Avatar: The Last Airbender is responsible for changing the way stories are told in children’s television. It was one of the few serialized shows aimed for the age 7-10 demographic and helped usher in an age of Western Anime.

No episode of Avatar is irredeemable or unenjoyable, but rather kind of pointless filler. That makes sense, given that every season has around 26 episodes, it’s a necessary evil. And even then, filler episodes either help develop the characters or end up dropping crucial plot points.

Here are the best and worst episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

RELATED: Avatar: The 10 Saddest Moments In The Last Airbender, Ranked

Updated on June 2nd, 2020 By Amanda Bruce: After being off the air for years, Avatar: The Last Airbender is back and gaining more viewers than ever. Since being made available to stream on Netflix, it's consistently been in Netflix's Top 10 viewed properties. Exploring a few more of its best and worst episodes is in order. 

BEST - "Zuko Alone"

Zuko holding his sword in Avatar The Last Airbender

The series does an excellent job of making sure Zuko, introduced as an antagonist for Aang at the beginning, is viewed as a protagonist by the audience long before the character ever truly redeems himself. This episode helps with that.

In it, Zuko decides he needs to find his own way in the world without relying on his Uncle Iroh. When he does, he ends up in a small town in the Earth Kingdom defending a family from bullying soldiers. When the town residents discover he's fire nation, they run him out of town. The episode plays like an old fashioned spaghetti western, and it goes a long way in making the audience empathize with Zuko.

WORST - "The Swamp"

Avatar S2E04 The Swamp

"The Swamp" isn't a horrible episode of television by any stretch of the imagination. In the grand scheme of the Avatar mythos however, it ranks so low because it never really comes into play again.

When Aang, Sokka, and Katara are drawn to a mysterious swamp, they each have strange visions and encounter "Swamp Benders," who control the water inside the plants of the swamp. That skill would be a useful one for Katara to learn, but she doesn't even attempt to use the water inside of plants for an entire season. As a result, much of what happens in the episode feels like little more than filler.

BEST - "The Avatar And The Fire Lord"

Avatar S3E06 The Avatar And The Fire Lord

Flashbacks can sometimes bog down the storyline of a series, but this season three episode of Avatar exercises its use of flashbacks perfectly. While Aang has a vision of the previous Avatar, Roku, Zuko learns of his own family connection to Roku.

Not only does the audience get to see Roku and Sozin as friends before they took on their respective roles, but they also get to see how those roles change them. Aang sees how power can corrupt a friendship, while Zuko learns that Sozin isn't his only great-grandfather - Roku is his mother's grandfather. It fleshes out the backstory with information the audience might not need, but that certainly makes them appreciate the story more.

WORST - "The Waterbending Scroll"

Katara looking shy in Avatar The Last Airbender

The only reason this episode doesn't sit well with many fans is that it's more about teaching Katara a lesson than it is about advancing the story. Katara's desire to learn more waterbending techniques, and her jealousy of Aang's skill, cause her to act out.

Katara steals a waterbending scroll for a ship full of pirates. While Katara usually has the moral high ground in the series, she's not above a little thievery when the group needs something, like clothes or food. What's more out of character is her complete anger at Aang quickly picking up the techniques she teaches him when she spends the rest of the entire series being so proud of him trying so hard to be a better fighter.

BEST - "The Crossroads Of Destiny"

Katara holds Aang in The Crossroads of Destiny episode of Avatar The Last Airbender

The season two finale of the series brought all of the main characters together for the first time as they fought over the fate of the Earth Kingdom. It is an episode full of action, fights, and surprisingly emotional moments.

Just when it seems Zuko is on the side of the heroes, he decides to ally himself with Azula and try to regain his honor in the eyes of his father all over again. Katara shows how far she's come as a bender as she's able to battle Azula for much longer than she has before. Of course, Aang being mortally wounded in the final moments of the episode also leaves fans waiting anxiously for the third season to begin.

WORST - "Nightmares and Daydreams"

Did anyone else think this entire episode was a mass hallucination?

Unable to sleep with the Day of Black Sun on the horizon, Aang has some very interesting nightmares. Like any dream, they don’t always make sense. Sure, the fear of Fire Lord Ozai is real, but would he really use a math test against Aang?

It’s definitely an amusing episode, meant to be the calm before the storm, but sometimes the humor doesn’t hit quite right. Overall, it taps too much into senseless randomness. However, “Babe, you’re my forever girl,” is a keeper.

BEST - "The Ember Island Players"

The Ember Island Players on stage in The Last Airbender

Hands down, this is the best clip episode ever created. Most shows do a filler like this to just recap events and save on budget. But Avatar is not most shows. With information gathered from various sources (including a surprisingly knowledgeable Cabbage Merchant), the Ember Island Players put on a play recounting our heroes’ adventures up to that point.

The in-jokes kick the humor up a few notches. Yeah, Jet’s fate was really unclear. Season one Katara preached about hope a little too much. “The Great Divide” was the most pointless episode ever. It’s fun to see the crew poke fun at criticism and then churn out such a funny episode.

WORST - "The Fortuneteller"

Falling into the vein of somewhat useless episodes, “The Fortuneteller” doesn’t exactly give us any new information about the world of Avatar. Poor Sokka tries to combat an entire town’s learned helplessness and nobody ever thanks him for his effort. It’s a little painful to watch, honestly. All he gets is a headache and some unfair teasing for literally helping to save an entire village.

It also gives us the one-off character Meng, who literally exists to crush on Aang. Seriously, she never ever shows up again. No point.

BEST - "The Southern Raiders"

It only took us three seasons to find out what happened to Katara and Sokka’s mother. But wow, was it absolutely worth the wait. Every story beat in Avatar feels deliberate and thought-out, so it makes sense that they waited this long in order to have Zuko join Katara’s journey.

RELATED: Avatar: 10 Things Every Fan Should Know About Iroh

Everything just builds up to that final confrontation between Katara and her mother’s murderer. And in the end, she decides against exacting her revenge. But while she doesn’t forgive Yon Rha, she does forgive Zuko. Friendship!

WORST - "The Runaway"

While it’s a decent character bonding episode, “The Runaway” doesn’t have the same polish as others in Season 3. And it kind of rehashes the same conflict between Toph and Katara that were already resolved during their season two adventures.

But it does end with a touching moment between the two, along with Toph’s realization that she really doesn’t hate her parents. That’s enough for Toph to ask Katara for help in writing a letter to her family. Too bad nobody told Sokka first. Sorry, Hawky.

BEST - "City of Walls and Secrets"

Major props to the crew for weaving in a complex yet understandable subplot about full governmental corruption. Oh, and they managed to slip in the income disparity that ends up segregating a majority of cities? Holy subversion, Batman!

This episode also got nominated for an Emmy, rightfully so. The setup for Ba Sing Se fully established the conflicts and goals that would be faced over the rest of the season. Despite being in Earth Kingdom territory, the Gaang isn’t safe. And of course, this episode gave us the iconic line, “There is no war in Ba Sing Se.”

WORST - "Avatar Day"

Adding to the tally of villages our heroes easily could’ve skipped over is Chin Village. Named after a ruthless conqueror, the people of the village have villainized the Avatar for over 370 years. A whole trial commences and honestly, Team Avatar has way better things to do than Law & Order it up on a little village. But Aang’s sense of honor keeps him there.

RELATED: 10 Things The Last Airbender Did Better Than Korra (& Vice Versa)

At least we get to see Avatar Kyoshi and learn how Kyoshi Island came to be. Honestly, the most unrealistic thing is that 370 year old footprint still being on the cliff. Sure, it’s a world full of spirits and elemental bending, but that footprint is going too far.

BEST - "The Siege of the North, Part 2"

The very first season finale of Avatar did not disappoint. Packed with a Fire Nation invasion and a journey into the Spirit World, it built up more of the universe’s lore and gave us absolutely stunning visuals. Some amazing scenes include Aang meditating in the spirits’ pond, the blue light from Aang’s giant fish monster engulfing the city, and Princess Yue’s sacrifice.

Wow. Just...wow.

WORST - "The Great Divide"

It’s actually the most useless episode of Avatar ever created. The GAang gets roped into helping refugees cross the Great Divide, which can only be done on foot with the help of an Earthbender. The two groups trying to cross have been at odds with each other seemingly since the beginning of time. Aang ultimately lies to both groups in order to establish some peace between them.

While it doesn’t have a bad story or message, the whole situation is completely avoidable and Aang’s solution is a little out of character for him. But hey, even the Avatar has his limits. The crew feels the same way about this episode, slipping a line into “The Ember Island Players” with Sokka suggesting they fly over the canyon. With their flying bison. Sound logic.

BEST - "Sozin’s Comet: Avatar Aang"

A still of characters bending from the finale of Avatar the Last Airbender

A great ending to a great show. Just when we thought the show couldn’t surprise us any more, it manages to have one more trick up its sleeve. We get the final act of some great/beautiful fight scenes (Zuko and Azula’s agni kai is a gorgeous piece of animation), Suki being awesome, and Katara expertly taking down Azula. And then we get...spirit-bending?

Believe it or not, the show pushed itself in this direction since about halfway through Season 2. It was sort of foreshadowed the more we learned about the Avatar State, but the inclusion of the Lion Turtle and focus on chakras made the revelation believable. All around, it’s a well done finale. We can’t even be mad about the search for Zuko’s mother, they continued it in the comics. Closure!

NEXT: Avatar: 10 The Last Airbender Storylines That Were Never Resolved