I loved Shadow and Bone season 1, but 2 is a mess. I didn't even finish it. The plot is so random and sets nothing up. It's like an improve session gone awry.

The writer's room also went from a complex understanding of the worlds they were writing about to just using generic tropes about the rich. Tropes are awesome, but not when used as a replacement for knowing what you are doing.

Clancy Brown even said in an interview that to cut corners they fired the writers who made season 1 what it was.

The early episodes were rough but it smooths out somewhat. Some of the actors are amazing. The guy who plays Carlos better have a huge future ahead of him.

But, overall it doesn't so much much reference or put in easter eggs for SPN fans as it tightly follows formulas like the writers are stuck in a time loop. When they revealed that the 'new' big bad who definitely aren't demons can't posses you if you have a certain tattoo I cracked up. Also, if you are even older than, say, 30, it's obvious how often the show uses modern lingo and terms because they do not have a hold on doing a historical time period.

I want the show to do well, a lot of genre shows have a rough first season. But with the current state of the CW a renewal is very unlikely.