Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2's Missing Aang & Katara Story Addressed By Netflix Star

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Warning: Mild SPOILERS lie ahead for Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2!Aang and Katara are back for Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2, albeit without a fan-favorite storyline being adapted.

The new season of Netflix's live-action remake sees Aang, Katara and Sokka heading to the Earth Kingdom in order to find the former an earthbending teacher, eventually meeting Toph and welcoming her into their group. As Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2 progresses, the show also sees the eponymous young character developing deeper feelings for his waterbending companion.

Ahead of the show's premiere, ScreenRant's Grant Hermanns interviewed Gordon Cormier for our Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2 cover story. When asked about the Netflix show not adapting "The Cave of Two Lovers," a fan-favorite episode involving the first signs of romance between Katara and Aang, the star confessed that "I didn't know too much about" whether the writers room had any conversations about including the storyline in the series.

However, Cormier went on to opine that "the writers made a really good choice" in how they ultimately handled Aang and Katara's budding relationship in the season, feeling that the subtler approach "raised the stakes" for both characters in the season. He also expressed that "Aang's priorities" made it so that romance wasn't at the forefront of his mind, and would actually "shift them" if he turned his focus to his feelings:

Gordon Cormier: I think everything just worked out perfectly the way it did. Aang's got the level head, but I like what they did. I like what they did. They made an interesting choice that was definitely different, but it was a good choice, and I trust in the writers that's always for the better. The animated series, though, that was a really cute moment, if I'm being honest. I do really like it. It's very sweet.

Part of the original Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2, "The Cave of Two Lovers" saw Aang, Katara and Sokka venture through the eponymous cave system in the hopes of it being a shortcut to Omashu. However, a cave-in separates the former two from the latter, with the pair learning the origins of the cave, it housing the tomb of the world's first two earthbenders, and seemingly sharing their first kiss after briefly being left in darkness.

With the way the live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender has shifted around events from the animated series, season 1 instead somewhat touched upon the tunnel and cave plot, with Katara and Sokka using them to try and get to Aang amid the series of tests King Bumi puts him through. The Netflix series even included the free-spirited minstrels who pointed Team Avatar to The Cave of Two Lovers in the original.

One of the more understandable reasons for Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2 to have left out the fan-favorite Aang and Katara storyline in the original is that it came amid Aang's efforts to find an earthbending teacher and wanting to turn to his old friend, King Bumi, for help, while not knowing that the Fire Nation had conquered Omashu. The live-action series already confirmed this defeat in the season 1 finale, and wasted very little time in getting to the highly-anticipated debut of Miyako's Toph.

In making the change, it also proves that the show's bosses, EP/director Jabbar Raisani and EP/writer Christine Boylan, are keen to slowly build Aang and Katara's romance in Avatar: The Last Airbender. This does create a few major diversions from the original, namely Aang's struggles to fully enter the Avatar State by being unwilling to relinquish his earthly connection to her.

Where season 1's changes were met with division, though, Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2's reviews do point to a different story, currently holding a 71% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, a much more positive showing than its predecessor's 62%. While the audience score still points to some mixed feelings on audiences' parts, the coming weeks may see them feeling better favor to season 2 and its changes.