Castlevania

Castlevania ended in May after a four-year run on Netflix. An animated adaptation of a 30-year-old video game, Castlevania lingered as much over the beauty of a breeze or a sunset as it did on vampires and blood. The series’ stakes are pretty consistently apocalyptic, but it never gets old because its menagerie of monsters and magics are secondary to both major and minor characters’ depth and development.

Hearing Trevor Belmont — voiced by Richard Armitage — in the series finale tell a 1000-foot-tall scythe-wielding Grim Reaper, “Oi. Death. I want a word with you.”

Because Castlevania is the perfect story for our existentially anxious species. There are constantly changing worldwide threats descending (in some cases ascending) on people that they’re utterly powerless to stop; that’s the whole vibe of the 2020s.