{"id":417,"date":"2011-06-22T13:00:58","date_gmt":"2011-06-22T20:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=417"},"modified":"2011-06-22T10:33:22","modified_gmt":"2011-06-22T17:33:22","slug":"mark-watches-avatar-s03e03-the-painted-lady","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2011\/06\/mark-watches-avatar-s03e03-the-painted-lady\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Avatar’: S03E03 – The Painted Lady"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the third episode of the third season of Avatar: The Last Airbender<\/em>, the group is conflicted by a moral quandary when they find a village of sick and starving Fire Nation citizens and are unsure whether to stay and help or stick with their schedule for Invasion Day. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Avatar<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This is not a favorite episode of mine, but there was a lot at work here that I enjoyed it. At heart, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re dealing with Katara\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s conflicted heart and how that contrasts with what the rest of the group wants to do. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also nice that the writers give this season a chance to breathe so that we can spend more time learning about Fire Nation culture instead of rushing through the plot. (That being said, I imagine if you had to wait nine months to see this episode, it may have seemed a tad grating or pointless in the grand scheme of things. I get that.)<\/p>\n

What I appreciated right off the bat was how this episode addressed something that both played into Sokka\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s character and acknowledged a necessary fact: logistics. The fact that time plays so essentially to the plot means that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more realistic to have the characters stop and say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hey, we only have x<\/em> amount of time left to accomplish y,<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d something you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t normally see on television. The day of the Black Sun is rapidly approaching, and the team has to both survive and rendezvous with the Water Tribe near the Fire Nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s capitol. (On top of that, Aang still<\/em> has to learn fire bending. How on earth is that going to happen? They haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t discussed it at all.)<\/p>\n

Sokka, as we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen before, latches on to the physical technicalities and details of travel. Part of me thinks that Sokka merely wants to be useful; he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the only non-bender in the group, so it stands to reason that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d want to make sure that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s able to contribute to the efforts of everyone. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also because Sokka is a pragmatist. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s set in his seemingly \u00e2\u20ac\u0153secular\u00e2\u20ac\u009d ways. (I use secular in our sense of the word because I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think of something better than it and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153non-spiritual.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) He believes himself to be a person concerned with reason and rationality, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s true that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s often the voice of reason when his fellow friends get a little to absurd for his own tastes. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s thinking less about the enjoyment of the journey and more about the end point. I mean…that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s basically what \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Cave of Two Lovers\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is about, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d say.<\/p>\n

Whereas the writers have, in the past, poked fun at Sokka\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s inconsistently rigid routines, here they set up a monumental clash. As Team Avatar arrive in a town suffering from pollution due to a local Fire Nation military plant, they can see the signs of abject suffering: polluted, murky water; starving families; sick citizens; no morale. Katara, naturally, immediately is touched and dejected by what she sees, expressing her desire to help this town.<\/p>\n

Thus, we set up \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Painted Lady,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a sort of polar opposite to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Blue Spirit\u00e2\u20ac\u009d once you think about it. Katara wants to stay and help. Sokka insists that they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have any spare time to help anyone<\/em> out, let alone an entire village. Still, Katara can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t resist giving one of the fish to a poor boy, who proceeds to give it to his sick mother<\/em>, and thousands of hearts break all at the same time.<\/p>\n

Unlike \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Blue Spirit,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d it seemed fairly obvious from the get-go that Katara was the Painted Lady. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s necessarily fair to compare the two episodes too<\/em> much, because this episode isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t aiming to give us some big mystery. This is about Katara\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s personal sense of ethics and where she chooses to draw the line. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fitting that one of the few water benders who has the power to heal with water is also the young woman who has a propensity to want to help everyone she comes across. The writers do a fine job of not portraying good acts as a bad thing, too, and I was worried it was going to come to that. Instead, as Katara\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lie becomes more elaborate, I feel like the writers are commenting more on the value of good acts. While pretending to be the Painted Lady, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no doubt that Katara is doing a wonderfully fantastic thing. At the same time, though, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lying to her best friends and her brother, and the lie is requiring even more effort to both keep up and to keep hidden. Appa becomes \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sick\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with some ailment that makes his tongue purple, giving Katara a reason to keep the group in the village another day while they look for medicine.<\/p>\n

Then the village begins to celebrate the appearance of the Painted Lady, who has been helping all of their longstanding problems. As irritating as Sokka can be to Katara about this, he does make a good point to her: The people of this town will soon grow dependent on the Painted Lady unless the real source of the problem is eliminated. So guess who has another reason to stay an additional day so she can destroy the military factory?<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad that the writers at least did not try to save the reveal that this was Katara for the end of the episode, and it seems to me that was the point all along: This was not about the mystery of the Painted Lady, but what Katara did<\/em> with this creation that mattered. It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take Aang long to figure out Katara is the one behind the good deeds in town, and he even manages to unknowingly tell her that he finds her attractive. (SCORE.) Katara\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shame over lying to her friends gets the best of her, but surprisingly, she finds that Aang actually thinks it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s awesome<\/em> that she is helping out the locals. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not really spelled out, and I only just <\/em>realized it, but it makes absolute sense why Aang would be into the idea of a secret hero. Guess who just agreed to be a secret hero himself? oh writers I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So the two work together to destroy the military facility and then try to sneak back into their camp. Which\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.um\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s daylight out? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re sneaking back into a dark house at three in the morning. What did you two expect? Sokka and Katara clash immediately and fiercely: Sokka is furious his master schedule is now ruined and he makes no attempts to even say one<\/em> thing nice about what his sister has done. I am side-eyeing you so hard, Sokka. I mean, to an extent, of course I understand his position. As he says it, invading the Fire Nation will probably help everyone<\/em> in the end, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s certainly a massively important mission for them. At the same time, I feel like he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s almost trying to shame<\/em> Katara for trying to do good at a time like this, and I think that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why she reacts so forcefully when he tries to get her to ignore the Fire Nation army that descends upon the city after it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been discovered that the factory was destroyed the night before. And I do love Katara when she stands up for herself.<\/p>\n

I was touched by Sokka’s declaration that he would stick by Katara’s side. I was also excited to see the entire group working together in that brilliant, silly way of theirs to replicate the Painted Lady as best as they could. We haven’t seen that since Katara faked earth bending last season, and the context here is so that she can help<\/em> people instead of tricking them. I sort of expected that they’d be successful in their mission, but I was completely surprised that the writers actually had Katara’s true identity exposed. In an instant, this is suddenly the most interesting part of the entire episode. If Katara is exposed as a water bender, will the village vilify her as a natural enemy to them? I’m reminded of “Zuko Alone,” when Zuko revealed that he was a fire bender, and how vicious the response was towards him, despite that he did something wonderful for those people.<\/p>\n

The difference here is Sokka. Just as the crowd begins to turn to anger, he immediately steps in to defend his sister, who quickly apologizes to the villagers for the deception she pulled on them, offering to help clean up the polluted water as well. I honestly did not expect this to go as well as it did, and I was pleasantly surprised that all agreed to keep Katara’s identity a secret. For me, it’s a sign that the people of the Fire Nation have been painted with a stereotype, one that I probably accepted unconsciously myself, and right here, in this moment, they shed the image their leaders forced on them. This community comes together not only to thank Katara, but to take her advice and help themselves. It’s because of this that I think the Painted Lady decided to show herself to Katara that night and thank her. At great risk to herself and her friends, Katara chose to do whatever she could to help the less fortunate. It’s weird getting two “charming” episodes in a row, but I think the message of “The Painted Lady” really saves all of this from being the least bit forgettable. It’s a solid episode, but not the best the show has ever given us.<\/p>\n

THOUGHTS<\/strong><\/p>\n