It's going to be a wild ride. The new Parliament has a look about it that promises it will be a lot more lively than the last one.
The Greens, with 13 MPs, are big enough to make some serious noise. New Zealand First has brought in eight MPs and one of them, Richard Prosser, is making waves before he's taken his seat.
Labour will have a new leader and very likely a new front bench. Young, feisty MPs are eagerly waiting for the chance to trash cabinet ministers - prospective deputy leader Grant Robertson says he can take anyone down.
And National will be out for some taking down of its own. Its caucus is already plotting how to bring disaster upon David Shearer or David Cunliffe, whoever wins the Labour caucus leadership vote on Tuesday.
Then there's Winston Peters. When it comes to creating trouble and strife, he has no peer.
He thrives on it, always has. Mr Peters is an attack politician who has never looked comfortable on the government benches, and this time there's no chance of him being there.
Prime Minister John Key ruled out working with him before the 2008 election and did the same before the last one.
NZ First's narrow loss in 2008, when it just failed to make the 5 per cent threshold, was partly attributed to Mr Key's decision - the message to centre-right voters was that a vote for NZ First was a vote for a Labour-led government.
Mr Peters hasn't forgotten and he can be a formidable foe when he's on a vengeance mission.
ACT's John Banks says he's no poodle, and anyone who was around when National held office in the 1990s would testify to that.
He can be a pit bull when he's under attack and his attacker is likely to be Mr Peters.
The NZ First leader mercilessly targeted ACT's former leader Rodney before the 2008 election, it's part of his strategy to try to destroy other minor parties and vacuum up their votes.
In ACT's case that might not be difficult. It won a paltry 1.07 per cent of the party vote, less than a third of its 2008 tally, and what's left of it looks very creaky.
But Mr Banks is a fighter. He's pledged to rebuild it and he'll probably do whatever he thinks it's going to take to do that.
These debating chamber sideshows look almost as interesting as the main event.
David Shearer is the hot favourite to take the Labour leadership and there's a lot of talk in the corridors about whether he really is going to be the party's new messiah.
He comes across as thoroughly decent man, he spent a lot of his life helping people in strife-torn parts of the world as a senior UN aid worker and he hasn't been around long enough to carry any of the baggage Phil Goff struggled with.
He's new, he's fresh - but is he going to be any good? That's a finger-crossing question for MPs who are backing him because they don't know.
Mr Shearer has never been tested in the debating chamber, the bear pit where MPs stand or fall on their ability or otherwise to deal with ferocious opponents.
Since he came to parliament in mid-2009 he's rarely spoken, and when he has it's been on legislation.
He hasn't been put up as a lead speaker in the general debate, parliament's weekly version of cage fighting.
If he replaces Mr Goff, he's going to have to lead it himself and eyeball John Key across the floor while he does.
It's known as winning or losing the house, and it has a big impact on caucus morale.
If Mr Shearer can beat or at least match the prime minister, his MPs will walk away happy.
If he takes a big hit and can't handle it, they'll stumble out wondering what the hell they've done.
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