The fourth and final season of Korra has finished, ending the second era of the Avatar franchise in a great way. While the show has had it’s ups and downs over the years, I liked it all the way through. Beautiful show, we don’t get many animated works like this (TV or film).

Korra had a lot to live up to coming off of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Universally praised and adored by many, going with a (mostly) new cast 70 years later was daring. They took the show into new territory and greatly expanded his universe. Funny, touching, exciting, some of the best animated action outside of anime, Korra kept everything that made Airbender so great.

I think the final season worked so well because of how great season 3 was. Loved the  Red Lotus Society and the final showdown with Zaheer (my favorite villian of the show, great use of him in season 4 too) is one to remember. Korra came out of it in really bad shape and was a great idea to set up the final arc. A person with PTSD going against a tyrant and coming out on the other side a better person is not easy to write (the juxtaposition between Korra and Kuvira is pretty brilliant). The title “Balance” for the season is very apropos.

I think The Legend of Korra did more right than wrong. The controversial ending was a bold step that needed more time, (the clip episode might have robbed the love interest plot line of time) so it did feel too sudden when Korra and Asami go off together. More than hints through two seasons are needed (we are talking about an animated kids show on Nickelodeon though).  Korra is a more grown up show than Airbender and handles a lot of the tough stuff with class and respect despite being rushed and on a kids network. I really hope the creators come back to this universe sometime in the future. They’ve said they have no plans and are off to do new things, but I’d like to think they have more in them and distance from Nickelodeon will do them well (pretty sure Nick owns the show, so we may have to wait a really long time for he chance of more Avatar animation).

Now, Nickelodeon. What happened to their support? A long wait between season 2 and 3 and then all hell broke loose. Three episodes were leaked early thanks to MundoNick and Nickelodeon panicked to get the show out and they burned through episodes starting on June 27th for season 3. Then, they didn’t like the ratings on TV so they brought it to online only halfway through the season with zero warning. One week it was on TV, the next gone. With season 3 done, everyone hunkers down to wait for 2015 for the final season.  Nickelodeon announces on September 11th that Korra starts on October 3, 2014. What? It’s all online too. Then they haphazardly put season 4 back on TV after debuting 8 or si episodes online. They pretty much dropped all promotion of the show and cut the budget back so they had to make a clip episode instead of complete new episode. The Korra team took a lot of hits in the last year of production.

But, I digress. That stuff is all inside baseball at this point and the series still ended up holding on to it’s high standards. It’s a great show that I’ll be happy to revisit for years to come.