#patty dmc

Patty: But then, clothes and sweets and those kinds of things aren't really what they all want. Like me. They just want to see their mothers and their fathers, more than anything. You’re probably just going to laugh at me. 

Dante: Nope. Everyone wants to see their parents. 

(Dante misses his parents, too. 😭) It's also revealed that her mom left Patty behind to protect her from the demons and thus, heavily implies she loves her too. The other relationship is more questionable, but the head of the Lowell family did leave his entire fortune to his daughter. So, it can be assumed he cared for her to some degree. Basically, a common thread in this episode is the love between children and their parents. 

The second episode features a demon killing motorcyclists on a highway and a biker club (plus Dante and Lady). The supporting human character is Vincent, a biker seeking revenge for his brother's death. 

Dante's response to Vincent's desire to race Red Eye caught my attention. 

Dante: What a load of crap. If you ask me, your brother getting killed racing others around is dumb enough. But you're dumber than he is for trying to get revenge for his death.

This might be me making stuff up, but I think this moment reveals how Dante is dealing with Vergil's death at this point in time. Instead of being sympathetic to Vincent, Dante points out that Michael's actions lead to his own death. He chose to race others and ended up getting killed while doing so. 

Dante's words could imply that, at some point, he reached the conclusion that Vergil's fate was due to his own actions, too. I'm not saying that Vergil deserved what he experienced- definitely not. But you can't say he wasn't responsible for his own downfall. Vergil chose to raise the Temen-ni-gru. He chose to work with Arkham, to fight Dante, and to jump off the cliff, despite Dante's efforts to stop him. Vergil's own actions paved the way to where he ended up. This conclusion doesn't absolve Dante from guilt or grief, but leads to a different version of them. 

The moment Vincent talks to Dante about the highway afterward is also noteworthy-

Vincent: If I'd kept on like I was, I'd be dead too. For some reason, I thought I heard him. The voice of my brother saying: It'd be a waste for you to die. 

This has the same sentiments underlying Vergil's last words to Dante at the waterfall.

Vergil: Leave me and go, if you don't want to be trapped in the Demon World. 

Vincent "hears" his brother urging him to stop chasing after him because it would be the same as wasting his life. Vergil tells Dante to return to the Human World and leave him behind because he already has a life there, not in the Demon World. Vincent accepts this "message" and decides he'll continue living without his brother. But Dante still hasn't been able to move on from Vergil's death, especially after what happened on Mallet Island...

The third episode has a demon and a human couple: Bradley and Angelina. A good part of the episode focuses on how the two met and their love for each other. They're a direct parallel to Eva and Sparda, whom the episode also mentions.

Brad: I heard that you were a half-breed, born from the union of a human and a demon. If that’s so, can you tell me? Were your parents in love? Was there love between human and demon?

Dante: Who knows? I always hear stories about lovers. They look like they were made for each other, but inside, their hearts are as cold as ice. 

Brad: That’s not what I- 

Dante: But. I think a lot of those couples truly loved each other, deep inside their hearts.  

Dante answers indirectly, but he confirms that the love between Eva and Sparda was genuine. He has no doubt his parents loved each other. He recognizes the same kind of love between Bradley and Angelina, which is why he refuses to kill Bradley.

Out of curiosity, I decided to look at the subbed version, and Dante’s (original) answer is still the same as the dubbed version, but the main point he’s making is much clearer. The dubbed lines were probably worded more awkwardly due to the translation process. 

Another thing that I found interesting was that in the first episode, Dante was disgusted by (adult) Patty's actions, specifically how she used Patty as a distraction. However, he states that he won't harm her because she is human. At the end of the third episode, Dante refuses to kill Bradley because he understands love and is thus human in his eyes. It's mentioned somewhere (I can't remember which game/media) that Dante doesn't kill humans, only demons. These two episodes are examples of this rule. His reasoning on not killing Bradley also aligns with what Lady stated at the end of DMC3. There are humans worse than demons, and demons who are as empathetic as humans. 

Long story short, the third episode continued to build upon things previously mentioned in the franchise. (Which isn't surprising since Bingo Morihashi, the writer for DMC 2,3,4, and 5, wrote this episode)

Overall, all 3 episodes feature different types of love: child-parent love through Patty and her desire to meet her mother; sibling love through Vincent and his older brother; and a deep romantic (?) love between Brad and Angelina. 

I doubt different types of love will show up in the rest of the episodes. But it's still interesting that the first 3, despite having drastically different stories, explore them briefly.

Another random thing- the end credits of each episode always make me feel downright terrible for Dante.

He looks as if his life and soul have been drained from him. Of course he does. At this point, his parents are gone, and he has killed his brother. He is alone.