Trips together with family are always fun.
Tenzin sends his children to find Korra. Korra tries to rid herself of the poison in her body.
Tropes:
- An Aesop: Experiencing tragedy or failure is devastating, and you can either let it define you for the rest of your life, or you can learn from it.
- Actually Pretty Funny: Meelo's deduction of Toph's identity...which, being Meelo, is bratty. Far from being insulted, Toph's visibly amused.
- Affably Evil: The thinner of the two guards that captured Ikki is very friendly and quickly becomes legitimately bonded with her. It makes one forget that he consciously agreed with the fat one to capture her siblings in order to get out of his post. Then again, he appears to be somewhat ditzy and it's clear he mostly follows the fat one's lead.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Zigzagged. The Airbabies all find each other annoying, regardless of birth order, but Meelo is especially grating to both his (older) sisters.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
- Big Damn Heroes: Downplayed. Jinora and Meelo bust in to save Ikki from the soldiers, but by then she and soldiers had come to an understanding. They weren't really that dangerous anyway. In fact, they were about to let her go, even though it was already shown Ikki could have left any time she wanted.
- Bratty Half-Pint: Meelo acts out, annoys his sisters, and "farts at inappropriate moments".
- Butt-Monkey: The two Earth Empire soldiers feel left out because Kuvira made them stay at their posts, while she took the rest of her army to Zaofu. They then end up getting knocked out by Jinora and Meelo.
- Call-Back:
- Korra sees visions of her fights against the previous three Big Bads.
- Toph takes Korra to the Banyan tree, the same one from "The Swamp" which Aang used to find Appa. Here, Korra uses it to find Jinora.
- The two guards mention that Kuvira is moving her army to Zaofu, a followup to her warning to Suyin in the previous episode.
- Continuity Nod:
- The swamp vines pull Pepper into the swamp the same way they pulled Appa to them in "The Swamp" in the first series.
- Korra asks Toph about how she taught Aang earthbending, and of how they defeated the Fire Lord. She gets extremely short descriptions of "Bitter Work" and "Sozin's Comet".
- Damned by Faint Praise: Ikki implicitly does this to Meelo when she explains his part in finding Korra towards the end. Meelo doesn't catch on.
- A Day in the Limelight: The Airbabies are the focus of the A-plot.
- Didn't Think This Through: Meelo throws out the group's food supplies, declaring that they would hunt for their meals. As his sister points out, they're vegetarians and don't hunt. He also lacks any knowledge on foraging or which wild plants are safe to consume, so the berries he finds and eats just end up making him sick.
- Funny Background Event: When we first see Jinora attempt to divine Korra's location and Ikki is bugging her, we can see a bunch of flying squirrel creatures on a perch in the background. One flies off the edge, drifts to the back of the line, displaces all the others, knocking the one nearest the ledge off. Rinse, repeat.
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Meelo says this of a cheek-pinching old woman he and Ikki meet.
- Lima Syndrome: The Earth Empire guards wind up sympathizing with their captive, Ikki, and helping her.
- The Load: Meelo accuses Ikki of being this for not pulling her weight. Meelo comes much closer to playing it straight and particularly when he throws their food out.
- Macho Disaster Expedition: Meelo attempts to turn their trip into one by throwing out the pre-packed food and insisting they live off the land. Ikki has to remind him that they're vegetarians, so hunting is out, and the berries he finds turn out to be poisonous. Thankfully, the guards had found the food Meelo had thrown away, which Ikki is able to take back.
- Only Sane Man: Ikki takes on this role. When her siblings and her set off to find Korra, Meelo insists on turning their mission into a Macho Disaster Expedition and Jinora is too focused on trying to sense Korra's presence rather than actually looking for her. When Meelo throws away their food and insists that they go hunting, she reminds him that they don't eat meat. When Jinora and Meelo want to leave the swamp, Meelo was being a bit of a jerk and Jinora couldn't sense Korra here, Ikki insists that they keep looking. Basically, despite calling it a team effort, the air siblings would never had found Korra if it weren't for Ikki.
- Out of Focus: Aside from a token appearance by Tenzin and Pema, the main cast is limited to Korra, Toph, and the Airbabies.
- Potty Emergency: Meelo at their first stop was holding it in for an hour.
- Punch-Clock Villain: The two soldiers that capture Ikki relate to her situation with her siblings, and end up pointing her to the swamp, reasoning that Korra would have been spotted if she were anywhere but there.
- Redundant Rescue: Jinora and Meelo knock out the the guards just when they were about to let Ikki go. Ikki could have escaped anytime herself anyway.
- Self-Restraint: The two soldiers tie Ikki up, but did such a terrible job that she can be seen sliding her arm out of the ropes in the background while they aren't looking. She does it again right in front of them and they don't even comment on it.
- She's Back: Korra manages to bend the remaining poison out of her body herself, restoring her Avatar State and presumably getting her back to fighting form.
- The Snack Is More Interesting: The thin guard is more preoccupied with the macaroons they found in the river (that Meelo threw away), while the other is hoping to be rewarded by Kuvira for capturing Tenzin's children.
- Tears of Joy: Korra gets them when she sees Jinora, Ikki, and Meelo for the first time in three years.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Meelo's ego has gotten quite inflated over the last three years.
- Trickster Mentor: Toph sends Korra off to fetch some mushrooms, knowing the swamp would show her visions of what's tormenting her. Toph ends up having to talk her through it anyway, but it gets the ball rolling.
- Villain Has a Point: Discussed by Toph; all of Korra's foes have had some kind of legitimate cause, but each bungled it by being too extreme in their methods.
- Visual Pun: One of the Mix-and-Match Critters in this episode is a frog with distinctly bovine horns and ears...a bullfrog.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: Meelo vomits up some poisonous berries behind a bush.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Poki the lemur vomits up some poisonous berries in full view.
Then starts eating his own vomit. - Well-Intentioned Extremist: As part of Villain Has a Point; Toph notes that the problem with all of Korra's foes is that they had good ideas, but went too far. She's surprised Korra didn't notice this.
- When Trees Attack: Just when Jinora is about to give up the search for Korra in the swamp, some vines reach out and drag them down. Ikki takes this as proof that the swamp wants them there.
