Previously on Avatar: The Last Airbender, Aang (Gordon Cormier) thaws and meets water tribe members. The members, siblings Katara (Kiawentiio) and Sokka (Ian Ousley), go with him on a ‘road trip’. They’re there so Aang can learn from previous avatars but the siblings get separate crushes. Some of the avatars are more helpful than others. And in this season, the three try to get refugees to safety and defeat Fire Nation. In order for the three to defeat the Fire Nation, he has to learn how to bend the elements.

Since no one is going to teach Aang fire bending, they need to get an earth bender. Avatar: The Last Airbender, then, introduces its viewers to Toph Beifong (Miya Cech). She joins the three and they go to Ba Sing Se, where Aang befriends Long Feng (Chin Han). Ba Sing Se has a ghost library as well as its refugees including Aang’s enemy Zuko (Dallas Liu). There’ s a lot of Zuko’s backstory this season. He and his uncle, General Iroh (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee), the most sane adult in a cruel world, reunite. Is Zuko the big bad or is there someone else that the four need to watch out for?

Credit is due to this show for taking place in a fantasy world that feels believable, the naturalism here coming from elements that make its young at heart demographic see real life. Regardless of setting, Avatar: The Last Airbender shows its core characters beholden to their adult counterparts. Some of them luck out on having adult characters who aren’t working with a hidden agenda. Fans of the original show, though, already know that Long Feng is lying to Aang, which helps cause a crash out later in the series.

Avatar: The Last Airbender‘s fantasy elements are half and half because of the show’s execution. Appa the flying bison is always a welcome presence so of course something bad happens to him. The creature design complements the freedom they have but those are better than the set pieces. One of those underwhelming set pieces include Wan Shi Tong’s Library which looks too drab. And don’t get me started on the interiors of Lake Laogai where viewers can barely see the inmates.

That said, I’ll forgive the bad art direction and photography in this series because of its characters. Complementing the inherently compelling characters in Avatar: The Last Airbender is the writing. Either I just like Katara as a character or her speech to Zuko about her survival was just effective. The Fire Nation’s massacre of the Southern Water Tribe has real life equivalents just like the original. Kiawentiio and Dallas Liu make for good acting partners in a scene that gives the series some necessary dimension.

Avatar: The Last Airbender‘s second season is available to stream on Netflix.