So Castlevania Season 3 dropped last week and it's pretty freaking great!
Season 3 picks u where season 2 left off: with the fallout of Dracula's death with Trevor and Sypha heading out into the unknown, Hector in chains at Carmilla's Mercy, Isaac with a horde of night creatures at his defense, and Alucard as the ruler of Dracula's castle, Castlevania. While season 2 was leading up to the big battle of Dracula throughout most of the season, season 3 is more of a character-driven story. Season 3 starts a month after the conclusion of season 2 and in that time Trevor and Sypha are a couple and traveling while slaying the leftover demons of Dracula's reign. They journey leads them to a town where they meet a group of monks with a leader who has the most creepy blue eyes, that worship Dracula.
Here, the duo meets a magician named Saint Germaine and the three of them investigate the ongoings of these monks. Meanwhile, Alucard appears to be going kind of lonely, sad, and crazy in his castle until he meets to Japanese warriors who seek him out to train them to become monster hunters. The third plotline involves Hector being dragged back to Carmilla's castle and Carmillla with her three sisters planning out their next move now that Dracula is gone. And finally, the fourth plotline which is my favorite involves Isaac on his journey gathering a night creature army to seek revenge on Hector for betraying him and Lord Dracula.
Isaac's story is so intriguing to me because you can see how he's just trying to mind his own damn business but people keep fucking with him. Since he had joined Dracula's army he had longed lost hope in humanity and I can see why given his backstory and how people constantly treat him, but throughout this story you see there are people who are kind towards him and the ship captain explains this to him in the best dialogue scene in the show. First of all, this captain is dope as shit. He sees Isaac rolling up with a squad of demons and doesn't flinch and he has Isaac meet him on his terms. When the captain points out to him that while there are plenty of cruel people out in this world there are plenty that are kind and uses Isaac's own tale of the the old man from the shop that gave him a mirror and himself as examples.
I can also resonate Isaac's tale as a black man. Isaac is always seen as a threat and in the case in the desert a commodity in which to profit from. There's also the pent up rage in his soul from slavery and the injustice he sees on the regular basis. I'm not sure if this is intentional but in this season the two people we see be kind to Isaac are two other black people while every other person that tries to harm him from the desert bandits to the wizard are white. In the battle of the wizard where we see Isaac fighting off the wizard's mind control spell could be an allegory to black people breaking free from the chains of slavery. The wizard literally took a whole town as his slaves.
Not to forget, but that entire battle against the wizard and his slaves was amazing and I think that giant ball of people was a Castlevania boss.
But before I gush on too much about Isaac I would like to go back to the vampire sisters arc. So Carmilla locks Hector in a dungeon and proposes to her vampire sisters that she wants to create what's basically an eight hundred mile long cage / farm for humans giving them and every vampire in the kingdom an easy and endless supply of human blood. The problem with putting this plan out is that Carmilla has lot a lot of her forces due to the battle with Dracula from last season. That's why she took Hector prisoner. As a forge master he has the ability to turn human corpses into night creatures like Isaac thus helping with her manpower problem. Now while Carmilla comes up with the idea she lets the sisters in her council to be the ones to actually plan and put it in motion.
I forgot the couple's names here, but the brown skinned one is the organizer. She organizes the people and supplies needed. The buff vampire is in charge of the military which is self-explanatory, and then there is Lenore who is the diplomat in charge of bringing peace and using persuasion as her weapon and at this point of the story is the most important in putting Carmilla's plan in motion. Being a captive Hector isn't willing to do Carmilla's bidding so it's up to Lenore to find a way to get Hector to become their forge master.
In season 2 I thought Carmilla was the baddest bitch around, but nah after seeing this shit right here Carmilla is bad bitch vampire #1. Her appearance just caught me off guard. She is too kawaii. Like, I never thought vampires could be this cute, but in true anime fashion she lets you know not to take her cuteness for weakness. I love Lenore's personality and design. She goes against traditional vampire traits of being violent and detached from humanity. As a diplomat she's a peacekeeper although what Carmilla has in store is far from piece at least from the perspectives of humans. She's kawaii as fuck and cunning. While I did say she has a sense of humanity I meant in regards to having things like philosophy and peacekeeping, but as we see once she gets hector fully to her side she considers him a pet. A living person as a pet so she clearly still has the common viewpoint of humans being beneath vampires.This arc is great as it shows how downtrodden and vulnerable Hector has become while having a fun character like Lenore and also teasing the grand conflict that will come in season 4.
Trevor, Sypha, and Germaine's adventure leads them to discovering that the monks are trying to open a portal to hell and potentially resurrecting Dracula in a showdown that is both tragic and intense. The marks that were found on buildings across the town were for an inferno spell that sacrificed the people of the town into feeding the night creature so it could be strong enough to open the portal. The battle with the night creatures here was spectacular and it's especially a joy to watch Sypha cast her spells. The three of them manage to close the portal and prevent all Hell from breaking loose on Earth and in the resounding aftermath we discover that The Judge killed children. Still not sure how I feel about that.
In the finale of Alucard's arc the twins that came to train with Alucard seemed trusting but their history of betrayal got the best of them. Now, probably like most people that incest threesome caught me so off guard that I wasn't expecting them to attempt to kill him. I was just like wow, aren't they brother and sister and they're having a threesome with a vampire.It looks like Alucard is now detached from people permanently or at least until Trevor and Sypha come back or maybe not until this shows goes into Symphony of the Night if the show decides to go in that direction.
Overall, how I feel about this season? Best one yet, without question. I am so hyped to see where this goes: Isaac storming Carmilla's castle with a night creature army, Carmilla capturing humans and herding them like cows, and well Trevor and Sypha it's a mystery, but I'm curious where it will lead. Best video game TV show ever!
