Episode 2:2
October 19, 2022
Below Average
After a hiatus, I’m going to return to the fray and review Helluva Boss episodes. It’s a bit overdue since the second season has crossed the line from standard carelessness to woke-induced nonsense. With some exceptions the show is preoccupied with trying to convince us that Stolitz is actually good. It doesn’t help that Viv is fishing for compliments from the craziest corners of her fanbase. I’m not sure I’m ready to tackle “The Circus,” so for now I’ll settle for reviewing the second worst episode of the series.
The episode begins with a flashback of Stolas’ promising Octavia that they’ll watch a special meteor shower at a predicted date. In the present day, Octavia, excited that the day has finally come, attempts to remind Stolas, who is too busy arguing with Stella over the phone. After Stolas absently brushes her off and implies he’ll be too busy arguing with Stella to do anything with her all weekend, which credits Octavia’s later question of “Why does he hate her more than he loves me?” I also can’t help but notice that Stolas also physically abuses the family butler, which is has been cited as one piece of evidence for Stella’s being an irredeemable monster.
Frustrated, Octavia impulsively sneaks into IMP headquarters in order to obtain the Grimoire so she can see the shower herself, and her idea of “sneaking” is one of the few funny parts of the episode. Just prior to this, Blitzo had finally confronted Loona on her rudeness toward the customers, and her anger with him probably explains why she just let Octavia break into the office and take the Grimoire.
This confrontation establishes the link between Loona and Octavia’s arcs, which would be paid off in the episode’s climax. While Blitzo’s request is reasonable, one might understand Loona’s rage considering that he makes the mistakes of threatening to un-adopt her (Moxxie's approval of that is a rare dog-kick from him) and not talking it out in private (the M&M’s treat it as a spectator sport). It also doesn’t help that Blitzo, due to his overprotectiveness, keeps her out of field work in favor of a customer service position she lacks the social skills for. Erica Lindneck’s read of “I am a people person” does a good job implying that Loona desperately wants to be that, but is too traumatized by life experiences to pull if off.
Octavia uses the Grimoire to vanish before IMP can stop her, and they end up doing the thing they should have done in “Truth Seekers:” call Stolas. Heartwarmingly, Blitzo does not throw Loona under the bus despite the incident’s being her fault, and they decide use Stolas’ still poorly-articulated ability to come to earth without the Grimoire to find her. Loona’s sense of smell from the residual portal informs her that they went to LA, which she explains in a decidedly force joke. Octavia, not knowing where she was going, simply ordered the Grimoire to take her “to see the stars.”
 |
| ...which could have gone a lot worse for her. |
After Stolas and the IMP arrive in LA, they split up. Stolas and Blitzo are almost immediately abducted in a panel van by a sitcom procucer (Lyle Rath) who has mistaken the latter for their Brandon-Rogersesque guest star. This would be a perfect opportunity for them to kill their unwitting captives and appropriate their transportation for the search but instead they go along with it for no reason. It’s funny how Stolas only goes into full demon mode once in this episode as a lame throwaway joke, not only sullying one of the most epic moments in the show, but also betraying some bad priorities. He can track down his boy-toy and murder humans for him, but not so much for his lost daughter. Guess he does have a Gaydar.
Instead, he and Blitzo simply allow themselves to be driven to a set so that the latter can act out a scene in the sitcom. In the middle of the shoot, Blitzo has a flashback of his adopting Loona from a hellhound pound run by an apathetic hellhound (Monica Franco). In it he encounters her in a dingy prison cell crying and cringing after having defended herself from an apparently murderous cellmate and is informed that she will age out very soon. He pities her more than the less photogenic hellpups (who disgust him) and he adopts her. I like sad scenes as much as the next person, but I always pictured something less melodramatic, like Loona’s having accepted her fate for years until, this shady eecentric presumed to come out of nowhere and call her her father. In the light of the new canon, I think it would make more sense for Loona to look more confused/frightened in this adoption photo than annoyed.
Then the show demonstrates one its recurrent flaws: disrupting good character moments for the sake of edginess. The flashback triggers a murderous a spree in which Blitzo impulsively shoots random bystanders in the studio. The only humorous moment is a fulfilled brick joke in which Stolas unwittingly burns someone with the local tap water, which was earlier the subject of a public warning poster. It would have been more logical to have him vent his frustration on Stolas, accusing him of not caring enough for his own daughter. This also would have had a more effectively funny effect as it would be in front of a whole bunch of contextless mortals.
This problem is repeated at the end of the episode during his reunion with Loona. Overcome with emotion, he rushes over to embrace her, only for her to kick him brutally in the groin despite having more than enough time to recognize him and after having talked to Octavia about how she understands him. This has been justified by stans as Loona’s not being ready to be touched due to her built-up anxieties, but that does not warrant violence. Assuming that was not a calculated, vindictive punishment, it makes her look more like an uncontrollably violent animal than a person (see also: Loona’s impulsively attacking Moxxie because she’s disturbed by an hellquake in “CHERUB”). It’s also at odds with her correct and comparatively measured use of violence in the pound.
They should have simply followed through on the emotional moment with a loving embrace between them, which would have uncomfortably emphasized to Octavia and Stolas how much better their father-daughter relationship is than their own.
Leading up to this is Loona’s lone search for Octavia. While the others screw around, she uses her detective skills basic common sense by tracking Via’s social media posts. She eventually finds her at the LA Observatory and they have a heart-to-heart. I’m all for heart-warming moments, but only when they’re well earned. Loona basically trivialized Stolas’ home-wrecking by giving Octavia some “dad’s mess up, but they’re trying” platitude. The scene definitely deserves a lot more attention as an ironic meme than Steven Universe's "She said she was sorry" moment. What makes it even worse is that Loona is an accessory to and beneficiary of the sex/murder scheme that is responsible for Octavia’s problems, and the episode makes it clear that Octavia knows this. Imagine how much more of an impact it would be if she called Loona out on it, triggering an epiphany in which the latter realized how much of a villain she is and it starts a redemption arc in earnest. It seems that Octavia, because of this and her rash runaway, is being sympathetically strawmanned in order to help sell Stolitz: she only thinks it’s bad because she doesn’t know better. I tend to think the popular theory that she’s asexual might also be a reason to explain away to lack of understanding.
The surrogate sister dynamic between Loona and Octavia is a relatively endearing symptom of Stolitz, but it ignores how much the two characters are foils for each other. Loona grew up in squalor without love, and is now adjusting to being part of a family as a young adult. In contrast, Octavia had a privileged upbringing in which she thought her parents loved each other, only to face her home life’s crumbling in front of her. Reflective of how Stolas broke his family for sex with Blitzo, while Blitzo forces sex with Stolas to make a better life for his own.
Another annoying thing about this episode is that it clearly didn’t know what to do with the M&M’s. What should have happened was that they go off on a comically wrong trail because Moxxie overthought it, or they simply should have been absent (perhaps they figured out how to get time alone without Blitzo’s finding out). Instead, we get this dreadfully unfunny and out-of-character sequence in which Moxxie wastes time trying to buy a useless burned CD from a talentless street artist. I think he’d be the last person to get such tunnel vision when there’s a lost child that needs to be found.
The episodes humor is pretty weak, and really peppered with the type of forced edginess that the show is often derided for. There’s a child actress who does cocaine (Juliana Sada), and the show once again does the Family Guy death pose, which is the basically the new Wilhelm Scream, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. At one point they make a second attempt at the stupidly-obvious password joke, only not as funny as the one in "Truth Seekers." Even the usually funny background signs are disappointing despite the ample opportunity. Still, the animation and timing help somewhat with some of the lines and visual jokes, especially during Blitzo’s intervention with Loona. I also like how Stolas displays real owl mannerisms when exasperated.
[Loona allows Octavia to sneak into IMP and she disappears with the Grimoire]
BLITZO: LOONA-
LOONA (OFFSCREEN): Oh yeah, you have a visitor.
BLITZO: Shit, shit, shit shit, what the fuck am I supposed to tell Stolas?!
MOXXIE: Well, he seems to like you, Sir. Maybe he would understand if-
BLITZO: Ok, my dick is good, but it is not that good, Moxxie.
SIGN: PUBLIC HEALTH WARNING: New study finds LA water to be 2% sewer overflow and 98% literal acid. NO OBVIOUSLY DON’T DRINK THAT SHIT!!
[Stolas and Blitzo just got loaded into the van]
STOLAS: Blitzo, we don’t have time for this. Via could be anywhere. She could be in danger.
BLITZO: Don’t worry, I’m on it. [smashes van windshield] LOONY, GO FIND VIA, WE’LL CATCH UP SOON. YEAH, WAY TO BE A TEAM PLAYER SWEETIE.
[Blitzo is erroneously on a sitcom set]
ACTOR: Well, if it isn't our neighbor Ronny! You feel that earthquake earlier?
[Blitzo freezes]
STOLAS: [whispering] Say something!
TELEPROMPTER: That was just my wife rolling out of bed.
BLITZO: Oh, yeah, yeah! "That was just my wife rolling out of bed."
[audience laughs and it goes to his head]
BLITZO: Yeah, yeah, and then that BITCH hit her head on the way down and shattered her skull! [Stolas giggles] There's blood everywhere, peed her pants...
[Blitzo deletes “NOT TOPIC” from map search while looking for Octavia]
[Millie’s Sinstagram while contacting Blitzo at the end]
MILLIE: [under picture of ball-gag] Moxxie Be into this you think??
-read 2 weeks ago
BLITZO: B1TCH were u @?
MILLIE: Near the Alley! Portal Plz :) <3
BLITZO: kk I gotchu
BLITZO: Mackin Stols do it now
That about sums up my feelings on the episode too. The edgy nonsense and the groin kick seemed the most egregious to me at the time and it was then that I’d started to fall off the bus and walk away.
ReplyDeleteDamn shame. Vivzie’s her own worst enemy, seems like.