He seems to have kept the intelligence and the sarcasm, but perhaps lost some of the nastiness.

I would agree with that to an extent as he has shown kindness towards his fellows, helping them with their problems in his own unique way. But then there was the violence of this episode so now I'm not sure. He's been very intent on regaining what he lost - his office, his fellows, his other office, so maybe once he has that back some of the anger/frustration will go.

It's certainly early in the season and something that seems odd or confusing now could possibly be explained or dealt with later.

I'd like to have confidence that this is all part of some grand overarching plan for the season but yeah, I'm not confident lol.