The Painted Lady


 * For the spirit, see Painted Lady

Writer: Joshua Hamilton

Director: Ethan Spaudling

Guest Stars: Paul Eiding (Dock/Xu/Bushi), Daniel Riordan (General Mung), Will Shadley (Little Boy)

Overview
''The gang arrives at Fire Nation village populated by sick and starving people. Katara wishes to stay and help them. She becomes "The Painted Lady," healing the town's sick and providing food while they sleep. She destroys a nearby factory which pollutes their river, sparking soldiers to attack the village. Katara reveals herself to be the Painted Lady and saves them with the help of her friends.''

Synopsis
The group floats downstream, in the middle of a river that seems to be mostly brown sludge. With little chance of catching any food, they decide to buy some food in the village of Jang Hui. This conflicts with Sokka's "Master Schedule", planning every minute up to the Invasion Day.

The village happens to be in the middle of the river, which has been polluted by a nearby military factory. They are ferried to the village by Dock, a rather eccentric man. The village is in a deep depression. Many villagers are sick, and there is a lack of food because of the polluted water. Katara wishes to help these people, but Sokka says their overall mission is too important to stop to help everybody they come across. They buy some food from Xu, a shopkeeper who happens to bear a strong resemblance to Dock, save for a new hat. Before they leave, Katara gives one of the fish they bought to a small child, but as she sees him give it to his sick mother, she wishes she could do more.

That night, Sokka is trying to find a way to rearrange their schedule, and mentions that the solar eclipse will only occur for about 8 minutes. In the morning, Appa is found lying on his side, and his tongue is purple. Katara suggests that the village might have some herbs that can heal him.



When they get to the village, everybody happens to be in much better spirits. According to Xu, a legendary local river spirit known as the Painted Lady came and gave them some more food. But there is no medicine in the village, as the factory takes it all. Katara suggests letting Appa rest for another day.

That night, a thick mist comes across the village. The Painted Lady arrives and heals several of the sick. The child Katara helped earlier thanks her, and the Painted Lady leaves across the water.

The next day, Appa is still sick, so they return to the village. The village is in even higher spirits, and have erected a large statue of the Painted Lady in thanks for healing their sick. Xu/Dock suggests that maybe the Painted Lady could help Appa out. Sokka skeptically notes that the Painted Lady's work will be all for nothing unless she helps them all the time, as long as that factory is still there, and jokingly suggests that the Lady should use her "spirit magic" to just blow it up.



The next night, the Painted Lady turns out to actually be Katara. She once again puts on her disguise, but as she leaves, Momo wakes up, rousing Aang in turn. Seeing the Painted Lady, he tries to ask for her help, but she runs away. Aang chases her all the way to the village. Katara then gets very far ahead, since while Aang was running, he ran into a pole, and she thinks that she has lost him. But suddenly Aang pops out of nowhere and tells the "spirit" (Katara) that he is the Avatar. He then tells her that she was very pretty for a spirit and how the other spirits he meets are not very attractive.

He then eventually starts to see that the "spirit" looks very familiar to him and attempts many times to find out why, eventually airbending the hat off her head, which is when he finally finds out Katara's secret Appa's "illness" was the result of her feeding him berries that stained his tongue. Katara sadly confesses and apologizes for holding them there to help the village, but Aang naturally likes the idea, saying that it was great and that Katara was like a secret hero. Together, the two infiltrate the factory and wreck it, stopping the flow of pollution.

In the morning, the two arrive back at the camp and find Sokka and Toph waiting for them, having found out the truth on their own. As they prepare to leave, they see a squad of Fire Nation troops heading towards the town on Fire Nation jet skis, and realize that they must believe the villagers had sabotaged the factory. Katara is determined to stop them, and despite their argument, Sokka readily agrees to help her once he sees that she's set on helping.



At the village, General Mung accuses them not only of destroying the factory, but also for stealing the food and medicine that Katara (as The Painted Lady) had given them before from them as well. The soldiers start attacking the village, but a gust of wind blows their flames out. Suddenly, a large mist began enveloping the town. With help from Appa, Toph, and Sokka providing spooky sound effects, Aang and Katara stage an encounter with the Painted Lady to defeat the troops and drive them away.

The villagers cheer the Painted Lady, but Dock/Xu notices that her facepaint has smudged, and recognizes Katara. Several of the villagers get angry, but Katara apologizes, tells the villagers that they need to deal with their own problems, and offers to help them clean up the river. Dock/Xu goes to get his brother Bushi, which consists of switching hats yet again. Bushi also confides that Dock happens to have Multiple Personality Disorder and is crazy.

The gang stays behind long enough to help the villagers clean up their river. That night, as Katara examines the water, a thick mist appears out of nowhere, and the real Painted Lady appears to thank her before disappearing into the mist.

Goofs

 * The lay out of the town changes from scene to scene. (Example: When Katara gives the little boy her fish, to the right of Xu's shop there is a platform with a ramp that is inclined up, but when Sokka buys the two-headed fish the ramp is level with the water.) Of course this may be due to the fact that the entire town is a series of rafts, so it is completely possible to rearrange the buildings on the water.
 * When Katara is running from Aang while dressed as the Painted Lady, the reflection of the moon is a crescent moon, but when Aang discovers who Katara is the moon behind her is full.

Trivia

 * The Painted Lady's makeup somewhat resembles the Kyoshi Warriors' makeup.
 * In the episode "Ember Island Players", Aang is seen wearing Xu's hat.
 * When following the Painted Lady, Aang mentions that he is friends with the panda spirit Hei Bai, who appeared in the Season One episodes Winter Solstice Part 1: The Spirit World and The Siege of the North, Part 2.
 * This is the first time Aang is seen using his uniform belt correctly as a belt, not as a headband.
 * This episode has several references (and is even arguably inspired by) The "Lady of Guadalupe" in Catholic tradition, because of the similarity between the fishing village and Mexico city, along with the concept of the appearance of a divine Lady to a village under the conflict between occupying soldiers and villagers, saved by the miraculous intervention of divine works channeled through a person.
 * This is the third time a character uses water to cut through metal in a factory. First is Koizilla (Aang and La) destroying one of the Fire Nation ship in The Siege of the North, Part 2. Second was in The Drill as Aang and Katara weaken the braces of the drill that broke through Ba sing Se's outer wall.
 * It is unknown where Katara got her outfit in being the Painted Lady. It is also less likely of her to steal it from the village. (although she did steal from pirates and from the Fire Nation factory). She most likely got the red make-up from surrounding red berries--due to the fact that Appa's tongue was made purple by some kind of berry.