Avatar 3.17 "The Ember Island Players"
I WAS EXPECTING TO LOL A LOT.
I LOL'D A LOT, AND, IN A SUPRISING PLOT TWIST, ALSO CRIED.
I mostly cried about IROH. =( Oh, Zuko. Oh, Iroh. You'll have your reunion soon. *HUGS THEM* *BAWLS*
Iroh's my favorite character (WELL, in seasons 1 and 2 really, since he hasn't really been around in season 3 *sadface*), and just... YOU GUYS. YOU GUYS JUST HAVE NO IDEA how much it tugged on my heartstrings to see Zuko watch all of that and then watch how he treated his uncle. I'm not in the habit of yelling out things when I'm watching episodes, but I yelled out "OUCH" and "AWWW" when play!Zuko treated play!Iroh like that when he sided with Azula. And then just seeing Zuko so morose... I just... yeah. Wow.
And all the other drama was so moving, too!
Like even the detail of Zuko's reaction to Jet's death. =(
And I really, really, really liked the Zuko + Toph BFFing. OF COURSE, THAT IS KIND OF MY REACTION TO ZUKO + SOKKA BFFs and ZUKO + AANG BROTHERS and ZUKO + KATARA NINJAS?! Plus, it had bonus Toph + Iroh BFF. Who could say "No" to that?
And Re: the Aang/Katara drama. Wow! That was very well done, show! And as
icybright pointed out, Aang and Katara just haven't been as touchy as they used to be. Pre-invasion Season 3 really underscored how super touchy they were... but now... they're kinda not. And to quote
a_white_rain: "Katara is so afraid of taking a chance - even more so after the last episode. She doesn't feel she's ready, but she never will until she takes a chance. I HOPE SHE KISSES AANG NEXT. with tongue." And so they saved the Aang/Katara resolution for the finale.
Speaking of shipping: I ship Sokka/Suki so hard now, you guys. So hard. I sort of... can't believe myself, but at the moment I'm shipping them more than I ship Sokka/Toph!? O_o
I mean... how can you NOT ship them when they're like THIS:
<33333333333
Besides that... LOLs and ENDLESS LOLs to everything ever in this episode. So uh... all that needs to be said about this episode is contained in THESE ANIMATED GIFS:
FANDOM: Jet's death was ambiguous.
MIKE AND BRYAN: *mocks*
"THAT IS THE WORST IDEA I HAVE EVER HEARD"
Zuko is all gross and disgusted: SAME REACTION AS THE AANG/ZUKO HAHAHAHA.
And Katara is allllll O_o what in the heck?
And I rolled around in the awesome of the show like a golden retriever, right alongside
ali_wildgoose, and also Mike and Bryan's dog brothers.
THIS DANGEROUS LADIES DESIGN WILL NEVER NOT BE HILARIOUS.
Even after such a sad scene as that. =(
SO BASICALLY THIS SHOW MANAGED TO HAVE ONE OF THE MOST HILARIOUS SCENES IN THE EPISODE MARRIED TO ONE OF THE MOST HEARTWRENCHINGLY TERRIFYING SCENES OF THE EPISODE.
On that last scene, it's really awesome how the play was more or less focused just on the lulz and then... then the scenes just got more and more heartbreaking, even though they were still funny. You have the sad-funny scene on the submarine and then the sad-funny scene of the firey death... and while the juxtaposition does connect the Aang/Katara drama to the threat of war and losing each other forever (see also: WR's comment above!), what's even more obvious (i.e. SO TOTALLY ANVILICIOUS) than that is the way it transitions you into actually feeling well... dread for the finale. You're right there emotionally with the characters, fearing the certain doom at the hands of Ozai and Azula. And that's impressive for a show in which we've always been expecting a Happy Ending, to actually feel that at the end of a comedy episode just before the finale.
Much as the show makes you feel what Zuko feels about Iroh even though you know there's going to be a happy reunion! And this isn't anything new to the show, but I just wanted to squee about it. <3
IN CONCLUSION: Toph is the greatest ever and she should always have big buff men with sonic screams portraying her in Fire Nation plays. Always. <3