I still think it keeps what makes JOL great in the new season. However, I don't have a scene to point to in this season that will be the masterpiece. It doesn't have a '100 poems in one night' legendary scene. I think the scene between Fan Xian and Zi Ye was compelling though, and the scene at court when FX is accused of bribery or when the Censorate makes a complaint about the emperor. I feel like they went a little over the top with the humor and keeps trying to make the second prince a crass villain when I'm not convinced. All of his schemes fail, and yet he tries a new one. The second prince was almost cartoonish in this season. The CP's character also drastically changes from S1, in which I'm not sure whether he's a good guy or the show is trying to make him a good guy because of FX's influence, but then he burned a whole town, and callously tells his mother to forget about the slaughter of her entire clan. I'm actually not sure why the CP was made the CP, when compared with the emperor who is hard to read and whose plans reveal themselves when the deed is done, it's hard to see how a guy who is an open book can lead the country. I keep thinking that the emperor wants FX to be CP instead, what with making him a 'lone subject'. Others have complained about Ye Ling Er so I won't add on to it. I just don't get why she is making eyes at the 2nd prince whom she knows has no regard for human lives and keeps falling for his lies. Then again, this show has a problem with writing female characters, especially our female lead who is on all the posters yet I can count on two hands how many times I saw her in the whole show. The source material is a male fantasy so there's not much to improve on. I totally forgot that the whole point of the show was the Divine Temple and all this futuristic stuff, which seems to me like it was cut down to avoid censorship. It was so out of place in the latter half of the show. Despite my complaints, I'll watch season 3, I think we won't see Fan Si Zhe in the next season since his send off was made such a big thing.