Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2 Trailer Drops Toph—and Things Get Very Earth Kingdom Real

Grab your cabbages and hold onto your sky bison, because Netflix just released the new official trailer for Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2 and the streaming behemoth is betting big on our overall nostalgia. Following the first season with a bit of a mixed bag and animation purists gripped with their gliders for the first time, the latest material provides fans a huge, bending-heavy glimpse of what the future holds for the Earth Kingdom. Make your calendars pencil-in for June 25th because now Team Avatar is back and in, they brought a few big hitters.

Enter Toph Beifong and the Brainwashed Walls of Ba Sing Se

The most notable takeaway from the new trailer, really, is that Toph (Miya Cech) is going live-action. Toph, a pint-sized menace that could turn a mountain into gravel, easily is the highlight of all of the footage and her introduction should bring new life. Aang says what we all come to know and understand that Toph is the best Earthbender he's ever seen. You could even tell from the trailer's brief action clips that she's destined to take over from her very capable, dirt-covered shoulders. But Aang's new mentor is hardly the least of his problems.

The trailer goes right to heavy on Ba Sing Se, the seemingly innocent Earth Kingdom capital that is hiding a political nightmare. Netflix is doing well here, leaning up into the psychological horror of the Dai Li, even dropping the most familiar, spine-chilling line: “There is no war in Ba Sing Se.” The production value seems scaled up, with the enormous stone walls and underground caverns appearing far more credible than some of the green-screen backdrops of the premiere season.

Puberty, Lightning and Full Spectrum Angst

If there’s one thing we can tell from the flying lemur in the room, it’s Gordon Cormier’s Aang who has aged noticeably. Because Netflix took so long to renew before it came to shoot Seasons 2 and 3 together, the live-action Avatar has taken a noticeably deeper voice and added a few extra inches of height to boot. Luckily, the storyline lends itself to this switch nicely, with the trailer hinting at a heavy, adult subplot for the sophomore slump-avoiding season. In the Fire Nation camp, family drama is on the boil. Prince Zuko, portrayed by Dallas Liu, has a freshly restored, massively improved haircut on the lam as a fugitive. Meanwhile the best line of the trailer gets upended when Elizabeth Yu’s Princess Azula sneers, “Zuzu, he's a little boy” a moment after sneering, then dashes Aang with an explosion of blue lightning. The sibling rivalry is fierce, well and very toxic.

Can Netflix Stick the Landing On Book 2?

For the diehard fan base, the trailer is basically a list of legendary animated landmarks. Blink and you’ll have missed glimpses of the ancient owl spirit Wan Shi Tong inside his sinking library, a glance at the Blue Spirit, the otherworldly Painted Lady and a few frames that hint at the emotional upheaval of “Appa’s Lost Days.”

Netflix obviously heard the complaints about the first season’s lurching pace and rushed storylines. By zooming in on the thick, political thriller stuff of the Earth Kingdom, Season 2 just looks sharper and meaner and more assured. Whether the scripted content is going to match the visually enhanced version is still to come, but the trailer does what it is meant to do: make us want to hop back on Appa for another trip.

What are your thoughts on the new trailer? Is Miya Cech the best kind Toph, still do you think Netflix could handle the Earth Kingdom? Drop a comment!