SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for the three-episode premiere of “Avatar: Seven Havens,” now streaming on Paramount+.
Fans of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” are finally getting the next chapter in the hit animated universe. A new sequel series, “Avatar: Seven Havens,” jumps ahead 225 years after the “The Legend of Korra” ending, and introduces not one but two twin Avatars who are tasked with saving a world that’s been nearly destroyed by a mysterious cataclysm.
The world of “Avatar” and “Korra” has seen better days. At the end of “The Legend of Korra,” a portal from the Spirit World to Republic City opens up, allowing mystical creatures to pass more easily into the human world. Now 225 years later, the world has turned into a dustbowl, with pockets of civilization that are beset by random storms. The benders blame Korra, the last Avatar, as the person who doomed their world. They’ve also created the Seven Havens, the only cities remaining after the devastation. And as if things couldn’t be any worse, there are fewer and fewer benders born each year.
The first episode introduces Pavi (Saheli Khan), a young bender who’s secretly the Avatar and has a pet cat-monkey named Geet. She lives in Ellora, the Haven of sand and wind that’s overseen by Captain Karthik (Akshay Khanna). He helps run a training program that requires each bender in Ellora to register and help protect the city. One of his students, Jae (Major Curda), runs into Pavi and realizes she’s the Avatar when she uses multiple elements to save him from a storm outside the city. When they return safely, Pavi meets her long-lost twin sister Nisha (Aishu Devan) who’s also the Avatar.
Neither of the sisters can remember their parents or where they’re from, but they have a vision of playing with each other as kids once they reunite. Nisha was discovered by Karthik three years ago, and has been hiding her Avatar powers as his ward. Karthik, Jae and the twins are shocked at there being two Avatars, and they decide to keep their existence a secret since everyone thinks the last Avatar, Korra, caused the cataclysm. Suddenly, a bigger storm rolls in, and everyone must work together to protect the Ellora residents.
The storm also somehow brings in a version of Vaatu, the evil spirit of darkness and chaos introduced in “The Legend of Korra.” He was originally a gigantic, kite-like spirit, but now he’s smaller and has the ability to possess people. Pavi and Nisha stop the creature from wreaking havoc, but it escapes and shows them a vision of what appears to be the past cataclysm. With Ellora saved, Karthik brings Jae aside and reveals that he’s a member of the Order of the White Lotus, the ancient order tasked with training the Avatar. They start to train Pavi and Nisha and also stop a Vaatu-possessed animal from attacking people. At the end of the third episode, the twins decide to continue with Avatar training with Jae as their mentor, but they also want to search for their missing parents.
At the very end, there’s also a shot of some masked vigilantes looking down on Ellora as their next target. Who could these villains be, and are they looking for the young Avatars? Also, how much will “Seven Havens” reveal about the world’s mysterious near-apocalypse, and will Pavi and Nisha be able to revert things back to the way they were in “Last Airbender” and “Korra”? Instead of the 12-year break since “Korra,” fans will have to wait only one more week for the next three episodes to learn more.
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