I felt like the second season was really shark-jumpy. But then, I kind of feel like the peak of the series was Lelouch tricking everyone into thinking that Jeremiah was "Agent Orange". That was really the move that highlighted Lelouch's intellect more than anything else.
Oh man, Mao. So I watched Code Geass with two of my college roommates, and one of them was really easy to annoy. Like, you could pick just about anything and if you do it obnoxiously enough and make it clear that you were doing it to annoy him, he'd get annoyed. So obviously my other roommate and I started doing the clapping thing that Mao does, because we're horrible people. Anyway I don't actually remember much else from that arc.
I've seen that around and I do like it. I forget, is it clear at all when she was born? Because that definitely changes what possible names could reasonably become "C.C."