The Legend of Korra: Operation Beifong (4x10)

Toph! That's enough to get me to like any episode, honestly. I'm pretty easy. But let's go ahead and look at the plot, shall we?

Lin, Opal and Bolin all approach Zaofu to save the rest of the Beifong family. Toph shows up to help them out. She and Lin have a rocky relationship, but they are willing to work together to save Suyin and the rest of the family. They track the prisoners to one of Kuvira's camps, where they are testing the Spirit Vine weapon.

Kuvira herself shows up to see how the testing is going, but something seems to be wrong with the machine. Very quickly, Kuvira realizes that Zhu Li was sabotaging the weapon. She sends Zhu Li to an abandoned town, where she will be tied up and then killed during the testing of the weapon.

Toph, Lin, Opal, and Bolin manage to rescue the other Beifong prisoners, but when Bolin finds out that Zhu Li is in danger, he says he has to go after her. Opal decides to go with Bolin to rescue Zhu Li. When Baatar Jr. sees that his sister Opal is down in the abandoned town, he tries to call off the weapons testing, but Kuvira is relentless.

Lin, Suyin, Baatar, and the rest of the Beifongs fight against Kuvira's Earth Benders. Suyin fights against Kuvira herself, while the others stave off further attacks. Just when it seems all hope is lost, Toph shows up and knocks the Earth Benders out. As the whole crowd escape on Opal's Flying Bison, Toph tells Kuvira: "You give Metal Benders a bad name!"

Toph says she's too old to continue the fight, and that she has to leave it to the kids now. Toph and Lin seem to get over some of their problems, as well. Lin can acknowledge that she doesn't hate her mother, even if there is still some baggage between them.

Meanwhile, back in Republic City, Asami and Varrick have created a suit to use as a weapon against Kuvira. President Raiko is angry because Varrick refuses to utilize Spirit Energy in these weapons. Varrick says it's too dangerous, but Raiko says that since Kuvira has that sort of power, they need it too. Korra tries to talk to the Spirits, seeing if maybe they'll help without being harmed and turned into weapons. However, the Spirits are not interested in getting involved in the fights of humans.

I didn't realize it until just now, but I do have one kind of large hangup with this episode. How the heck did Toph and Lin actually repair their relationship? It seems like Lin still has some good reasons to be pissed. Toph never apologized for not telling her about her father, or anything else. It just annoys me that we got "resolution" on the fight between Toph and Lin, but no good reason for it!

My only other slight hangup was actually about the animation, which I know is surprising. I just thought some of the Spirits were animated a little strangely. I honestly think they could have done a lot more with the Spirits in general. Think of the creative possibilities! However, this is mostly a nitpick.

I loved this episode with all my heart. First of all, we got an answer - sort of - about Lin's father!

Toph says that his name was Kanto (I'm guessing on the spelling). "He was a nice man, but it didn't really work out." Bolin's response was great. "And... okay." He sounds so bewildered, and in a way he was mirroring the audience's reaction. We were all sort of waiting for some shocking twist or reveal, and then... okay! Kanto, apparently. Whoever that is. One nice thing about this? I honestly can't remember any other time where a kid's show had a mom with two kids, both from different dads, in a situation where the dads didn't tragically die or anything. It just didn't work out. Ostensibly, Toph wasn't married to either of her daugthers' fathers, either. It's obviously a perfectly normal thing, but for a kid's show it's actually a bit risque. I appreciate that.

Zhu Li was working against Kuvira the whole time. This was so obvious from the very beginning, but it was still satisfying to see it. Zhu Li is a bad ass! The relationship between Bolin and Zhu Li was never explored in the past, but it makes sense that they would have become friends. I love Bolin - he's such a bad ass, and his loyalty is really amazing. He is probably the stand-out character for me this season. So great.

Speaking of bad ass Bolin, the fight scenes in this episode were absolutely astounding! Some of the best we've ever seen! Of course, I loved the way that the fight was pretty even for a while, but then the Beifongs get cornered... cue Toph! She enters like a boss and wipes out all the baddies. You know it's funny, but I almost felt bad for Kuvira for a second when Toph told her that she gave Metal Benders a bad name. That is biggest punch to the gut, to hear that from the inventor of Metal Bending herself.

Opal is on the road to forgiving Bolin! I'm glad. I think Zhu Li helped people realize that it's easy enough to fall in with the wrong crowd, and get swept away with an ideal. Bolin didn't know what Kuvira was up to, and once he did, he immediately fought against it. Opal was right to be angry, but she's also right to forgive him.

The Republic City subplot was pretty minor, but I do love the fact that Varrick and Asami refuse to create this world's equivalent of a nuclear weapon, while President Raiko angrily declares that it's necessary. It feels very real - and very scary - that the supposed "good guy" would make these types of decisions. It's also great that the Spirits refuse to help Korra. They're right to stay out of the business of mortals. Unalaq was no walk in the park, after all!

We are so close to the epic finale - just three episodes left! As we go into next week, we've just learned from Zhu Li that Kuvira is planning an attack on Republic City. Oh no! This is going to be awesomely terrible!

8/10