The Great Devourer is also incredibly intimidating, and has been implemented in an impeccable way, if you were to ask me. Given that it being set free is the main goal of the season's villain, it falling short of expectations would have been a huge detriment to the show.
It also helps, that the inner struggles the ninja have to resolve are things that have easy paralells in the real world. Zane is literally just a metaphor for autism, I refuse to believe that all that subtext was unintentional, Jay has to learn not to be ashamed of himself, Cole has to confront his father, rather than running, and Kai has to accept that he is perhaps less important than he would like to believe. All of these are relatable, and the writers clearly put a good amount of care into resolving these conflicts, which is good, as they form the emotional core of the season's latter half.
While Cole suffers from not having his own focus episode in the vain of "Home" or "Snakebit" to build up his relationship with his father before "The Royal Blacksmiths" attempts to resolve an arc that was never properly built up, he does get some good characterization as the main voice of reason. Sure, Zane is technically more logical than Cole, but at the same time he also has issues with a number of social norms, leading Cole to be the straight man to most jokes. Tragically, that is just about all he does get, however, until the love triangle in season 3. Perhaps "All of Nothing" could have been cut to instead seperate the Venomari and Constrictai being freed into two seperate episodes, with one of them being focused on Cole, and the other being an expanded version of "Can of Worms".
"But what about Kai?", you may ask, "He also only got one episode to be the main character!" True, technically he was only the main character in "The Green Ninja", but his arc had already been built up throughout the entire season by that point, and he was the main character in the pilots. No, if anyone needed focus even more than Cole, it would undoubtedly be Nya.
Despite not being a ninja, Nya contributed just as much to the team as the main four. And yet, the narrative still treats as her as somehow being less important than the ninja, and she is basically considered to be unit with Wu, rather than a competent fighter on her own. Her running theme of wanting to make her own choices should have been built up this season. Heck, that could've even been why she became a mysterious samurai, rather than a mysterious ninja; she didn't want to do things the way Kai already did! There are two very different ways I could see to improve her role in this season, one being to basically keep things the same, but replace "All of Nothing" with an episode where the ninja try to take the already stolen Fangblades back like in canon, but Nya, preferably joined by Garmadon, heads out to beat Pythor to the last Fangblade. The ninja can do their thing off-screen and either suceed or fail, it's not really important. Either way, the episode focuses on Nya's and Garmadon's relationship with their respective brothers, and contrasted by the theme of choice, as Nya wants to be different from her brother and became a samurai because of it, while Garmadon wants to be better, like Wu, but doesn't have a choice. As long as either the ninja or Nya and Garmadon succeed, the next episode can proceed like in canon.
The other way Nya's arc could have been better is by not revealing her secret identity. She would seem like the token girl that just makes a couple of sassy comments, but is otherwise reduced to being the love interest for one of the leads, while the mysterious samurai consistently does a much better job than the ninja, frustrating them. Then, while fighting the Devourer, have it's tail hit the samurai, not Zane, shattering the armor and revealing them to be a Nya. While I would prefer the first of the listed approaches, the second approach would mean that the samurai would actually get to be relevant after "Once Bitten, Twice Shy", which, you know, would be kind of neat.
Now, the next character I have a lot to say about is Skales, given that he guy is built up as a major antagonist for the first couple of episodes. Granted, he is just your classic scheming underling that betrays his boss (Slithraa) and becomes the true enemy, but it worked nice enough. Starting from "Can of Worms", however, he is reduced to being Pythor's willing sidekick, which goes against all previous characterization. If he had been scheming against Pythor all along, that would be one thing, but he is legit just a sidekick, only regaining his ambition in the second to last scene of the season! Maybe it would have been interesting to have the Serpentine opposing each other? The Hypnobrai and Fangpyre on one side, with Pythor and the two tribes he freed on the other? That could have been neat, particularly if the ninja would team up with the anti-Pythor groups later in the season. As is, Skales sadly failed to even come close to his true potential, pun intended.
Now, Fangtom, Acidicus and Skalidor basically don't have a purpose as far as I can tell. They're just there so that every tribe has a leader, which is a pity. There's a lot that could have been done with them too.
Speaking of the Serpentine, I mentioned this in multiple episodes, but they kind of seem like an allegory for oppressed minorities. And, in true lovecraftian fashion, they lash out at their oppressors by unleashing an eldritch being unto the world, only for it to be even more devastating than realized. Truth be told, most of the Serpentine, discounting Skales, Pythor and maybe Fangtom, actually seem sympathetic because of this. They were always hated and discriminated against, so they attempt to get back at those who hurt them, something which Pythor uses to manipulate them into going along with his plan to rule Ninjago by controlling the Great Devourer. When the skeletons or the people at the Take Back Ninjago rally recite Serpentine-phobic paroles, it's not they who seem sympathetic, it's the Serpentine, aka the villains. And this is all just baffling to me, because either the Hageman brothers were horribly blind to the fact that they wrote an oppressed to be their main villains, or the allegory was intentional, and they instead failed to realize just how bad this made some of the good characters look! Ed and Edna are now canonically racist! And Wu's whole "Never trust a snake" motto just brings to mind the antisemitic stereotype of the swindling jew!
Another weak point of the show is it's value as an advertisement which is - not that great, in all honesty, although I would more inclined to blame the set designers, because there's like a billion Serpentine vehicles, despite them only really appearing "Snakebit" and "The Rise of the Great Devourer"!
Lastly, the mystery of the green ninja is built up a lot in the first couple of episodes, but once things get serious, Kai is the only one who really cares about it anymore. I really like that they didn't make the "main character" the chosen one, and Lloyd being chosen comes completely out of left-field, subverting everyone's expectations in a good way, as all the seeming foreshadowing beforehand turned out to just be a bunch of clever red herrings, but none of them feel like they were tricking the viewer. It's hard to turn foreshadowing around like that without it feeling like you just lied to the viewers for the sake of a surprise twist, but the Hageman brothers pulled it off spectacularly.
All in all, the season is great, no doubt about it, but it does clearly have some major flaws. Still, aside from "All of Nothing", every episode is just fun while you watch it. Sure, there are some hiccups, but in the moment you are watching it, none of that matters. I know I can't give this full points, but it's flaws aren't enough to make it any less enjoyable while you're watching it. I guess ... maybe 6/10 points would be fair? I really don't want to put it lower than the pilots, but you do have to measure a full season by different standards than a short special. It just has too much missed potential, I'm afraid. When watching the show itself, it would probably feel more like an 8 out of 10, but the flaws do become more apparent once you think about it a bit more. Maybe it can earn some points back with it's suits, though!
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