ICYMI: Helluva Boss Is the Grittier Companion to Hazbin Hotel

ICYMI: Helluva Boss Is the Grittier (but Still Hilarious) Companion to Hazbin Hotel

Editor’s Note: Welcome to ICYMI! With so much TV constantly premiering, we’re highlighting some of the best shows you may have missed in the deluge of content from throughout the year. Join the Paste writers as we celebrate our underrated faves, the blink-and-you-missed-it series, and the perfect binges you need to make sure you see.

Even with the uptake in adult animation in recent years, Hazbin Hotel was an outrageous and wonderful shock to the system when it premiered. Vivienne Medrano is a self-made creative who launched the Hazbin Hotel pilot on her YouTube channel @Vivziepop in 2019. The story of Lucifer’s (Jeremy Jordan) daughter Charlie (Erika Henningsen) attempting to rehabilitate Hell’s sinners was picked up by A24 and went through a long production before premiering on Prime Video in January 2024. But in between, Medrano debuted another hellishly creative series, featuring some denizens of Hell who were originally envisioned as one-off side characters in Hazbin Hotel but spiraled into their own deranged story.

Now nearing the end of its second season on YouTube, Helluva Boss follows Blitzø (Brandon Rogers), who runs a company of Imp assassins in Hell targeting people in the world of the living. What Charlie does has big-picture implications for all of Hell, while Blitzø’s actions are grounded in a personal narrative. Blitzø works with a regular trio of employees: Moxxie (Richard Steven Horvitz) is initially presented as the sensitive one, making it so satisfying to realize how ruthless he can be. Moxxie’s wife Millie (Vivian Nixon) is perfectly chipper one minute and a vicious killer the next, all while navigating married life with Moxxie past the honeymoon phase. Loona (Erica Lindbeck) is Blitzø’s Hellhound/adoptive daughter (and the worst receptionist ever) with a surprisingly soft side. Interestingly, all of these characters’ two-faced personas are imperative to the show’s tendency to be completely grisly or oddly sweet.

Most Popular

Helluva Boss’ humor is vulgar, but unapologetic, with fast, tight timing, while the artistic style is just a bit grittier than Hazbin Hotel, with some heavy metal elements. The two shows are not duplicates, but rather complement each other, showing different perspectives of the setting. Hazbin Hotel also committed to being a musical immediately, while Helluva Boss seems to have settled on one song per episode, based on the evolution of Season 1. But while Hazbin Hotel has its fair share of dark moments, Helluva Boss tells an overall darker story. The pilot episode kicks things off with a shamefully funny montage of the main characters murdering humans and shouting at each other at the office in a wild summary of their daily lives.

The underdog narrative is harder to discern when the series has a much more episodic, adventure-of-the-week structure. However, it is satisfying to see the overall story emerge throughout Helluva Boss, primarily about classism and the strained power balances in relationships between people from different socio-economic backgrounds. The Imps are the working class of Hell, and it gradually becomes clear that Blitzø’s business endeavor is what many would consider a laughable dream. Most other Imps are in the service industry, appearing in the background as servers and household staff.

While kickstarting his business, Blitzø falls into a fraught, transactional relationship with the demon prince Stolas (Bryce Pinkham), and uses Stolas’ grimoire to access the living realm. Both seem to think that they’re just being kinky, and Stolas is always swooning over Blitzø; it takes a while for either of them to realize that their arrangement is toxic. Everything culminates in Episode 8 of Season 2, titled “The Full Moon,” when Blitzø delivers a monologue worthy of rivaling America Ferrera’s in Barbie. While the following episode is a deep dive into Blitzø’s ingrained feelings of self-loathing that cause him to destroy most of his relationships, I hope they still explore Stolas’ mistakes in the upcoming episodes.

Blitzø and Stolas’ dynamic is set against that of Ozzie (James Monroe Inglehart) and Fizzarolli (Alex Brightman). The former is another royal demon and the personification of the Sin of Lust; the latter is another Imp and Blitzø’s childhood best friend. Their relationship is built on mutual respect and affection, even though Fizz has some similar insecurities. These entanglements are strangely only made more impactful through the psychedelic world, which lifts the viewer out of reality before the narrative grounds itself with mature themes. On the other hand, familial bonds comprise the more lighthearted moments of the series. Loona has an unconventional relationship with Blitzø, as he adopted her when she was almost 18. However, she has moments where she visibly appreciates having him in her life, paralleling Stolas and his daughter Octavia (Barrett Wilbert Weed).

Furthermore, Medrano’s work has been praised for its unabashed LGBTQ+ representation, and the bright, pulsing world is intrinsically queer. Everything is either brutally edgy or brilliantly flamboyant, or some combination of the two. Each episode practically has its own color palette, alongside great pacing and narrative framing for the adventure and personal arcs happening in approximately 20 minutes. Helluva Boss is well-animated by SpindleHorse Toons, but the radical character designs usually distract from the movement. However, every once in a while, the show stuns everyone with a breathtakingly animated sequence. No example of this is better than the bloody climatic fight in Season 1’s “Truth Seekers,” which plays with changes in depth of field and sweeping camera angles.

The amazing cast pulls off the crude jokes with plenty of bravado: Rogers is the star in this regard and must shout himself hoarse in the recording booth, while Brightman excels at creating a new voice for each of his characters (doubling up on roles in Hazbin Hotel). Meanwhile, Norman Reedus voices the bounty hunter Striker in his first episode (later replaced by Edward Bosco), and even Kesha guest stars as Queen Bee, the embodiment of Gluttony. Admittedly, the sheer vulgarity of Helluva Boss can be a bit much. Hazbin Hotel is the better show to watch first because it is more tempered, seeing as the protagonist is essentially a watered-down Disney princess. And once you’ve acclimated to Vivziepop’s wild and wonderful world, then you can jump into Helluva Boss for more of these bloody good vibes.

Just like with Hazbin, Hell is used as a vehicle for an impressive balancing act between black comedy and moments where we are actually supposed to take the characters’ destructive behaviors seriously. The way things are going, Medrano is in it for the long haul: Helluva Boss Season 3 is in the works, while Hazbin Hotel was just renewed for Seasons 3 and 4. The Hellaverse is still in its early days, meaning that now is the perfect time to catch up on Helluva Boss while its sister show is on hiatus. Hazbin Hotel dives more into the implications of being in Hell, but Helluva Boss takes that concept and brings it to a much more personal and smaller scale, exploring the nature of being imperfect, the difficulty of trying to be better, and the people who share this journey with you.

Watch on YouTube

Abigail Stevens is a Boston-based culture and travel writer who is obsessed with epic fantasy, Broadway musical numbers, and adult animation. More of her work can be found on her website, abbyloveswriting.com.

For all the latest TV news, reviews, lists and features, follow @Paste_TV.

ICYMI: Helluva Boss Is the Grittier (but Still Hilarious) Companion to Hazbin Hotel