I’ve talked before about narrative sleights-of-hand, where the story effectively grooms the viewer, or player, or reader or whatever to assume one thing in a way that feels natural, then primes them to get genuinely surprised by what follows because the curated misdirection worked like a charm. It’s less a twist and more hiding everything in plain sight because the magician made you look the other way.
The Hellaverse – the name given to the world of the shows Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel – is definitely my favourite current-running television universe that doesn’t have a TARDIS. I love the characters and aesthetics and while the humour is naturally edgy, it’s black without being a black hole, edgy without skewing edgelord, and there’s always such a big heart at the center of both shows. I’ve been hunting for an excuse to talk about the Hellaverse for some time now, as you might have guessed back when I looked at a bafflingly terrible game about Hell that I closed out with a Helluva Boss joke.
I’ve never actually heard this comparison made before so this might end up a take hotter than that porn-themed synthwave song in Hazbin, but the energy the Hellaverse gives me is that of an R-rated non-seasonal queer-as-hell Nightmare Before Christmas for furries and enjoyers of similar aesthetics, with an added dose of edgy humour; just the whole concept of a macabre nightmarish world that’s expressed through colourful settings and vibrant characters who sing and dance earworms that make the spooky place feel not so scary.
Helluva Boss, its currently one and a half seasons free to view on YouTube (as much as I hope that some day the Hellaverse will land on physical media, we are actually spoiled rotten by the fact that something like this is just…there and free to watch), mainly deals with ground-level situations-of-the-week and takes its good time slow-burning its character arcs, from eventually getting even me to root for a literal monster-clown in a toxic and manipulative professional dynamic to Blitz and Stolas’s toxic-yet-lovable relationship to Loona’s psychological walls, built up from years of abuse and neglect, being gradually pulled down to the point where we got that tender scene at the observatory that’s going to be echoed in fanart for years to come.
But Hazbin Hotel, currently tied to Amazon Prime Video save for the pilot, is structured very differently, and it doesn’t have the luxury of a slow burn – it has one season to fulfill a full plot arc and much to accomplish during that time. Can Charlie Morningstar, daughter of Lucifer, prove that she can successfully rehabilitate damned souls in the Hazbin Hotel, a halfway house for souls who want to prove they can do better, in time to prevent the next soul purge at the hands of Heaven’s Exorcist warriors?
Spoiler alert: angels are dicks, and in this universe there’s no Castiel in sight.
It’s ambitious. That Amazon Prime money gave them leave to produce not one but two full-fledged song sections in each episode, but having just eight episodes (with the jumbo-sized YouTube pilot laying the groundwork and setting the stage beforehand) to see this pretty epic plot through made me wonder how Vivienne Medrano’s team was going to pull this off.
All the while we dive deep into the (after)lives of what few souls have chosen to check into the Hotel. One of them is the aptly named Sir Pentious, a cobra who is introduced as someone who is still playing the role of villain even in Hell, like some ridiculous Dr. Wily type thing who actually really isn’t that great at it.
As Sir Pentious settles in, he nestles pretty comfortably into the role of designated comic relief, fumblingly trying to do right like the rest of the Hotel’s guests but often tripping over himself in so many ways. In a word, he’s wacky. If I stacked up his butt-of-the-joke to screentime ratio compared to the other characters, I bet he’d edge the others out.
Fast forward to the season’s climax – heavy spoilers here, to the surprise of none – and a part of me thought maybe the whole theme of souls being able to redeem themselves might have gotten lost in the turn of events: Heaven wasn’t having it and Charlie really wasn’t having much luck expanding her motley crew, and now the battle was afoot as Adam’s Exorcist army began their soul purge by laying siege to the Hazbin Hotel, not because Charlie’s plans presented a genuine threat to them, but purely to spite her.
It’s a very entertaining climax. Medrano’s team had done all-out action setpieces before (the climax of Helluva Boss’s Truth Seekers remains a favourite of mine) but this is the first time they’ve given us full blown war and it pulls off. Gotta love that Amazon Prime budget. Even if Amazon would like for us to swallow that they’re a poor little startup who can’t function unless they charge more for an ad-free experience atop the monthly fee you’re already paying ugh this is only the tip of the iceberg of what happens when your entertainment is purely digital and controlled by greedy megacorps and what happens down the road if Amazon decides to cut off the Vivziepop gang from residuals and so they yank the show because Disney+ has done that and please make blu-rays
During the battle, Sir Pentious tries to draw Adam off by getting into his big silly villainous airship and charging at Adam head-on. Adam doesn’t even fight him, he just kind of boops the airship and it and Sir Pentious just blip out of existence with an expedience that would make Thanos blush. Oop
Eventually the battle is won with help from Lucifer, we get sadfeels about the comic relief character who came through in the end and a big hopeful song about the Hotel being rebuilt and the mysterious Alastair slinks off to lick his wounds and finally we cut to Heaven and Sir Pentious pops in, having earned his way from the basement to the penthouse and thus proving that Charlie was right all along and that her way works. WHAT
So check out this slithery sleight of hand: Hazbin Hotel season one tied the answer to its main theme and arc-question, ‘can damned souls redeem themselves?’ to a character that we were given every reason to see as pure comic relief for almost the entire season. Charlie is the focal point. Alastair is the something-bigger’s-going-on ominous enigma-wrapped-in-a-riddle power player. Angel Dust and Keith David’s longsuffering feline bartender Husk are granted a depth of field well beyond their jokes and antics. Sir Pentious is doing silly shit and making us cackle. And he’s the key. I love it. Sure, we were probably expecting him to grow along the way, and find his courage as he did, but this adorkable tire-fire of a silly snake ended up holding the keys to the kingdom as far as the whole arc is concerned. You love to see it.
There are red herrings along the way: the Seraphs in Heaven seem like they might end up playing a part, especially when Charlie gets Adam to admit that despite being the first mortal to get into Heaven, he doesn’t truly know what the criteria for salvation actually is. But like Alastair’s, theirs is an arc deferred for a prospective second season instead.
Maybe all that silly shit, like accidentally getting fucked by an entire nightclub in his bumbling attempts to woo cyclopean punk rock demoness Cherri Bomb, was camouflaging the fact that he was really trying. (I’m not going to explain that gag for you, just go watch the show.) The silliest character arc ends with the answer to the core question, the revelation that recontextualizes the entire season in hindsight.
Makes me wonder what else might be hiding in plain sight in Vivienne Medrano’s ever-lovably fucked up divine comedy. Damned if I’m not along for the ride.