User Reviews

Another solid episode that better serves as part of a whole, the occasional problems suffered by this episode are evened out by the humor and light feel. It advances Aang and Katara's learning of Waterbending and has some nice sequences that put it in the "good" territory, though nothing is great enough to do more than that.

With Aang needing to learn Waterbending by the summer, Katara begins teaching him what she knows. She's upset when moves she'd taken months to practice come to Aang with ease, and when the gang comes across a group of pirates in a nearby village she swipes a Waterbending scroll the pirates had stolen from her tribe. After escaping the pirates, Katara again becomes upset with Aang when he quickly masters the more advanced moves on the scroll. While her continued pettiness is quite annoying, it's also understandable. Recklessly sneaking out at night to keep practicing, Katara lands everyone in trouble when Zuko, on a tip from the pirates, catches her. The pirates, who have Aang, and Zuko, who has the scroll, arrange to swap them, until Sokka uses his wits to pit the two against each other by outing Aang as the Avatar. The ensuing fight is highly entertaining, and along with Uncle Iroh's humorous quest for a Lotus tile for a game of his adds a lightheartedness to the episode. Sneaking off during the battle, Aang, Katara, and Sokka find themselves going over a waterfall, until a whistle Aang had earlier purchased summons Appa (hence this review's title). With the ongoing subplot of Zuko having Katara's mother's necklace adding some dramatic heft, this is another good but not great episode. It has some pacing issues and Katara comes across as annoying rather than sympathetic; however, the humorous touches and lightness of the story still make it an enjoyable watch.

I like this episode and I like the episode it teaches Katara about not letting her jealousy get the best of her. I don't love how the episode's ending instead focused on a lesson about stealing given that Katara's "stealing is wrong unless it's from pirates" honestly makes it seem as if he didn't learn what she was supposed to learn. (It also makes her seem like a rank hypocrite by the time the episode The Runaway comes along.)

That said, I do like how concerned Aang is about the Comet following the end of the previous episode and I like Sokka's moral commitments in this episode (even if they don't last into The Runaway, though I can tolerate that with him given he's a pragmatist and Katara's supposed to be the heart of the team.)

Uncle Iroh in this episode is the funniest he's yet been which is saying something and Prince Zuko as the straight man to his antics only makes them funnier. I also like the continuity acknowledgment of Zuko having Katara's necklace.

I don't love Zuko being deceitful and manipulative as an antagonist since he always seemed to me to be the kind of person who always charges in head first guns blazing and comes up with a specific plan after the fact. That said, I love how Sokka finally gets a chance to show off to the audience that he has a brain (I'd consider the previous episode to be that if his plan there had worked.)

Katara teaching Aang what little she knows of Waterbending is a decision that makes a lot of sense to me. And even though I criticized it earlier in this review for not being as good as it could be, Katara's character development is pretty good.

I would strongly recommend this episode.