15 Best ‘The Legend of Korra’ Episodes — Ranked!

The story of the Avatar doesn’t end with Aang. From 2012-2014, The Legend of Korra followed the next chapter of the world introduced in Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Set 70 years in the future, Legend of Korra follows the next prong in the Avatar reincarnation cycle, Korra, born into a world finishing its industrial revolution.

The series is darker than Avatar: The Last Airbender, as well as more serialized and episodic (each season had a new main villain, a la Buffy The Vampire Slayer).

Here are our rankings for the 15 best episodes of The Legend of Korra: 

15. The Revelation (Season 1 Episode 3)

The first foe Avatar Korra faces is Amon, the masked leader of the anti-bending equalists. She and the audience come face-to-face with him on Legend of Korra Season 1, Episode 3, “The Revelation,” — and what a first impression it is.

Standing on stage before a crowd of followers, Amon has them in the palm of his hand (minus Korra and Mako hiding in plain sight). Voice actor Steve Blum’s charisma and the conviction he bestows on Amon allow us to understand how he has such a movement behind him.

Then, the titular revelation: Amon can remove people’s bending. He demonstrates this on Lightning Bolt Zolt. As the process works its magic, the lightning stream emanating from Zolt’s hand fades into simple orange flames then the spark goes out entirely.

With this sequence, Legend of Korra Season 1 sets its stakes.

14. And The Winner Is… (Season 1 Episode 6)

Legend of Korra Season 1 Episode 4, “A Voice in the Night,” focuses on Korra, hiding fear with brashness, throwing herself into danger against Amon and the Equalists. Meanwhile, Legend of Korra Season 1 Episode 5, “The Spirit of Competition,” puts the threat in the backseat to focus on Korra’s pro-bending career with brothers Mako and Bolin (the Fire Ferrets) and the love triangle. 

Finally, the midpoint, The Legend of Korra Season 1 Episode 6, “And The Winner Is…” weaves the past two episodes together when the Equalists crash the pro-bending championship. Amon delivers another speech on his group’s agenda, but their getaway is the most thrilling part.

The Equalists escape on a blimp, but Korra and Metalbending cop Lin Beifong use grappling hook-style cables to pursue them. This high-altitude showdown takes the action out of the arena to fantastic results.

13. Rebirth (Season 3 Episode 2)

Legend of Korra Season 3 Episode 2, “Rebirth,” follows Team Avatar and Tenzin’s family as they fly across the Earth Kingdom, tracking down new Airbenders to recruit. This leads to one of the best comedy montages of the series.

Tenzin lists a “perk” of being an Air Nomad and gets a door slammed in his face each time.

It’s not all comedy, though. Following the villainous Airbender Zaheer’s fantastic introduction, this episode sees him free two of his comrades, Earthbender Ghazan and Waterbender Ming-Hua, in equally exciting prison breaks.

Hot on their trail is Zuko, who makes an unexpected return — with a new pet dragon. The absolutely spine-tingling music cue as Zuko flies off, resolute in stopping Zaheer, is an all-too-brief sign of composer Jeremy Zuckerman’s genius.

12. Darkness Falls (Season 2 Episode 13)

Season 2 is the show’s weakest and most disjointed outing. However, Legend of Korra Season 2 Episode 13, “Darkness Falls,” is an exciting one.

The villainous Unalaq’s Waterbending duel with Korra is gorgeously animated. Two masters of the same element flow with it, swirling on their feet like a rushing river, extending their reach with limbs made of water, and crashing against each other like waves.

The fight ends in the most controversial decision of the series, but one I will defend. Unalaq rips the Avatar spirit, Raava, from Korra and severs Korra’s connections to her past lives.

Yes, it’s a shattering sequence, but it’s supposed to be. The visuals flow in beautiful harmony with Zuckerman’s score, like Korra does when moving in sync with water. It’s a reflection of Korra’s journey of having to be a new kind of Avatar in a new kind of world. As Season 3 states, new growth cannot exist without the destruction of the old.

11. Endgame (Season 1 Episode 12)

If any season of Legend of Korra would benefit from more episodes, it’s Season 1. The Equalists’ real concerns about non bender marginalization aren’t explored in the deserved depth, and the resolution, where unmasking Amon as a Bloodbender topples the entire movement, is too tidy.

Still, Legend of Korra Season 1 Episode 12, “Endgame,” wrings great moments out of what it has to work with.

Amon’s fate when he escapes Republic City with his brother Tarrlok, only for Tarrlok to blow up their boat in a tragic murder-suicide? Perfect.

Just as fantastic is Korra finally meeting Aang after unlocking her Airbending. The past Avatar tells her, “When we reach our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change.” Cue Korra entering the Avatar State, bending the four elements in succession, and a perfect music cue (Zuckerman is a series MVP).

10. The Terror Within (Season 3 Episode 8)

The threat of Zaheer and his group, the Red Lotus, has been more than teased by the time The Legend of Korra Season 3 Episode 8, “The Terror Within,” rolls around. What sets this episode apart is they finally face off with Team Avatar.

Sneaking into the city of Zaofu, where our heroes are staying, the Red Lotus knock out and abduct Korra but are spotted before they can make their escape. Cue a fantastic battle where the Red Lotus, locked in place, fend off attacks from all angles. 

“The Terror Within” highlights the ambition of Legend of Korra and how it never stops finding new ways to explore the fundamentals of the Avatar universe.

Making the villains of Season 3 a charismatic, well-oiled team is a brilliant choice. The series’ reach extends into its style as well; the Red Lotus each has a unique style of familiar bending, used in sync, and the heroes must innovate themselves to counter.

9. Beginnings (Season 2 Episodes 8 and 9)

Legend of Korra Season 2 Episodes 8 and 9, “Beginnings Part 1/Beginnings Part 2,” is wonderfully out of place. Even though it reveals and redefines the fundamentals of the series’ setting, the epic story it tells is a self-contained one.

That story is of the first Avatar, Wan, who lived millennia before Korra’s time. Wan was the first human to connect with the spirits and truly bend the elements. Not only is the setting totally different from most Legend of Korra episodes, but so is the style.

“Beginnings Part 1/Beginnings Part 2” looks less like something from Toonami and more like an ancient Chinese watercolor painting in motion. The characters and figures look like strokes of paint moving across a scroll of paper, selling the illusion of a bygone era.

This show was never afraid to experiment, and this episode is one of its most creative outings.

8. Out of the Past (Season 1 Episode 9)

The previous outing, Legend of Korra Season 1 Episode 8, “When Extremes Meet,” ended with a jaw-dropper. After Korra fights power-mad Republic City Councilman Tarrlok, he reveals he’s a Bloodbender, defeating and imprisoning the young Avatar.

Korra, with nothing to do but meditate, finally sees the whole events of a flashback that’s been teased throughout the season. Decades ago, Avatar Aang faced a Bloodbending gangster named Yakone and took his bending away like he once did Fire Lord Ozai. Tarrlok (who winds up publicly exposed) is Yakone’s son.

Amon and the Equalists make Tarrlok their next target. In the villain’s most chilling act yet, Amon is even able to resist Tarrlok’s Bloodbending, firmly taking the top spot as the season’s main villain. Legend of Korra Season 1 Episode 9, “Out of The Past,” combines awaited answers with even more mystery, leaving the season in a strong place as it enters its endgame. 

7. Operation Beifong (Season 4 Episode 10)

Legend of Korra Season 4, Episode 10, “Operation Beifong,” centers on the lingering family wounds among the women of the Beifong clan: Lin, Suyin, and now the elderly Toph.

Returning for Season 4, Toph has the most substantial role of any character returning from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Voiced by Philece Sempler, neither her abrasiveness nor Earthbending skill have been sanded down in her old age.

On “Operation Beifong,” Toph and her two daughters spearhead the mission to undermine the season’s villain Kuvira and her Earth Empire’s superweapons development. Lin has been a supporting character since the pilot, and the show has gradually revealed more about her childhood and family, including how Toph wasn’t often the best parent.

“Operation Beifong” brings as much conclusion to this thread as possible before the series ends.

6. The Stakeout (Season 3 Episode 9)

Legend of Korra Season 3 Episode 9, “The Stakeout,” gives the show something important — downtime!

This show can be paced relentlessly and that is both a strength and a weakness. It often lacks the character interplay and one-off adventures that Avatar: The Last Airbender had, which is why Korra’s Team Avatar simply doesn’t measure up to Aang’s.

Season 3, in particular, is the most tightly plotted season of the show, so “The Stakeout” — with moments like Bolin and Asami playing Pai Sho — is a needed break.

Korra meets Zaheer in the Spirit World, where he eloquently discusses his belief in anarchy and a world without nations. Yet again, the show has crafted an ideological foil for the Avatar. Then, Ghazan and Ming-Hua come along, outclassing Bolin and Mako in the type of well-choreographed fight that Legend of Korra always excels at.

5. The Last Stand (Season 4 Episode 13)

The last stretch of Season 4 is the heroes fending off an invasion of Republic City by Kuvira and her trump card — the Colossus, a 300-ish-foot tall mecha. Some have called this too left-field, but I believe it’s epic and, again, the show tipping its hat to its influences.

What’s more anime than a giant robot?

On Legend of Korra Season 4 Episode 13, “The Last Stand,” Korra defeats Kuvira, and they both end up in the Spirit World. There, Korra is faced with a reflection of herself that fades into Kuvira; the symbolism couldn’t be more obvious or effective. 

Thanks to Korra’s own growth and self-acceptance, she recognizes how similar she and Kuvira are and admits as such to her enemy. Korra finally beats a villain by winning the battle and the moral argument.

Korra and Asami decide to go to the Spirit World together and the series ends with them gazing into each others’ eyes, love glistening like the portal they’re surrounded by. Korra‘s last steps wind up being huge ones for LGBTQ+ representation on American television.

4. Beyond The Wilds (Season 4 Episode 9)

Zaheer is the first main villain of the series who survives his debut season. That decision pays off oh so well on Legend of Korra Season 4 Episode 9, “Beyond The Wilds.”

On this episode, spirit vines are running over Republic City. All season, Korra hasn’t been able to tap into her spiritual side or the full extent of her power. So, she goes to Zaheer’s prison, like Will Graham visiting Hannibal Lecter, and faces the man who left her feeling broken. 

Zaheer let go of his connections to the world to become untethered from it and fly. He’s so spiritually attuned; in fact, he’s able to guide Korra there, helping the Avatar journey past the parts of herself she’s blocked off.

Finding help from past enemies is a motif across Avatar and this scene is one of the best examples of it.

3. Long Live The Queen (Season 3 Episode 10)

During Season 3, Zaheer grows ever better as an antagonist — on Legend of Korra Season 3 Episode 10, “Long Live The Queen,” it’s hard to call him a villain.

The camaraderie the Red Lotus shows humanizes them and there’s a far worse villain afoot: Earth Queen Hou-Ting, a cruel tyrant and a walking argument against rule by birthright.

So, Zaheer ends her by taking the air from her lungs, depriving her of life like she deprived her people of their freedom. It’s a satisfying moment and almost makes the chaos that follows worth it. 

In a lighter B-plot, Korra and Asami (imprisoned by the Earth Queen’s men aboard a blimp) must work together to escape before they can be shipped back to Ba Sing Se — and then they must again escape the desert they crash in. Censorship standards means their relationship is never developed in as explicit detail as it could be, but this episode handles it as well as it can.

2. Venom of the Red Lotus (Season 3 Episode 13)

The three-episode stretch that closes out Season 3 is the most heart-pounding as Legend of Korra Season 3 Episode 11, “The Ultimatum,” features the Red Lotus subduing Tenzin and his new Airbending students. Then Legend of Korra Season 3 Episode 12, “Enter The Void,” features a stunning duel between P’Li and the Beifong sisters before Zaheer takes flight.

As good as these two are, it’s Legend of Korra Season 3, Episode 13, “Venom of the Red Lotus,” that brings it home.

The villains’ plans are finally revealed: poison Korra with mercury to trigger the Avatar State, then kill her, and end the reincarnation cycle while she’s weakened. Korra, with all her limbs chained and her mind reeling from the poison, imagines the foes before her assuming the faces of old adversaries, like Amon and Unalaq, in a creepy sequence.

Korra breaks free and chases Zaheer with firebreathing fury. The action on “Venom of the Red Lotus” is this series at its most raw (and not just this moment either — take how Mako fries Ming-Hua by mixing her Waterbending with his Lightning). 

1. Korra Alone (Season 4 Episode 2)

The best thing about Legend of Korra is Korra herself; a hero who winds up more likable because she’s a flawed person, not despite it. 

The best episode of the series is all about her: Legend of Korra Season 4 Episode 2, “Korra Alone.” The title homages Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2, Episode 7, “Zuko Alone,” but it’s deeper than just that. “Alone” is how Korra feels.

An early shot on the episode is a black-eyed Korra’s reflection in a shattered mirror. The audience is seeing Korra how she sees herself. Depression can make you feel like a failure, turn lethargic, and neglect the people offering their support to you. This is exactly how it attacks Korra. 

While Aang was a kid, Korra is a teenager. By Season 4, she has entered her twenties. Both The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra are about growing up, but they highlight different stages of it to best connect with their audience. 

Korra’s struggles can introduce the show’s teenage fans to how depression infects people (especially since they’re at an age where it’s likely to strike) and help them process that. Unlike how Korra feels, you are not alone.

—

Did your favorite episodes of The Legend of Korra make our list? Share your picks with us in the comments below!

 Follow us on Twitter and on Instagram!

Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!