Episode Six, “The Sting”
When we left off at the end of “Peace Keepers,” we were left with the image of Korra being swallowed by a Dark Spirit as she was being pursued by Eska (by the way, anyone catch the resemblance to Azula here?) and her twin as ordered by their father and full-time bad guy Unalaq. “The Sting” is one of the few episodes in season 2 so far that we get to focus more on other characters, but it really just creates more questions than answers, which is how season 2 of LOK is building up to be.
This episode focuses on Mako (rolls eyes) and his quest to become an honorable man of the law. As we remember from the “Peace Keepers” episode, Mako saw some individuals run out of the Southern Water Tribe Cultural Center as it exploded and managed to retrieve what seems to be a detonation device.
His pleas to investigate the detonation device — and the man he saw leave the building — go unheard by Lin Beifong and the sorry excuses for detectives. Lin Beifong and her detectives believe this is the doing of the North Water Tribe. As a matter of fact, Lin puts the rookie Mako in his place by telling him to go back to writing parking tickets (note to self: don’t cross Beifong. Like, ever!)
After reports surface that Varrick’s ship with Asami’s Mech was stolen by pirates — or as we are lead to believe, members of the Northern Water Tribe — our young wannabe Kojak decides to take matters into his own hands and goes against Beifong’s orders (we see this ending badly for Mako) and decides to set up a “Sting” operation to catch the vandals by hiring a criminal gang he busted earlier in the season called the “Triple Threats” to join them. Varrick agrees to supply another ship to help them out.
As Asami and Mako are all into stakeout mode, Mako overhears that the Triple Threats have double crossed him (lesson learned: never trust criminals) and have been paid to keep them occupied. When Mako learns of this, he and Asami make a getaway from the ship while the Triple Threats give chase. This is all very action packed Miami Vice-estilo, for sure.
It ends with our protagonists defeating the Triple Threats and quickly running to Asami’s warehouse to find out that all her Mechs have been stolen. In a moment of weakness after telling Mako that she is ruined, he tries to console her. No one expected the TMZ moment when Asami kisses Mako.
After the awkward moment, Mako makes some sort of lame excuse to defuse the love triangle that’s been building over two seasons and goes and tries to get his “bad cop” on by beating and threatening information from Triple Threat member “Two-Toe” Ping. All ping can tell him is that he knows who hired them for the job.
In frustration, and probably in need of comedy relief, Mako visits Bolin — ahem… we mean NukTuk — on set. Bolin has let fame and Varrick’s advice go to his head as he is in full actor mode for the ongoing series of The Adventures of Nuktuk: Hero of the South and is as annoying as that itch you can’t reach. While on set, Mako witnesses the pyrotechnic scene that is a little too familiar for him and inquired with the technician about how they make things go BOOM! Once the technician shows him the detonation device they have, Mako knows who is behind everything, Varrick!
He leaves Nuktuk and runs off to find Asami to tell her the news. He interrupts a meeting in which none other than Varrick is attending.
If this doesn’t add more drama to the episode, as a parting scene we see Korra wash up on a shore. When she is awaken by what we assume are Fire Sages, whom have recognized her and call her by her name, she responds:
Wow. This little twist is really making us impatient over what can come next. Which means, we are way too deep into this season of LOK, but frankly we here at NOC are not complaining one bit.
Related articles
- NOC-aps: The Legend of Korra, In Love and War (thenerdsofcolor.org)