We’ve known pretty much since it became an immediate smash hit for the streamer that Netflix has been working on a second (and third) season of its live-action re-imagining of Avatar: The Last Airbender, but now Netflix is ready to give you your first tiny look at what’s to come in Aang and the gang’s continuing adventures… mostly in the form of a very familiar face.
During tonight’s Geeked Week Live event in Atlanta, Netflix confirmed that season two of the live-action Avatar is in production, with a brief teaser announcing that Miya Cech has joined the main cast as beloved Last Airbender character Toph Beifong. Similarly introduced early on in the second season of the animated series (initially in a brief vision before making her full appearance in “The Blind Bandit”), Toph is a young blind girl who uses her earthbending abilities to connect to the world around her and extend her senses. Initially joining Aang, Katara, and Sokka on their journey to teach the young Avatar how to hone his own earthbending skills, Toph eventually becomes one of the most powerful and famous earthbenders around, going on to discover its sub-type metalbending and eventually help to train the next Avatar, Korra, during the series’ successor, The Legend of Korra.
Cech, who is of Chinese and Japanese American descent, is not blind, but will work “with a producer and consultant, who is blind and a professional from the blindness community, to make sure the blindness community is represented appropriately” in portraying the character, according to a press release provided by Netflix.
For all its tweaks to the source material, controversial or otherwise, no one is going to be too surprised that the next season of Avatar will bring Toph into the fold. After all, Netflix is calling the show’s second season “Earth” much like the animated series did. Time will tell, Toph or otherwise, just what else Avatar will manage to adapt in its sophomore season in contrast to the animated series. Even as it shot up the streaming charts to success, one of the consistent criticisms of the first season was its choice to condense the story of the animated show’s 20-episode debut season into just eight episodes. While Netflix has yet to confirm just how long either season two or season three of the live-action show will pan out to be, fingers crossed it’s a lesson the series has learned to handle a bit better this time round.
We’ll bring you more on Netflix’s plans for The Last Airbender as we learn them—but with season two only just entering production, it’s likely going to be a good while yet before we get to see more of Toph and her new friends in action again.
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