Shuffling around events of the original series a bit, “Omashu” and “Into the Dark” provide Aang‘s (Gordon Cormier) journey into the Earth Kingdom where Aang, Sokka (Ian Ousley), and Katara (Kiawentiio) disagree over how to help the city’s fight against the Fire Nation. Here we get Jet (Sebastian Amoruso) whose scruffy rebel act hides a darker purpose and the conflict of the Mechanist (Danny Pudi) attempting to keep his city safe from harsher attacks from Fire Benders. Adapting parts of four different episodes and mashing them together, not unsurprisingly, turns out to not work all that well.
“Omashu” is a weak, and largely forgettable, episode that leads into King Bumi (Utkarsh Ambudkar) putting his old friend through a series of tests in “Into the Dark.” Bumi’s eccentricities worked far better in animation than live-action and the episode cuts the legs out from under the story by moving the big reveal (that the mad king is Aang’s childhood friend) from the end of the episode to far earlier rather than allow Aang’s discovery to be the key to its resolution. Instead, we’re given a Bumi who is more cruel than wacky leading to back-to-back disappointing episodes after the series had gotten off to such a good start.
The only saving grace of these episodes is the subplot involving the mostly annoying Prince Zuko (Dallas Liu) and his Uncle Iroh (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) exploring how Iroh’s decision to journey with Zuko after his nephew’s banishment is tied to the kindness that Zuko offered Iroh years before following the death of his son. That bond won’t allow Zuko to abandon his uncle after his capture in the Earth Kingdom, leading him to momentarily abandon his search for the Avatar to rescue Iroh and return him to the ship.
