Avatar: The Last Airbender: "Chapter Seven: The Runaway," "Chapter Eight: The Puppetmaster," and "Chapter Nine: Nightmares and Daydreams"

(This is the twentieth installment of my weekly recaps of Avatar: The Last Airbender, the Nickelodeon animated series that ran from 2005 to 2008 to much critical acclaim. I’ve never seen it! These recaps are only available to paid subscribers.)

• “Chapter Seven: The Runaway” (originally aired November 2, 2007)
• “Chapter Eight: The Puppetmaster” (originally aired November 9, 2007)
• “Chapter Nine: Nightmares and Daydreams” (originally aired November 16, 2007)

One of the nice things about the more episodic structure Avatar sometimes adopts is the way it lets the show operate in different modes or even genres from time to time. The series proper is a YA fantasy with a hefty dollop of superhero tropes, all slathered in an Americanized reimagining of anime. But in any given episode, it can turn any of those needles jussst enough to the right or left to effectively end up in a different space entirely.

That's just what happens in "The Puppetmaster," to me the clear standout of this week's trio of episodes. The episode is notable for being another Katara-focused installment after we already had "The Painted Lady" earlier in the season. So far, the show has progressed steadily through its main group of characters, which makes its choice to revisit Katara feel pointed. (I mean, she's the deuteragonist. It's not like this is a surprise.) The next episode, "Nightmares and Daydreams," focuses on Aang, and if I know anything about season structure in television (and I do know a few things), we'll be into the heart of the story for most of the rest of the season.

But even "Nightmares and Daydreams" feels deeply connected to the show's core mythology. "The Puppetmaster," then, feels almost as if it stands apart, even as it's sneakily doing some pretty major things in terms of the show's mythos. And in the process of exploring those ideas, it twists the "fantasy" knob just a little further to the right and drifts into outright horror.

Horror is not a tone that's unusual for Avatar to hang out in. There have been some pretty creepy adventures throughout the episodes to this point, and the show knows how to create a cool monster or an eerie spirit with the best of them. But "The Puppetmaster" is body horror, which is a really cool idea for this show to explore. And it almost seems like an inevitable one once you see where Katara's arc is heading.

If the first several episodes of this season have been pretty focused on who these kids might have been if not for the enormous war they've been conscripted into (and the Toph-focused "The Runaway" follows this trend, positing a Toph who could have had a better relationship with her parents), then "The Puppetmaster" and "Nightmares and Daydreams" suggest possible futures for Katara and Aang. Aang's worst nightmare, notably, is just kind of that he fails. Katara's worst nightmare is that she becomes too powerful.

I'd say there was a gendered element here — well, of course we're worried about the girl getting too powerful!! — but what's cool about "The Puppetmaster" is how it lets Katara have her cake and eat it too. She does learn the immense power inherent in the skill known as bloodbending, using it to entrap the only other waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe she's ever met. But she also gets a firsthand lesson in just how horribly the powers the old woman taps into can be abused.

Avatar, being a show nominally aimed at tweens, lives in the world of power fantasy most of the time. How could it not? Aang is, in most ways, a happy-go-lucky kid who's an invitation for us to imagine ourselves as a super-powerful kid who tries to maintain his good nature as responsibility comes calling. But inherent to the idea of being able to command the elements is that doing so would give someone godlike powers that they could then abuse in all sorts of horrifying ways. Media aimed at children usually suggests that power will be wielded at least semi-responsibly. We live in the world. We know that's not true.

But "The Puppetmaster" also never turns bloodbending into something that Katara should be frightened to learn. It feints in this direction, having her insist that she'll never learn the skill and letting the old woman crow about how powerful it has made her. But in the end, bloodbending is just another tool, and it's a tool that can be used for all manner of reasons. It is only as good or as evil as the person utilizing it.

That's a more sophisticated moral than most kids shows — and most episodes of this show — typically allow for, but I also love "The Puppetmaster" for how cool it looks. When waterbending fights are being held by stripping the water in the cells of trees, or with bodily fluids being flung about, that makes for some really amazing moments and visuals.

"Nightmares and Daydreams," meanwhile, feels like an episode about Aang confronting his greatest fear and his greatest wish for how the future could go, but it's also about Zuko doing that. Because I'm me, I found the Zuko plot far more effective, focused as it is on Zuko's ongoing existential struggle to figure out who he is and where he fits in his father's kingdom and his family's life. But I also found the Aang plot to be sort of... underdeveloped.

What I'm realizing the deeper I get into this series is that the Aang stuff leaves me cold because it, alone among the show's core elements, seems most squarely aimed at the presumed audience of 10-year-olds the show originally was targeted at. Aang's big stressors as he prepares to face Fire Lord Ozai are that he won't be ready and he'll fail. I don't want to downplay how impressive it is to see a show like this tackling the idea that failure is a viable option in any human endeavor, much less the attempt to save the world. But it's one thing to know that and another to build an episode around nightmares featuring the kid that hint at a lot of the pain he's lived through, yes, but also mostly seem to suggest he's our hero. He is! I'm not sure he has the psychological depth that would be needed to pull off this episode.

You know who has that depth, though? Everybody's favorite Fire Nation prince! His story is mostly about him trying to enjoy his success but constantly finding himself frustrated at the fact that he's close to the place he wants to be but nowhere close to the person he hoped he'd be. He's able to blame this initially on Azula getting invited to the war council. But eventually he's invited there himself, and it's just not what he wanted. He's splintering, bit by bit, and the version of himself that's emerging is more honest and more compelling, but the process of getting there is so, so, so hard to bear. Is it any wonder trans girls have adopted this character?

I've left "The Runaway" for last because I don't have much to say about it. It's an episode that feels like a holdover from season two, when the Katara/Toph conflict was more pronounced. But it is an episode that tilts the dials in another direction and wanders somewhere into the genre of "crime caper," which is a fun thing for the show to attempt. It's just centered on a relationship that is fraught, yes, but not in a way where I feel like spending an entire episode of the final season making sure we understand the two have a healthy but fractured alliance was completely necessary.

All in all, this is an interesting trio of episodes, mostly for what they say about what the show is capable of this late into its run. As we prepare for the long plunge to the end, I remain impressed that the series went out of its way to spend the first half of its final season on these sorts of mostly standalone adventures that give us a chance to see the characters at their best, one last time. It's a unique strength of a 20-episode season, and it's one that makes Avatar a stronger show overall.

Other thoughts I thought:

• Look, "The Runaway" has some really nice moments, but I was against it from the very beginning, simply because it starts with an in medias res opening. Like, sure, it seems superficially exciting, but how often is one of these any good? Almost never! And especially when it comes to, like, the seventh episode of a 20-episode order, it's not hard to note that the teaser probably exists because the rest of the episode wasn't quite there.
• On the other hand, Katara turning her sweat into a weapon? Gross and also cool.
• And, okay, I'm not made of stone. Hawky being utilized to send a message to Toph's parents was a sweet touch.
• Famed voice actor Tress Macneille (who has done a zillion voices on The Simpsons and Futurama) plays Hama, the old woman in "The Puppetmaster," and she gives her a real menace.
• Also: I briefly thought Hama was one of the ladies from the Ember Island Inn, but I guess not!
• Talking Appa is one of the creepiest visuals this show has ever come up with, and somehow, Talking Momo isn't nearly as scary.
• I do like that the content of some of Aang's dreams is so juvenile. That he worries about not having his pants on when he faces off with the Fire Lord feels like a dream I would have had if I were the Avatar.
• But a kissing Katara daydream? No. I WILL NOT BUY THIS SHIP EVER, AVATAR.
• I have to admit that after finding her a bit of a weak character in season two, I really dig Mai this season. There's just something about how much she love-hates Zuko that I dig. Let Zuko and Mai do some shot-for-shot remakes of great Frasier and Lilith scenes from Cheers! C'mon, Paramount! You own both of these properties! Let's make it happen!

Next week: It's the season's first big two-parter, as we take on "The Day of Black Sun." I'm guessing there's an eclipse? You'd think someone would have mentioned it...