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

Plot.

~Overall plot. Maya attempts to help Nya by getting Nya's life together. Maya cleans Nya's room, tries to get Nya to do warm up exercises, cooks her a breakfast in tune with her element, then goes on to try and correct Nya's sloppy battle forms. Nya, who is annoyed by all the attention, goes to Master Wu for help. Wu says to consult Kai, and the latter promptly ignores Nya. Nya finds out Zane and PIXAL left for a water rescue mission. After a mysterious pulse cuts the power from Zane and PIXAL's mechs (and makes all the water go crazy at the monastery), the two nindroids make the connection that the pulse might be what is causing Nya's powers to go haywire. They then proceed to locate the source of the pulse, to which Wu announces that the team needs to go diving.

~Objectively, this is a natural next step to the plot established in ep1. Our subplot of Nya's powers is explored (not much is known about the element), while the main plot of the antagonist is also given more hints (maybe created pulse?). You might also say there's a bit of a character arc-plot thing going on here, but that can be explored in the characters section. So, objectively speaking, I have no problem with the overarching plot. As for the details added in this plot...

Characters.

~I actually like Maya's initiative here. Get up at the crack of dawn, make sure everything is in shape, then head off for "work". I'm assuming that was the life she lead as Krux's slave (as I assume slaves aren't allowed to be messy and lazy all day), so it actually makes sense that she would try to force this lifestyle onto Nya.

That being said, Maya is objectively out of character. Not only does she look younger (if we can recall the previous seasons, Maya fought in a heavy war, was aged by Chronosteel, then forced into slavery for around ten years... not to mention her and Ray weren't exactly rich and comfortable to begin with), but she acts weird too. Maya is a character who has been scarred by trauma. From the scenes in s7 that I can remember, she was exactly as a character in her position should be–caring, but also tired and afraid. A Maya that would have been consistent with her previous appearances may have tried to get Nya to follow her slave-learned lifestyle, but I feel like that Maya would have backed down more easily when Nya started complaining. She wouldn't have looked at Nya with that "hey I was right" face, but rather, "I'm sad that I can't connect with you".

~In the same vein of thought, Ray could also be described as being objectively out of character. He was a blacksmith living in the pre-modern age most of his life. How did he endure all of that, then have the skills to pick up a mastery of video games so quickly? And why would he ignore the daughter he was torn away from to stare at a screen?

~Kai is objectively out of character. He ignored Nya in her time of emotional need. I get it. He was bonding with his dad. But if you were in Kai's shoes, who would you pick? The sister you raised, or the dad who was never there? Are we supposed to believe that Kai is so childish that something like a video game would distract him from his family? The same member of the family that he literally became a Ninja for? If it weren't for his care for Nya, Kai wouldn't be here and the show's plot wouldn't exist. Lego doesn't have to prove the "Nya feels out of place" point by assassinating Kai's character in the process. 

My friend Neon (or therearenooptions) and I once had a great discussion about Kai's character, and I'd like to quote her here. Neon said, "Back in s5, he out of all the Ninja were the most determined to get Lloyd back and they were best friends, and whenever the Ninja were on the verge of giving up he [Kai] would give them a pep talk to boost everyone's morale. I remember in s1 when the Great Devourer had been unleashed and they were considering going into hiding it was Kai who said that they would never give up and keep fighting."

Basically her point was that Kai used to be the heart of the team and the most selfless out of all of them. Kai would put his own courage and pride on the line if it meant keeping his team going. That was the lesson of his true potential--to put others before himself. So how, after all of that, is Kai now ignoring the people he cares about the most, to play a video game? It's practically insulting to do this to his character.

~Zane and PIXAL were not objectively out of character, but I did pick out some issues.

5:40. PIXAL says, "...cannot help but feel a little badly that we did not..." This is incorrect grammar from a literal robot. She should have said, "...cannot help but feel a little bad that we did not..." 

Lego gives the nindroids big vocabularies to make them sound smart (I mean, all fanfic writers do, myself included). Why give them big vocabularies, then allow them to make grammatical errors? It takes away from their characters. 

6:05. Zane says, "Octopuses." I looked it up. "Octopuses" is an English variant of the plural, but the traditional is "Octopi" since "octopus" comes from Latin. I'm not sure if this is something to critique, but I found it something worth noting.

Also, why is it when her suit isn't working, PIXAL doesn't automatically think of a process to restart it? Banging on the control panel is something a desperate human would do. A nindroid would think more logically. If you still want to add suspense to the scene, make the restart process take almost too long. Have PIXAL worry if the suit will restart before the water pressure gets to her. This would make the scene more in-character for the nindroids, without sacrificing the suspense.

Lore.

~TECHNICALLY this episode does nothing wrong lore-wise. It builds on the fact that Wohira/the amulets control the water. To speak on this season alone, I want to address the pulse.

The pulse cut the power in Zane and PIXAL's mechs, and it also made the water in the monastery go crazy. Zane and PIXAL then agree that the pulse is what is driving Nya's elemental malfunctions.

If the pulse spread all over Ninjago City, then why didn't we see the power cut there? Why wasn't the power cut in the monastery? We had a shot of Ninjago City after the pulse hit it (7:03). In order for this lore to have credibility, I need a shot of power going out all over Ninjago City, and water going haywire there.

Okay, so let's say the pulse only affected Nya. If the pulse has been controlling her malfunctions this time, then why hasn't the power flickered before? Nya's powers were acting up long before this pulse. Does the pulse only affect machines close to its source? If the pulse ONLY affects Nya, then why did we need a visual of the pulse running through Ninjago City? That would mean it was a useless shot that could have been used to enhance visuals elsewhere.

I'm not saying this is a bad concept. It just needs to be explained. I'm not counting the computers going haywire in ep1 as "the pulse" because of the sprinklers situation. If the pulse is going to enhance the lore, then its fundamentals (power going out and water going crazy) need to be repeated if it happens again. I guess the fundamentals could also be explained if a character explains it to us, but, I would rather a show don't tell in this situation.

Again, the pulse is not a bad concept. It will be if the show doesn't explain it. But if it does later on, then disregard this point.

~If you take the lore presented here and introduce it to the rest of the show, it falls flat. Wu *and by proxy, the rest of history* is said to have barely any knowledge on the elemental master of water. Then... how was Maya trained? To be clear here, I thought being trained as an elemental master meant that you learned how to control your elemental magic. A "master" should have a tight grip on their powers. Okay, so let's say Maya was trained by her mother, and her mother was trained by her mother, and so on. This would keep all of the knowledge about mastering the element of water inside the family. 

Wouldn't the FSM had known one of the masters of water at some point? Wouldn't anyone (whether it be an EM or historian or whatnot) have recorded some sort of history on the EMs of water? And if no one knows how the elemental mastery of water works, then how did Wu train Nya to CONTROL her element in s5? 

Also, by proxy we're told that the mastery of wind had very little history on it. If both water and wind come from Wohira, then it's safe to assume they have same amount of vagueness concerning their past. So then how was Wu able to train Morro? How was Wu able to train two entirely different people to CONTROL two elements that no one throughout history was able to figure out? And if Wu was able to train them then, then why can't he help Nya now?

Soundtrack.

~I recognized some of the themes, but they didn't trigger any memories from old seasons. Perhaps the soundtrack designers were simply remixing older themes to fit the newer format. Basically, no problems here. I did like the overture remix hitting the end of the episode. It was a nice touch.

Two Cents.

~ I get that the intro is supposed to mimic going underwater. To me at least, the recaps are hard to see because the background is so colorful. It would be best if Lego stuck to the screens from s11 and s12. Or better yet, bring back "Previously on Ninjago". 

~(3:06) Nya gets doused with a bucket of water and doesn't appear to be wet. I'm pretty sure this wasn't an issue with the older seasons. I think the animation budget was upped for the newer seasons, as the show takes time to show details such as stray hairs. Yet, they can't animate someone having water drip off of them.

~If the show is going to have Zane rescue sailors by creating ice for them to stand on, please do not animate it where Zane is spraying the sailors with ice. Show him spraying ice next to them, or underneath them. Not ON them.

Overall rating: 

2/10. When you ignore all the context that the show has set up outside of Seabound, the episode makes sense. When you try to market this as an episode of Ninjago, the only reason it doesn't get a 1/10 is because "The Kaiju Protocol" exists.