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I just saw the last couple of episodes. Wow.

Mako has been lightning bending since season 1.

On season 4, I'm not sure I like that so much, but it may just work.

i was getting super hyped when Zaheer flew is was like wtf is this. Season 3 did some serious justice to airbending

Are there any more advanced airbending techniques I need to know about?

I always assumed it was just one of Asami's gloves. They are in equalist uniforms…

Recall that the uniforms were only for disguises. Those gloves never had range or power like actual lightning bending. The point of those gloves were for non-benders to have a change against benders in an actual fight. It'd be pointless for Mako to need one of them.

Ok, thanks, didn't know.

Theory Time:

Ghazan can lava-bend (which is normally a combination of fire and earth bending i.e. only the avatar can do,) because his bending happens at the sub-atomic level. He takes all the molecules of the rocks he manipulates and rubs them together intensely, causing them to melt and thus become lava.

Bolin simply moves the earth molecules found in the lava. We haven't really seen him produce lava which is really supernatural and out there much like Ming Hua's arms and Amon's blood-bending.

About the Korra redesign- do the things on her arms look a little like braces to anyone else?
I know she's able to move her arms fairly well, judging from the book 4 clip, but maybe she would still need support for her limbs in order to bend like she used to.

GET HYPE!

Insane prediction: Zhu Li turns out to be a sleeper agent for the Red Lotus.

That would not be a bad twist. Perhaps mind-control from Dai Li agents who defected?

It would seem that Kuvira is indeed the final villain, patiently waiting for her time to strike. She seems to be wielding a rebellion of Earth and Metalbenders, likely filling in the void the Earth Queen left. My guess is that she'll represent Fascism. She has cutting edge technology, she worked in the army of her country, then its monarchy ends and who knows, maybe she'll blame the Airbenders for it. It was Zaheer and his newly-acquired abilities that killed the queen, anyways. Totally play up the Earthbender superiority, since they have been a pretty powerful kingdom in the past. Yeah, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas Fascism, since Book 1 was Communism, God knows what Book 2 was and Book 3 was Anarchy. This is the last major political movement in the early 1900's, that is, until the end of World War Two and the beginning of the 1950's, which ends the first half of the 20th century, just as this (probably) ends the Avatar universe. But I'm pretty sure my guessing record for this show has been spotty at best, so who knows?

Well seeing what I saw today, you might be right on the spot about fascism being the theme of the season

I agree. She totally gave off the "fascist wannabe-dictator playing just nice enough to get support before she brings the hammer down" vibe.

I'm actually surprised there is a vibe like this. It seems oddly specific.

Also: Bolin, why must you fall for this? Listen to Opel!

Sadly Bolin isnt the brightest of the bunch, and I feel like it makes sense, they probably want to say that even in fascism, nice people can become pieces of the machinery.
I'm really liking this so far, more than the other season actually. Let's see where it goes now.

Edit: I'm calling it right now, Kuvira's probably the one sending the bandits, althought I feel it'd add more depth if she wasn't

Hahaha, Bolin got Fascismzoned. That's the most important thing I got out of this episode. I am an invaluable poster, clearly.

I'm fairly certain she is sending them, though I'm willing to bet that might be something she started doing within the past couple of months in the show. Trying to get more supporters and all that.

If she is, then she's probably doing it indirectly. Or, at least, she is abetting and stoking a bandit problem that would have existed anyway.

After all, her train was attacked by bandits, who apparently had no idea what they were doing, and she had to threaten to leave them to be run over by a train (!) before they would join her gang of thugs (and Bolin). None of that would have happened if they were getting a paycheck from her.

Yea sure, there might be independent bandits, but the biggest giveaway for me is the "air supplies hijack scene". I'm not too sure about bandits confident enough to fight airbenders in the sky if not ordered to do so. But again, you might also be right.

I could buy it that she got some of the goons on her side to stage that air attack. What strengthens the possibility for me was how the guy was prepared for air gusts (with the tether) and also knew to go after Kai's flight suit.

But, like, that's one attack with a specific and limited goal. I doubt that she's the mastermind behind all of the bandits.

For those wondering if the airborne bandit is one of Kuvira's goons, this may be definitive proof

Of course that could just be a look alike; you know how animation goes. Also, I'm not too keen on the idea that this is indeed the same person yet because that's a bit too fast to prep some ruffian to go against two fully trained airbenders. Either way, whether that is the same bandit or not, I'm pretty sure it's one of Kuvira's schmucks. He's got all the tools necessary to take down airbenders and steal the supplies. Not to mention, he has a friggin jet. No way some low-lives would get a hold of that without help from someone with money to spend.

I just thought up a possible ending scenario:

>Kuvira uses her power base to depose the Earth King
>Mako, Korra, and the air benders get together to fight her
>Bolin, after seeing what Kuvira is really like, betrays her and plays a key part in her defeat
>With the royal family gone and Kuvira defeated, the Earth Kingdom needs a new government
>They go with democracy
>But who would make a good Earth President?
>Flash forward a few months, and the results are in

>Say hello to President Bolin

Mmm Maybe, but somehow I don't see it, I think thy gave the soon to be King Wu too much screen time and personality to just put him aside at the end, maybe they'll go with a parlamentary monarchy?
What I can see, is Kuvira going to war against all the other nations(WWII anyone?), and winning the fights at first (of course)
But yeah, Bolin president? I can't see it, I might eat my words in a few weeks tho ^^'

My reasoning with Bolin:

- I don't think either the Earth King or Kuvira will be on the throne by season's end. (Which doesn't mean that the King won't get more screen time.) Someone will have to replace them.
- Democracy already exists in the Avatar-verse in Republic City, and totally fits the "balance" motif between anarchy (Red Lotus) and fascism (Kuvira). (Also, Republic City's founding shows that there is a precedent for avatars resolving political messes by creating democracies.)
- Bolin has had a lot of positive character development so far, and will likely get more once the him vs Team Avatar thing plays out. He certainly isn't the same goof he was in season one.
- He is already famous for his movies.
- He is the only member of Team Avatar who is both an earth bender and an Earth Kingdom citizen.
- He also has a humble background, which makes him basically the opposite of every Earth leader so far.
- His position of trust in Kuvira's army gives him an opportunity to publicly and with great fanfare fuck her shit right as she's about to be successful.
- Thus, an election is likely to occur at season's end, and Bolin will be a highly electable candidate. He and Mako can then move into the palace, completing their rise from poverty to the heights of society.

And I honestly don't see a constitutional monarchy coming out of this. The Earth King's line is already drawing deep – he was the Earth Queen's nephew, and if he dies the next in line will either be too young or an even more distant relative. Also, he's basically a figurehead to be manipulated by his advisers. Bolin can certainly do better than that.

Not saying this will totally happen. Just that it's a viable possibility – that the parts are already there, waiting to be assembled.

Ok, I just watched the chapter 3 preview, and I get the vibe that you are right, Wu won't be king by the end of this unless he changes drastically. And yeah of course Kuvira won't be in the throne at the end.
You know what, ok. I'm buying it, maybe Bolin will be the president. I'm pretty sure Bolin will not abandon Kuvira right away after things start going to shit tho. He will, just not right away. When Bolin will "rebel" against her it'll more depth and maybe wisdom? to his character, which would be your point about positive character development.That'd also fit right into the redemption theme in Avatar.
Mako will be his bodyguard, and marry Wu.

And it was actually right after seeing the preview that I came up with the idea.

Also, I think that it would just be funny that, after dreading being the king' bodyguard so much, he ends up chilling in Ba Sing Se with his brother the president.

And they've already established they have a big family in Ba Sing Se, so it'd be all the more natural for the two of them to end up there in the end. I mean both of them have sort of always been looking for some kind of family. This might be the chance for them to reconnect with their biological one.
Will Mako stop being a Republic city cop tho ^^?

Well, I doubt Bolin will want to keep the Da Li up and running, considering how unrepentantly evil they are. So Ba sing Se is going to need a new police force.

I'm sure Chief Mako will be up to the task.

(Also, the more I think about this, the more I want it to happen. Holy crap.)

Something more to this; What if Mako and Bolin's family are also related to the Earth Kingdom royalty, but were disowned somehow by a previous king/queen (and their grandmother is the only one who knows about it)? The Dai Li might be more… cooperative with someone with royal blood.

In a few weeks' time, this will either be canon or my new fanfic. Maybe both.

I wonder what kind of crazy-awesome superpower they're gonna introduce in Book 4, since there was at least one in each season.
Just something to ponder.
-Book 1 had Amon/Tarrlok/Yakone's psychic bloodbending, as well as Amon's enhanced chi-severing.
-Book 2, I guess had all the weird, spirit-centred powers in it, like Jinora's out-of-body spirit-scouting. (Though this isn't actually that new, considering that Aang did it by accident at one point.
-Book 3 introduced lavabending via Ghazan, and Flight from Zaheer. Although I doubt that anyone else will gain the ability to fly.
These are at the top of my head, so I'm sure I missed a few, so sorry about that.

Kuvira seems to do a magnetic metalbending thing. Don't know if it's actually magnets or if she metalbends in such a way that it seems magnetic.

I was wondering why all of Kuvira's soldiers seem to have those metal shoulder guards – as if that tiny bit of armor would do anything. But now I get it: they're so that Kuvira always has some metal near their necks so she can force-choke them at will. That's some pretty evil costume design, right there.

Oh, yeah, deforestation and over-exploitation of natural resources, I forgot about that part of the 20th century. Looks like Toph is going to take down all of Kuvira's army by herself.
Also, between Wan Shi Tong's Library, the Avatar Connection and now the Foggy Swamp, Avatar is a great example of how knowledge and monuments is lost during times of war.

So it looks like Kuvira wants to take Republic City.

Think about it: she wants to "unite" the whole Earth Kingdom, and Republic City used to be part of that Kingdom. Also, as we saw in the last episode, she has been purging her territory of everyone from other nations – and as the comics showed, Republic City was started because it had become a zone of indistinction between the Earth and Fire nations. That's why she wants the super-weapon, despite having taken so much territory without it. She knows that she could never take that city by force without it.

Yeah, I'm double posting, but it's been five days so whatever.

I was wondering – of all the characters we've seen across both series, who is the best at firebending? I mean, obviously it would be a tossup between Ozai, Iroh, and Azula while Sozin's Comet was up, at least in terms of raw power (I'm guessing that Zuko was the least skilled in the family), but outside of that I think Roku would be a strong contender. And then there's Aang and Korra, who probably wouldn't be able to beat Roku in a fire-only match since that was his native element, but if they only used firebending while in the Avatar state (though that begs the question as to whether we should even count the Avatar state) they could probably beat most others. And that doesn't even bring up the question of how good Wan was. Mako, meanwhile, is also obviously quite skilled, since he can shoot lightning, but I've never seen him use blue fire, so I imagine that he would lose to Azula. I would probably place him just above Original Series Zuko.

And then P'li and Combustion Man are the wild cards – I honestly have no idea how to factor in that skill, since unlike electricity and blue fire it doesn't seem to scale with raw ability (that is, you don't get that skill just by being better at firebending, or by getting a special lesson) but rather might be an in-born trait which may or may not require some special ritual to give your the eye tattoos. I mean, we never actually saw these two do any particularly spectacular moves aside from combustion bend, so aside from that one trick they might not be very good benders at all.

And it's strange that this is really the only bending form where "best" is even in question. I mean, in earthbending Toph is obviously the best, with Bumi and Kyoshi right behind her, and Aang likely has top marks in airbending. Perhaps waterbending could amount to a match between Aang, Korra, and Katara, but then we also have a question with Yakone and his kids similar to what comes up with the combustion benders.

So yeah, it's a bit tricky. Which is why I figured I should mention it here.

"Yippee! Another fucking clip show!" -- Little Kuriboh
Seriously though, I hate flashback episodes, they're the worst kind of filler. The biggest redeeming quality about that episode, though, was the phone call scene. I feel like they got GanXingba to voice Amon in it, in which case that scene just got ten times better.

According to Bryan Konietzko the reason for the clip show was that Nickelodeon had slashed Season Four's budged by about the cost of an episode, so it was either make due and air a clip show with five minutes of new animation or lay everyone off early. So, yeah, I'm just adding to the "reasons I hate Nickelodeon" list while appreciating the episode as a case of Mike and Bryan making the best of a bad situation.

But I really do wish that Varrick's movie idea had been the whole episode. The other two parts were basically disposable, but that whole bit could have been the Ember Island Players 2.0.

Varrick was hilarious but the recap of Mako's failed romances made me want to puke.

Somehow I'm not liking Korra at all! She appears to be a spoiled brat! I like Aang and his group more than this new Avatar and her gang!

That . . . that's a two-year-old post.

I – I don't even.

And look at the journey we made. Back then we knew nothing and now our Avatar is nearing the series finale

Wow, you're right.

I . . . I think I've got something in my eye.

"Don't look at the trending Avatar image section, Erwin. I know the episode aired today, but I don't have the time now and I will have to watch it tomorrow"