Civil War Part 1:

On the surface this episode seemed a bit boring. Less battles, less mayhem, less surprises. But if you dig a little deeper you'll see that this was actually a very interesting episode for a number of reasons:

1. Maybe Aang didn't live happily ever after. Kya and Bumi in arguing with Tenzin are probably drawing upon their worst memories and long standing bitterness, but at least some of what they said must be true. It seems a bit strange that Aang would ignore his other children but as someone pointed out on the Internets the births of Bumi and then Kya may not have been the most happy times for Aang. I mean, Aang's first child is Bumi, a non-bender of which there are more than enough of in the world. The next child, Kya, is a waterbender, of which there was still at least half a nation of. At this point Aang must have been freaking out a bit. If he and Katara didn't have an air bender the entire Avatar Cycle could be broken. Then finally Tenzin was born and Aang nurtured him and did everything with him and tried to prepare him to continue the air bender line. I like this though. It continues to show that being Avatar isn't an easy job, and doesn't necessarily mean you get to be completely happy.

2. I still think Chief Unalaq is up to something. Something sinister. While he didn't outright say it, he strongly implied that it was the south's neglect that caused the everstorm and closed the spirit portal. But in this episode Unalaq tells Korra that the portal in the north also needs to be opened. What now? The in tune with the spirits "we're here to stop your spiritual decay" northern tribe's portal is closed?? And in opening it Unalaq says travel between the north and south will be instantaneous? What's that all about?

My guess, if Unalaq is the bad guy, and that's still a fairly sizable if at this point, but if he's the bad guy I think his plan might be to open the spirit portals allowing spirits to flow freely into the physical world. Then he'll use his power to control and guide spirits as an unbeatable weapon. After all physical attacks and bending doesn't so much as scratch them. Even the Avatar in the Avatar State was knocked down easily by a single spirit. Imagine if Unalaq had hundreds of them! Hello world domination!

3. I loved the fight between Korra and the water benders at the end. It was pretty short, but the creativity and skill Korra showed in not hurting her opponents was pretty great. Bodes well for the rest of the season, I think.

I do hope we get to see some bigger fights though. The Last Airbender had things like the Aang vs Zuko vs Azula fight in that abandoned town, the big battles in Ba Sing Se, first getting to see the Earth King and later the awesome fights vs Azula and the Dai Li. And then of course the assault on the Fire Nation on the day of black sun. Korra book 1 had some neat one on one battles, but the biggest bestest fight was probably the brief battle on to of the Pro Bending Arena's glass dome, and that was only between two good guys and like four bad guys…

P.S. My iTunes copy of episode there had a few glaring audio blips. One near 1:58 where the stereo seems to split and get out of alignment, and another at 17:54. Can anyone else confirm those? I reported them to the iTunes team. Hopefully they'll do something about it.

I was getting a little bit of a Aang/Katarra/Sokka vibe while watching Tenzin, Kya, and Bumi in this episode, with the sibling dynamic added to that. I enoyed it, and I hope we see more of Aang's kids together in future episodes.

I do hope we get to see some bigger fights though. The Last Airbender had things like the Aang vs Zuko vs Azula fight in that abandoned town, the big battles in Ba Sing Se, first getting to see the Earth King and later the awesome fights vs Azula and the Dai Li. And then of course the assault on the Fire Nation on the day of black sun. Korra book 1 had some neat one on one battles, but the biggest bestest fight was probably the brief battle on to of the Pro Bending Arena's glass dome, and that was only between two good guys and like four bad guys…

So much this. I have yet to be really blown away by any of the fights in this series, unlike the first series. The animation is gorgeous, but I'm waiting for the fights to be just as amazing. The final battle between Azula and Zuko/Katarra in the first series was awesome and one of my favorite moments in that show.

Also, poor Bolin.

2. I still think Chief Unalaq is up to something. Something sinister. While he didn't outright say it, he strongly implied that it was the south's neglect that caused the everstorm and closed the spirit portal. But in this episode Unalaq tells Korra that the portal in the north also needs to be opened. What now? The in tune with the spirits "we're here to stop your spiritual decay" northern tribe's portal is closed?? And in opening it Unalaq says travel between the north and south will be instantaneous? What's that all about?

I'm definitely getting a vibe of containment and cleansing from him. He seems much less interested in finding balance between the north and south's cultures and much more interested in this uniting of the tribes, which sounds more like he will bend the south to match the will of the north.

Not sure what's up with the spirit portals and the whole spirit theme ongoing, but it definitely seems like intentional or not Unalaq is going to cause some cataclysmic spirit event.