Day of the Great Devourer

 The final episode of season 1 is here, and it picks up directly where the last episode left off.

 As the Great Devourer is unleashed, the ninja attempt to flee on the Destiny's Bounty, but the beast destroys it, stranding them in the desert. Luckily, Kai has a plan and leads the the ninja to the junkyard where jay grew up. Together, they build a vehicle using the Tornado of Creation which can Zane's recording of the Sacred Flute. Despite their best efforts, the devourer destroys the newly built Ultra Sonic Raider as well, before ehading towards Ninjago City, but not before Kai observes a weak spot on it's head..

Catching up to it, the ninja attempt to fight alongside the Ultra Dragon, a fusion of their four dragon, who have also reached theor True Potentials by combining into one being. Still, they fail to actually do anything to the Great Devourer until Garmadon arrives, telling them to give him the Golden Weapons so that he may combine their powers and kill the Great Devourer. Under Kai's lead, the ninja agree, but agter Garmadon fulfilled his part of the agreement, he disappears alongside the Golden Weapons.

On a happier note, however, it turns out that that Wu survived being swallowed by the Great Devourer, and has now returned to the ninja.

Various Observations:

-Why don't the ninja use their elemental vehicles to escape the Great Devourer? Surely it'd be faster than just running!

-Huh, I just noticed it right now, but look at Lloyd's outfit. His gi is still too big for him, so he rolled up it's sleeve, that's a nice detail. I wonder if it was also there in the last two episodes. Probably so, yeah?

-You know, this is the first time the Boutny itself was ever in danger. It has been a reliable home base for ten episodes, and now the Great Devourer just casually tore off one of it's two main thrusters.

 -I appreciate that they show the Great Devourer shaking off it's old scales as it grows. It is still a snake, after all.

-Even knowing that this is far from the last time someone destroys the Bounty, it still shocking to see it crash to the ground after all the time we spent on it. Zane's sadness at it's destruction only makes it even more tragic. When the Great Devourer snaps the wreckage in half with a single bite, we know that it is a creature far beyond anything the ninja have faced before.

 -While we've seen it before, Jay's clearly the most pessimistic of the ninja. Unlike Kai or Zane, he has already given up on actually defeating the Great Devourer. Because of this attitude, however, he does have the good idea of having the people of Ninjago hide in the Serpentine tombs to keep them safe. The Serpentine apparently had the same idea, as seen in the next scene.

-I feel like it would have been even more impactful if the phrase "Ninja never quit" had existed when Kai told the other ninja that they cannot give up. Benefits of hindsight, I guess.

- Speaking of the next scene, we never actually see the Great Devourer here, we only see trees falling all around the Fangpyre tomb. Not being able to see it actually makes the Great Devourer even scarier.

-Apparently the people of Ninjago are holding a Take Back Ninjago rally against the "Serpentine problem". Alright, I gotta ask; is the subtext intentional? Because there's absolutely no way the Serpentine aren't supposed to be an allegory, right? 

-I'm still not sure why the Devourer even has a convenient weak spot on it's head. This feels kind of video game-y. Get up on the Devourer's head, attack it's weak spot, repeat the process a couple of times. Wait a second, that's just the dragon boss from Mario Odyssey!

-Beginning the trend of Zane always being the one to get grievously injured, he lost half of his face. If literally any other ninja had been sitting with him, this wouldn't exactly be age-appropriate anymore.

 -Also, why are his insides a different color than in "Tick Tock"? They were bronze or copper colored back then, but now they look more like steel. His arm panel, which is seen in this episode as well, is also still bronze-colored. Granted, it's possible that his head is just made of a different material, but that'd be kind of odd.

-Yup, there's no way that subtext is unintentional. The rally even has signs and it's own slogan, and it sure sounds racist. "Hey, heay, what do we say? We want snakes to slither away!" I'm disappointed in Jay's parents and Cole's dad for participating in this. I guess the producer guy from Ninjago talent too, but I don't really know him.

 -Nuckal suddenly boos the rally, but he was in agreement with their message only two epsiodes ago. Kruncha looks just as confused at this as I am.

 -Hey, it's Vinny! I thought the guy didn't appear in the first season!

 -The build-up to the Great Devourer arriving in Ninjago City is really good. You can just feel the dread building.

-Man, those additional fangs look really goofy on a giant snake. I know the Great Devourer is no regular snake, but still. It actually kind of lowers the intimidation factor somewhat.

 -Hm, Mystake seems to respect Garmadon more than she did Wu. That's interesting.

-I love the news guy just advising people to wildly panic. It's funny.

-Wait a second, I just realized this, but the Ultra Dragon controls all four elements of creation! That means that it could also access the golden power of Creation itself! If that's the case, Garmadon and the Golden Weapons shouldn't even be needed to defeat the Great Devourer, no?

-With the added hindsight of season 8, seeing the Ultra Dragon slam the Great Devourer into a building and Cole cheering feels like much less of a triumphant moment.

 -The ninja baiting the Great Devourer would be much more epic if we also saw Cole and Kai use their elemental powers, not just Jay and Zane. Also, Kai is now the only ninja to have not used his True Potential outsid eof the episode in which it was unlocked.

-I'm fairly certain that Wu's inhuman heritage is the only reason he survived the Great Devourer's stomach acid unscathed, given that even Pythor had his scales bleached.

-Interesting that Cole phrases his words to Lloyd as "good will always stand up to evil". Perhaps his own mother's words came to mind. 

-It feels kind of unfair that Nya doesn't get to be shown with the ninja. She more than pulled her own weight, so she should also get to be in the group shot.