‘Coronation Day’, Legend of Korra book 4 review

‘Coronation Day’ was set in two separate locations; as dictated by its two preceding episodes. In Republic City, Mako and Bolin reunited for Wu’s coronation, where Kuvira was supposed to hand over control of the ‘Earth Empire’ to the newly anointed Earth King. I imagine it would be quite a short season if that happened: instead she stated she wasn’t handing over her hard work to some idiot (reasonable) and will crush anyone who tries to stop her (less reasonable).

Meanwhile, in the foggy swamp Yoda/Hama/A Hobo/Toph tries to harden up the avatar who complains that she’s been defeated by reasonably unimpressive foes. After revealing to the ecstatic fans watching that she still ‘has it’, she reveals to Korra that she still has metal in her body that Korra could apparently remove herself if she was ready to resume her responsibilities and confront her fears.

Toph says it was because her daughters were never particularly good metalbenders (if Lin isn’t, then who is?) that Suyin failed to remove it all. No doubt the Red Lotus theories will reemerge there.

Overall this was a pretty good episode, although not quite as captivating as ‘Korra Alone’. At times it did feel like it was stalling for time, and was more of a filler episode. But definitely not as much as previous avatar episodes (Avatar Day anyone?). They clearly want to delay Korra returning to the modern world until a specific point, and presumably she will get the metal out before then so at a guess Id say theres at least one more episode with a split team Avatar.

Team Avatar hasn’t really been as much of a team in LOK, they appear quite self focused (except Bolin and Korra) and don’t seem to have as much adhesion as the Gaang, happy to continue with their lives when Korra was out. Hopefully this will be resolved at the end in some way or another; I know Im pumped for the Bolin vs Mako showdown. Makos given every reason for Bolin to be distrustful of him in every season.

Final scenes reveal Varrick is developing some evil machine for Kuvira powered by spirit vines, and Tenzin is sending his children off to find Korra. Ten bucks on Jinora winning.