It was effective, but there were a couple of points where I again felt things were a bit too rushed or convenient, like Amon's exposure and Korra getting "cured" at the end. And I can't believe that Korra and Mako didn't have a better plan than "Let's just announce who Amon really is without offering any proof and hope they take our word for it." I would've thought they'd try to provoke him into using bloodbending in public instead.
Also, how could the audience hear them and Amon so clearly? They weren't miked. Are the acoustics really that good in the pro-bending arena?
I also would've liked some more flashbacks to flesh out just how Noatok/Amon developed bloodbending into bending removal, and how he developed such a hatred of benders. Although I can guess about the latter. Noatok probably hated what Yakone had made him. Yakone had taught him to see bending as a tool of dominance over others, and he hated the way his cruel father dominated him and his brother, so he came to see bending as a tool of oppression and cruelty, and saw what he did as using the enemy's tools against them. Yet on the other hand, Tarrlok may have learned to resent non-benders because his father was one (after Aang got done with him). After all, he had to live with Yakone for a few more years after Noatok left, and he would've had no defense against his father's cruelty except by learning to embrace the one advantage he had left, his bending.
Anyway, looking back, I can see the clues to who Amon really was. Korra first started getting the visions about Yakone when she was attacked by Amon. I should've realized that Aang wouldn't have been sending her those visions just to warn her about Tarrlok. That did seem odd to me when she said it in "Out of the Past," but I didn't follow that line of thought. I should've realized that Aang was trying to warn her about Amon, about his connection to Yakone and bloodbending. There's also the fact that Amon was able to resist Tarrlok's bloodbending, something only another bloodbender (or an Avatar in the State) can do.
For a while there toward the end, I was thinking maybe Book 2 would be about Korra searching for a way to reconnect with her bending, perhaps by gradually exploring her spiritual side, and maybe recapitulating Aang's world-tour training along the way. Just as well that they didn't go that route; as I've said, I don't want this show to repeat what the original did. Plus I guess they already had this finale written before they got a second-season order, so it had to work as a conclusion.
And though it may have been a bit abrupt, it was a great moment when the Avatars past restored Korra's bending and she entered the Avatar State for the first time, with the A:TLA theme music accompanying triumphantly. I think the only other times we've heard that melody were in the opening titles to episode 1 and in the "Out of the Past" flashbacks of Aang battling Yakone.
It's weird seeing an Avatar enter the State and only have the eyes glow, nothing else. Of course, Korra doesn't have any tattoos (none visible, anyway) so there isn't really anything else that would glow, I guess.
It's also surprising that she was able to master the State so quickly, apparently able to enter it at will in order to energybend people and heal what Amon did to them. It took Aang a lot longer to gain voluntary control over the State.
I suppose it's fitting that her inability to airbend before now was the thing that saved her. I wouldn't mind a little more explanation for why Amon could only take away the abilities she'd previously used, but I can accept it. And it makes me wonder if her inability to airbend before was ordained by fate, so that she would have it in reserve when she needed it. Also, her ability to tap into it at her most desperate fits with what Aang's spirit said later about making a spiritual connection at her lowest point, and what Tenzin said in an earlier episode about airbending being the most spiritual of the bending arts.
Hmm, I wonder if that's it. Amon's anti-bending technique was strictly physical in its basis, after all. And he never actually got around to "purifying" an airbender. So we don't really know if it would've worked on Tenzin and the kids anyway. Seems a stretch, though.
I wonder if the Lieutenant is dead. It seems likely, since we didn't see him after Amon bloodbent him, and it stands to reason that Amon would kill him to keep him from exposing the truth.
For me the most shocking moment (no pun intended) was what Tarrlok did on the speedboat. I can't really see it as a heroic act, since it was so cold-blooded, but Tarrlok was trying to redeem himself in his way, I guess.
(And I had a tangential thought about that. Who, if anyone, would be able to bend gasoline? I'd guess an earthbender, since petroleum is a mineral product and is made of hydrocarbons, which are one of the major constituents of bituminous coal. On the other hand, it's an organic compound, and of biological origin if you go back far enough, and there are no benders that can bend organic matter; even bloodbenders and plantbenders are only manipulating the water inside organisms. Maybe it's like metal -- all the "earth" in crude oil has been refined out when it becomes gasoline, so there'd be nothing left for an earthbender to get a grip on.)
I feel sorry for Asami. Not only did she lose Mako to Korra, but she lost any hope of ever reconciling with her father. She's basically got nothing left -- except maybe her father's business and gobs of money, depending on what the legal system decides to do with Hiroshi's assets, but that's cold comfort if you're alone. I'm kinda hoping she and Bolin get together.
Now I'm wondering what Book 2 will be about. I guess there's a lot of aftermath to deal with. Even with Amon exposed, there's still a lot of resentment between benders and non-benders in Republic City, and it'll be hard work to restore balance there, which is Korra's primary mission. For starters, they should put at least a couple of non-benders on the council. The councillors are supposed to represent the five nations (counting Northern and Southern Water Tribes separately), and there are non-benders in all nations now (since I figure we can count people like Pema and the Air Acolytes as part of the new Air nation). So there's no legitimate reason why all the councillors should be benders, and the fact that they were is part of what created the social unrest that Amon exploited.
