Avatar: The Last Airbender (TV Series) The Runaway (2007) User Reviews

Underrated

[sevskirita · 8/10 · 6 September 2021]

I absolutely loved this episode. It felt much emotionally more profound than many of the prior episodes. Dealing with Katara and Sokka's abandonment and Katara's filling of Sokka's needs took me by surprise. It's a deeply emotional beat to touch on family strengthening and coming closer together and more understanding of each other after serious tragedy.

This theme was even tied to Toph's abandonment and her guilt over not addressing her understanding of the pain she caused her parents.

The only things bringing this episode down is the boring villain and the sort of childish setting in Toph going overboard with scams (it feels very often like the stakes of being timed and in enemy territory doesn't apply). It was just a little average of a package for the emotional core to be shipped in, but it still had neat moments like Katara figuring out how to get out of the cage or Toph tricking people.

I would rate this 8/10. It's a good episode, but its deep emotional message wasn't accompanied enough to put it as a truly great episode of tv or a perfect one.

Decent but flawed

[matitya-33937 · 7/10 · 18 February 2024]

What was Combustion Man's plan? Seriously, this episode is driven by the success of Combustion Man's evil plan to lure Aang into a trap so he can ambush and murder him but the details of his plan make no sense at all.

Combustion Man (whose instructions were to keep the mission secret) somehow convinces Fire Nation police to use their wooden prison cell (which it doesn't make sense for them to have given some of their criminals are certain to be Firebenders) to trap Toph and he somehow anticipates that Katara herself will turn her in (and that no one else will catch Toph) so that he can trap Katara and use her as bait for Aang. That is an awful plan and it's ridiculous that it works.

(Katara also comes across as a hypocrite in this episode due to the events of the Waterbending Scroll and Sokka doesn't fare much better in that regard.)

That said, I like that Combustion Man gets his name (and is a menace.) I like how Aang learns Toph's Earthbending technique and I like the invention of sweat bending. I also find the humour funny and the heart to heart between Sokka and Toph touching. Toph's character arc in this episode was also her second best after her arc in The Chase.

The episode is pretty good.

Under appreciated episode

[thefoochie · 2 August 2020]

What I love about this episode is that is starts off making us think Katara betrays toph. At first, I hated the episode because I knew toph was gonna get into trouble from scamming. When Katara and toph were arguing, I understood both of their points (Katara saying that toph misses her parents, toph saying Katara is too motherly) I also loved Sokka and toph's discussion about Katara being there for both of them. Then we find out that Katara was faking turning in toph and the reveal at the beginning was tricking the viewers. In the climax, our protagonists run away from "combustion guy", and the episode ends.

Overall a great episode and I'm sad it only has an 8.2 rating. No one talks about this one!