Spoiler Warning: I am going to give a synopsis of each episode and my opinions at the very end.
Episode 1: A Common Enemy in Evil
In 1783 Massachusetts, an Aztec vampire called Olrox kills the mother of 10 year-old Richter Belmont. Olrox explains to the young Belmont that his mother killed someone dear to him and so he had to kill her out of vengeance. Olrox promises not to kill Richter that night, allowing the boy to flee to France where, in 1792, Richter works with Speaker magician Maria Renard to assist the French Revolution against the vampiric aristocracy.
Olrox allowing the child of his enemy to go free may be part of his manipulative and curious nature. It could also reference the reluctance of the Aztecs to kill humans outside of religious rituals to their Gods.
After hearing a vampire mention a "messiah", Richter and Maria meet with the church abbot Emmanuel (fulfilling the same role as the video game character Shaft) about the increasing number of vampires in the area. On their way home, the duo are attacked by four creatures which disperse at the arrival of a Caribbean sorceress and former slave called Annette, and her opera singer friend, Edouard. Annette and Edouard explain that night-creatures are souls from hell that have been grafted onto the flesh of a mortal corpse by a Forgemaster. The two came to help with the vampire infestation after receiving a vision from a seer that compelled them to seek out Richter.
"I believe in you and your mother. I believe you're the kindest, most courageous people in the world. So, I don't need to understand the things you believe in, and I certainly don't need to believe in them too. I just need to stand by you." -Richter Belmont
Episode 2: Horror Beyond Nightmares
Annette and Edouard reveal the name of the vampire messiah to be Erzsebet Báthory (who is not at all like her video game counterpart), a name Maria's mother, Tera Renard, is familiar with. Erzsebet's emissary, Drolta Tzuentes (also no resemblance to her video game counterpart), had captured and tortured her sister along with many others in Russia, and is the reason she fled to France. The four make a plan to attack the vampire aristocrats at their palace, but their presence is given away when Annette spots Vaublanc, the vampire who enslaved her and her mother. Overwhelmed, the group is forced to flee across running water. Edouard falls behind and is devoured by the vampires.
Edouard's body, along with any others that have been drained, are brought by the vampires to their ally and Forgemaster, Emmanuel.
Why the abbot needs a machine to produce night-creatures is never explained. His ability to make them and retain control over them may just be weaker than past Forgemasters.
Episode 3: Freedom Was Sweeter
Annette recalls the night Vaublanc killed her mother after finding magic symbols carved into their living quarters. 16 years later, Annette's magical powers (inherited from the voodoo spirit Ogun) awakened and she fled, later meeting Edouard who took her to freedom fighters (called Maroons) led by the seer, Cécile Fatiman. A slave rebellion in Saint-Domingue failed to take Vaublanc out and that is when their seer had the vision of the vampire messiah.
Elements of the voodoo religion were incorporated into the show, such as Annette using the the veve of Papa Legba and later summoning a ghostly version of him.
Olrox tries to enter the church, but is stopped by Emmanuel's right-hand
man, Mizrak. Olrox questions why the church would support something
their faith should be against, and warns Mizrak that Drolta will turn on
anyone once they have outlasted their usefulness.
Annette,
Maria, and Richter hold a meeting later that night and are attacked by
night-creatures, one of which Annette recognizes as being Edouard.
Edouard acts to defend Annette against the other night-creatures and,
noticing their ally's odd behavior, cease their attack to drag Edouard
to the Abbey.
Left: Olrox and Mizrak hook up within seconds of knowing each other. Right: Edouard retains his sense of self and coaxes the other night-creatures into remembering themselves.
Episode 4: Horrors Rising from the Earth
Annette, Maria, Richter, and Tera investigate the church using a secret passage. As they slaughter their way through night-creatures, the group comes face to face with Emmanuel and Mizrak giving a tour of the catacombs to Drolta and the Marquis. A fight ensues, during which Emmanuel stops Drolta from killing Maria because "children weren't part of the deal". Richter kills the Marquis but flees upon seeing Olrox.
The singing from a caged night-creature Edouard echoes through the halls as the fighting goes on.
There is speculation that Emmanuel and his church were inspired by the real-life Château de Machecoul, where the knight/lord Gilles de Rais sacrificed children as part of a demon summoning ritual.
Episode 5: The Natural Order
Annette overhears Drolta persuading Olrox into siding with Erzsebet, who
possess the godly ability to block out the sun thanks to being, or
possessing, some kind of power from the bloodthirsty Egyptian goddess of
war Sekhmet. Annette then catches up to Vaublanc and reaps her
vengeance.
Emmanuel visits Tera and Maria to admit to siding with
the vampires as a way to preserve his faith against the revolutionaries
and atheism, but plans to break the alliance once order has been
restored. As the discussion turns heated, Emmanuel lets slip that he is
Maria's father. Having thought her father was dead, Maria is distraught.
Meanwhile, Richter unexpectedly meets his grandad, Juste Belmont, fighting vampires.
Episode 6: Guilty Men to Be Judged
Juste had asked Tera not to tell Richter about him and in return he gave her money to help with raising the boy. Juste tells Richter about how he was the family's most powerful sorcerer, to the point that he never really needed the whip. His wife Lydie Erlanger and friend Maxim Kischine were both killed by vampires. After that he lost all of his magical abilities and stopped believing that evil in the world could ever be overcome. The two bond over memories of Julia (Richter's mom) when minions of Drolta attack, reawakening Richter's latent magical abilities.
Juste serves as a sort of 'reverse mentor' figure - what Richter could've become had he continued down his current path. By refusing to give up or allow his family to come to harm, Richter may have inspired Juste to do the same.
A version of Rondo of Blood's "Bloodlines" track, called Divine Bloodlines, plays when Richter gets his power back.
Episode 7: Blood Is the Only Way
Erzsebet arrives and elaborates on her plans to conquer Europe and,
with Olrox's help, the Americas. She then proceeds to block out the sun
with an eclipse (there was an eclipse around that time in real-life).
Richter
returns home and apologizes to Annette for running away at the
catacombs. The family starts preparations for an attack on the church
when Olrox, angry at having to bend to Erzsebet, hands the group
Emmanuel's infernal tome and asks that they destroy the night-creature
machine, as only humans may do so. Maria sneaks into the church to warn
Emmanuel to flee but he captures her instead to use as a mandated
sacrifice to prove his loyalty to Erzsebet. Disgusted with the abbot,
Mizrak rushes to tell Maria's family.
Episode 8: Devourer of Light
Annette, Richter, Tera, and Mizrak rush to the church to confront Emmanuel, who is in the process of sacrificing Maria upon an altar. After freeing Maria, Tera uses the tome to open a portal to Hell so that Annette may push the machine through it. Drolta arrives followed by Erzsebet, who explains that she never intended to kill Maria. Instead, Erzsebet had wanted to turn Maria into a vampire - much to Emmanuel's horror, as it would mean Maria's soul would be barred from entering Heaven. Tera offers herself to Erzsebet instead, and though initially reluctant as she had wanted a virgin, Erzsebet accepts, recognizing the value of Tera's Speaker powers.
In the game, Annette is the one to be turned if Richter fails to save her. Interestingly, Erzsebet shares her name with a real-life serial-killer Countess who, according to legend, bathed in the blood of virgins to retain her youth.
With Tera no longer reading the tome, the door to Hell closes before Annette can get the machine through. Annette rejoins the group, and finding the place overrun with vampires, smashes a hole through the church wall to escape. Annette, Richter, Maria, and Mizrak are pursued by Drolta, who is slain unexpectedly by Alucard, the son of Dracula.
Thoughts:
Themes of oppression and rebellion are featured prominently throughout
Nocturne's first season. Whether uprisings
have any lasting effect, or whether people can ever truly be 'free' is
presented with a great deal of skepticism. Plantation owners and the
upper class are all presented as literal vampires leeching off of the
'lesser people', and in keeping with that theme, God vampires (or
vampires with power received from a god/demon) alongside their reluctant
ally, the church, are the main villains, likley in reference to how
revolutions could overthrow kings who ruled by 'divine right';
by questioning the king you questioned God. The story also touches a
smidge on how atrocities can be justified so long as those committing
them believe they are doing it for the right reasons, and to a lesser degree
there seems to be a message about faith; how belief in something,
whether it be a deity, a cause, or your own abilities and self-worth,
gives it power.
The story so far is almost entirely an original
work as the video game had almost no dialogue and doesn't really give a
TV series much to work with, seeing as how the game was about Richter
running through Dracula's Castle, saving random women from locked rooms.
Three of the four women from the game are present in the show: Tera
(originally a nun, not Maria's mother), Maria (vampire hunter), and
Annette (Richter's girlfriend). Nocturne's Annette is an original
character created for the show, as she is nothing like her video game
counterpart. The fourth women, Iris
(a doctor), was replaced by another original character, Edouard. The
direction they took with the show is far more interesting in my opinion,
although the writing has a lot of little oddities in it, such as
characters rushing off without a plan and doing things that don't make
sense. There are characters whose behavior is just plain perplexing,
such as the abbot, who comes off as a bit nutty in thinking
he could break his alliance with the vampires after the revolution had
been put down. Perhaps if they had shown his night-creatures putting
down weaker vampires found attacking children (which was against their
deal) that might have helped explain where his confidence was coming
from before the Big Bad arrived and he finally realized that he was in
over his head. Mizrak is another odd one. Despite his religious beliefs
and having just met Olrox - who he knows with certainty is a vampire -
the two decide to sleep together on more than one occasion. Olrox
straight-up tells Mizrak that he doesn't love him, but then tries to
save him in the final episode and cries when Mizrak rejects him and
calls him a "monster". The whole relationship these two have is
spontaneous, illogical, and I am not sure what the writers were trying
to convey with it, other than maybe something to do with hypocrisy?
Character
designs are a mixed bag with half looking period relevant and the other
half looking like something from the modern era. Not that the series is
trying to be historically accurate, but the juxtaposition of these two
conflicting styles was jarring enough to break my suspension of
disbelief. The animation, as always, was very good for a TV series,
especially the magic slinging action scenes. The pacing of the episodes
went as fast or as slow as it needed too and I was able to grasp
everything without feeling rushed, but from what I've seen online, this
may not be the case for everyone. Much like the original
Castlevania series, Nocturne seems to be using its first season to
introduce all the important characters and the major world-ending threat
they will face down in future seasons. The characters already have so
much more personality and backstory than their video game counterparts,
so I am very interested to see what they will do with them going
forward. Maria will likley need to confront Tera, and maybe Alucard will
be of some help with that, having dealt with something similar himself.
There is unresolved tension between Mizrak and Olrox, and Olrox and
Richter. I also get the impression that Edouard is being setup as a foil
to the abbot; one is literally demonizing people and acting out of fear
while the other is humanizing and compassionate. I am hopeful that the
four writers for this new series will smooth out the kinks with time
because the passion is there and it's clear they are trying to say
something. The execution just wasn't as clean as it could've been.
Addendum: I am honestly surprised at how divisive the reception to Nocturne has been around the web and how wildly opinions vary. Some think Richter is romantically interested in Maria, Terra, or Annette; I personally didn't sense that at all. Others are upset at the lack of French accents, but by that logic you would have to fault Disney's Beauty and the Beast for the same thing or all the anime set in Japan where no one speaks with a Japanese accent. There are disagreements over how much real-world history and mythological figures should deviate in a work of fiction. There are arguments over diversity, the change of writers, and how much the Netflix marketing team riled up fans on Twitter to generate publicity. It's heated.
Related Articles:
- Castlevania - Season 1: Thirsting For More
- Castlevania - Season 2: Bloody Amazing
- Castlevania - Season 3: A Stake Through the Heart
- Castlevania - Season 4: Leaving A Legacy
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