Well... I'm glad I made some of my predictions before watching this episode. Very definitively glad. This episode reminded me of The Day Of Black Sun (for starters, it had a similar middle-season placement), and that is a Good Thing. In some ways, And The Winner Is... confirmed a lot of my expectations. In others... not so much.

My reaction to this episode in a nutshell.

Okay, the use of posters of Tahno as target practice was pretty funny. Also, cabbage corporation? The creators of this show are just so gleefully aware of their fandom. Also, apparently Bolin takes all the best parts from everybody in the old show; he wore the Wang Fire mustache in episode 3 and does impressions almost as well as Zuko in episode 4 and this one.

And then Amon takes over the radio and ruins all the fun. Again. Team Korra heads to the city hall immediately to confront the council, and the most shocking plot twist thus far is revealed; Tarrlock actually has a moral compass! He calls Team Korra out on valuing pro-bending above the safety of everyone involved and the tenuous peace between benders and non-benders in the city.

Team Korra argues that pro-bending is the only place where benders and non-benders interact without hostility, but I'm taking Tarrlock's side here. Amon is obviously planning something with the next match, and pro-bending is a sport that glorifies benders; this can very easily be exploited by the Equalists as evidence of the marginalization of non-benders. Suddenly, Lin Beifong!

She provides a decentish argument against closing the arena, but I'm still on Tenzin's side here. Oh yeah, Tarrlock goes right back into his sleazebending and agrees with Lin once he realizes that if anything goes wrong, she'll take all the blame.

Time for insight onto Lin Beifong, delivered by Korra being a lovably nosy brat. Also, Pema has some slight jerkish tendencies. I forgot to cover it in my last review, but yeah. I laughed at the emotional reveal with swelling music being cut off by "Wait, why am I telling you this?". It does explain why Lin seems to have such a grudge against Tenzin, though.

Also, I think Amon wins the Light Yagami Award for being crazy prepared for anything. And I win an award for being a prediction GENIUS! Lookie here:

The Fire Ferrets will lose the championship and then the plot will go much deeper into the Amon stuff and things will get dangerous

I couldn't be more precisely right if I tried, unless the rest of the season is a vacation trip to Ember island or something. Thank you Mako, for saving the entire main cast's bending by not cheating. Although... I could've sworn that Tahno deliberately lost the tie-breaker there. That fall did not look real. I wonder why he would've done that, though. Tenzin getting so into pro-bending will never not amuse me. The joke worked with Sokka in the old show, it works here in the new show.

Tahno's team still wins because they bribed the referee, though. I'm glad my prediction came true; the heroes need to focus on more important things right now, such as the Equalists disabling all the guards and our heroes. It also gives you a truly terrifying moment when Amon removes their bending. Even though Tahno was manufactured to be as unlikable as possible, you can't help but feel pity for him when you look into his terrified eyes. I like that LOK shows Amon using his ability not on the good guys so far, but on the antagonists. In one sense, it makes the Equalists less black and white. But the more important one is that it shows that even if it is being done to bad people, removing their bending is not right, and makes Korra's point much more potent.

My predictions of Lin Beifong and (somewhat) Bolin saving our heroes also came true this episode. Thank goodness for Pabu. Remember in The Blue Spirits how Katara tried to use human words to instruct Momo? Yeah, Bolin shows the proper way to do things. Him being able to speak red panda is just so in character. I can totally imagine him as a little boy on the streets talking to birds.

Mako: "Somehow that makes total sense."

The episode ends in defeat, but I have a feeling that the rest of the season is going to be full of awesome from here on out. And Bolin shenanigans. We all need more Bolin shenanigans in our lives.