The evolution is interesting...
I have found that there seems to be an interesting evolution to this series in how the story is told and filmed. It is like it is moving through chaos to managed chaos and the opening episode portends a more complex season that is even filmed differently. It's like picking up two cookbooks - one is a very basic cookbook and the other is a highly refined tome and this show seems to be moving toward that refined one in content, theme, and appearance.
It is just interesting, is all.