Re read book 6 and 7 ready for this season so I had a better memory on what to expect this season.
Episode 1 was 90% anime original but the scene with the monster girl was actually meant to happen on their way to the Crimson Demon village in the movie iirc so was cool to finally see that get made. All the stuff with Kazuma's PTSD over Sylvia was pretty entertaining.
Episode 2 got back on track to the source material and was pretty much how I expected it to play out. Enjoyed it overall. Now that we're in the capital we can get to the real good stuff for this first half of the season :)