Tripping Over Books

Episode 7 • Reunion

Howdy friends! Many apologies for being MIA with the recaps. Thankfully for all of us, Lisa has been KILLING IT. Check out her recap of last week’s episode to get all caught up before diving into Reunion!

So this week starts off in the BEST way possible, you guys because THIS HAPPENED:

Korra returns to Air Temple Island with Jinora, Ikki, and Meelo and is LOVE-TACKLED by Naga. She literally RAN to her. They haven’t seen each other all season, and I DIE. In fact, when I watched this episode, I thought that they were gazing at each other at one point, but it didn’t happen. Let’s just pretend it did, though, k? At any rate, BEST way to start an episode about the Avatar reuniting with her family and friends.

Once Korra escapes from her epic Naga hug, Tenzin breaks the heartwarming welcome vibe by wanting to dive right into business. He wants to know what happened in Zhaofu. Opal fills everyone in by telling them that Kuvira and her entire Earth Empire force has taken control of the city and captured her parents and brothers (minus the Percy-esque Batar Jr.). It’s dire. Korra feels like she got an F at Avatar 101. Opal–and everyone–is worried about Bolin. They don’t know where he is or what’s going on with him.

Never fear, though, friends, because Bolin and Varrick are together once again! Except they probably aren’t cut out for outdoor life right now.

I can’t with these two. They–or Bolin, rather–are tromping through the woods trying to make it to Republic City so that they can tell everyone about Kuvira’s spirit vine weapon. They don’t get two feet from this picture before they are captured, though. They make me LOL.

Back in Repulic City, Korra is finally reunited with Asami. YAY GIRLFRIENDS! They are going to meet up with Mako and his charge, Prince Wu, for lunch. When Korra walks into the restaurant, Mako is all chilling like so:

I still ship this.

Anywho, Mako and Korra share a big hug. Korra meets Wu and he is smarmy as usual. Like hitting on Korra and being totally obnoxious. She’s not interested. During their lunch, Asami asks Korra if she is still unable to go into the Avatar state. Mako perks up because, HELLO, he had no idea Korra COULDN’T. She’d only confided in Asami. It’s a little awk for a while when it comes out that Korra wrote to Asami while she was in the South Pole but not Mako or Bolin. Mako is a little put off that she didn’t reach out to him. Well, actually, he pouts. Asami fills in Korra about her dad and then the girls get into a little spat. Prince Wu gets a little sick of the lack of attention and makes a production of going to the bathroom WITHOUT Mako. LULZ.

Bad decision, though, Wu, because in the bathroom he gets sprayed with some stuff by a bathroom attendant. Wu down. After he’s been gone for a while, Mako–who was still pouting–goes to check on him, only to discover that he’s gone. Korra sees someone suspicious outside and follows him. She gets a glimpse of Wu in the back of a truck before she’s attacked by the attendant and him and his cronies make off with Wu.

Asami and Mako pull up and they go chasing after the truck. They lose the Wu truck for a few seconds and by the time they catch up to it, Wu is gone. They switched him out into another vehicle. WAH. They do find out that he was captured by men loyal to Kuvira, though, and while Mako and Asami are trying to figure out where the bad guys took him, Korra wanders over to a spirit tree and is able to connect with Wu’s energy. She finds out that he’s on a train. When Mako and Asami ask her how she did her little trick, she explains that in her travels she found Toph, who taught her some fab stuff.

Back in the woods, Bolin and Varrick are cut down by a group of rag tag people who they find out are escapees from one of Kuvira’s reeducation camps. They’re from the Fire and Water nations and they aren’t much pleased to meet people from Kuvira’s inner circle. Turns out that Kuvira has been taking non-Earth Empire citizens and sending them off to her camps. This is all news to Bolin and Varrick. The prisoners have a plan to use Bolin and Varrick to get them through a checkpoint and out of Kuvira’s grasp, and they all agree to trust each other. When they get to the checkpoint, it takes a little talking to at first. The soldiers eventually let the group through, but then one of the workers sees Bolin and Varrick’s pictures on a wanted poster. A fight ensues and the Bolin gang emerges victorious with a little help from some tinkering by Varrick and some heroic lava bending by Bolin.

When Mako, Asami, and Korra get to the train station, they take a few minutes to locate Wu in the train car. Mako and Korra bicker a little bit and my feels. It’s not all fun and games, though. They run into some of the Earth Empire guards who were taking Wu to Kuvira, and they all fight on top of the moving train until Korra airbends them away. The three of them have a group hug and MY FEELS AGAIN. Aftewards, Mako takes Wu to Asami’s house, where his grandmother and family are living since they left Ba Sing Se. Grandma Mako has like instant hearts of eyes for Wu. It’s adorable.

Bolin and Varrick are about to say goodbye to their new friends when they’re offered a boat ride north. Varrick protests on the grounds that he’s “allergic to drowning” but eventually relents.

In the last scene, we get our first glimpse this episode of Kuvira. She and Batar Jr. are testing some tree vines for spirit levels and they’ve just hit a MAJOR jackpot. The tree they’re testing has readings off the charts. Kuvira orders her soldiers to cut the whole tree down until there are no vines left.

Look at this tree! *is devastated* But WTF IS THIS SPIRIT VINE BOMB.

Thoughts on episode 7, guys?