After Nickelodeon cut the budget for season 4 by about the amount required for one episode, DiMartino and Konietzko decided to include a clip show episode, which reuses previously produced animation, instead of letting many of the creative staff go. Inspired by Samurai Champloos clip show episode "The Disorder Diaries", they chose to frame a series of edited clips from the previous seasons of The Legend of Korra with about five minutes of new animation. Aired as episode 8, "Remembrances", the clip show was also intended as "a lighthearted romp" similar to Avatar: The Last Airbenders episode "The Ember Island Players" before the series enters its dénouement.
Reception
The season was generally well-received by critics. Critics generally enjoyed the main villain Kuvira and thought she complemented Korra well. IGN's Max Nicholson felt the overarching plot of Kuvira's military campaign was not as ambitious as previous seasons', though he still enjoyed it. Nicholson also praised the season for its handling of themes like war, dictatorship, weapons of mass destruction and posttraumatic stress disorder. representation in children's TV. "Korra Alone" was praised by critics as one of best episodes of the entire series, described by Nicholson as "masterful and heart-wrenching." "Day of the Colossus" received positive reviews for its action sequences, described by ScreenCrushs Matt Patches as "22-minutes of set-piece wizardry, featuring some of the most imaginative, heart-pounding action I've ever seen." In contrast, the clip show "Remembrances" was singled out as a weak point in the season. In the final scene of the season and the series, Korra and Asami face each other holding hands. This scene recalls the earlier wedding scene between Zhu Li and Varrick, as well as the last shot of ', in which Aang and Katara kiss. It was subject to discussion outside of entertainment media, notably after the series' creators confirmed that the scene was meant to signify Korra and Asami becoming a romantic couple. According to Joanna Robinson for Vanity Fair, who described the series finale as "the most subversive television event of the year", it "changed the face of TV" by going further than any other work of children's television in depicting same-sex relationships – an assessment shared by reviewers for TV.com, The A.V. Club, USA Today, IGN, Moviepilot and The Advocate. Megan Farokhmanesh of Polygon wrote that by portraying Korra and Asami as bisexual, the series even avoided the error of assuming sexual orientation, as many other TV series did, to be a strict divide between "gay" and "straight". In 2018, io9'' ranked the final scene #55 on its list of "The 100 Most Important Pop Culture Moments of the Last 10 Years".
