Putting aside the badass monster killer fights! Castlevania Season 3 was largely an experiment! This, to determine what strange new directions writer Warren Ellis could push the world and characters of his extended Konami Dracula-verse. Of course, considering the bad bat itself is pictured forever in the Season 2 finale.
When it first happened, I found season 3 to be an incredibly mixed bag, and over time I genuinely grew to dislike it. On the one hand, it's a huge disappointment after the excellent – if pointless – run that Castlevania started with. It's also a bewildering, terribly paced season of television. One arrives and exemplifies all the worst habits to which many of these Originals from the Netflix they surrender.
surrender. Plus, each of our heroes gets maybe two or three and a half hours of a good story that's unnecessarily stretched into ten episodes. There is no rhyme or reason for where scenes and plots begin and end. What's more, the whole thing ends up feeling like an exposition that aims to define all the cool things that are about to happen in the next season.
Content Index
Season 4 appears in Castlevania
Well, season 4 arrived almost exactly a year later. It's also not just the first chance Castlevania has had to prove that Trevor and Co.'s Extended Adventures in Wheel-Spinning were worth it after all, and it will also be the show's last. Either because Unholy Algorithms don't always suit long-running programs. Or, because Netflix wants to distance itself from writer Warren Ellis following the nasty allegations made against him last year.
Castlevania season four doesn't just need to do good in all its dangling story threads and character arcs. He needs to bring the entire saga of Trevor, Sypha, Alucard and everyone else to a satisfying conclusion! A notoriously complicated task that even the series' greatest have struggled with.
Here's the good news: this season of Castlevania is, in almost every way imaginable, an improvement on the third. But that's not to say that all of the show's problems suddenly disappeared like vampire ash in the sun. But still, everything that previous seasons of Castlevania did well, season 4 was better, and it doesn't do any worse. There isn't a single thing here that is as misguided and stupid as last year's Alucard's Tragic Threesome of Ultimate Betrayal. After all, that alone makes Season 4 a worthy conclusion to the Castlevania saga.
Animation and Narrative
It helps that the action continues to kick unholy amounts of ass, pun absolutely intended. Castlevania has never been a slouch when it comes to the spectacle of bloodshed! But, sweet and forgiving Vampire Jesus, the animators at Powerhouse Animation and Mua Film are just showing off at this point.
Every character you like can take part in one or two of the best action scenes the series has ever produced! And the show is more willing than ever to get a little loose with its animation so you really feel the impact! Accomplished by the superhuman feats these monsters and magicians are performing while brutally stabbing themselves into all of their enemies' vital and soft bits.
The narrative is also better, at least in some ways. Alucard's side of the story has improved a lot from last season. This, to the point where it almost seems like the show wants you to forget about him as much as anyone else.
Hear improvements in Castlevania's storyline?
Trevor and Sypha's storyline is similar to last season's. There the specific details of their plot aren't super interesting or important, but it's worth seeing them as a cute, bickering couple who also commit demon murder together.
The problem is that Castlevania’s writing isn’t good at multitasking. If characters spend literally half an episode on a single conversation, which they often do, you can bet the show will either wax philosophical, abandon plot exposition, or attempt to develop its characters — but never more than one of those tasks at a time.
Additionally, many of the fight scenes, impressive as they are, involve crowds of monsters being mowed down without consequence, and the ones that really matter don't have much in the way of escalation, tension, or drama. There's a decisive battle that takes place at the conclusion of Episode 6 that you'd expect to be a big deal, the kind of thing that belongs at the end of the season. Instead, one character lives, another dies, and the show pretty much forgets their part of the story until it's time to wrap it all up in episode 10.
It's not just that the story feels clunky and often a bit slow, although both of those things are absolutely true. It's just that it often seems clumsy and slow to no purpose.
Confusion when connecting the stories?
It's difficult to analyze why the characters are doing what they are doing, what the consequences of their actions might be, and how story A is connected to story B, or how they are connected to story C, and so on. It doesn't help that the characters become more difficult to invest in if you're tired of Ellis' "crass and irreverent" gimmick, not to mention that many of the performers still can't be bothered to read their lines above the level of a dull hungover whisper. .
To his credit, Alejandra Reynoso still kills him as Sypha, and Bill Nighy's Saint Germain has no problem running in circles like James Callis' poor Alucard, who still sounds like the main character in an anti-insomnia medication supplement, instead of the son Dracula who is the pansexual and sensual demon. There are also a host of new characters this season, though the main standout is Varney the Vampire, played with eccentric glee by the inimitable Malcolm McDowell, who ends up earning my vote for the best reference to Castlevania games the series has ever made.
Final
Now, if nothing else, consider this: I went into the final season of Castlevania not knowing if I would like it, considering how badly the show had just fumbled the ball. Not only did I end up having a blast, just like in the good old days of “Tears of Blood” and secret wall turkeys, I actually ended up caring when it came time to say goodbye to the Castlevania Crew.
Not much, mind you, but enough. There are a lot of rumors that we'll be back in this world soon with one spinoff or another, but even if this is the last time we walk the roads of Wallachia with Trevor and the gang, it's a great way to leave.
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