The Magic of "The Beach" - Avatar: The Last Airbender

[Applause] captain midnight [Applause] this video is brought to you by raycon in my first ever video about avatar the last airbender i broke down my thoughts on my favorite episode of the series tales of bossing say one thing that episode often gets accused of is being filler the type of episode that sees the show biting its time until the next big plot heavy installment that's something the episode that i'm talking about today the beach shares with it if you cut the entire series down to its bare bones of just getting to point a to point b the beach would not be a quote-unquote essential episode in fact i've seen a lot of people say that they skip it on rewatch calling it too broad too goofy and just not all that important to the three season story structure of avatar you probably won't be surprised to learn that i disagree with that since i would easily rank the beach in my top 10 favorite episodes the show ever did sure that's at least partially because i'm a huge sucker for fish out of water comedy but i think the episode deserves more credit than just that it's an episode that does a great if not exactly subtle job of diving deep into the motivations and insecurities of the most powerful teens in the fire nation and i think that's worth talking about because avatar wasn't just a show that excelled at the big well-animated battles it also had a deep understanding of what made its characters tick and if the beach is about anything it's about that so for those who don't remember the a plot of the beach follows azula zuko tyler and may as they're forced to spend some time vacationing on ember island like from the start i was a big fan of this premise it takes the fire nation gang outside of the context we're so used to seeing them in and places them into one that's almost certainly more relatable to you or i this forces the group to do something they're clearly deeply uncomfortable with exist as normal teenagers ty lee the one in the group least likely to come off as a super intense weirdo adjusts to this the easiest and she soon has a whole crowd of teen guys vying for her attention and even she is unable to handle that well and ends up attacking them showing that even though she might seem carefree at the end of the day she's still a fire nation warrior and violence just tends to be the solution to any problem they have but honestly the attention she gets seems to be a bigger problem for azula than for tylie herself as we quickly see her jealousy rise to the surface now none of these kids are particularly suited for the life of a normal teen but azula least of all she usually operates in a single mode cruel intensity and while it serves her really really well when she's commanding her father's army in most other contexts she comes off as completely insane this leads to some of my favorite scenes of the episode with voice actor grey griffin doing some amazing work as azula tries her best to hit on a guy in the most azula way possible that's a sharp outfit chan careful you could puncture the hull of an empire-class fire nation battleship leaving thousands to drown at sea because it's so sharp um thanks the characters that invite the gang to the party aren't exactly fleshed out to be honest they're kind of one-dimensional jokey characters all around but they do the important job of contrasting our main characters with the average teenager in the avatar world and by doing that we kind of see how broken they truly are i want to talk about that fireside scene but first i think it's worth pointing out how well-written zuko and mei's budding relationship is zuko is frustrated at may's seeming complete lack of feelings about anything he does you can tell that zuko isn't exactly comfortable being the type of guy that has ice cream with his girlfriend on the beach but he's trying really really hard despite that he's getting basically no response in return this all comes to a head in the scene around the fire where each character gets their own speech about their life and their problems like i said earlier this isn't a subtle episode and honestly i'm not sure i buy that characters this defensive would ever let their guards down enough to be so frank and honest with each other but if this scene comes at the cost of a little believability i think that's definitely worth the trade-off the scene starts with zuko coming down from his childhood summer home using a family photo as timber for the fire neither zuko or azula seem to have many happy memories of the place and i really like that quiet scene in the house as it seems like one of the few times that the siblings really see eye to eye about just how terrible their childhood was but soon everyone is ganging up on ty lee i think mostly out of jealousy and telling her that she's basically a circus freak now on the surface at least so far tyler hasn't really been a complex character and she's most often used for comic relief but i think the writers did a good job of finding a way to get her to the next level where we come to understand her as more than just a reliable joke dispenser as she basically says that her being the goofy center of attention is exactly what she wants growing up in a giant family of identical sisters any sense of uniqueness or individuality is what she really craves that's kind of the exact opposite of may who is pretty open about the fact that blending into the background is what she's been trying to do since childhood it's the role that she's kind of always been forced to play of course it's zuko who gets the most dramatic outburst as he comes to the realization that the only person he's mad at now that he's back in his dad's good graces is himself and that makes a lot of sense to me as i touched on in my video about zuko alone i think what drives zuko for most of the show's run is trying to force himself into a mold that he just doesn't quite fit he's expected to have the cold detached outlook of azula or his firelord father and he just doesn't despite trying to pretend otherwise for years and years zuko clearly cares about people so of course enforcing his father's will on the world is never gonna quite sit right with him deep down it's just not who he is azula's speech is maybe the most revealing and in my opinion the only one where the character is being a bit dishonest she says that her own mother saw her as a monster and she'll happily admit that that's true we see in the finale though that azulla really struggles with her feelings about her mother who i'm not quite sure actually did see her as a monster like sure their mother feared that azula would do something to zuko but i don't think she wrote her off entirely in the way that azula claims here because admitting that her mother did care for her might mean acknowledging something about herself that she's really uncomfortable with that she wasn't born a monster she's chosen to be that way and she has the capacity to be something else entirely if she chooses i think for azula the thought that she's only ever been irredeemable is comforting to her because it gives her a great excuse to never be anything else what are you doing here you mean it's not obvious yet i'm about to celebrate becoming an only child you might have noticed that i haven't at all touched on the actual main characters of the show in this video and there is a reason for that their b-plot while containing a nicely animated battle sequence is pretty bare bones the real heart of this episode is with the fire nation crew their troubles adjusting to a somewhat normal life that they have to live for a week and the revelations that they come to about themselves it's a really funny episode filled with classic avatar comedy bits like azula's determination to crush her opponents at volleyball but it's a lot more than that too it's an episode that shows that the series doesn't always need massive world-changing stakes to work that it can get some interesting and very entertaining drama and comedy out of just having these characters hang out with each other and i think what makes that even more special is that aside from zuko these aren't even the main characters of the series even the villains have enough nuance and depth to carry a half hour of the show it's easy to take for granted but it's definitely not something that every show can say speaking of the beach while this year has definitely not been the year to go to parties fire nation or otherwise it has been a great year to get out into nature yourself and that's part of why i've been so happy to have raikon's everyday e25 earbuds they sent me these a few months ago and now i don't wear anything else they make great gifts too since they're something i use every single day the latest model is their best one yet with 6 hours of play time really easy and fast bluetooth pairing more bass and a more compact design that gives you a nice noise isolating fit and all of that at half the price of other premium earbud brands for that same high sound quality now is the time of the year to get the best prices on raycons but this offer is only available for a limited time to try them out and get 20 off go to buy dot com slash midnight that's by raycon dot com slash midnight you'll find the link in the description here's a special tip for the fellas and girls who have not already joined captain midnight's new 1940 flight patrol you'd better hurry up and join at once because there's a big adventure ahead the thing to do now is to get started because we're going to have not only barrels of fun but loads of free gifts and prizes too

Channel: captainmidnight

Views: 240,210

Keywords: Avatar The Last Airbender, Avatar, The Beach, Zuko, Azula, Ty Lee, captainmidnight, Captain Midnight, Nickelodeon, ATLA, Party, reaction, episode, Aang, Fire Nation, ending, trailer, book 3, season 3

Id: 7AYsdSMAODo

Length: 9min 48sec (588 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 27 2020