I thought the second season of Castlevania, whilst certainly having its moments, was weighed down by half of the show revolving around Dracula's court -t he stuff involving Trevor and Sypha was excellent. I felt the third season was better in that regard, in the sense that although we do keep up with other characters, and their plots will no doubt pull back into the overall story - this was mostly an adventure for Trevor and Sypha.
Following the death of Dracula, Alucard (James Callis) has control of the family castle. Trevor (Richard Armitage) and Sypha (Alejandra Reynoso) leave, ostensibly to find her caravan, but happily finding danger and adventure on the road. They find more than they bargained for though when arriving at a small town, whose church was damaged in a creature attack and is now populated by Sala (Navid Negahban) and his band of fanatical monks. Alucard combats his new loneliness by training two former slaves of a Japanese Vampire in how to defeat his kind. Meanwhile, Hector (Theo James) and Isaac (Adetokumboh M'Cormack) both deal with the consequences of their respective roles in Dracula's defeat.
So the elements of the show that have been wonderful since the start remain so. It looks fantastic, even more so towards the end of the season when a couple of graphical flourishes take it even further. It's still spectacularly horrendously violent - faces are eaten, heads are lopped off, people are immolated - lovely stuff. The interaction between Trevor and Sypha is wonderful, genuine affection clothed in mocking banter, Richard Armitage is again brilliant. I've already alluded to the fact it's a better story than the second season, but another area the show has improved is with the sound mixing. The vocal performances no longer feel like it's a redub session and are less destracting.
So why not perfect scores? Well, all the "secondary" stories, though they feel important to where the show is going, take a little longer than is perhaps necessary to get to their key points. Maybe this is because the show has 10 episodes, rather than the previous seasons 8. That said, it's a big step forward from the second season and a promising one for where the show might go.