Book 1, Chapter 13: The Blue Spirit

In my opinion, The Blue Spirit is pretty overrated. It appears on many top-10 lists of best Avatar episodes, and most people would easily rate it in their top 20. At least that's what I've generally gathered from considerable time on forums and reddit.  Don't get me wrong, The Blue Spirit is a great episode, and in fact, I completely understand why people would rate it so highly. But in reality, when you match it against the best of Books 2-3, it's nowhere close to top-10 worthy. That aside, there's a lot to love here, so let's dive in!

The cinematography in this episode is noteworthy, especially for Book 1. Take this scene, for example. The first shot of the Blue Spirit gives him a mysterious and stealthy aura. The music goes a long way to bolster this:

Sick day with Appa. I appreciate the continuity here; because The Storm was the last episode, Sokka and Katara are coming down with a fever from the cold ocean.

"Take that, you rock." Sokka is getting delusional... and hilarious!

Uncle Iroh sure loves his Pai Sho set.

I love the scene when Katara tells Momo to fetch some water. If you ever wondered how much Momo can understand, here's your answer!

Miyuki the Persian cat. I recently lost my Persian, but this scene brings back good memories. :)

Earlier in this episode, Admiral Zhao acquires the resources and authority he needs to capture the Avatar.  Nearly the entire fire nation navy, as well as a group of highly skilled archers, are at his disposal for this sole purpose. This leaves Zuko in a rough place. "My honor, my throne, my country. I'm about to lose them all." This snapshot illustrates Zuko's fear and worry quite well.

The Yuyan Archers in action. They are VERY COOL! I especially love how they harpoon the trees to swing off of them.

Not too surprisingly, they greatly outnumber Aang and end up capturing him.

"Tell me, how does it feel to be the only airbender left? Do you miss your people?" Zhao is complete scum... It's fitting that he's voiced by Jason Isaacs, who also voiced the menacing but pathetic Lucius Malfoy from the Harry Potter movies.

The full reveal of the Blue Spirit mask. I wonder who could be behind it?

The episode goes from OK to AMAZING in these last few minutes. The careful steps the Blue Spirit took to not reveal his firebending, to the fantastic last fight partnered with Aang... WOW! It's definitely a highlight of Book 1.

On first viewing, many people get confused about this. They may think the Blue Spirit is a waterbender, but he's actually tossing a bucket of water.

"WAIT!! MY FRIENDS NEED TO SUCK ON THOSE FROOOOGSSSS!!!!"

Here's another humorous moment. Momo must have brought back the entire contents of an ancient burial tomb, but no water! Haha!

Now back to Aang and Zuko. Their fight against Zhao's guards is thrilling, creative, and well choreographed.

"I need the Avatar alive!"

The Blue Spirit thinks quickly on his feet:

As they escape the stronghold, Zhao orders one of the archers to fire at the Blue Spirit. Right after the arrow hits, we see a glimpse of who's behind the mask. The music goes together with the imagery so well. Extremely well-done.

This is such a big reveal during a first viewing. You're like, "HOLY SHIT IT'S ZUKO!" Then you start to think back on the episode, and try to piece it all together. What makes this episode so compelling is that the answer was always right in front of you, and when the mystery is revealed, everything fits into place and makes perfect sense. This episode could have easily been written as a simple quest for Zuko to capture back the Avatar to regain his honor. But how this show chooses to weave this tale is definitely something special.

Is the episode over yet? Not even close! There's a few short but important scenes that round out the episode to complete its message. And no, I'm not going to spell it out for you. Just reflect on what these scenes may be trying to tell you.

"Before the war started, I used to always visit my friend Kuzon. The two of us, we'd get in and out of so much trouble together. He was one of the best friends I ever had, and he was from the Fire Nation, just like you. If we knew each other back then, do you think we could have been friends, too?"

...Yeah, maybe not? Things must be confusing for Zuko...

Iroh is shown playing the Tsungi Horn next to his monkey statue, both of which he picked up in episode 9, The Waterbending Scroll. It's important to note that the Blue Spirit theme we've been hearing all episode was actually played by Iroh. SO NEAT!! I love continuity stuff like this.

Sokka asks, "Aang, how was your trip? Did you make any new friends?"

Aang replies, "No, I don't think I did."

Zuko, obviously reflecting on the events of that morning, literally turns his back on the fire nation before going to sleep...

So frozen wood frogs WERE the cure after all! Although Sokka and Katara don't seem too happy about it...

Conclusion:

The Blue Spirit contains one of the most memorable fights of Book 1, one of the greatest twists/reveals, and among the most eye-opening messages and subtext of the series. Yeah, I guess "memorable" is the most accurate description of it. And yes, the last 7 minutes or so are masterful. However, I think that the first 2/3rds is kind of boring and tries too hard to set up the latter part of the episode. There's nothing wrong with this at all, it just keeps The Blue Spirit down lower on my favorite episodes list. I definitely believe it to be overrated.

I rate The Blue Spirit 9/10 frozen wood frogs. Sorry if this review seemed short, but I felt there wasn't too much to talk about. This episode is all about the mystery, the fight scenes, and the Zuko reveal, all of which were admittedly epic, but didn't add up to an overall "upper-tier" or "groundbreaking" episode. ATLA is so damn good, that this great episode is merely pretty average, at least in my opinion.

Anyways, thank you so much for reading, and I hope you all have a wonderful day! Peace.