gregbradley-76583

It's become more apparent this season (and especially this finale) that the "writers" have no idea what to do with the source material if GRRM isn't holding their hand every step of the way. The filler is blatantly apparent now (those who've read Fire & Blood realize how much they try to add to fill in the gaps) as is the constant transporting and slow-paced dialogue "Like... mist... in... the... morning... sun." They also consistently ignore the logistics of the world to deliver us scenes between prominent characters, much like the latter seasons of GoT. Imagine if Ned Stark was just in King's Landing one episode, then ended up back in Winterfell next episode to have a quick chat with Caitlin, then magically ended up back in King's Landing and nobody seemed to notice or care he'd even left to begin with.

The reason Game of Thrones beginning seasons felt so phenomenal is because there was legitimately so much actual dialogue to reference from in the books to the point they had to cut much of it short, yet it still had GRRM's actual quality tied to it. Same with the characters and their movements, and the attention to detail Martin has in his writing. The moment D&D ran out of actual source material, they also forgot the logistics of the world and the characters immediately started having less intricate and meaningful conversations; instead stuffed with slower paced poetically metaphorical verbiage. The dialogue seemed more to serve the purpose of sounding fancy and cool but lacking actual substance.

Fire & Blood isn't meant to be stretched out in this manner. Season 1 was good, but Season 2 is them getting too cocky with Season 1's success and stretching beyond their means. Overall, this season was definitely a miss, filled with stretched filler material that really didn't need to go on as long as it did. The finale most certainly cemented that.

The story seems to be focused more on the teen drama aspect rather than some grander narrative like The Boys. Though there is this backdrop narrative centering around the teens finding answers to some secret experimentation program in their school, it's put more on the backburner to focus on the fact these are still stupid kids making their way through life. Put plainly, imo, it's very boring as it tries desperately to make you care about these characters through emotional teen drama and heartfelt conversations that you'd imagine two aspiring tik tok stars to have. "Like... the world is soooo cruel, ya know girl?", "Yeah forreals... I just wonder like... if there's a life after this and stuff. Are we more than ourselves, ya knoooow?" Crap like that. I feel like a lot of young teens will like this show and perhaps that's the target audience, despite the very grotesque scenes lol.

Speaking of which, a lot of the gore, sex, vulgarity etc seems like it's there more for shock value than anything else. Imo, The Boys franchise is starting to suffer from the same superhero fatigue effect when it comes to its shock value gore scenes. They just seem to be trying too hard to shove something in your face every 10 minutes that supposedly will make you go, "OH MUH GOSH!" But... idk, I've just come to find it silly at this point. It's so over the top, it almost seems desperate on the writer's part. Early GoT only utilized gore to serve its narrative purpose when appropriate with the story leading into the situation appropriately. Most of the stuff here is just oddly thrown in there to make it as gory and grotesque as possible, when it's obvious there were other ways the situation could've been conveyed or directed without needing to do some over the top dramatic gore / sexual shock value scene. All and all, I'm just left with the feeling that if you took away all the 18+ shock value scenes, you'd have a mid CW superhero show focused on boring teens.

What I heavily enjoyed about the first Castlevania and its characters was regardless of ethnicities, it didn't detract from the identity of the series. The dungeon crawling grimdark fantasy vibes focusing on a band of adventurers coming together to cleanse the world of greater evils. It was bleak, it was fun, it was action packed, and it never detracted from staying on target. All the characters, even the villains, had their roles to play in this setup and it was executed perfectly. Each season had substantial plot progression and action, from the main cast getting acquainted to raiding Dracula's castle all by the end of the first season. It was an incredibly fun watch, that only continued to build up with the following 2 seasons.

Meanwhile Nocturne has turned the series into your typical political drama, pulled straight from the news networks of the modern day. No longer is every episode about venturing into some new bleak unknown territory of a grimdark fantastical world; instead, it's about corrupt political figures, slavery and the complacency of white people, the ethics of conquest etc. Every episode seems to have sacrificed the adventurous dungeon crawling aspects instead for monologue about the ethics of the listed talking points above. I didn't mind it at first, but when it dragged on the entire season I'd long since grown tired of it. Especially when you consider how much plot was covered in the first season by comparison, from meeting in a village plagued with demonic undead to storming Dracula's castle. Let's just say, the main cast barely accomplished anything by the end of this first season, one could argue they didn't actually accomplish anything at all.

Overall, the animation was beautiful, but the plot in itself dragged and didn't seem to accomplish anything substantial. It's obvious the creators have a new vision in mind when it comes to what they want this story to accomplish. Less adventure and action, more political talking points and debates about religions, race, conquest etc. 80% of this series is them monologuing about these topics while remained secluded in the same village throughout. What little action there is feels like meaningless filler that doesn't really progress the plot in any form outside of the last 1min of the season for spoiler reasons. However, the rest is meaningless. Definitely in no rush for a Season 2 and I "may" check it out, but overall, this series has pretty much killed my interest in following the plotline of Castlevania.