Spoilers For Episode 81 Heads UP—

spoilers for episode 81 heads uP—

okay I’m finally gonna make a real post about this ninjago season so far just because it is…everything I’ve wanted it to be?

-Harumi is dark and Harumi is justified. her parents died because the ninja couldn’t save everyone. this made me think of Civil War in the MCU which…was great that it did because that’s not a kid audience movie. that’s a hard perspective to grasp and they went for it. really solid.

-The way she twists and toys with Lloyd makes me ache inside. that whole fight scene was actual heart-wrenching stuff, her knowing full-well she’d succeeded—he’d actually fallen for her and rubbed it in that she had used it against him exactly how she wanted and planned to. and he knows he knows he KNOWS that that’s true. he fucking knows it and you can tell. I just. brings me to my next point.

-Animation. wow. expressions are so much more…more. they’re just more. you can read more into them than you could in past seasons which is everything to me. when kai was trying to threaten Harumi it was humorous because it was obvious how flustered he was! because! of! the animation! truly god bless.

-Lloyd has just improved. in general. in this season alone we’ve seen that he really isn’t invincible and can be easily manipulated (because guess what! he’s still a kid whether you like it or not!!). he may still have the sacrificial hero trope, but…I feel like he’s the only one of the ninja who really does. he’s actually fun to watch in this season—ep 81 was mostly just him and Harumi, and as someone who doesn’t care too too much for Lloyd, that was one of my favorite episodes. Ever. they way he handled figuring out Harumi’s the quiet one was actually very well done and NOT Mary Sue, which I was so proud of. he felt a loss, he was so shocked and clearly hurt and betrayed, but he still loves her, still wants her. which—I feel—he resents. he doesn’t like that he still loves her, while most characters would embrace it and try to turn her to their side. he…Lloyd actually didn’t. which was great and unexpected—the old Lloyd would’ve, and that’s not what I personally think is very original. so. true kudos to making Lloyd’s character rewarding and frankly just enjoyable again to watch.

-Hagemans went into writing this season knowing what we wanted. they were unafraid to stab kai, to call a mask a mask of fucking hatred, to make your stomach crawl watching Lloyd’s fight with Harumi and all this valid venom she was spewing, actually making Harumi’s reasoning have some logic (she blames the ninja for the death of her parents, one of the kind of many people who believed Garm saved the city, so she wants garm back), making her biological parents’ death MAKE SENSE, have it be relevant to her motives, have it be controversial (some deaths can’t be helped but at the same time the ninja should have maybe done a better job regulating how much damage they were causing), Ultra Vi threatening a baby’s life, Zane high key dying in hand to hand combat…The Hagemans showed that they aren’t afraid to write how they see fit, despite how it has become much darker and away from the original target audience.

they know who’s watching. who’s really watching. and they seem to blossom in catering to that audience rather than the original.

they better keep it the fuck up