Same with Katara, who suddenly loses all agency and power and seems to submit herself to the whims of fate. We’ve seen Aang try to court Katara’s affections before in episodes like “The Warriors of Kyoshi” but here it feels forced and outside of the lengths he would go to confirm his feelings. With characters growing heart eyes and blushing at every turn. The romantic tomfoolery presented in “The Fortuneteller” is exasperatingly screechy. Team Avatar then saves the town and learns the lesson that they can shape their fate. It’s all a bunch of silliness until the nearby volcano threatens to erupt, contradicting one of Wu’s predictions. Wu’s assistant Meng takes a liking to Aang, while Aang tries harder to woo Katara.
Aang and Katara are enthralled by her predictions for their love life and futures, but Sokka remains skeptical. So in this place this week Team Avatar stumble upon a village with a mystical fortuneteller named Aunt Wu. With Team Avatar seemingly dropping all interest in forward moment to just mess around with over-exaggerated character traits. This element of the story has been hinted at (what with Katara’s swooning admiration for the myriad of boys she encounters and Aang’s crush on her) and will be developed more as we continue, but here it feels all at of wack. Here it’s the fact that Katara and Aang would be suddenly entirely obsessed with knowing the ups and downs of their romantic lives. The problem is that some of these character grounding episodes really flatten certain aspects of our heroes as a mean to end for a certain joke or moral. It’s a bit of the Quidditch problem, both inessential and narratively diverting, but used to try and ground our characters. We’re nearing the end of the season, and this is what we’re focusing on. A sophomoric joke outing that front loads weird romantic foibles onto our heroes at a seemingly inopportune time. Unfortunately this batch gets off on the wrong foot with “The Fortuneteller.” While not reviled at the same level as “The Great Divide” it sticks out like a sore annoying thumb with it’s placement in the run of the season.
Things start to interlock, even when the episodes themselves are one-offs. And a few of these episodes are frustrating, but there is a bit more awareness of the world this time. The immediate return to the pre “The Storm” structure of things is bound to frustrate, especially for the first time viewer trying to navigate the series. Just when it seems like the engines are kicking into high gear it decides to lean back and take things slow for a few outings. After finally fully grounding our characters, setting up the stakes for the series, and providing thrilling spectacle in the past few episodes, Avatar does a curious thing.
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