a little bit less impactful, and it's often clear the writers are more focused on including little bits of the original season than the meaning behind them.

Aang loses his fear driven arc and just becomes stressed instead

Season 1 Aang was one of the most depressing 12 year olds I had ever seen, always afraid of his power and preaching about doing the right thing. The most glaring example of season 1 missing the point is the opening, where animated Aang runs away from the responsibility of being Avatar and freezes in the ocean as a result. Live action Aang just goes for a walk and gets lost. That change fundamentally alters his character, because running away out of fear was critical to who he was.

In season 2, Aang is still concerned with his power, but that takes a backseat to general stress. The first episode adapts Aang rescuing Bumi, the Serpent's Pass, learning about the comet, and struggling with the Avatar state, but each is compressed and drained of its internal stakes. In the animated version, the Serpent's Pass sequence works because Aang has just lost Appa and is losing hope, and seeing a family reunited gives him that hope back. In live action, Appa is still with him, so Aang is just moody about the war in general.

Aang doesn't have a singular arc in the animated season 2, he has a ton of mini arcs, including his earthbending training with Toph in the episode Bitter Work, which explains why earthbending is hardest for an airbender and pays off with him learning to stand his ground. Live action compresses this into a short lesson and a rage bending outburst at a party. We also lose the drill episode entirely, which isn't fatal on its own, but it's another small thing that makes live action Aang just a little bit less than the original.

The Appa kidnapping is the clearest example of the show including elements because they were in the original, not because they serve this version. In the animated show, losing Appa strands the group in the desert for four episodes and lets Katara become the emotional anchor. In live action, Appa is captured in Ba Sing Se where the group doesn't need him to go anywhere, so it isn't as dire, and Aang exits the Avatar state in about eight seconds without Katara being the one to bring him out of it, repeating the same mistake from episode one.

The finale hits a lot of the same beats as the animated version, and I have close to no issues with the fighting or bending this season. But Aang never trains with the guru, so he never has to choose between mastering the Avatar state and his love for Katara. He just kind of masters it on the fly and still gets shot. The show is missing a key part of his story, and it's underwhelming because of it.

Katara is stripped of her feminine, emotional anchor traits for a second season

Katara's story in season 1 was honestly a disaster. The writers removed so many elements of her character and turned her into a passive girl who only cares about becoming a waterbender, with little to no agency. They also removed anything remotely feminine from her, like her role as the emotional anchor or mother figure of the group, treating those traits as if they were somehow weak writing.

By season 2 and 3 of the animated show, Katara has basically mastered waterbending already, so there isn't much left for her to learn besides bloodbending. In live action, the writers don't seem to know how to answer what she should do next, so she gets almost no arc. Every story beat I mentioned in the Aang section that got adapted completely ignores how it affected Katara, including her helping deliver a baby during the Serpent's Pass and leading the group out of the desert, both cut here.

Katara telling Toph to be gentler with Aang survives, but diluted to maybe two mentions instead of a whole episode. The Tales of Ba Sing Se material is shortened so much that Katara jarringly tells Toph "We're such close friends. We've been through so much together," when in reality they only met last episode. Later, Katara says she's the one holding the group together emotionally, which made me laugh out loud, because that's true of animated Katara, not this one.

Much of her story instead goes to her being the Painted Lady, helping people at night, which I don't hate as a concept and can see animated Katara doing, but there's no real conflict in it beyond Aang being upset she didn't tell him. I do think the writers wanted this partly to parallel Zuko's Blue Spirit storyline, which makes me wonder if they're building toward a Zutara arc. I don't think it will happen, but at this point anything is on the table. The finale is the strongest part of her story because it sticks closest to the original, and her moment with Zuko is strong, and it will definitely pay off nicely in season 3.

Sokka's leadership arc is abandoned for the second season in a row

Animated Sokka's story was never just about becoming a warrior, it was about becoming a leader, going from a clown to someone capable of leading the group through tough situations. Live action season 1 only focused on him wanting to be a warrior, and I said at the time his arc was in limbo. Now I can confidently say it went nowhere, because season 2 doesn't focus on him being a warrior at all.

Instead the show explores Sokka's trauma from the battle he survived and his difficulty moving forward with Suki because he hasn't processed his grief over Yue. I don't hate this, I like when stories explore how trauma realistically affects people, and Sokka is still a teenager. The problem is that, again, this internal conflict never materializes into anything. He talks about it with Katara, he brings it up again in the library, and that's the extent of it.

For a second season in a row, his abilities as a leader and as a smart character are ignored, and the writers seem to go out of their way to make him look like an idiot instead. The library plan and the idea to check for a solar eclipse were originally his, but here Kyoshi tells Toph, who tells Sokka. His plan to hide in vases to sneak into the palace is treated as clever when it's actually pretty stupid, and it only works because the plot needs it to. Cutting his reunion with his father and his role in destroying the drill removes more of his competence, and it leaves me with no idea how the show will convincingly have him lead the invasion of the Black Sun or rescue Suki from the Boiling Rock in season 3.

Toph gets a strong performance but a completely rewritten internal struggle

Toph might be the most peculiar case this season, because my opinion of the performance and the writing couldn't be more different. The young actress who plays her does a fantastic job, to the point where just listening to her talk had me thinking, "Yep, this is Toph."

The problem is the direction of her story. In the animated show, Toph's blindness is why she relies on earthbending more than anyone else, and her over protective family made her value independence above everything, which is why she ran away and fought in the pits, and why she eventually has to learn that accepting help doesn't make her weak. Every part of that arc flows together. In live action, her insecurity is instead about being a Beifong and the expectations of her noble family, including hiding that her parents sell weapons to the Fire Nation.

I can't imagine why they changed this, since it barely affects the dynamic with other characters beyond one argument in episode six, and it replaces a genuinely great arc with something that's just fine. It leaves me unsure what her climactic moment will even be in season 3, when in the original it was working as a team with Sokka and Suki against the Fire Nation fleet. Her metalbending reveal is also rough, with her yelling, "I'm Toph Beifong and I invented metalbending," a line that lands as pretty embarrassing given how it comes out of nowhere.

Zuko keeps his strong foundation but a key change undercuts his father conflict

Zuko was the one character I felt they mostly got right in season 1, and I'd put live action Zuko at around 85 percent of the animated version, the highest of anyone in the show. On paper, season 2 hits the same beats: he and Iroh are fugitives, he learns how people view the Fire Nation while alone, he reunites with Iroh, they reach Ba Sing Se, and he relapses because of Azula. But almost every version of these moments is weaker.

In the Zuko alone sequence, the animated version has him declare himself as Prince Zuko, son of Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai, after helping a family, and still getting rejected. Live action cuts the declaration. The lightning redirection training with Iroh, which led to a genuinely dark moment on the mountaintop in the original, barely registers here and never pays off again, which I think makes the season significantly worse, not just slightly. When Zuko finds Aang defenseless in the library instead of finding Appa, passing up a real chance to capture the Avatar undercuts why he'd ever help Azula in the finale.

The bigger issue is a change to Ozai. In the premiere, Ozai tells Azula to bring Zuko home to reunite the family, seemingly for genuine reasons, which contradicts what I thought season 1 established, that Ozai's warmth toward Zuko was a lie meant to motivate Azula. If Ozai already appears to approve of Zuko, there's no real reason for Zuko to refuse Azula, so his defiance reads as personal pride rather than the fight for his father's approval that defined the character. That also means Azula can't tempt him in the finale with his father's approval, so the show instead has him relapse to honor a promise Ursa allegedly asked the children to make before she left. I don't hate that in concept, but I think Zuko's story is stronger as a relapse chasing approval, not a tribute to his mother.

Azula feels more convincing as a threat, but her motivations and her Ba Sing Se takeover are inconsistent

I think I'm in the minority on Azula. My criticism of season 1 was that she felt more unstable than menacing and too young to buy as a threat. This season she feels a lot more menacing and calculating, which is a big part of who she is in the animated season 2, and the writers definitely listen to feedback because they made Azula much less unstable, even if that makes some of her season 1 scenes feel pointless in hindsight.

Her motivations do feel inconsistent though. Given season 1, I'd expect her to want Zuko dead, but Ozai tells her to bring him home so she reluctantly agrees, and later she convinces herself her father secretly wants her to kill Zuko to prove her ruthlessness, which does feel like Azula. Then in the finale she switches again to also wanting to honor their mother. Her motivations keep changing, which I don't like, though it's a fairly minor issue overall.

My bigger criticism is that the show undersells how ruthless her takeover of the Dai Li really was. In the animated version, she's clearly outmaneuvering the Dai Li because they respect her more than Long Feng. In live action, I'm not entirely sure why the Dai Li start following her, maybe because she killed the Earth Kingdom generals, and because that isn't sold effectively, the Fire Nation marching into Ba Sing Se at the end doesn't feel as hopeless as it should.

Where this leaves the show heading into season 3

Season 2 of Netflix's Avatar The Last Airbender is a disappointment. It is better than season 1, but that's not a high bar. I don't know anyone who has been won over by this show, and I can't imagine most Avatar fans gladly welcoming this adaptation into their hearts. Season 3 can still change things, but I highly doubt it will, and it seems like most fans don't share much optimism either.

So what did you think about this season, are you as critical of it as I am, more critical, or do you actually like it?