I love the ending of this episode.
8/10
I love Katara centric episodes. Just her unbeatable sense of justice and determination to help people in need never fails to move me. But one of my favourite little moments in the episode was Sokka fully backing Katara up in the end. Their sibling bond is everything.
I was hoping that in the last season, we'd be done with boring filler...
In a lot of ways, this feels like a return to the more episodic, one off adventures of the Book 1 era, and at points to it's mild detriment. To have a non-plot relevant episode this late in the game, and in the final season as well, is a bit of a disappointment but Avatar: The Last Airbender is anything but a disappointment entirely and "The Painted Lady" still manages to be a great standalone episode in spite of that. It's themes are blunt, yes, but they are also relevant and discussed with a sincerity and maturity that comes to characterize the show.
Plus, that ending battle is simply aces. The animation quality in Book 3 just leaps off the screen with easily it's most impressive set pieces yet and this one is clever, funny, and also very much in line with how the spirits continue to be seen in the Avatar universe. Katara in general in this episode showcases some of her most powerful bending skills yet, and it's far cry from her abilities in the first season. She's come so far.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2017-04-01T20:14:41Z
[6.3/10] A second weaker installment in a row. Having the old facile argument about the greater good vs. not turning your back on individuals didn’t work for me, and Team Avatar pulling a reverse Scooby Doo (i.e. a group of meddling kids pretending to be a ghost) was a pretty silly way to dramatize that.
I have to admit, I always get annoyed when shows set up the oversimplified argument like the one Sokka and Katara have. Let’s be real, Katara’s heart is in the right place, but Sokka’s right – stopping Ozai before the comet comes is more important than one individual town, and the way she not only slows the rest of the group down but tricks them in order to be able to help the fishing villagers is, well not selfish exactly, but pigheaded in a way that misses the bigger picture and makes it hard to root for her despite her good intentions.
Plus, the whole “painted lady” bit was super predictable, and the fact that Aang didn’t recognize her immediately is pretty ridiculous. I like the idea that she’s trying to go all Batman, helping the helpless under cover of darkness and striking fear into the hearts of evildoers with that vaunted “theatricality” but it’s all done in pretty cheesy fashion.
On top of that, there’s a trite “oh no, the river’s polluted and it’s destroyed the town” bit of Fern Guly ripoff quality to the whole thing that I didn’t care for, and the local with multiple personality disorders who claimed to be a series of brothers was annoying rather than funny.
The one part I did like was when all of Team Avatar worked together to scare the local toughs from the factory to prevent them from attacking the villagers after “The Painted Lady” destroyed it. There was some real ingenuity and creativity in the way they all combined their powers, and it made for a nice sequence. By the same token, I appreciated the detail that despite all the help she’d provided, the villager almost immediately turned on Katara when they realized she was a water-bender. It speaks to the depths of the tribalism and nationalism that are so deeply-rooted in the fire nation.
Still, overall this was a weaker village of the week episode, with a lame theme, a generally weak and cliché premise, and only one good sequence to really save it.