Airdate: December 2, 2011
Peace in Ninjago is disturbed once again by the return of Lord Garmadon... who turns out to be his son, Lloyd Garmadon. When news of a nearby village attack (Jamanakai Village) reaches the ninja, they are quick to respond. They deal with the young Lloyd and return home, but the boy ends up freeing one of the ancient and mythical tribes of the Serpentine.
Now in control of his own army, Lloyd attacks the village again for candy. The Ninja show up and frighten Lloyd off, but not before Serpentine Lieutenant Skales takes control of Cole's mind.
On an aside note, this season premiere of the first season proper introduces new and important elements to the show: Lloyd, the Serpentine, and the Green Ninja.
This episode provides examples of:
- Bait-and-Switch: Sensei Wu hears the Ninja apparently practicing combat. Turns out, they're playing a video game.
- Bratty Half-Pint: Lloyd comes across as one."TAKE THE CANDY! TAKE IT ALL!"
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The Serpentine tribes are implied to have been sealed away hundreds if not thousands of years ago. Later episodes confirm that they were only sealed away 40 years ago.
- Exact Words: The prophecy says that one Ninja will rise above the others and become the Green Ninja. It never says that the Green Ninja would be one of the pre-existing Ninja.
- Foreshadowing:
- Lloyd has a green number 5 on his tunic. He turns out to be the fifth and Green Ninja.
- Each of the current four Ninja are pictured on the scroll with the Green Ninja prophecy, plus the Green Ninja in the midst of them. Everybody thinks that one of the existing Ninja will become the Green Ninja, but it will actually be a fifth person.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Hypnobrai general Slithraa tries to hypnotize Lloyd, but ends up hypnotizing himself when looking at his reflection in the ice.
- Hypnotic Eyes: This is the special trait of the Hypnobrai. Anyone who looks at a Hypnobrai's eyes when they start to exert their power will be hypnotized.
- Kids Hate Vegetables: Lloyd Garmadon appears in Jamanakai Village and demands all the candy in town, but the villagers boo at him and throw fruits and vegetables, to which Lloyd exclaims that he hates vegetables.
- Mind-Control Eyes: Anyone hypnotized by the Hypnobrai. Also a case of Red Eyes, Take Warning.
- Mundane Utility: Kai uses the Sword of Fire to warm pizza.
- Noodle Incident: Cole saying that Lloyd's escaped his boarding school again suggests the Ninja have had to deal with him before.
- No-Sell: Lloyd looks into a Hypnobrai's eyes for the same amount of time that Cole does. Cole gets hypnotized (albeit not fully). Lloyd is not due to slipping.
- Phlebotinum Overload: Since the Ninja are out of practice, they can't control the power of their Golden Weapons, leading to the training area getting set on fire.
- The Prophecy: One Ninja will rise above the others and become the Green Ninja.
- Punny Name: It's not Lord Garmadon — it's Lloyd Garmadon.
- Rapid Aging: Lloyd's existence and young age confirms that Lord Garmadon was only banished to the Underworld around a decade before the start of the series, not decades as previously implied—which has the side-effect of meaning Wu aged from a young man to an elderly man within an extremely short timespan. While Wu's lifespan was always different from humans (he's thousands of years old), he always aged rather slowly, with the exponential increase in aging still indicating this trope.
- Rump Roast: Jay gets his butt set on fire when Kai loses control of the Sword of Fire.
- Seeing Through Another's Eyes: Skales does this at the end of the episode with Cole due to the latter being hypnotised under his control (albeit with Cole himself completely unaware of it). This allows him to learn the location of the ninja's headquarters, which leads to serious consequences as shown in the next episode, Home.
- Snake People: This episode introduces the Serpentine race into the show.
- What Were You Thinking?: Sensei Wu says this verbatim when the Ninja's attempt to become the Green Ninja leads to the training area getting set on fire.
