Avatar: The Last Airbender – Season 1 Episode 8 “Legends” Recap, Review & Ending Explained

“Legends”

The season finale of Avatar: The Last Airbender, “Legends,” begins as Team Avatar swiftly defeats a Fire Nation battleship. Zuko attempts to sneak into the city as the Fire Nation begins bombing the Water Tribe’s ice wall. Master Pakku finally decides to let the women help the war effort more directly. He even sends young male soldiers to serve under Katara’s command.

Does Aang’s vision come true?

Zhao plans to take advantage of the celestial event called the ice moon. On this night, the barrier between the spirit world and the physical world is thin. Zhao intends to use Avatar Kuruk’s special knife to kill the Moon Spirit. Kuruk tells Aang that such elemental spirits are even stronger than the Avatar.

Momo (the flying lemur) saves a little girl from a falling rock but is crushed under it as a result. Yue and Sokka rush Momo to a sacred grove hot spring. It’s where Yue was brought as a sick baby. Yue places Momo in the most sacred waters and heals him. Sokka, relieved, finally makes it clear that he loves Momo. Zhao and Iroh arrive in the sacred grove, looking for the Moon Spirit.

Katara squares off against Zuko. Meanwhile, Aang meets up with Sokka and Yue. Zhao finds the moon spirit. It presents as a white koi fish with a black dot, swimming in a circle with another koi fish with a white dot. (Moon and Water, Push-pull, Yin-Yang). Zhao plucks the fish from the spring, and the world turns red. Iroh threatens Zhao, Aang tries to reason with him, but Zhao kills the moon spirit. All the Waterbenders lose their powers, and the world goes gray.

Can Aang walk the path of the Avatar?

In a desperate final effort, Aang sacrifices himself to the Water Spirit. Through Aang, the spirit channels its wrath and lays waste to the Fire Nation Soldiers. Now, the spirit will roam the earth, searching in vain for its partner, causing destruction everywhere it goes.

Then Yue, having part of the Moon Spirit within her, enters the spring, and sacrifices herself. In this way, she becomes the Moon Spirit. The moon returns to the sky, and the Waterbenders get their powers back. Because the water and moon, push and pull, are reunited, Aang is released from his bond to the Water Spirit.

Does Zuko capture the Avatar?

In the chaos, Zuko and Zhao fight. Zuko defeats Zhao, and he tells all. Zhao has been taking orders from Azula. She knew Zuko was the ‘blue spirit,’ and she helped devise the plot to kill Zuko. What’s more, Zuko’s mission to capture the Avatar was a sham from the very beginning. Just false hope. Once it turned out to carry weight, Ozai simply used it to motivate Azula. Now, she’s next in line for the throne.

How does Season 1 end?

After the battle, Pakku asks Katara to stay and help train new Waterbenders as a master. She politely refuses. She tells Pakku that she will teach Aang waterbending, and Pakku agrees there’s no one better to teach the Avatar. Reunited, Katara and Sokka speak to Aang about needing to move forward. They convince him he’s not to blame for the past 100 years of war. Remembering lessons from Gyatso, Aang finally feels ready to put the past behind him and try to shape the future.

Ozai used the attack on the Northern Water Tribe as a distraction to conquer Omashu. Azula stands over a kneeling, chained King Bumi. She proudly asks, “What’s next?” A monk shows Ozai that Sozin’s comet is returning. It was the comet that gave the Firebenders extra strength the night they wiped out the Southern Air Temple. Ozai is sure to take advantage of this approaching cosmic event.

The Episode Review

The season finale of Avatar: The Last Airbender sticks the landing. There were moments that felt underutilized, but others that managed to utterly dazzle. Despite the changes, hollow areas, and missed opportunities, “Legends” manages to deliver a powerful climax and leave us wanting more.

To get the major complaint out of the way, the pace of the season as a whole left some of the character growth feeling tacked on, sped through, or otherwise unearned. Fans could’ve been left weeping and cheering, but instead, they may shed a single tear, like Iroh.

Katara finally gets to deliver an emotional, motivational speech. The Moon Spirit and Yue’s sacrifice was handled with great care.

Momo’s added injury was absolutely cruel and gut-wrenching, but it served as a creative and unique way to introduce the sacred spring. After Yue’s sacrifice, Sokka’s talk with her father was spectacular. The line, “You don’t have to be a warrior to be a hero,” was perhaps the best wisdom offered throughout the whole season. If only it could’ve come from Uncle Iroh.

Zuko’s Battle with Katara was likely the best-looking bending battle of the season, and surprisingly accurate to the original show. Zuko’s showdown with Zhao was cool too, but it was the info reveal that really sunk in. This was one of the best changes Netflix made to the original material. Zuko learning everything like that was poignant and powerful.

Final Thoughts

Given how closely tied the climax was to the spirit world, one might think Aang’s vision would’ve been more than fleeting images of the destruction of a Water Tribe tower. Sure, death is scary, but the spirit-world-induced vision made no mention of the death of the Moon Spirit, or the moon itself?! Alrighty then…

Even though it didn’t actually take his life, Aang’s sacrifice was handled well and felt like an earned moment of growth and purpose for him. The Water Spirit sequence was gargantuan and emblematic of Godzilla in a fun way. Aang still has a lot of growing to do, and the show itself perhaps has some learning to do. It’s fairly safe to say, though, that Netflix has piqued enough interest for Season 2. What did you think? Let us know below!