Avatar: The Last Airbender first aired 14 years ago today. It unites audiences and themes that reverberate across the spectrums of young and old, critic and skeptic, and jovial and serious. It blends a unique array of serious issues, including imperialism, war, feminism, justice, power, physical disability, and subjective morality with lighter themes that explore family, loneliness, honor, and personal redemption. Ostensibly a children’s show, it maintains cultural relevance today due to its cross-appeal and for the way it evolved and matured with its audience, eventually spawning  a sequel series, Legend of Korra, that dealt with more complicated questions of self and morality. Although Legend of Korra has been the subject of much acclaim itself, the original series has been heralded as a key program in demonstrating the breadth and diversity within the greater Golden Age of Television and as one of the “greatest shows of all time.”

It’s a show I have watched many, many times — I own the entirety of it on DVD — and my most recent rewatching has serendipitously coincided with the 14th anniversary of its debut. In recognition of this, I wanted to kick off a series in which I break down the show, episode by episode, several episodes at a time. The Last Airbender ran for three seasons and 61 episodes,1Arguably the last four episodes of the third season are one large finale and were debuted together as such, but I digress. and with the upcoming (hopefully not disastrous) live-action series coming to Netflix next year – I hope this series will be relevant to those looking to start or revisit the show in anticipation. I hope to present this in a format loosely influenced by AV Club’s similar series from roughly seven years ago; going through episode-by-episode and logically grouping them together as needed. I highly encourage you to watch along with me, or at your own speed, but be mindful that there will be spoilers present, as there are a lot of allusions to the future within earlier episodes.

As I go through the show, I’ll be assigning each episode a rating out of 5, with 1 being “among the worst”and 5 being “among the best”. As you’ll notice, it’s going to be mostly uphill from the first season. This is not to say the first season is bad – it’s absolutely fantastic – but it definitely leans more towards a younger audience and wastes slightly more time on mini-adventures, or “village of the week” episodes than the following seasons will (there is a very specific episode in the second season where I would argue the real plot “begins”). Nonetheless, the show is a breeze. The 22-minute runtimes make the episodes highly digestible, and it flies by too quickly and leaves you wanting more (at least it got a sequel). So let’s get this started with our first two episodes.

Episode 1: The Boy in the Iceberg / Episode 2: The Avatar Returns

It’s the episodes that started it all – and the only time that gosh darn intro video is markedly different (the fact that it never changes gets really old once you’re like… five episodes in, but at least they start complementing it with “Previously on Avatar” at some point). It sets the stage for the show, focusing on characters rather than the world (a decision which I’ve come to accept is for the best, even if it makes this episode weaker as a standalone entry). We get that Katara is strong-willed and a fledgling waterbender with no one to teach her, but who obviously longs for more. Her brother Sokka is sarcastic and emasculated, a wannabe warrior who’s just a teenager. And when Katara breaks open an iceberg in a fit of anger at her brother, they discover a young boy, Aang, and his air bison, Appa, inside. Aang, the youngest of the three, is instantly excitable, high-energy, and kind of a goofball – and doesn’t realize the weight of what he’s missed in the last 100 years (something he’ll come to grapple with in the next episode). Of course Aang’s release from the ice triggers a light to shoot up into the sky, bringing the attention of Zuko, Prince of the Fire Nation and the obvious bad guy – who’s searching for the Avatar to reclaim his honor accompanied by his understated and seemingly-aloof uncle Iroh.

Boom, we’ve got the five main characters that we’ll be following from here to the bitter end. Aang is instantly the most annoying and I’ve always considered him the worst of the main characters – even if his irritating nature seeks to make a point and provide the best context for the intended viewers. Aang needs to resonate with the innocent, the child, the want-to-be do-gooder who is in over their head; he’s a vegetarian, prefers to evade rather than attack, and does not yet take his role seriously. He is the protagonist, and the one who we will have to watch grow, which gives a purpose to his comic juvenility. To be certain, the show starts off leaning on lighter elements, like Aang being able to sneeze a hundred feet in the air, going “penguin sledding”, and having fun with the young children in the desolate Southern Water Tribe. But it manages to slowly build at the darkness below the surface: a 100-year war, raids and attacks by the Fire Nation that have left the Southern Water Tribe abandoned and defenseless, and Aang slowly realizing what world he’s awoken to and what he’s missed.

The journey truly begins in the second episode, when Aang is first forced into confrontation with Zuko and the revelation that Aang is indeed the Avatar and that he is indeed a 12-year-old child (or a 112-year-old child if you prefer to be less/more weird about it) comes out. Aang surrenders himself to save the village from Zuko’s wrath, and finds a way to escape Zuko’s ship. He enters the Avatar state for the first time and devastates Zuko’s ship as Katara and Sokka (who believe it’s their destiny to  save Aang and shepherd him to the Northern Water Tribe so that he can learn waterbending and begin his first steps towards mastering all of the elements) arrive to rescue him, witnessing his first real act of power. And so, aboard Appa (Appa can fly, you see, being an air bison), the three of them begin their adventure together to the North Pole, a journey fraught with some of the show’s best moments and, yes, most of its worst.

This journey and the episodes that portray it set the tone and lay out the plot for the first season of the show: getting Aang to the Northern Water Tribe so he can master waterbending. This zig-zags us across (mostly) the Earth Kingdom as Aang, Katara, and Sokka make their way north, and serves to establish the characters, motivations, and some of the essential lore of the world – despite hitting fewer major plot points than the later seasons. But it’ll build up to a terrific season finale (I’d argue the best one), and is certainly worth the ride.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were the Avatar?” Katara asks Aang at the end of the second episode. “Because I never wanted to be,” Aang solemnly responds as the episode drifts off… and we’re left with a morose note, perhaps just beginning to realize this show will lead to so much more than it seems on its surface.

Episode 1: The Boy in the Iceberg – 3/5

Episode 2: The Avatar Returns – 3/5