Deleting podcast episodes deletes entire podcast series from library

I'm using a 6th generation iPod Nano on Windows 10. A couple weeks ago before I upgraded to the latest iTunes, my method of deleting played podcast episodes was manually right clicking and hitting "Delete from Library" -- I do this because marking them as played doesn't actually clear them from my library, at least not for 24 hours, if at all. But now in the latest iTunes, if I click "Delete from Library," the entire podcast series deletes itself from my library and I have to go download it again in the store. What's going on?

Furthermore, it used to be that clicking "Unplayed/My Episodes" would only display the episodes that I downloaded from the "Feed" tab. Sudddenly in the new iTunes, after I re-downloaded my podcasts from the store due to the circumstances outlined above, "Unplayed/My Episodes" now essentially doubles as a "Feed." It displays all the podcasts that I have not actually downlaoded from the cloud. I do not want all these podcasts taking up space in "Unplayed/My Episodes" because the whole point of it was for me to view/manage which podcasts I've already downloaded. Anyone have any fixes to this issue as well?