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Warning: This review contains full spoilers for <\/strong>Avatar: Seven Havens<\/strong><\/u> Season 1, Episodes 7-9!<\/strong><\/p>\nWhoa, doggy (and we can say that because non-hybrid dogs exist in the world of Avatar)1 After last week\u2019s episodes<\/u> of Seven Havens seemed to settle into a nice, comfortable rhythm, this week\u2019s trio literally and figuratively tossed the table with some huge<\/em> story moves and big additions to the mythology while somehow also managing to be the most effortlessly funny episodes thus far. At least a portion of that is due to the show\u2019s first two-part episode, which you know has to be big \u2014 and it is \u2014 but thanks to the continued impressive balance of ongoing mysteries and emotional storytelling, Episodes 7-9 are a thrilling roller-coaster ride from start to finish.<\/p>\nOh, and also we get to see Korra and Asami again, so commence freaking out, everyone!<\/p>\n\n\nRead Last Week’s Review:<\/strong><\/p>\nAvatar: Seven Havens Episodes 4-6 Recap and Review<\/strong><\/u><\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<\/section>\nThe Long View<\/h2>\n To talk broad strokes before we get into the specifics of the episodes: As we\u2019ve stated in previous recaps, the metaphor Seven Havens seems to be going for is how in our own world, countries are closing borders and refusing to work with each other to fix larger problems \u2014 i.e. the environment \u2014 while also amping up fear of the other. In this case, that \u201cother\u201d are the Havens other than Ellora, which is the main one we\u2019re spending time in this season. But it also extends to the ostensible villains \u2014 raiders known as the Faceless, and more specifically the Avatar, as for hundreds of years people have believed Korra caused the Cataclysm that wrecked the world.<\/p>\n
This week, with Envoys visiting from other Havens (more on that below), we get to see this distrust in action. It\u2019s enormously simplified for the child\u2019s cartoon we\u2019re watching (no shade there) to the other Havens needing food and Ellora wanting benders to protect them from the red diamond Anomaly that has been growing and attacking Ellora at a regular rate. We\u2019re not talking complicated, multi-faceted trade deals here, and that\u2019s fine. But the thrust is clear for the viewer: These Havens, of course, would be stronger together, but it\u2019s easier to give in to fear, the real theme of this season, than join up. Alone, the Havens are in survival mode; together, they might have something greater, but through pride, tradition, or whatever excuse they want to give, it doesn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n
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And for any viewers frustrated about these moves, there\u2019s a key moment late in Episode 9, \u201cThe Envoys: Part Two,\u201d when Commander Karthik (Akshay Khanna) talks about how they were raised to hate the Avatar. While it\u2019s been a decade or so in our time since we\u2019ve<\/em> last seen the Avatar, and we<\/em> know that Pavi (Saheli Khan) and Nisha (Aishu Devan), our twin Avatars, are good, It\u2019s been 225 years since Avatar: The Legend of Korra. That\u2019s over two centuries, and every character we\u2019re watching on TV was born and raised in a world that doesn\u2019t just hate and fear the Avatar, but has also been taught to distrust each other. Heck, their parents, grandparents, and probably even great-grandparents were born and raised the same. They don\u2019t know any other life, and society has developed solely based around these precepts. It\u2019s less about breaking programming than completely reconceptualizing history and learning. That\u2019s hard, folks!<\/p>\nAnd speaking of Karthik, let\u2019s take a small but related side-trip to talk about what happens towards the end of Episode 9. Pretty much since he first popped up, fans have pointed at Karthik as likely turning evil, getting corrupted, or perhaps being the head of the evil (or at least morally grey) Red Lotus instead of the Order of the White Lotus, which turns out to be 100% totally not true. In fact, in a shocker, it\u2019s Jae (Major Curda) who betrays Karthik and the Avatars. We\u2019ve watched Jae struggle with what we mentioned above, being raised in a society where the Avatar is seen as the ultimate evil. In Episode 9, he does turn against them, tells everyone about the White Lotus, gets Karthik arrested, and becomes Commander of the Bending Brigade himself. While it\u2019s possible this might be revealed as a long range plan to do the right thing, at least at the end of this week, it\u2019s a punch in the gut, and a real emotional surprise to see a character we\u2019ve been following and believed in stick to the status quo instead of growing, changing, and learning.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nIt\u2019s also, to be clear, very smartly done and more realistic: In real life, people rarely break out of their programming; they may be challenged, and they could even flirt with changing their minds, but sadly, more often than not they stay with what\u2019s comfortable rather than truly evolve. So, boo to Jae! Hooray to the writers of Seven Havens. Also, boo to the writers \u2014 how dare<\/em> you do this to Jae?! Life is complicated.<\/p>\nThe Episodes Close Up<\/h2>\n Anyway, there\u2019s lots more to get into, so let\u2019s do some brief recap. First up is Episode 7, \u201cWhat Lies Beneath,\u201d which does not include appearances by either Harrison Ford* or Michelle Pfeiffer. Instead, when Pavi decides to try and connect with the Anomaly to try and chase down more memories of her missing parents, she blasts a hole in the massive red crystal, revealing tunnels under Ellora. It turns out there\u2019s a lot under the city, including a factory that was built by none other than Asami Sato. Thanks to a \u201cmover,\u201d we get to see both Korra and Asami, older, happier, and not in the Spirit World (where we last left them at the end of Legend of Korra).<\/p>\n
(*What kind of bender do you think Ford would be? Is there cranky old man bending? Is that a thing?)<\/p>\n
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Also lying beneath? The Faceless, who we discover are aiming to live free rather than have life prescribed for them by the dictates of Ellora. Specifically, if you have bending ability, you join the Bending Brigade. That\u2019s what Jae wants and what he believes in, but not Uki (Kimberly Woods), who was seemingly kidnapped last week but has actually been part of the Faceless the whole time. She leads Jae to the Faceless Queen, Zi (Dianne Doan), who later turns out not<\/em> to be the Faceless Queen, though we\u2019ll get there in a second.<\/p>\nThat\u2019s because so many other things happen<\/em> in this episode! Pavi, first of all, discovers a bubbling pit of red energy, which grabs her and transports her back to Republic City, where we see the beginning of the Cataclysm. It sure looks like Korra in the Avatar state is tearing Republic City to the ground while releasing Spirit Energy tentacles. She\u2019s definitely not, of course, and we\u2019ll likely get a lot more info on this in subsequent episodes and seasons. But it confirms the suspicion that a lot of theories have rested on, and without getting too in the weeds on this: Back at the end of Legend of Korra, the doors between the Spirit and Human world were still open, and there was a lot of controversy about the use of Spirit Energy as batteries (think nuclear energy and you have the general idea). Given the Avatar is always about finding balance in the world, it\u2019s probably fair to posit based on this one scene that things became very<\/em> out of balance because of Republic City using Spirit Vine energy. Korra tried to stop it, and possibly the Spirit World crashed into the Human world.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\n
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We discover that the song Pavi and Nisha remember being sung by their parents is sung by people from the Eastern Outskirts in a lovely little moment where Uki pauses their tense showdown to offer up info on the ditty. Pavi and Nisha have a rift growing between them, and we end with two groups of Envoys \u2014 one from New Ba Sing Se and the other from Akasha \u2014 travelling towards Ellora like an Avatar version of Mad Max: Fury Road. We just needed Chong wailing on his dramyin<\/u> while flames pump in the background to complete the picture. So shiny. So chrome!<\/p>\n
Then it\u2019s time for the two-parter, \u201cThe Envoys.\u201d In the first part, the focus is on the summit between New Ba Sing Se, Akasha, and Ellora, which gets broken up by an attack by the Faceless, revealing the Faceless Queen is none other than\u2026 Agam (Sakina Jaffrey), the friendly cook\/baker who has now not-so-curiously shown up in nearly every episode. Meanwhile, Nisha gets tested by the White Lotus representatives from New Ba Sing Se, Akasha, and what sounds like Nutha (NOTE: there are no closed captions on the screeners provided by Paramount+, so we might have the spelling wrong)… and fails.<\/p>\n
That leads us into the game-changing second part, which doesn\u2019t have a cold open before the title sequence, so you know<\/em> it\u2019s a big one. We almost immediately discover Agam\u2019s motivation: Her father was taken against his will as a bender in the Brigade. In response, Agam created the Faceless as a way of being free and following their own destiny. Her destiny? To lead them to Republic Forest, which functions not just as a complete recontextualization of the main location in Legend of Korra, but also the mythical safe haven all post-apocalypse stories must have.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/output><\/p>\n
Nisha, frustrated by her failed Avatar test, steps up to take down Agam, who reveals herself to be some sort of combo sandbender\/mudbender, and an advanced one at that. So naturally, Nisha reveals herself as the Avatar; and just as she does, the red diamond Anomaly busts through. The Faceless escape in the resulting panic, Pavi manages to lure the red diamond away, and in the aftermath, Jae betrays the White Lotus, resulting in their arrest. New Ba Sing Se and Akasha withdraw their aid, while the Chancellor of Ellora essentially puts the town under martial law.<\/p>\n
In the midst of all this, we get two eye-opening visions via the red diamond: Nisha sees a rock with an anomaly crystal sticking out of it; and Pavi is taken to a starfield, where something that is not<\/em> Rainbow Road forms, leading her to the red symbol of Ellora with six additional circles stretching out into space. As we discussed last week, it\u2019s seeming more and more likely that the goal here is for Pavi and Nisha to unlock the Chakras of the planet, starting with defeating \u201cfear\u201d in Ellora via the Root Chakra \u2014 likely specifically tied to the crystal seen in Nisha\u2019s vision. Each \u201cHaven\u201d is actually a place where the Chakra is locked, which will send Pavi and Nisha out into the world once they realize what their \u201cAvatar bringing balance\u201d mission is actually all about.<\/p>\nThose are the broad strokes of the plot, but we skipped over something we mentioned earlier: how funny<\/em> these episodes are at the same time \u2014 Jae calling hay his \u201cnose nemesis,\u201d the \u201cwho\u2019s that?\u201d as Pavi tells the citizens of Ellora that everything is going to be okay, and we\u2019ll get into this more in the next section, but everything with the Pudding Guy (Eric Bauza) is laugh out loud funny. And isn\u2019t that one of the big draws of the Avatar franchise, that goofball moments can sit right alongside \u201check yeah\u201d moments like Nisha saying \u201cI\u2019m the Avatar?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/output><\/p>\n
It\u2019s thrilling to have this feeling back, and this group of episodes definitely feels like Seven Havens firing on all cylinders. It\u2019s also wild to think there are four more episodes to go next week, when \u201cThe Envoys: Part Two\u201d in particular has big penultimate-episode-of-the-season energy. We\u2019ll see you back here then (though there\u2019s more article after this, so hang out one second, will you?)!<\/p>\n
Avatar Easter Eggs, References, And Connections<\/strong><\/h2>\nWe didn\u2019t mention this last week, but while we\u2019re throwing theories out there, there\u2019s been a lot of hay (my nose nemesis!) made out of the fact that Pavi and Nisha are animated with diamond pupils instead of the oval-esque pupils the rest of the characters have. How does this connect to the Red Diamond? And does it connect to Raava and Vaatu (the spirits of order and chaos, respectively) who both have diamond-ish patterns in them? The show has been slow playing the big mythology moves, but with the introduction of the Spirit energy tentacles this episode, it seems likely this does tie to the two spirits in some way. How? We\u2019ll just have to wait and see.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nAfter Pavi opens up the hole in the crystal in \u201cWhat Lies Beneath,\u201d we get a mention of a rare sect of earthbenders who can feel things under the ground. While it didn\u2019t start with Toph in The Last Airbender, this is a seismic sense (sort of like sonar) that she taught to Aang and passed down to her daughter, Lin Beifong, who appeared in The Legend of Korra. Does this mean that Pavi and Nisha are tied in some way to the Beifong family tree? Maybe!<\/p>\n
Businessman Varrick invented \u201cmovers,\u201d aka movies, back in Legend of Korra, and it looks like they developed from black-and-white\/sepia-toned to color movers at some point, as we get to see Korra and Asami in all their older glory underneath Ellora.<\/p>\n
On the lockers next to the main chamber under Ellora, we get to see a Korra action figure, as well as posters for Aang, Kyoshi, and Kuruk. Notably, Kuruk is getting his own spin-off (as announced at New York Comic Con), albeit from his younger days as a 14-year-old wild child in Avatar Kuruk: Waves of Chaos.<\/p>\n
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After Pavi connects with the Anomaly under Ellora, we see the older Korra using her glider \u2014 which was introduced in Legend of Korra Book 3 \u2014 to head from Air Temple Island to Republic City. There, while the Spirit energy tentacles are causing the Cataclysm and Korra is clearly in the Avatar state (check out her white eyeballs), it\u2019s notable that Republic City is otherwise empty. Perhaps this cataclysm wasn\u2019t as cataclysmic as everyone thinks?<\/p>\n
At the end of Episode 7, as mentioned, we get that Mad Max scene. Some additional details are that the former Earthbending city of Ba Sing Se has somehow been inverted; they now live on Feather Mountain (a new location), and are airbenders \u2013 and historians \u2013 riding on Flying Bison? Meanwhile, Akasha (another new location) is the one place that has figured out how to keep using technology from Korra\u2019s time, which means they have a riff on Link\u2019s Master Cycle Zero from Breath of the Wild. Adding in the teases of spirit energy, if the whole world was relying on it and that caused the Cataclysm, it\u2019s likely Akasha has figured out an alternative energy source that nobody else has access to. They\u2019re also, per the dismissive Flying Bison rider, clearly younger.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nLet\u2019s talk about the biggest, most important addition to the lore: Pudding Guy. In The Last Airbender, there was a Cabbage Merchant who constantly had his cabbages destroyed either directly by Team Avatar or as a side-effect of their adventures, followed by him holding his cabbages to the heavens and screaming \u201cMy cabbages!\u201d Then in Legend of Korra, the son of the Cabbage Merchant, Lau Gan-Lan, formed a company called Cabbage Corp, which was constantly destroyed. In the absence of cabbage, we\u2019ve got our new \u201cguy\u201d for Seven Havens, and that\u2019s Pudding Guy. He keeps making pudding, singing little songs about his pudding, and then having it wrecked by the Avatars. Is it cabbage pudding? Perhaps. But get ready for plenty more \u201cMy pudding!\u201d to come.<\/p>\n
In \u201cThe Envoys: Part One,\u201d as noted above, we get an additional Haven showing up as part of the Order of the White Lotus: Nutha. While the spelling may or may not be off, Nutha is<\/em> the name of a Southern Water Tribe citizen who plays a big part in \u201cThe Rift\u201d trilogy of Avatar graphic novels. The rep from Nutha is a waterbender too, so it fits.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/span><\/p>\nWe also mentioned Republic Forest earlier. Republic City was the height of technology and innovation, so as New Ba Sing Se seems to be an inversion (going from earthbending to airbending), the city is now Republic Forest. As a side note, in the chamber under Ellora where Pavi, Nisha, and Jae see the mover, there are banners for all four bending nations. It seems likely that the cooperative ethos of Republic City spread through the whole world\u2026 at least before the Cataclysm.<\/p>\n
Oh, and turtle ducks show up! They\u2019ve been in every iteration of Avatar. They\u2019re cute! That\u2019s all we\u2019ve got on this one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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