So the first season of Kingdom (Road to Kingdom) was a lot more of an even playing field. That much was certain when going into this second season. RTK had groups that had semi-established fan bases, but nothing too crazy where they could blow each other out of the water with those votes. Kingdom didn't have this same concept, since obviously certain groups were wayyyy more popular via fan voting than others. Stray Kids was always going to win in that category no matter what, just look at their numbers! If those fan voted sections hadn't counted so much it wouldn't of felt so much like a popularity contest, but it did and it paid off I guess because they won.

To be clear, I'm not saying Stray Kids didn't deserve their win. They worked very hard and had some really solid stages! However, many MANY people watching were under the same assumption that either Ateez or The Boyz were going to win (mostly Ateez) because of how well they were doing! Stray Kids honestly didn't have the best votes among the judges, so that's why it felt so uneven. Either way though, this second season had some amazing performances come out of it! Ones that stood out for me were:

-Ateez "Wonderland" with that kraken arm, like dang that was incredible
-The Boyz doing "The Stealer" with the ballet breakdown
-The trio duet doing that IU song, beauteous harmonies
-Stray Kids doing the deadpool tribute performance
-SF9 doing Taemin's "MOVE" which was so sexy

I hope for future seasons they even out the playing field more for these groups!