Ninjago Season 5 Episode 6 Spellbound

[Ptah]

Ninjago Episode 40 - Spellbound

Alternate Title - Ninjago Hunger Games

 

Spoilers Ahead.

 

 

You've been warned

 

 

Recap:

The Elite Eight are on a blimp and tensions are high.  The smack talk is pretty heavy (for Lego Minifigs)  Today's challenge is to find Nya who's on the run somewhere on the island.  To speed them on their search, Chen drops his passengers over the island.  Good news: There are eight parachutes to take the death out of the fall.  Bad news: With Garmadon, there are 9 passengers.  It's pretty intense as everyone scrambles for a chute.  Kai firebends flight. And Lloyd dragons up to avoid death.

 

And here we have to say good bye to the Tournament of the Elements and hello to the first annual Lego Hunger Games. While the Ninja and the fighters look for Nya, Chen decides to capture all the remain contestants. He does this by planting weapons (and mecha) around the island. All of it traceable.  He has speakers all over so everyone can hear his edicts.  The only thing missing is a cannon when each fighter falls.

 

Now, this could be cool if we can see how an observant Chen has developed strategies to capture the remaining fighters.  How will he neutralize Quicksilver's speed or Dr. Strange's psychic foresight? But that would be way too exciting.  Instead we get a flashback of Garmadon's retconned personal history: Serpentine attack.  Master benders fight back. Chen betrays them.  Masters take up snake charming and entomb the other tribes, but banish the elite Anacondrai warriors to another dark dimension. Chen and Shang Tsung get banished.  The eagle eye watcher will spot a couple of Avatar minifigs among the masters and notice Chen used earth bending.  Speculate away, but I've given up on the continuity of the Ninjago universe.

 

While Garmadon has spent 10 seasons explain 'How he met Lloyd's mother'.  Chen's captured everyone except the ninja.  Kai goes down when Kitana betrays him to Chen, her father.  Jay goes down in a mecha fight. (Tech vs Magic: that would have been a great bracket line up)  That leaves Nya, Lloyd and Garamadon.

 

In the B plot: Cole and Zane settle on an escape plan.  Build a roto-jet to bust out of the underground prison.

 

 

Review:

This episode was well paced in the beginning.  If they had followed that through with the capture of the other fighters this would have been flawless.  

 

As for the Tournament, this is exactly the reason why I was snarky and dismissive of it from the start.  Tournaments arcs fall apart.  The writers either get bored or loose their pacing.  Instead of a prelim - quarter - semi - final structure, it's jump right into the master plan once all the gimmicky fights are done.

 

Poor Kai stunned that his crush was a spy.  But to be honest, she could have told him a number of times and he would have ignored her being so caught up with himself.

 

So now its up to Lloyd and Nya to save the day.