Alright, time to get properly started on the second half of this season and introduce the Stone Warriors!
The Serpentine, now lead by Skales, burrow underneath Ninjago City to destroy the city with Earthquakes, only to stumble upon the locked tomb of a Stone Warrior army. At that moment, the Stone Warriors are revived by the Great Devourer's venom, leading them to fight the Serpentine and lock them in the chamber, before moving on to attack Ninajgo city.
As the ninja try and fail to stop the Stone Warriors, the Overlord leads Garmadon to the Helmet of Shadows, which will grant him control over the Stone Army, and giant clock that soon begins to count down to the final battle.
Out of other options, the ninja use the Bounty to evacuate Ninjago City, just barely managing to get ahead and save Wu and Misako, who stayed behind to retrieve the scrolls containing the prophecy of the green ninja.
Various Observations:
-Ah, the Serpentine's racism subtext is brought back. Skales basically gives a speech about how the Serpentine are superior to humans, which he calls duplicitious, and states that the Serpentine should unify to claim their righteous place. Sound familiar?
-On a related note, Skales refers to Garmadon as "that human". I suppose his heritage isn't widely known, but even so, would a guy with four arms, red eyes, visible ribcage and coal black skin really bring to mind humans?
-Oh, and now Skales wants to commit Genocide by (literally) undermining Ninjago City to burrow the humans beneath the earth. Again, I'd be amazed if the subtext wasn't intentional.
-So the ninja are still training with lethal weapons. Good to know. Although I do have to wonder why they aren't training on the Bounty, since they only used Dareth's place while the Bounty was stolen.
-I love Dareth closing the window after Jay is launched outside.
-Green flames? That's not how Lloyd's powers are usually depicted. Did he mix Fire and Energy?
-Wait, what's going on now? Lloyd has flames in his hands, but all of a sudden the floor is on fire? What's going on with that?
-Jay demanding to be let in again is also funny.
-Ooh, look, a reference to the Mega Monster Amusement Park.
-Oh, we finally get to see the young versions of Wu and Garmadon ... and Misako. Why did she change the least between when the picture was took and the present, when she actually has a normal lifespan?
-Continuing the trend of Wu being really funny, his squawk when he's surprised by Misako amuses me.
-Alright, did the Hageman brothers and Joel Thomas have Wu and Misako's background already planned out? Because it really sounds like Wu has feelings for her.
-Aöright, it was planned. Misako even tells Wu she should have chosen him! I always thought it was a retcon in season 4, but it has already been established this early on! Wow, how did I manage to miss this as a kid?
-Why does Wu immediately suspect the earthquake to be unnatural? He's right, but how'd he know?
-Hey, it's Gayle Gossip! Nice to see her finally make an appearance. They could, in theory, already have introduced her during last season's climax, but I guess they hadn't thought her up by that point.
-Garmadon can't be behind the earthquakes, because he wouldn't do something that could result in his son getting harmed. That's fine, it fits his characterization. Now that it's been spelled out, however, that really makes the Grundle, which was made"hungry for ninja", seem like a really stupid thing to summmon.
-Huh, Skales is unaffected by the Great Devourer's magical evil venom. Maybe the Serpentine are immune? They do have displayed a certain level of supernatural resistance to similar things in the past.
-The Overlord's plan has been in the works since the beginning of time? That ... actually gives us a concrete timeframe, strange as it may sound. The First Spinjitzu Master's fight against the Overlord was still "before time had a name", after all.
-Ooh, nice foreshadowing, with the Overlord stating that "each piece moves in perfect harmony, like the gears of a clock".
-Nice transition between the Dark Island and Ninjago City.
-Why does Snickers the poodle get his own model? If it was up to me, I'd invest the budget into more models for background characters, given there are a lot of repeated faces.
-According to the prophecy of the green ninja, the earthquakes are a warning for something far worse to come. I do wonder what those black tentacles are meant to signify, as they are entirely absent from the episode. It looks like there's something terrible imprisoned underneath the ground, like the Devourer.
-Why, exactly, are the light in the Stone Warriors' chamber shaped like scorpions? The Overlord is never associated with scorpions, as far as I can remember.
-Also, the rows upon rows of Stone Warriors are obviously inspired by the Terracotta Army from China. Funnily enough, I already realized that when I first watched this episode at the young age of ... six, I think? Yeah, it was released in 2012.
-Spitta and Mezmo make joke about being "stiff". Is this an innuendo? Because if so, it went completely over my head back then.
-So, why do the normal.sized Stone Warriors get more colorful when they come to live, but the little ones don't? That's never explained, is it?
-Wait, the Stone Warriors' shields also depict scorpions? What's going on with that?
-Why is one Stone Warrior just vandalizing a water hydrant? I thought they were basically mindless weapons, given that that's how they acted in the previous scene, when they fought the Serpentine.
-The episode does a greta job making things seem dire by showing characters we have come to know be hunted and terrified up by the Stone Warriors. Gayle Gossip, the bank manager, Mother Doomsday, the postman, Dareth and Vinny are just civillians, but the Stone Warriors don't care.
-I like that Dareth keeps filming in the background while the ninja are talking. He's dedicated, I'll give him that.
-Huh, the citizens are supposed to evacuate from the NGTV rooftop, where the Bounty will pick them up. This'll come up eight seasons later, but I never realized it was a callback.
-Once again, I have to wonder why Nya is just steering the bounty, rather than participating in the fight. She's really getting sidelined this season.
-The Helmet of Shadows allows people to travel between Ninjago and the Dark Island at will? Too bad we never wind up seeing this power used, as far as I can remember. The portal later on is created by the Overlord's power, right?
-I like Zane advising Dareth not to use the elevator in case of an emergency. And, of course, the gag of a Stone Warrior hiding inside.
-Sheesh, the Stone Warrior jumpscare got me.
-So the ninja are surpised when the Stone Warriors survive being thrown off a skyscraper. Shouldn't they have experience with enemies that survive falls they really shouldn't?
-In all honesty, though, the Stone Warriors are clearly more powerful than the Serpentine, as they seem entirely invulnerable. The only time they didn't immediately get back up was when the Ultra Dragon froze them, but anything else? No chance.
-I love that Wu finally gets a chance to prove how badass he is, by fighting the Stone Warriors to save Misako. It's particularly effective, as even the ninja didn't manage to get a meaningful victory.
-Also, it's a shame this is the only time we see Misako use Spinjitzu. Usually she is only responsible for exposition, but I would have expected her to at least get some fight scenes in season 9.
-Look how surprised Wu and Misako are to land on the Bounty. Wu even lets out a surprised "What?". They both expected to die when they jumped from the window, but still chose to die on their own terms, rather than being killed by the Stone Warriors. That's surprisingly dark, even for a show that will have one of the main characters die only one season later.
-Speaking of dark, the episode ends on shots of the Stone Warriors destroying the city, showing us how places we knew, like the park, are now in ruins. We even get a shot from the Boutny where we see the city burning, before it cuts to Garmadon proclaiming that he's back. This episode clearly doesn't have a happy ending, particularly once you realize that the couple people we saw boarding the Bounty to escape surely aren't the entire population of a city this large.
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