Before we begin, I just wanted to say I wanted to make an Aiwei/IWAY joke but never quite found the opening.

Korra and Bolin continue their Metalbending training.  Korra proves to be a natural while Bolin… doesn’t.

This is also the day Opal leaves for the Northern Air Temple, so a banquet is held in her honor.

Well, after a post with zero additions to Zhu Li doing the thing or gratuitous foot shots, I’m happy to see we’re back on track.

The Brotherhood of Evil Benders arrives in Zaofu and enacts their plan to kidnap Korra.  And… they get in rather easily, actually.

I have to say, major props to the Brotherhood for tranqing Naga right off the bat.  If Naga was a factor in the following battle, they would’ve been done for.

Wow, two counter refreshes already?  Ladies and gentlemen, I have a good feeling about this batch.

Pabu sees (and, er, Bolin eventually does as well) the Brotherhood taking Korra away, and he and Mako move in to intercept.  It… takes a while for everyone else to wake up and join the battle, though.

The Metalbenders in security surround the Brotherhood and seem to have them trapped.  That is, until it’s revealed the fire-shuriken guy’s power is LAVABENDING.  APPARENTLY, THAT’S A THING.

Through the glorious power of teamwork, the Beifong sisters manage to rescue Korra and thwart the Brotherhood’s plan, but they manage to escape anyway.

The next morning, the investigation into how the Brotherhood got into Zaofu begins.

Minister Aiwei interrogates all of the guards and finally catches one in a lie… except the whole thing reeks of setup, and the gang breaks into Aiwei’s home to investigate.  Sure enough, they find a hidden passageway behind his bookcase.  It’s always the bookcase.

If this scene looks like a bomb waiting to go off… that’s because it is.  After Aiwei shows up and has no excuses up his sleeve, he escapes into the passageway and through another hidden tunnel while the gang encounters a trap bomb placed to cover his escape.

Suyin gets Korra to agree to Lin’s plan to keep her safe in Republic City (apparently, we’re conveniently forgetting that President Raiko BANISHED Korra in the first episode) only to turn around and tell Korra to pick up Aiwei’s trail and bring him to justice.

Next episode!

Korra and the gang track Aiwei down to the Misty Palms Oasis.  Bolin and Mako go incognito to investigate.

I do want to point out that Bolin goes all out creating a backstory for his character.  He really does belong in movers.

There’s a great scene where Bolin and Mako are on the run from apparent bounty hunters that turn out to be big Nuktuk fans.

Bolin manages to find Aiwei while Asami finds what is apparently the time and place of a meeting between Aiwei and Zaheer.  The group stakes his hotel room out to follow Aiwei to the meeting place.  Korra gets impatient (which is, yeah, kinda redundant) and kicks the door open to find he’s meditating; it turns out, the meeting place is in the Spirit World, so Korra meditates after him… however that’s supposed to work.

Korra arrives just in time to see Zaheer before he throws Aiwei into a pit of eternal damnation.

Rather than fight, Zaheer offers to answer all of Korra’s questions, and Korra surprisingly asks all the most relevant questions.

Zaheer reveals his group is the Red Lotus, an offshoot of the White Lotus.  Unalaq was a member of this group before he kinda backed out and never lifted a finger to free his former colleagues.

The Red Lotus’ goals are simple: return the world to its true chaotic state by ridding it of its world leaders.  It’s… pretty depressingly cliche.

Zaheer’s exposition is all to stall Korra, keeping her in a meditation state and powerless so the other members of the Red Lotus can easily kidnap her.  I mean, okay, Bolin and Mako are protecting her… but…

Asami tries to escape with Korra on Naga, but they get captured by the Earth Queen’s minions.

Next episode!

Korra forgets she can Metalbend and needs Asami to break her out.  She does so by just assuming the airship they’re on is of poor build quality (it is) and brute forces her way out of her bondage.

Meanwhile, the Red Lotus arrive in the Earth Kingdom court and deliver Mako and Bolin.  They offer to exchange information on the whereabouts of the Airbenders for Korra.  Which is kinda silly since they ought to know all the Airbenders are at the Northern Air Temple… but whatever.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, Lin follows Korra’s trail and happens upon Naga and Pabu, then calls in Tonraq to meet her.

Back at the airship, Korra manages to go a little overboard and kinda accidentally causes the thing to crash.

Mako and Asami persuade the crew (um… is flying an airship really only a three-man job?) to get the thing out of the sand and fix it so it can fly.  They get the job done… and promptly get attacked by a giant sand leviathan.

Back at the Earth Kingdom, Zaheer learns that the Avatar probably escaped.  He decides to change to alter the plan.

Significantly.

Well, this is what happens when you have a villainous Airbender.  Someone’s been reading Millennium Mystic.  I kid, I kid.  No one does.  ;_;

So uh… We just saw the onscreen assassination of the Earth Queen.  Have fun explaining that one to the kiddies.  Though I guess that invasion of Zaofu prediction I made is off the table.  Huh.  I’m genuinely shocked.

Zaheer broadcasts this accomplishment to all of Ba Sing Se while Ghazan breaks the giant walls separating the city’s rings.  And he didn’t even need a gigantic drill!

No one seems particularly broken up about the whole thing.  Not that anyone can blame them: the writers went to great lengths to make certain NO ONE liked the Queen.  I mean jeez… just the implication alone that she could have eaten Bosco…

Kinda makes me wish Zaheer was around to pick off the useless members of the Republic City council that did nothing but vote for whatever Tarrlok said to.

Asami gets the crew to use parts from the airship to build a sand sailer to get them the hell away from that giant sand creature.

They make it back to Misty Palms Oasis, where Tonraq, Lin, and Zuko are waiting for them.

Once Korra finds out about what Zaheer did, she’s resolved to confront the Red Lotus to prevent them from completing their plan.  Whatever the hell it entails.

This was a pretty tense set of episodes, and I rather enjoyed it.  Despite their disappointing motivations, the Red Lotus continuously proves to be a legitimate threat, though they could use more character-fleshing.

The lack of any scenes about the Airbenders was a bit weird, but I guess there really wasn’t all that much to say.  When last we saw them, we got the impression that things were going to go smoothly.  The only thing new that we could have had was Opal’s arrival at the Northern Air Temple.  It’s just that with every episode without the Airbender cast is another lost opportunity to salvage Kai.  And that’s a damn shame because one of the best things about Korra is how strong the cast is despite the sheer size of it.  When someone like Kai is made prominent (for a while), his lack of character REALLY stands out.  This is kind of the opposite of The Last Airbender Book 3, where after Haru, Teo and The Duke joined the party, absolutely nothing was done with them even though they could have added to the dynamic of the party.  Kai is of the same tier as all three of them: a one-off character the party meets in 1-2 episodes – except he’s treated as a major supporting character even though he brings nothing to the table.

Again, I really love the Red Lotus, but their motivation is a little sketchy.  Obviously, the battling philosophies is the main issue at hand here.  The Red Lotus have strength of conviction, while Korra has a simple and frankly weak “our leaders are what prevent society from falling into chaos” view.  I don’t think she’s entirely convinced by the words coming out of her own mouth.  That isn’t to say the Red Lotus is right.  Their biggest sin is that they’re thinking outside the box… by thinking inside a different box.  Give the masses freedom by getting rid of the structure that suppresses them.  Gee, sure sounds good in theory until you realize that you still have a select gifted few people deciding  what’s best for everyone.  Hell, sounds like Korra would fit right in with the Red Lotus considering that’s basically what she did with the Spirit Portals.  I think the intention was to have a group of villains who are well-intentioned and could “have a point,” but we already crashed and burned regarding the latter with Amon and Unalaq.  The best we could hope for with the Red Lotus is if, unlike the others, they aren’t sociopathic liars and hypocrites but just misguided or didn’t quite think everything through as much as they believe.

Well, just three more episodes to go!  And it’s really not clear where this is all going!  The Red Lotus seems to have intentions of changing the entire world, but they still have yet to show their hand, which means it’s GOT to be something game-changing.  Unlike the Fire Nation, they don’t have a massive army under their control.  Unlike Unalaq, they don’t have a major event like Harmonic Convergence or a pact with Vaatu under their sleeve.  The only thing we’re certain of is that a major showdown in Ba Sing Se is on the way… and we all know what happened the last time the Avatar had a showdown against villains in Ba Sing Se shortly after said villains deposed its ruler.  Zzzzap!