I’ve almost caught up to the current season! Woot. At this pace, they’ll put out season five before I get through season four. Not a bad thing at all. Lately, I’ve been using episodes of Castlevania as small rewards for completing edits on scenes of my next book. Motivation takes all forms, and this was compelling enough to get me moving forward.

In season 1 of Castlevania, we got an introduction to the world and key players as well as the main conflict. In season 2, we dove headfirst into each of these players, getting to know their backstories and what drives them.

Season 3 Synopsis

After the giant battle and Dracula’s defeat our cast breaks into four storylines; Alucard, Hector, Issac, and Trevor and Sypha as a team.

Alucard stays alone at where Dracula’s castle ended up parked, right next to the destroyed Belmont Estate. He misses Trevor and Sypha but believes he’s better off alone, although he fears he might go insane. Everything changes when he’s visited by two vampire hunters, Taka and Sumi. He chooses to trust them, as they are escaped prisoners of one of Dracula’s council members, Chō. He agrees to teach them with the hope that they can return to best the next vampire to take Chō’s place. Things go well, until they suddenly don’t and it breaks Alucard’s trust in people once more.

Meanwhile, the two necromancers Hector and Issac are having opposite adventures. Hector is in captivity under the wiles of the Council of Sisters, four vampire women intent on filling the power gap left by Dracula’s death. They need him to create more night creatures for them to build an army. One of the sisters, Carmilla, uses a potent mix of kindness and cruelty to entrap him to do their will. It’s kind of messed up.

Isaac, on the other hand, walks free and is assembling his own army as he makes his way toward Hector in Styria to exact his revenge. He travels across the land, passing through cities and leaving corpses in his wake. He ends up in a town in control of “the Magician” who has enslaved tens of thousands of people with his magic to build up a great city to himself. If Issac defeats the Magician and his minions, he gets access to a massive transmission mirror that will move him and his army to Styria.

Finally, we get to Trevor and Sypha. They find themselves in the small town of Lindenfeld where the local priory are sympathetic to Dracula’s cause. They also meet Saint German, who recognizes Trevor as a Belmont. They begrudgingly offer to work together and unfold what’s really happening within the priory only to find that the church is built over a portal to hell and they are keeping a monster in the basement. Good times. All of this crashes together when the priests strike out at the town using alchemical symbols to murder it’s inhabitants to give the monster the power it needs to open the portal. Trevor and Sypha must prevent the Priest Sala from completing the process and prevent Dracula from returning.

My Review

Season 3 of Castlevania returns the viewer to learning about the world once more as everything shifts in new directions. The board is being set and the players put in position for moves that are both tactical and necessary to reach the next big climax which I’m guessing will come at the end of season 4. While this is what’s required to stoke the fire for the next big thing, it returns the viewers back to the overwhelm of the world and stakes not being completely understood like we had in season 1.

Four story lines scattered across 12 episodes tends to do that. This time, each of the four story lines carry close to the same weight as that of our main characters, which also makes it hard to choose who to cheer for. I’m still totally team Trevor but Hector is also starting to grow on me.

As each of the stories amp up the tension, we see a fair amount of violence, but we also see more cruelty in several different forms. This is more than indiscriminate killing, it’s intentional foul play. And, at the climax of the season, we also find ourselves in two very manipulative trysts.

I’m eager to see where each of these story lines go and how they all collide together, because they most definitely will.

Recommendations

Still not a kids show, like at all. I feel like a broken record at this point, but this one’s for adults and perhaps the high schoolers they let play. Violence is still the biggest offender, but there are also adult situations (including nudity), some cursing, and plenty of good vs evil where it’s not clear who to root for.

I give Castlevania, season 3, 4/5 stars for branching out a little too far and diluting the main conflict, but still being amazing.

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