David McDevitt

This show has really high peaks, with loads of dramatic action sequences that are incredibly well choreographed, beautiful visuals and a fantastic soundtrack, but I do feel like it has some of the pacing problems that the longer seasons of the original Castlevania had, with plenty of repeated themes and conversations throughout. The writing is less efficient and often wastes multiple opportunities for interesting dialogue and instead boils it down to the same tired tropes that you'll have heard 1,000 times before in other shows, rich vs poor, racial oppression etc, with none of the interesting nuance. These ideas are presented quite one note and always from the progressive perspective, as is commonplace with Netflix shows in general, but ones that feel especially out of place here. Without quoting specific examples for spoiler reasons, this happens frustratingly often, and can be lead to the dialogue becoming predictable if you're familiar with this particular brand of soft politics. It's not enough to detract from the overall show, but will definitely cause some people to drop off early. If you push past this, however, the final 3 episodes are very well done, with the end of episode 6 being the highlight of the season. In short, episodes 1 and 2 are a great setup to the world, with episodes 3, 4 and 5 unfortunately doing a lot to undue the good work the earlier episodes accomplish. The show (thankfully) regains it's footing by episode 6 and continues to end the season on a high note, one that I hope will continue into the next season.