Table of Contents
Latest season of the Avatar: The Last Airbender live-action remake still falls short
NETFLIX’S Avatar: The Last Airbender returns for its second season looking more expensive and more confident than its uneven first outing.
The set design has improved. The make-up is better, especially on Zuko’s (Dallas Liu) scar, which carries more weight on Liu’s face. Ba Sing Se has a stronger physical presence than many of the locations in season one.
That makes the larger problem more frustrating. For a show based on one of television’s most vibrant animated adventures, this live-action version remains visually flat. The colour grading is dull, washed out and strangely grey.
The original animated Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005) series had clear visual identities for each nation and location.
The Netflix version often looks as if it has been dragged through the same desaturated filter used by every modern prestige action show. Even the bending, while technically cleaner than before, rarely carries the joy, colour or rhythm that made the original feel alive.
Trapped in Ba Sing Se
The bigger issue is storytelling. Season two seems determined to spend almost every major moment in Ba Sing Se. That might make sense from a production standpoint, but it damages the entire point of Book Two. The Earth Kingdom is supposed to feel vast, difficult and politically fractured. Here, it feels cramped. When the story leaves the city, it is usually for a reused forest, a generic village or a location that could just as easily be another corner of Ba Sing Se.
The season often plays like a rearrangement of plot points from the animated series. The strangest choice is the Painted Lady storyline, which originally belonged to Book Three and took place in the Fire Nation. In the animation, Katara (Kiawentiio) becoming the Painted Lady showed that despite her hatred of the Fire Nation, she was still willing to help innocent Fire Nation villagers being exploited by war and industry.
In the live-action season, the Painted Lady becomes Earth Kingdom folklore and is inserted mainly to give Katara something to do. The intention is understandable, since Katara had a thinner role during parts of the original Book Two. The result drains the idea of its strongest meaning and leaves Book Three with one fewer emotional thread to adapt.
Scale without distance
The same problem appears elsewhere. Wan Shi Tong’s library, once a haunting discovery in the Si Wong Desert, is now conveniently tied to Ba Sing Se. Aang’s (Gordon Comier) earthbending training is also concentrated around the city. The show is adapting a story built on travel, distance and danger, but its world keeps narrowing around one production hub.
This is why comparison with the original is unavoidable. The 2005 animated series was precise, colourful and emotionally disciplined. A live-action remake was always going to face the same question: Why do this at all when the story was already told so well? Season two rarely answers that.
Some structural choices are baffling. The Serpent’s Pass sequence loses much of its logic because Appa is still available. If the group already has a flying bison, crossing on foot becomes stupid. Appa and Momo are underused throughout the season, likely because of visual effects costs, but their absence weakens the family dynamic at the heart of Team Avatar.
A cast fighting the material
The cast remains one of the show’s stronger assets, though the writing does them few favours. Cormier has the bright, open quality needed for Aang, but the series keeps pushing him into brooding territory. Kiawentiio is fine as Katara, although the season still struggles to give her a strong internal arc.
Ian Ousley gives Sokka some needed comic timing, though the past questions over his claimed Cherokee ancestry still linger around the casting. It is an awkward note for a series that has made culturally appropriate representation part of its identity. Maria Zhang’s expanded role as Suki is welcome, but her send-off feels abrupt.
Paul Sun-Hyung Lee is the season’s standout as Iroh. The added regret over Ba Sing Se and his dead son gives him a richer presence. Liu brings more depth to Zuko this time, helped by improved make-up, though the intact eyebrow remains distracting.
Miyako captures Toph’s arrogance and blunt confidence, although the live-action version misses some of the vulnerability that made the animated Toph more layered. This version also seems to lack her truth-sensing ability, which makes it harder to ignore why she never noticed an entire prison complex beneath the palace.
The handling of Mai is less successful. Thalia Tran has received unnecessary online cruelty, but the issue is styling and casting direction. The wardrobe does not give Mai the sharp, severe presence associated with the character. Madison Hu, who appears briefly as Fei, oddly has stronger chemistry with Zuko and might have been a more natural fit.
Changes that help
Not every change fails. The idea of a Fire Nation district in Ba Sing Se is interesting and believable for the ancient city. Long Feng (Chin Han) befriending Aang first makes him more insidious. Iroh’s expanded White Lotus connection and his first interaction with Fire Nation defector Jeong Jeong (Terry Chen) adds texture. Zuko’s trauma with Ursa is more developed, while the puppetry sequence around his divided fate is one of the season’s more interesting visual ideas.
Too much missing
Still, the missing Guru Pathik leaves a major spiritual gap in Aang’s arc. The reused iconic lines often sound forced rather than earned. Even the seven-episode length feels strange, as if the season is overstuffed and incomplete.
The more frustrating part is that the Avatar franchise already has other material better suited for expansion. The show borrows from ideas associated with F.C. Yee’s Avatar novels, which proves there is room to adapt this world without retelling Aang’s story again.
A live-action Avatar Kyoshi or Avatar Yangchen series would have given Netflix a cleaner path. It could expand the universe, avoid direct comparison with an almost untouchable animated series and give fans something that feels additive rather than redundant.
The handling of the wider Avatar franchise makes the remake feel even more frustrating, especially after the upcoming animated Aang movie was leaked online before release. Its move from cinemas to streaming services only adds to the sense that the franchise is being treated carelessly, despite years of work from the artists behind it.
Verdict
Season two is better than season one, but only slightly. The fights are decent, the cast is largely committed and some of the new material is genuinely interesting. Yet Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender lacks scale, colour, Appa and confidence in the animation’s own legacy.
It remains trapped between imitation and reinvention, rarely excelling at either.
READ MORE:
Netflix Devil May Cry Season 2 Review – Major Misfire
Spider-Noir review: Web worth getting caught in
Invincible season 4: Not so Invincible in space
