Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2

Avatar: The Last Airbender
Season 2 Book Two: Earth
Cover for the second season DVD
No. of episodes	20
Release
Original network	Nickelodeon
Original release	March 17 (2006-03-17) – December 1, 2006 (2006-12-01)
Season chronology

Book Two: Earth is the second season of Avatar: The Last Airbender, an American animated television series created and produced by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko for Nickelodeon. The series starred Zach Tyler Eisen, Mae Whitman, Jack DeSena, Jessie Flower, Dante Basco, Dee Bradley Baker, Mako Iwamatsu (in his final performance as Iroh) and Grey DeLisle as the main character voices.

In the second season, Aang and his friends Katara and Sokka are on a quest to find an Earthbending teacher which finishes when they recruit Toph Beifong. After finding important information concerning the war with the Fire Nation, Appa ends up kidnapped. Their journey leads to Ba Sing Se, the capital of the Earth Kingdom, where they uncover a great internal government conspiracy. Meanwhile, due to their actions at the North Pole in Book One, Zuko and Iroh are declared traitors of the Fire Nation and desert their country, becoming fugitives in the Earth Kingdom. Pursuing both Zuko and Aang is Princess Azula, Zuko's younger prodigy sister.

Book Two: Earth premiered on Nickelodeon on March 17, 2006. It consisted of 20 episodes and concluded on December 1, 2006. The season received considerable acclaim, with the series being called "consistently excellent." The series won multiple awards, including Best Character Animation in a Television Production from the 34th Annie Awards and Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation at the 2007 Emmy Awards.

Between January 23, 2007, and September 11, 2007, Paramount Home Entertainment released four DVD sets containing five episodes each before releasing the entire season as a boxset.

Episodes

See also: List of Avatar: The Last Airbender episodes

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Animated by	Original air date	Prod. code [1]	Viewers (millions)
21	1	"The Avatar State"	Giancarlo Volpe	Aaron Ehasz, Elizabeth Welch, Tim Hedrick and John O'Bryan	DR Movie	March 17, 2006 (2006-03-17)	201	N/A
22	2	"The Cave of Two Lovers"	Lauren MacMullan	Joshua Hamilton	JM Animation	March 24, 2006 (2006-03-24)	202	N/A
23	3	"Return to Omashu"	Ethan Spaulding	Elizabeth Welch	DR Movie	April 7, 2006 (2006-04-07)	203	N/A
24	4	"The Swamp"	Giancarlo Volpe	Tim Hedrick	JM Animation	April 14, 2006 (2006-04-14)	204	N/A
25	5	"Avatar Day"	Lauren MacMullan	John O'Bryan	DR Movie	April 28, 2006 (2006-04-28)	205	N/A
26	6	"The Blind Bandit"	Ethan Spaulding	Michael Dante DiMartino	JM Animation	May 5, 2006 (2006-05-05)	206	N/A
27	7	"Zuko Alone"	Lauren MacMullan	Elizabeth Welch	JM Animation	May 12, 2006 (2006-05-12)	207	N/A
28	8	"The Chase"	Giancarlo Volpe	Joshua Hamilton	DR Movie	May 26, 2006 (2006-05-26)	208	N/A
29	9	"Bitter Work"	Ethan Spaulding	Aaron Ehasz	DR Movie	June 2, 2006 (2006-06-02)	209	N/A
30	10	"The Library"	Giancarlo Volpe	John O'Bryan	JM Animation	July 14, 2006 (2006-07-14)	210	N/A
31	11	"The Desert"	Lauren MacMullan	Tim Hedrick	DR Movie	July 14, 2006 (2006-07-14)	211	N/A
32	12	"The Serpent's Pass"	Ethan Spaulding	Michael Dante DiMartino and Joshua Hamilton	JM Animation	September 15, 2006 (2006-09-15)	212	4.1
33	13	"The Drill"	Giancarlo Volpe	Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko	DR Movie	September 15, 2006 (2006-09-15)	213	4.1
34	14	"City of Walls and Secrets"	Lauren MacMullan	Tim Hedrick	JM Animation	September 22, 2006 (2006-09-22)	214	N/A
35	15	"The Tales of Ba Sing Se"	Ethan Spaulding	The Tale of Toph and Katara Joann Estoesta and Lisa Wahlander The Tale of Iroh Andrew Huebner The Tale of Aang Gary Scheppke The Tale of Sokka Lauren MacMullan The Tale of Zuko Katie Mattila The Tale of Momo Justin Ridge and Giancarlo Volpe	DR Movie	September 29, 2006 (2006-09-29)	215	N/A
36	16	"Appa's Lost Days"	Giancarlo Volpe	Elizabeth Welch	JM Animation	October 13, 2006 (2006-10-13)	216	N/A
37	17	"Lake Laogai"	Lauren MacMullan	Tim Hedrick	DR Movie	November 3, 2006 (2006-11-03)	217	N/A
38	18	"The Earth King"	Ethan Spaulding	John O'Bryan	JM Animation	November 17, 2006 (2006-11-17)	218	N/A
39	19	"The Guru"	Giancarlo Volpe	Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko	DR Movie	December 1, 2006 (2006-12-01)	219	N/A
40	20	"The Crossroads of Destiny"	Michael Dante DiMartino	Aaron Ehasz	JM Animation	December 1, 2006 (2006-12-01)	220	N/A

Production

The season was produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studio and aired on Nickelodeon, both of which are owned by Viacom. The season's executive producers and co-creators are Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, who worked alongside head writer and co-producer Aaron Ehasz. Most of the individual episodes were directed by Ethan Spaulding, Lauren MacMullan and Giancarlo Volpe. Episodes were written by a team of writers, which consisted of Aaron Ehasz, Elizabeth Welch, Tim Hedrick, John O'Bryan; along with creators DiMartino and Konietzko.

The season's music was composed by "The Track Team", which consists of Jeremy Zuckerman and Benjamin Wynn, who were known to the show's creators because Zuckerman was Konietzko's roommate.

Cast

Most of the main characters from the first season remained the same: Zach Tyler Eisen voices Aang, Mae Whitman voices Katara, Jack DeSena voices Sokka, Dee Bradley Baker voices both Appa and Momo, and Dante Basco voices Zuko.

In addition, several new characters appear: Jessie Flower voices Toph Beifong, Grey DeLisle voices Azula, Cricket Leigh voices Mai, Olivia Hack voices Ty Lee, and Clancy Brown voices Long Feng.

Mako Iwamatsu, who voiced Iroh in the first two seasons, died from throat cancer after production was completed; he was replaced by Greg Baldwin for the following season and The Legend of Korra.

In the episode "The Tales of Ba Sing Se", the segment titled "The Tale of Iroh" features a dedication to Mako at the end when Iroh is tearfully singing to mourn the loss of his only child, Lu Ten.

Reception

In a review of the Volume 2 DVD Release for Book 2, Gabriel Powers from DVDActive.com described the series as one of the best children's series in recent times, making comparisons with Samurai Jack and Justice League, and complimented it for its depth and humour. Powers also comments:

Without dumbing down its characters, plots, or humour, and without overtly taming-up the action or peril, Avatar manages to enthral children and adults, ages 4 to 56...There is a genuine classic feel to the series, which uses actual Asian culture and lore as its base. Like Star Wars, the creative forces behind the show have tapped into that basic, generation spanning storytelling that will live long after the series' youngest fans are old and bitter.

For the video and audio quality, Powers says "Season two generally looks better than the bulk of season one, but still has some issues" concerning image sharpness. Rotten Tomatoes gave it an 87% fresh rating in 2008. Jamie S. Rich from DVD Talk says that "As a flat concept, Avatar the Last Airbender is nothing special, but in execution, it is head and shoulders above other children's entertainment", and that "as a whole, the look of Avatar is consistently excellent".

The show also received acclaim for its visual appeal. In the 34th Annie Awards, the show was nominated for and won the "Best Character Animation in a Television Production" award, for Jae-Myung Yu's animation in "The Blind Bandit", and the "Best Directing in an Animated Television Production" award, for the episode "The Drill". In 2007, the show was nominated for "Outstanding Animated Program" in the 2007 Emmy Awards for the "City of Walls and Secrets" episode, though it did not win. However, the show did win the "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation" award for Sang-Jin Kim's animation in the "Lake Laogai" episode.

Home media

Nickelodeon began releasing DVDs for Book 2 on January 23, 2007. The first four DVD releases contain one disc that consisted of five episodes each. The final DVD was the "Complete Book 2 Box Set", which contains all of the episodes in the season on four discs, and packaged with a special features disc. All of the DVD sets for Book 2 were released with Region 1 encoding, meaning that they can only play on North American DVD players. Book 2 was released on Region 2 on July 20, 2009.

Volume	Discs	Episodes	Region 1 release	Region 2 release	Region 3 release
1	1	5	January 23, 2007	Not released	June 4, 2009
2	1	5	April 10, 2007	Not released	August 6, 2009
3	1	5	May 22, 2007	Not released	October 29, 2009
4	1	5	August 14, 2007	Not released	March 31, 2010
Box set	4	20	September 11, 2007	July 20, 2009	September 9, 2010

Footnotes

1.^ Production code format taken from the commentary for "Sozin's Comet: The Phoenix King"

References

General

• "Season 2". Avatar: The Last Airbender. IGN. Retrieved July 21, 2008.
• "Season 2 DVD Information". TVShowsOnDVD.com. February 24, 2005. Archived from the original on 15 September 2008. Retrieved September 6, 2008.

Specific