The Legend of Korra Series Finale ABSOLUTELY SPOILERS!!!

ABSOLUTELY STAY AWAY IF YOU HAVE NOT YET FINISHED THE LEGEND OF KORRA.

If there is one thing this blog could be known for it is my forever gushing over The Legend of Korra series. And this will be no different. In fact, this will be the most gushing-est thing that I have aver written.

Season 4 began with a lot of oomph. Korra was not the strong and confident person that we had come to know over the course of the last few years. Her fight with Zaheer left her deeply scarred both mentally and physically. Korra spends a lot of time just trying to get back to the level of power that she had in the previous three seasons. It takes her the majority of this final season to not only find herself again, but become an even better person than she was before. But beyond that is where this season kind of flops. It felt like a huge crawl. And this seems to be pretty consistent with Korra. The majority of a season will feel a little slow and then the season finale will shake it all up. Getting things to a glorious boiling point that makes it all worthwhile. This 4th and final season was very much the same. Only this time, the payoff was far greater than any other season.

Every shot in the two-part finale is astonishing. They really pulled out all of the stops here. Despite being in it's fourth season, these episodes manage to implement something entirely new, never before seen in the series in nearly every shot. Scenes of fantastic, sweeping grandeur. More than a few beautifully done continuous shots where there are no cuts, but fantastic fight scenes. As an animator, I was driven to tears seeing all of the impressive feats happening here in such rapid succession! It was spiritual, I tell ya!

The recap episode that we saw this season was proof that the production team was having a budget issue. Too often an animated show will receive a budget cut. And too often, the first place where this will show is in the finale. I am so, so proud of the creators' wise decision to invest all they had into the series finale. It really shows that this was carefully crated with love. In any story, the ending is paramount. None of what comes before matters if you don't give your audience a satisfying ending. Other shows have given us a long and exciting ride only to fizzle out on us at the end. Sometimes, those final episodes are next to non-existent. I won't name any names...

But I will point fingers.

The return of Asami's father who was imprisoned way back in season 1. His last sacrifice and shot at redemption. Mako's destroying of the war machine's core at great risk to himself. Varrick's engagement and hasty marriage to Zhu Li. The genius uses and reiterations of "do the thing". At the beginning of the season, we were introduced to Prince Wu of the Earth Kingdom. He was entirely spoiled, annoying, and unlikable as a character. Even Wu has his moment to really shine in the finale and becomes not only tolerable, but a serious joy to watch. In fact, his entire role throughout this is one of my favorite parts of the finale. It is important to note that at no point did Korra enter the avatar state and become the badass defender of the world. She could have not have done anything without the great supporting cast that we have come to love over the last few years. It blows my mind how well the writers were able to give nearly every character a satisfying role and ending. Save for perhaps Bolin and Opal. Like, what happened there? Their relationship was seriously on the rocks and here at the end we get virtually no screen time of the two together.

As if any of that was not enough, the last few seconds might just be the greatest shock of all. A relationship between Korra and Asami is heavily, unmistakably implied. At the end of season 3, some people saw a little bit of a spark of this beginning. But of course, I (and a lot of others, I'm sure) thought this was not the way it was going to go. "They're just good friends". Wrong. This series has been known to push the boundaries of what is okay for a "children's show" (remember that time we watched Zaheer suffocate the queen of the earth kingdom to death, cause I certainly do). But this is different. This is something entirely new for not only Avatar, not only animated shows, not only children's programming, but not even television as a whole. This is an incredibly bold ending that is certain to be the cause of controversy for a very long time. I never could have seen it coming. And I for one approve of this move entirely.

Much of the 4th season felt a little lackluster to me. But these final two episodes went above and beyond anything that I could have expected. The animation, the voice acting, the drama, the filmography, the writing. All were masterfully done. So beautifully. As if somehow this finale was constructed from an atomic level to be everything that a series finale should be. And I do not feel that I am exaggerating here.

Thank you for reading, and as always, GOD Bless.