The ballad of Hazbin Hotel is one of many facets. It’s a universe whose creator steeped over many, many years in the webcomics space, moved to indie animation and released an amazing pilot, spent the next four years selling merch and a side-show in order to bankroll the big event, and finally got the big payoff from Studio A24 and Amazon to make at least three seasons, if not more. So why does the second season of this series feel much like the first, where there is a lot happening, amazing characters, amazing musical numbers, and an amazing story, but it still leaves you with a sour taste in your mouth, like Valentino, you’re forced to edge?
Hazbin Hotel Season Two focuses mostly around the rise of Vox, the leader of VoxTek and leader of “The Vees”, a vast media empire that includes Valentino and Velvette. After the events of the first season where Hell successfully defended itself from Adam and the Archangels, Charlie spent the season desperate to prove to all of Hell that Sir Pentious was redeemed and the hotel works. Vox, however, was able to successfully use his media empire and populist appeal to continually spin it into that of Heaven plotting revenge for their fallen and that Hell’s only salvation lie in him, and his plan to ultimately take over heaven and the Kingdom of God, and become a god. A tall order, given the only person close to a god is Lucifier, and he’s very much chained to the bottom of hell. With all his rubber duckies.
The real highlight of this season’s story is mostly certainly something I quipped about in my first season review, and that is “Will they be doing character backstories?” The answer is yes, but only for three characters. It would have been nice to get more, but with limited time, they chose to weave them into the story versus taking up too much time iterating over everyone individually. You at least got the big important one most fans were clamoring for, and that is our deer radio demon, Alastor. Oh, this season was full of not only his wit and charm, but his vulnerability, and desperation. I was down to clown for that, and you’ll have to expand the spoilers tag for more.
Trust us, with your spoilers.
On Facebook over the weekend, I wrote this bit about the 1039302928 fan theories revolving around Alastor’s deals:
But what gets me about many of the theories is they are really hung up on whose deal gets broken with whom. I don’t think deals really are anything anyone should care about. I know we feel we’re supposed to narratively since Alastor likes making them, but I think that was always just a “this is hell haha demons make Faustian Bargains with each other” plot device. I honestly have no idea what Alastor intends to do with Vox. It’s obvious he has some scheme, one that seems to be predicated on giving Vox almost near-unlimited power likely from Lucifer, but does this mean Alastor is going to hijack that power somehow? Or is this just an elaborate ruse to get rid of Vox and that will somehow appease Rosie into releasing him from her? There still isn’t enough back story information for me to make a good guess as to what will happen.
I clearly was wrong, the deals do matter, and our clever little deer managed to successfully solve all his problems in the most delightfully clever of tricks that I had an inkling of, but wasn’t sure precisely how he was going to execute on them.
Allow me to back up a bit.
In Alastor’s human reveal mid-season, we’re shown a charming Creole man deep in the 1930’s New Orleans scene, an entertainer with a voice for radio, with a seemingly dark appetite for killing what I presume are wealthy aristocrats and anyone else who crosses him wrongly. But he had a singular purpose, he dabbled in the occult, and he was successful in contacting Rosie on the other side in a demonic ritual not unlike Simon in Fiona and Cake. There he struck a deal with her, that he would be Hell’s most powerful sinner upon his mortal death. He was then accidentally killed the next evening after being mistaken for a deer, earning his deer-like appearance and disposition. But Rosie’s condition was that he was bound to her much in the way Husk and maybe Nifty are bound to him. She made him a powerful sinner so he can continue his “fun”, but he would have to do things for her. We do know his disappearance seven years ago was because of her, but we do not know why, and still don’t. The creator has teased this will be explored in Season Three, and it will probably involve Lilith as that is also when she was last seen in Hell.
Alastor wanted her to fix his staff and restore to him his power after his stinging loss to Adam, but she relented and suggested he could fix his own problems. So he concocted a scheme, and set about picking a fight with Vox, someone who seemingly looked up to him before and wanted to become partners (possibly romantically) but was summarily rejected. Alastor explained very candidly to Vincent, that there are no friends or partners in hell, that power is seized for one and one alone, and that he did not expect to be equals.
Alastor created enough of a ruckus to get Vox to fight him, and then called a truce and offered to be captured on the conditions that his vassals be released, and Vox was not to lay a hand on Charlie Morningstar. Vox, completely ADHD’ing over Alastor surrendering to him, glossed over that fact when sealing the deal. This gave Alastor two important deals, one from Charlie to do him a favor, and the other with Vox not to touch Charlie. But how would these be executed? Well it seems in Vox’s big jubilation over his pending victory over Heaven with a Big Fucking Space Laser powered by Lucifier and inviting Charlie to humiliate her, he once again fell right into Alastor’s predictable trap. First he traded Charlie’s favor for having her proclaim Vox is the strongest sinner in hell. That seemingly broke his bond with Rosie. Then he couldn’t help but put his hands on Charlie’s shoulders, which broke his deal with Alastor. Just hands on shoulders. You’d think Vox was Joe Biden all the sudden, but a deal is a deal in Hell as Alastor warned, and that was enough to ensue their fight. Which, technically, Alastor didn’t really win either. He spent so much time mucking with Vox’s shark pet that the deed was kind of done by Val and Vel, who hauled his screen-only body away with them. Does this mean Vox will still be alive and able to plot or scheme himself back to power? Or is he nothing without his media empire, now in control of presumably Val and Vel?
The Alastor v. Vox finale was good though, and we finally got to see Alastor really show more than 1% of his power, but it wasn’t a full all-out affair due to his previous injuries, so perhaps we’ll get a better fight in coming seasons. Elsewhere, Nifty’s fight with Velvette and Husk and Cherri’s fight with Valentino were pretty epic in their own right, and props to our newest hero Baxter HACKERMANS for doing his best to wreck Vox’s AI data center full of shit. I honestly expected a little more out of Angel and Lucifer. Angel I had a prediction on that he might’ve been redeemed this season by protecting Val somehow, and that could have been realized in that fight, but he wound up being largely useless due to the mind control, almost killing Cherri with it. For him to puss out at the end instead of coming back with the gang, I understand narratively, but it felt like a step backwards for his character. Luci, I dunno, I thought maybe he would have a little more of a role this season like he did in the first season finale, but I suppose when you can’t baleet sinners and the villain isn’t an archangel, there isn’t much of a use for him other than being a power source for a death ray. Which, how the fuck does Carmella know how to use a fallen angel as a weapon power source anyway?
Some additional screenshot spoilers
And although we did not get to see Super Badass Fightin’ Charlie again like last season, I think it was actually better we didn’t. We got to see more of the secondary characters show off their skills, like so much more of Husk this season than before.
But the biggest question of all, if only Angels and Overlords could power the shield around the exploding ray, does this mean Nifty and Husk are also overlords, or are they granted Alastor’s power?
But circling back to sour taste in your mouth, like last season, this season is only eight episodes. And while it was an amazing eight episodes, the pacing once again felt too rushed. An inordinate amount of time was spent on Charlie’s decent into madness, which while worthwhile, took away from what I would consider much more important plot points surrounding Angel and Husk, Angel and Val, Carmella and Zestial, and a handful of other details that if they had one or two more episodes, would have made a world of difference in setting the table for a truly magnificent ending. It was one thing to maybe pull punches in the first season when you’re not 100% confident in Amazon greenlighting you for more seasons, but the runaway success of this show has certainly motivated Vox Bezos into funding them through I believe three or four seasons. Now is the time to really capitalize on that when you have a story to tell, and yet Medrano is most certainly edging us. I don’t completely hate that. In fact, I’m usually on record in this blog of telling you when I think animated series suck because they blow their loads too early in the show and end up finishing weak as shit. But as I noted in the first season, and it holds true in the second, Hazbin does the classic anime trope of starting strong, losing steam in the middle, and then big fucking finale. And this time, I think that weakness comes from the writers acknowledging that because they have a season three, four, and more, they can take their time. Okay, but at least spend two minutes on Carmella and Zestial. Or just Carmella. Twice now she has fought for a belief we still don’t know anything about.
What I do hope to see from a third season now that there seems to be a little more parity between realms is a much more in-depth look at how the power dynamics work in heaven and hell. We’ve seen a lot of hell’s powerful overlords and what seemingly makes them powerful, but why? For what purpose? Why does Alastor need to be the most powerful sinner? Is there a heaven equivalent? The most powerful person of faith? And of course, what about Lilith? Why did she disappear seven years ago? What does that have to do with Alastor and Rosie? Why has she been seemingly hanging out in heaven? And will we see Eve, a crossover with Helluva Boss like Stolas, some weird human world shit, or twelve other fan theories?
And will it take almost two years to get there?
Soulful Observations
- Amazon’s release schedule of two episodes per week was even more edging that really fuckin’ worked. I almost got up at 4AM this morning just to watch it, but I deliberately forced myself to wait until later in the day in-between work.
- The musical numbers this season were much more powerful and catchy compared to last year. My favorite tracks that stick out thus far are Sera’s Confession, Gravity, Piss (A Love Song), Clean It Up!, VOX POPULI, Love in a Bottle, Losin’ Streak, and Hear My Hope. Of those, Clean It Up! is the obvious winner. CAUSE I’M COVERED IN RAT BLOOD.
- Speaking of songs, if you like the fact Patrick Stump voices Abel this season, you’ll enjoy his solo part in the finale song Hear My Hope. Kinda brings you back to those mid-2000s, eh?
- There was a lot, and I mean A LOT of social media activity on this season with 10389283828 fan theories. As interesting as reading some of them was, a lot of them were just spitballing in twelve directions and inventing theories not based in any kind of reality. Ultimately, it is the fate of most popular-across-all-fandoms shows to become the next Homestuck, Five Nights, or similar fare.
- That being said, the number of people who compared Charlie’s “Danny Do-Bad” impression to Dick Dasterdly instead of the more obvious Snidely Whiplash from Jay Ward’s Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties is an interesting and curious case of culture. The predominately late millennial and mostly-zoomer audience of this show wouldn’t have seen either Dudley Do-Right or Wacky Races and The Perils of Penelope Pitstop as they began in 1959, 1968, and 1969 respectfully. The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show did endure in reruns through for decades, and was something I watched on TV and VHS in the late 1980s which was how I knew of Snidely first before watching Dick Dasterdly and Muttley on Hanna-Barbara reruns in the mid-90s when Cartoon Network launched and used their back catalog for awhile until more original programming came to be. The giveaway that Danny was more like Snidely was tying Husk to the train tracks, as that was his signature move with Neil Fenwick.
- A really good idea the staff might consider in the interim between seasons is a serialized podcast featuring mostly Alastor (Amir Talai) doing a radio broadcast segment telling stories of Hell’s overloads, its denizens, or even his conquests. Something that kind of adds some additional flavor and context to many of the questions I had above that they didn’t animate, in a format that I think would be dumbly clever given the character. There also can just never be enough good spooky serials on Spotify to listen to.
Final Score: Eight genetically-modified cockroaches playing cantina hits out of ten pangolins.
