Ranking Every Episode of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” Part IV – The Top Ten

And here it is – my top ten favorite episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Happy Thanksgiving.

10. Book 3: Chapter 8 – The Puppetmaster

This is easily the spookiest episode of A:TLA. The idea of bloodbending is still mind-blowing and creepy. I just wish we knew why Hama collected actual puppets.

9. Book 1: Episode 13 – The Blue Spirit

Don’t tell me you weren’t blown away by Zuko being the titular Blue Spirit the first time you saw this episode. The show was no time in showing us Zuko could be good.

8.  Book 2: Episode 6 – The Blind Bandit

The first episode featuring our favorite Earthbender. Enough said.

 7. Book 2: Episode 15: Tales of Ba Sing Se.

I’m probably going to catch a lot of flack for the position of this episode on the list – BUT the main casts’ (Aang, Katara, Toph, and Sokka) aren’t that great. We all remember it for Iroh’s Tale, which is obviously the best, with Zuko’s a close second. 

But those two and Momo’s aren’t enough to put it over the top/

  6.  Book 2: Episode 16: Appa’s Lost Days

This was such a unique episode and it was great to see his journey to Ba Sing Se, and his desperation to find Aang.

 5. Book 3: Episode 14/15: The Boiling Rock

Zuko and Sokka bonding, finding Hakoda, and discovering Suki was in the prison was enough of a ride – but then Zuko gets caught, we find out Mai’s uncle is the warden and Suki pulls off some amazing stunts for their escape plan. This episode has EVERYTHING. I can watch it over and over again.

 4. Book 3: Episode 5 – The Beach

We never got enough of the Fire Nation gang together until this episode. The show went to great lengths to show that these guys were still teenagers – and how fucked up their lives were that they couldn’t even have a normal vacation.

3. Book 3: Episode 17 – The Ember Island Players

I love how the show gave us a recap of everything and was self-aware regarding fans’ thoughts before that became a real trend.

  2. Book 2: Episode 7- Zuko Alone

If it hasn’t been obvious, I love Zuko centric episodes. And it was great seeing how humble Zuko became in this episode. His struggles here really shaped him for the rest of the series: plus they did an excellent Western style episode.

1. Book 3: Episode 16 – The Southern Raiders

No other moment will ever beat Katara STOPPING the rain in mid-air while facing the man who murdered her mother. Throughout the whole series, her deceased mother has been a huge source of Katara’s drive to stop the Fire Nation. And here we see it reach its ultimate climax. And we see just how powerful a bender she became.