The Legend of Korra on nick.com

This leak, it appears, was the precipitating event that lead both to Season 3’s rushed exhibition, and this season’s seemingly early release, premiering as it has less than two months since last season’s finale. This is unusual, at least for this franchise. After all, while it is fairly common for animated shows in the US to more or less seamlessly transition from season to season, this has not been the case until now for either Korra or it’s predecessor, Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-8), both of which have been handled much more along the lines of prestige TV programming (or indeed, anime) than typical US kid’s animation. When taking into account budgets, production values, franchise history, cultural impact, and narrative complexity, one would expect Korra to be treated much more like a flagship series than it has been by Nickelodeon as of late. This move to an exclusively online distribution model for the show as such speaks not only to questionable management decisions on Nick’s part, but is also indicative more widely of the rocky process of transition to, and integration of, online distribution models by established TV networks. After all, Nick’s own online exhibition platform was the very source of the leaks that have now obliged Korra to reside solely online.

Though the decision to enact this transition was made well after this season was produced, it is entirely fitting with The Legend of Korra’s increasing departure from the profile Nickelodeon seems to want to build, with the show’s progressively conspicuous forays into interpersonal and sociopolitical depth and complexity. This is not to say the Avatar franchise hadn’t already set the groundwork for such development. The Last Airbender centered its own narrative within a hundred-year war of imperialist colonisation and genocide, and the first season of Korra itself featured (and actually engaged with) allegories of ethnic scapegoating and class struggle, as well as concluding with both a murder-suicide of its antagonists and contemplations of suicide by its main character—the titular Avatar, Korra. As the show has progressed, its narrative has moved decidedly away from The Last Airbender’s own brand of medieval Asian high fantasy towards a world that is starting to look much more like our own, albeit with elemental superpowers and an Asian inflection to Fordism and the Jazz Age.

Chapter One: After All these Years

With the premiere of Season 4 (Book 4: Balance), it seems as if the Avatar world shares another similarity with this time period, signaling as it does the rise of fascism, and the conditions that give rise to it. Where season 3 concluded with the Avatar’s defeat of the Red Lotus, a group of monomaniacal—though very well fleshed out and motivated—anarchist revolutionaries, the damage done by their assassination of the Earth Kingdom’s admittedly despotic queen has seemingly plunged the vast and diverse Earth Kingdom into disarray. Season 4 picks up thee years later, and quickly updates us on the whereabouts of all of Team Avatar except Korra herself, who only shows up in the last two minutes. Given the little we get to see of her in this first episode, she looks to be caught in a Deerhunter (or X-Men’s Wolverine)–style dynamic of post-traumatic self-destructive disassociation, fighting in low-rent earthbending cage matches and subtracting herself from her inherited and taxing role as this world’s spiritual (and political) mediator. Subsequent episodes will be dealing more closely with her.

In contrast, all our other protagonists have since entered into pivotal positions in the current political order as captains of industry (Asami), right-hands of monarchy (Mako), members of UN peacekeeper-style forces (The airbenders), and soldiers directly serving military elites in charge of national re-consolidation (Bolin).

Most notably, the female Earth Kindgom soldier Kuvira—a peripheral character introduced very late into last season—has now ascended to become the figure seemingly in sole charge of this re-consolidation, traveling the countryside by rail and incorporating territories —and gangs of bandits— to her cause through intimidation, resource extortion, and, it seems, a strong cult of personality. It is here that we appear to have this season’s primary antagonist (if you may forgive this review’s titular reference to another contemporary and complex animated show, the Venture Brothers). Kuvira’s ascendance from soldier to nationalistic despot may perhaps be more akin to the rise of Mussolini or Franco than Hitler, but it is clear that, given the shades of class, ethnic scapegoating and political sedition that have gone on up until now, the Avatar world is seeing its own brand of fascism in the wake of its portrait of the inter-war period.

If this is the case, this will mark the first instance of a primary female antagonist in the franchise —something that runs par for the course in the show’s already strong and increasing integration of complex female representation. This presence was already present and notable in The Last Airbender, but has entered much more into the fore in Korra, from the positioning of women in active protagonistic roles, to their quotidian inclusion as political leaders, business executives, soldiers, civil servants, revolutionaries, and even low-level thugs. Indeed, if anything, the normalcy with which this productive presence is treated within this show’s diegesis is one of the series’ strongest indicators that this version of the 20s and 30s is truly not our own. This factor (along with both this show’s other agonistic narrative complexities and its position as a hybrid of Asian and Western models of animation production) certainly warrant some closer inspection. As the series progresses over the next several weeks, I’ll be checking in again —albeit with briefer pieces— to see how these threads are picked up, and where this final season of Korra leaves its allegorical world.

Authors note: This piece has been posted a bit belatedly, but is still consistent with Korra’s narrative development to date. See you next week!

Take, for example, “Tomorrowland.” The fourth season finale is likely going to be a polarizing episode in terms of audience response, taking Don Draper in what some may view as a self-destructive direction, but in constructing those moments Weiner does little to change the series’ rich thematic tapestry. While I initially felt as if the finale’s marginalization of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce and their predicament kept it from truly wrapping up the season, in thinking about the approaches taken throughout this project I realized that it is more cohesive than I imagined.

While the agency may have been marginalized in the episode, my response to the Topaz account was still influenced by Devon Powers’ look at the state of advertising in the 1960s.

When the show lost its one prominent recurring minority in Carla, Don and Betty’s nanny, I thought back to pieces from LeiLani Nishime, Allison Perlman and particularly Kristen Warner (who focused specifically on Blackness and Carla’s role in the series) which dealt with the role of race within the series.

My attention to Megan’s attire during the Los Angeles scenes may have been initially trivial, but as that story developed I considered her fashion in light of Elana Levine’s analysis of the fashioning of femininity.

As Don” fell in love” with Megan, I thought both on Jennifer Clark’s discussion of masculine detachment (and his decision to attach himself to Megan in particular) and Joe Wlodarz’s investigation of the eroding barriers between the personal and the professional (which seems apt considering he is marrying his secretary).

As Peggy visited with Joan to gossip about Don and Megan’s engagement, I returned to both Anne Helen Petersen’s take on the role of gossip in the show and Mary Beth Haralovich’s look at how Peggy serves as our guide throughout the series.

As Sonny and Cher’s “I’ve Got You Babe” swelled up during the final scene, I recalled Tim Anderson’s piece on the role popular music plays in the series’ narrative.

And as the episode came to its conclusion, and Twitter lit up with responses, I reflected upon Louisa Stein’s piece on how Mad Men’s fandom operates, and how the show’s unique fan community will respond to the finale’s event.

But, in the end, perhaps the biggest question goes back to Krya Glass von der Osten’s piece which started us off: with hype at an all-time high for the series, did season four live up to our expectations? There is no question that there were some strong individual hours of television, with “The Suitcase” likely one of the series’ best efforts, but the collective season has been more difficult to gauge. Don and the agency have both spent the season in a state of flux, while numerous other characters have had opportunities to move forward but ended up stepping back. After the substantial change created by last season’s finale, the instability of the circumstance it created has made the characters less likely to make any dramatic changes; until Don’s decision to marry Megan, the characters were reacting more than acting, whether it is Joan and Roger’s affair being the result of a mugging attempt or the agency’s collapse being the result of Lucky Strike’s departure.

However, what I find most interesting is those moments trapped between action and reaction: was Don’s New York Times ad a confident action, or a desperate reaction to Lucky Strike’s departure? And was his decision to marry Megan an action to regain control of his life, or a reaction to the short-term stability she offered and its potential role in solving his identity crisis? When we start pondering Don’s motivations, we get trapped in a vicious cycle wherein his true purpose seems hopelessly lost, but this has always been the case. Don’s actions in the finale are just as confounding and complex as they were before, and so we can still frame this finale – as disruptive as it first seemed, to me at least – in the context of previous seasons.

Perhaps what is most telling is that Don Draper did not seem to act out of desperation: while his decision may be sudden, and impulsive, it did not have the sense of fear which has driven previous behavior. And similarly, there is no desperation from Matthew Weiner in “Tomorrowland”: the episode may be eventful, but it never seems as if there is no control over the series’ future. It may not nicely bring all of the season’s themes or storylines to a close, but Mad Men’s fourth season finale offers the promise that those themes and storylines will continue into subsequent seasons, and that’s enough for me.