Season 1 of Adi Shankar's Devil May Cry was, for many people like myself, a genuine surprise. A stylish, loud early-2000s-coded anime that somehow balanced demon carnage with a post-9/11 political allegory and pulled it off more often than not.
I walked into season 2 curious but cautious. The first two episodes, “The Fallen” and “Shades,” don't waste a single minute reassuring you that the show is back and ready to go bigger. Whether they fully succeed is a bit more complicated but let's get into it.
Episode 1 recap
When we last left things at the end of season 1, Dante had been betrayed by Lady and locked in a cryogenic chamber by DARKCOM. Season 2 opens right there with Dante frozen, and Lady standing over him struggling to explain everything that has happened. "How do I catch you up? So much has happened," she tells his unconscious body. It's a sharp, self-aware opener and one of the funniest moments in the episode.
But the show moves on quickly. While Dante stays on ice, the world has kept spinning and things have gotten much worse.
The US military, backed by a shadowy billionaire named Arius Von Erenburg and his corporation Ouroboros, has launched a full-scale war against Makai, the demon realm. We see this through the eyes of ordinary soldiers being deployed into hell itself and getting slaughtered by Mundus and his forces. It is genuinely harrowing. One soldier in particular is followed from deployment to death, and the show takes its time with it.
Meanwhile, Vergil, Dante's elder twin brother and one of the most popular characters in the entire Devil May Cry franchise, makes his proper entrance. He's been living in Makai under Mundus's iron fist, shaped into a ruthless enforcer. When Arius's spy, a demon-human hybrid named Chi, travels to Makai to taunt Vergil about the Ouroboros conspiracy and a Jester Demon whispers that the sacred Chalice artifact has been stolen, Vergil's patience snaps.
Using his father's sword Yamato, he tears open a rift to the human world and walks through. The way Vergil's arrival is animated is an immediate contrast to everything Dante represents.
The episode ends with a dedication card: "For My Older Brother, JAMES VAN DER BEEK, 1977–2026." Creator Adi Shankar personally asked for this tribute, connected to a decision he made to replace the song "In the Air Tonight" (originally planned for the show) with Korn's "Freak on a Leash,” out of respect for Van Der Beek's wish to use that track in his own unreleased project before he passed.
Episode 1 review
I'll be honest, I was a little thrown off by how little Dante there is in this episode. The show is called Devil May Cry, and its biggest asset is Johnny Yong Bosch's charismatic, wisecracking performance as Dante. Sidelining him for most of the premiere is a risky choice. But I think it works, mostly because the show fills that space well.
The opening war sequence in Makai is the strongest part of the episode. By following one anonymous soldier through the chaos, the show makes the conflict feel genuinely costly and human, rather than just a backdrop for cool fight scenes. The political allegory with war as corporate propaganda, demonic civilians as collateral, lands sharper here than it did in parts of season 1.
Vergil's introduction is everything fans of the franchise hoped for. Robbie Daymond's performance is cold, and Studio Mir's animation gives him a fighting style that feels completely different from Dante.
The Van Der Beek tribute is a genuinely moving touch. Shankar has used Devil May Cry this way before. Season 1 had opened with a dedication to the late Kevin Conroy.
Episode grade: A-
Episode 2 recap
Episode 2 picks up the pace considerably. With Vergil now loose on Earth and absolutely not interested in being cooperative, DARKCOM makes a desperate decision: thaw Dante out.
We get what might be the most delightful scene of the two-episode block here. Dante and Lady explain how their reunion went but they narrate it differently. Dante's version plays out in bright, childlike cartoon scribbles. Everything is fun, he's charming, it's all very casual. Lady's version is grey, serious and slightly grim. It's a bit of visual wit that the show pulls off beautifully, and I genuinely laughed out loud at it.
Once Dante is back on his feet and armed, the episode shifts into something darker. Arius begins his manipulation campaign in earnest engineering situations designed to push Dante and Vergil toward each other. He wants the brothers fighting. We also see Dante plagued by disturbing visions, fragments of memory and something else, something that feels connected to his demon blood and what it means to have lost Vergil for so long.
Vergil, for his part, is not making it easy for anyone. He cuts through a DARKCOM unit sent to capture him like they're made of paper. When he surfaces publicly including a remarkable, confrontational appearance on a popular talk show where he bluntly exposes the truth about DARKCOM's anti-Makai propaganda, the show makes it clear that Vergil is not a villain in the traditional sense. He name-drops Arius on the broadcast and almost reveals that the White Rabbit is working for him. And Atrius is thoroughly pissed.
Lady's arc also gets moving here. Learning that she spent years as a tool of Baines and DARKCOM, that her hatred of demons was weaponized by the very people she served, begins to crack her worldview open. The episode ends with Dante preparing to confront Vergil.
Episode 2 review
“Shades” is the stronger of the two opening episodes and it's not particularly close. This is the episode where the season starts to show what it's actually about. The narration scene is a small masterpiece of character work. It tells you everything you need to know about Dante and Lady's dynamic in under two minutes. More shows should be this clever.
Vergil is at his best. Here is a being of immense power, sitting calmly in a studio chair, telling the audience and by extension the whole world, that everything they've been told about Makai is a lie. It's provocative and exactly the kind of scene that makes this adaptation feel so much more than just a pretty action show.
The one criticism I'd level at this episode is that the pacing in the middle stretch can feel like it's juggling too many threads. The show hasn't quite earned all of them yet by episode two and it occasionally feels like it's rushing to set up dominoes.
That said, the action is exceptional. The Dante vs. Vergil clash at the end of the episode, brief as it is, is beautifully staged. Studio Mir has clearly leveled up from season 1. The CGI integration is smoother and the hand-drawn choreography is even more fluid.
Episode grade: A
Devil May Cry season 2 is streaming now on Netflix. Check back with us at Winter Is Coming for our additional recaps and reviews.
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