I'm determined to not spoil myself for the final run, so thoughts will be a little awhile. Something I've noticed is that we have this "ooooh, what the hell" reaction when we read spoilers, and then we see the episode and we see that things are a bit different. However, I don't agree about hoping that goodness was shipped off for season 2. The way I saw it season 1 had a rather nice blend of action & drama, and of course that Death Note feel of this genius rising up and then taking a fall when all of his scheming finally backfires against him (NOT saying that Lelouch is Light, though). At the time of that gunshot cliffhanger, I had no idea what the possibilities of a sequel were. For all I knew, that was it. The funny thing is...I wanted to know what happened very badly, but at the same time I was pretty content with what had happened. C.C.'s ending narration notwithstanding, so many questions were left hanging. In the end, who was right? How could this outcome have been avoided? Etc, etc. Maybe the director doesn't agree, but I thought and still think that season 1 stood fairly well alone as its own piece. It had me asking questions.
In that recent mini-parody, my mini-headline was actually somewhat serious. So much of what made the series interesting to watch, in my mind, was that the show was "Lelouch of the Rebellion." Things were inevitably going to be different, granted--repeating the season 1 status quo for season 2 like some of us had worried they would do would've been a disaster.
However at this point the rebellion part is gone, and with it many of the issues that were quite frankly a huge draw to the series even though most fans wanted to see them resolved. Take Lelouch vs. Suzaku, Japan being free, the defeat of Charles, etc. So yes, "the magic" is gone, if by that you mean that most of what Code Geass was originally built on has been finished. The one big issue that survives is the character of Lelouch and what he has planned for the world. Which, to my mind, is the issue. As I said, I'm far more concerned with how Lelouch turns out than with whatever Schneizel is scheming. With Geass, it always comes back to the fact that this is all very much about Lelouch.
But look, we'll see what happens, but this isn't GSD, where the final 20% of the series contained clip shows and shopping trips and very little doubt about the righetousness of the heroes. I know there are analogies to be made, but that doesn't make it the same. Also, FWIW, if I hadn't seen spoilers on the internet I wouldn't have guessed most of what's gone on in the last 2-3 weeks. Getting back to righetousness, I don't know about anyone else but I have more sympathy with the Black Knights after last week. For now I say go, Todoh and Kallen.
