Episode 5 of Avatar: The Last Airbender ended with the group now knowing the date of the Day of Black Sun, Appa gone and Aang barely holding together. Episode 6 is where the plan to use that information reaches the Earth King, fails, and then falls apart twice more in quick succession.
It is, to put it plainly, a bad day for everyone involved. But it is also the episode where the cracks that have been forming in the group since Ba Sing Se are finally said out loud, and where Iroh does something that has been a long time coming.
The title of the episode, "The Parable of the Two Dragons," comes from a parable Azula tells about two dragons, one strong and one weak, and the lesson she draws from it is that everything is a competition, and the only mistake is hesitating when you have your enemy at a disadvantage.
Episode 6 recap
The episode opens in the aftermath of Appa's kidnapping. Aang has slipped into the Avatar State out of pure distress and Katara has to talk him down. He lashes out at Toph, blaming her for not stopping Appa's captors even as Sokka and Katara insist she did everything she could and that it was Jet's sacrifice that got them out at all. Aang storms off alone to search for Appa, ignoring Katara's pleas that finding the Earth King is actually their best shot at getting him back. Toph, guilt-ridden, blames herself for not holding on longer.
Meanwhile, Zuko is bedridden with a fever and Iroh tends to him, telling him a fever burns away the old self to make way for something new. Zuko has a feverish dream mixing memories of his mother Ursa's disappearance and his father Ozai's coldness. In the dream, a monstrous version of himself seems to relent and apologize. He wakes changed, thanks Iroh for caring for him, admits he lost his job from missing shifts and asks if Iroh can still get him the job at the tea shop. Iroh says yes.
The group hatches a string of increasingly absurd schemes to sneak into the palace, eventually settling on Sokka's plan to hide inside wine casks meant as a gift from General Sung, but it works, getting them past the Dai Li undetected. Elsewhere, Azula visits an imprisoned Long Feng, offering him names of conspiring generals in exchange for help finding "a fugitive" (Zuko) and handing over the Avatar. Long Feng scoffs, boasting that Ba Sing Se's army will handle any Fire Nation force as it always has. Azula reveals she has 20,000 Firebenders ready to level the wall unless she calls them off. She plants the seed that "everyone deals with the Fire Nation one way or another."
Zuko, going by "Lee," has a quiet, hopeful day meeting a girl named Jin and settling into a more ordinary life, while Iroh gently mentors him through small lessons in tea-making.
The group finally reaches King Kuei, who turns out to be a gentle, garden-obsessed man. Kuei initially dismisses politics but has a moment of clarity about weeds finding their way past even the strongest walls. He agrees to listen and Aang lays out the plan to strike during the coming solar eclipse, but Long Feng thwarts their credibility by accusing Katara of theft, exposing Toph's family's Fire Nation weapons dealings and tying Sokka to a missing scholar's disappearance.
Overwhelmed, Aang breaks down, demanding to know where Appa is and slipping into the Avatar State again, terrifying the king and getting the group thrown out. Back home, the group implodes as Aang blames Katara and Toph for hiding secrets, Katara confronts Toph about her family's role in his village's destruction and accusations fly in every direction until Toph storms out, followed by Sokka and Katara turning on each other too. Aang is left with Momo.
What comes next happens fast. The Dai Li have set a trap for Katara (as the Painted Lady), and arrest her. When Zuko (as the Blue Spirit) tries to help her, they arrest him, too. Sokka, searching the city for Suki, is instead captured by Ty Lee. Toph, alone, reunites with her mother.
Meanwhile, Iroh reveals his identity as the Dragon of the West to an old contact and is welcomed into the secret Order of the White Lotus.
At the episode's end, Aang, using his earthbending, feels something underground. He has found Appa.
Episode 6 review
This is a packed episode and it's supposed to be. After all, it's the penultimate episode of the season as Netflix had the episode count reduced for season 2. The thing that holds things together is that every storyline follows logically from decisions characters have already made and I liked how it made space for small scenes here and there.
The Earth King scene is probably the episode's centrepiece and it works because King Kuei is written as a very sympathetic character though he's just oblivious. The argument between the gang back at the villa is a long time coming if you've watched the animated series, and I was wondering if the show was about to skip it until now. These are people who have been under enormous pressure for a long time, and it finally comes out sideways. Katara's comment about the Beifong weapons is too far and also not entirely wrong. Aang's frustration about not being understood is valid and also self-pitying. This is also in my opinion the most uncomfortable episode of the season, largely because the argument in the final act is the kind where everyone is at least partly right.
Zuko's nightmare sequence is one of the more interesting things the show does with him this season. The idea that his body physically reacts to the moral choice he made in the library (of sparing Aang) is unusual territory and it mostly lands. This episode lets him just be a person for a while, which after everything feels earned.
Iroh's White Lotus scene is quiet and good. The show doesn't oversell it or give it a swelling score. He sits down, says what he did, asks to be forgiven, and that's it. The weight of what he's actually being forgiven for is left in the air.
Azula threatening Sung through her daughter is a sharp detail that keeps adding to her character and the scene where she narrates the parable of two dragons and ends it with the line that she's going to kill Zuko gave me the chills. The episode ending on Aang feeling Appa underground is exactly the right note to close on after everything that's just gone wrong. The season finale will have a lot to pack and unpack it seems.
Episode grade: A-
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