With the glow from Sozin’s Comet painting the entire sky with an orange, hellfire hue, Aang takes on a fully-realized Firelord. That growth is never made more clear than in the finale. Like the characters becoming better benders over the course of the story, the animators too improved their own craft with more incredible and elaborate fight scenes.
Its call-backs like these that not only allow us to remember how many characters we’ve met over the course of the show, but that also reinforce the importance of the global struggle they’re waging, giving extra weight to the battles to come - which would be the best of the series by the way. The show also brought back fan-favorite characters from earlier seasons with the twist that they all belong to “The White Lotus” - a secret society of the old guard dedicated to keeping balance in the world with members like Master Pakku, Bumi, Jeong Jeong, and Piandao.
Meanwhile, Sokka, wanting to help but always unsure of how to go about it, heads out with Toph and Suki, scrambling to fight what and where they can. Zuko and Katara head off to reclaim the Fire Nation from a power-mad Azula. A conflicted Aang goes off to confront Ozai, because despite his responsibility to bring balance to the world as the Avatar, he doesn’t see himself as a killer. It isn’t long, though, before Zuko reminds Aang that whether or not he wants to think about it, he has to kill the Firelord before the comet comes, which eventually sets the events of the finale in motion. Why grow up and be forced to face your fears when you can drink watermelon juice or make Appa-themed sandcastles instead, staving off the reality for just a little longer of the Fire Nation burning the world to the ground? The show’s evolution into something that tackled more adult themes was addressed wonderfully at the start of the finale with a beach party, which harkened back to the tone of the first season, reminding us of the carefree kids the characters used to be. Zuko, who over the course of his travels experienced the most change, began to question the man he was becoming under the shadow of his father. Sokka, after constantly getting his butt handed to him, realized he had a lot to learn about fighting and the world around him, and slowly set about rebuilding his confidence. Aang was forced to accept his responsibility of being the Avatar. But as the show went on, the characters began to experience the reality of the war-torn world they were living in. Aang was goofy and fun-loving, Sokka was comic relief, and even all the anger and hate expressed by Zuko was tempered and juxtaposed by his lazy uncle Iroh’s one-liners and rimshots.
There are many reasons why, but it boils down to the culmination of three things - bringing its story full-circle, the increasing quality of its presentation, and most importantly, how it provided an immensely satisfying conclusion for its characters.Īvatar: The Last Airbender started off through and through as a kid’s show.
Its four-episode finish benefited greatly from this structure, becoming one of the best series finales of any show ever. It was a show that had a clearly defined conclusion in mind with its three-season structure (each named for the respective element Aang would learn to master), and an ending that would come with Sozin’s Comet - a deadline that the protagonists had to meet in order to defeat the Firelord, teased back in the first season. These were shows where the creators were given the freedom to tell the story they wanted to share, but with an often underappreciated liberty in that they could do so in however many episodes they felt were needed.Īvatar: The Last Airbender demonstrated this particularly well when it ended over 10 years ago (on July 19, 2008). It’s why shows like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones are looked upon so fondly - not just because of their tight, condensed, expertly paced stories, but because their characters have consistent goals or motivations from the first episode of the show to the very last. And sometimes shows pull a Dexter, and… well, we all remember Dexter. Maybe its characters, perpetually upping the ante in shenanigans or drama, stray from their story arcs, becoming exaggerated parodies of their formerly endearing selves (think Andy in The Office, or Andrea in The Walking Dead). Perhaps its story gets stretched to absurdity to meet the demand for more seasons (see Lost).
How many TV shows can you name off the top of your head that had an ending that met your expectations or appreciation of what came before? More often than not, we run into a series that overstays its welcome.