**please keep comments spoiler free, as this is my first time watching the season**

Plot.

~Basic Outline. Miss Demeanor stops in a field to meet up with someone who she is giving stolen Vengestone to. The buyer doesn't show, but the Ninja do. Nya creates a tidal wave to stop Miss Demeanor. She ends up not being able to control it and almost wipes out a town. Wu tells the Ninja that the elements of water and wind are not linked to the FSM, but rather to another entity, which might explain why Nya's powers are not working. Wu doesn't know more about this, but suggests Maya might. Maya and Ray show up to help.

~Plot-wise, this introduction is solid. It introduces a problem (Nya's powers), hints at the antagonist and a way to stop her later (Wohira and the two amulets), and leads us to know what the next episode is about (questioning Maya for more info). There are minor details that I was not a fan of, but objectively, ep1 gives us a pretty good introduction into the rest of the season.

(On note for this review in general, I'm not calling the antagonist "Wojira". She was called Wohira in s8. At least to my understanding, this name change was never acknowledged in the show. Thus, in the name of consistency, I will be calling her Wohira.)

Characters.

~The character with the most screen time was definitely Nya. She was shown to give up quickly once her water got out of control. She was angry that she failed in controlling her element, and she stubbornly thought she could fix the problem alone. When you think about it, this behavior is similar to s5 Nya. Think of the water bucket challenge. Once Nya failed like to fill the bucket twice, she gave up and insisted she couldn't do it. The same thing is happening here, just in a different scenario. You could say this behavior is consistent with Nya's character, but at the same time, she was supposed to have worked past that flaw by now.

~The other Ninja did not have a lot of screen time. They were shown to be cowards when Nya got out-of-control angry. I liked that Kai was the one to approach her at the end of the episode, but I think she would have listened better to Jay. 

It was hard to judge the other Ninja's objective characterization when they were basically afraid the whole episode. I know they would typically be wary of getting on Nya's bad side, but this feels a bit extreme. At some point it becomes ridiculous, and someone needs to step in to tell Nya she's being unreasonable. 

Lore.

~The writers make an attempt at building onto previous lore. They add onto the whole "Storm Amulet" thing established in The Island, and hint at the Wohira awakening scene being a big deal. This is good storytelling. However, the added lore itself causes a lot of problems.

~Up until Seabound, it's been "the First Spinjitzu Master created" Ninjago. Not "he arrived and plopped down an island". Not "he had to master all of the elements". Just, "he used the four weapons of Spinjitzu to create Ninjago". The fact that there was already an established realm there when the FSM showed up just weakens his credibility and power. Heck, Cole could probably make an island pop up out of water if he summoned his true potential powers.

~Also, if water and wind are out of the FSM's control, then how can there be water and wind elemental masters? Wouldn't the dormant Wohira deactivate her powers? Why would she give them away? And if the powers are stored in amulets, then how did they ever get to humans?

~If you look at Seabound by itself, the lore isn't bad. It actually adds to the story. However, when you look at Seabound in regards to the whole show, it is already contradicting a lot of essential story notes that the previous seasons have built.

Soundtrack.

~ Less than a minute in (around 0:40), I've caught a leitmotif. This leitmotif was used when Mr. E and the Sons of Garmadon first found the Mask of Vengeance in s8, ep1. Oddly enough, this leitmotif plays when Miss Demeanor is almost exactly copying Ultra Violet's line, "It's not Miss Violet. It's Ultra Violet!"

~ Lloyd's leitmotif is used as he appears on screen for the first time. Good job.

~Using more SoG music during the chase scene. Interesting. I wonder if this music has always been used during vehicle chase scenes, or if Lego is just rehashing the SoG music to manipulate us. 

A great example of my last sentence is in Disney's Star Wars sequel trilogy (spoilers ahead). In The Rise of Skywalker, during the lightspeed skipping scene at the beginning of the movie, Disney used the same music that played when Luke blew up the Death Star in ep4. This music--since it was previously associated with a great feeling of victory--was meant to carry over the same feeling of victory to a scene of lesser quality. Since Seabound is using a lot of s8's music, I have reason to believe Lego is trying to trick us into associating Seabound with the quality of Sons of Garmadon.

Two Cents.

~I want to talk about the scene where Nya's water is beginning to go out of control and the Ninja realize the cyclone is heading for the town. This scene is visually poor. The Ninja are just standing there, saying that the vortex is heading for the town, instead of actively trying to stop the vortex from hitting the town. The visuals here give a lack of initiative from the Ninja.

They aren't trying to stop the water. I get they know Nya can't control it, but seeing as they probably had less than a minute to get to the town and evacuate everyone before the whirlpool hit... it just doesn't visually make sense. If the Ninja had been running towards the town, splitting up into teams to 1) evacuate the village, and 2) get Nya to stop the water, this scene would have made much more sense. A picture is worth a thousand words. The show itself isn't limited to dialogue to tell the story. The directors should have used the visual medium to create more action/tension here. 

~Why do the Ninja have sprinkles installed in a room filled with electronics, directly above where all the electronics are? And if they have sprinklers there to put out overheating computers, then shouldn't the Ninja at least have waterproof devices? This scene doesn't make sense. There were plenty of other more comprehendible ways to show Nya's elemental abilities were out of control.

Overall Rating. 

I'd rate this episode a 4/10. A solid intro by itself, but underutilized.