Again, the cast wowed! The storyline got more complex, more politically driven and the bigger picture of Samo Duo Luo's part at the center of things became tragically clearer. He's a prince of a fallen kingdom, of all things! And oh yeah, does the plot get dark.

If I could wish for a season 3 of any show...

The special effects continue to wow and make you cringe, in turns. Wow in that the town environments and general outdoor environments are filmed on a giant sound stage indoors, even though they feel "outdoors". And cringe because... well... bad cgi everything. But the writing of this show can't be beat! Nor can the acting.

The only real crime of it is that season 2 ends on a cliffhanger we'll never see resolved. But we do get closure in the final scene, in terms of Samo Duo Luo, having his found family, even as the invasion starts and everything looks like it's about to go to hell. (sigh) You get the distinct feeling that Li Zhi knows more about who Samo is than Samo himself does and that setup alone just begged for a season 3 to explore.

I loved this season. Really. The main villain of the piece never did get properly revealed, but his near supernatural abilities and the fact that he was doing all his Zionist crap in Samo's name??? Well, he certainly makes a wildly unusual bad guy.

I will warn English speaking audiences, though... Unless this has been fixed in the mean time, the subs for this season were terribly out of sync with the dialog delivery, and so tracking the dialogue will be a challenge. But it's worth the effort. That is, of course, where eng subs even exist. The last half of season 2 has no subs. Watch it anyway.

Settle in with some cocoa and a warm blanket and be prepared to love Xu Hai Qiao as the adorable and brilliant Samo Duo Luo, all over again.