Hazbin Hotel
2024-
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After resisting the temptation, I’ve finally decided to watch Hazbin Hotel on Amazon Prime. Despite my own trendy prejudgment, it’s actually a decent story once taken on its own terms. There was every reason to doubt Viv considering her history, but my friend’s speculation that she would do a better job when forced to write a story in blocks seems like it might be true.
Most of the prejudgment of Hazbin has been based on two seemingly opposite premises. The first camp speaks of the “Good Adult Cartoons” and how the show fails to meet the apparently sophomoric interpretation of what constitutes one. The most prevalent of such criticisms is that the show somehow doesn’t do foul language “right” in some nebulous way. It’s like pottymouthedness has its own Reformed Theology in which one is justified by “fuck” alone but if you’re in doubt it, it means you didn’t say “fuck”right.
If anything, Hazbin is a step in the right direction for adult western animation due to its aesthetic and earnestness. Most evidently it rejects the unwritten rule that adult cartoons must be flat (as if caring about animation was childish!) with its expressive, ornate, toony style. It also rejects the irony-poisoned flippancy most adult animation is crippled by. The typical adult cartoon would find it incomprehensible to have a well-executed scene in which a prostitute is abused and threatened by his pimp played straight; it would come up with some flimsy pretext to somehow pass off this abuse as a joke in and of itself.
More valid and vital than this faux sophistication are the earnest moral and theological complaints about the from conservative side of the aisle. This is understandable as the premise is about people in hell as sympathetic protagonists being oppressed by the Heavenly elite, as well as the history of its creator. Moreover, Helluva Boss has shown itself very questionable in its themes recently, sacrificing continuity in name of subversive morality. One would expect Hazbin to share its fate as being an unwitting indictment of the creators’ libertine values by honestly depicting their consequences. In a pleasant surprise, however, it apparently promotes self-improvement and morals in a surprisingly conventional way.
The primary reason for this is that the subverted theology isn’t really that. It may seem like a romanticization of Satan’s rebellion against the constraints of religion, but Lucifer (Jeremy Jordan) is depicted as deeply regretful of the destruction he wrought with the Fall, choosing to sulk passively. The Intro cloyingly describes Lilith as having inspired the denizens of hell to live freely with sin, but we immediately see that the place is an exploitative slum in which the strong oppress the weak. Heaven is made up of a mix of malicious oppressors and the naively privileged. In other words, Hazbin Hotel is only about Abrahamic religion in the same way that Harry Potter is about sorcery or Hercules (1997) is about Greek mythology; it’s just uses it as a setting to tell a story (think of the so-called "Jesus Fandom"). It’s not so much anti-Christian as it is disinterestedly post-Christian. I’ve heard the term “sub-blasphemous” to describe it. From a Christian point of view, this is obviously a problem, that Christianity rendered irrelevant to the point of pop cultural fodder. Then again, when taken on its own terms, the show is actually decent story with good themes.
The impetus for the story involves the Extermination, in which angels called Exorcists invade Hell and slaughter a number of sinners, ostensibly to keep the population down. Horrified by this, Lucifer and Lilith’s daughter Charlotte "Charlie" Morningstar (Erika Henningsen) founds a rehabilitation center called the Hazbin Hotel, in which lost souls can be redeemed in order to go to Heaven so they would not have to be killed during the purge.
Charlie finds a patron in the form of Alastor (Amir Talai), an Overlord of Hell (a meritocracy of relatively powerful sinners). Unlike in the pilot, in which he is a faux-affably evil egotist who only seems to “help” Charlie out of his own amusement, Alastor is a compellingly ambiguous character. Despite his reputation, he seems to actually like Charlie. His antagonistic behavior toward Lucifer could be interpreted as a call-out for the latter’s neglect; Lucifer has allowed his daughter to be a proxy for Hell’s contempt for his weakness as a leader. Unlike Lucifer, Alastor has been supportive of Charlie’s efforts and has acted more as a mentor than he has. He also privately expresses his affection for the her patients to his servant Niffty (Kimiko Glenn). On the other hand, he talked Charlie into a deal that could(?) be put her in thrall to him due to clever wordplay, and his engineering of an alliance between her and Overlord Rosie (Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer) may be questionable. In the finale, he is broken by his losing to Season's prime antagonist in the battle while Lucifer, who has finally come through for his daughter and defeats the said villain. Unable to cope with his failure to replace Lucifer as a father figure, he accepts his status as a schemer with a secret agenda before returning to the hotel as an apparent friend.
Among the Overlords is a splinter group of secondary antagonists known as the Vees. Valentino (Joel Perez), Angel’s pimp, is a pornographer and arguably the most purely evil character in the series. Vox (Christian Borle), is a news/entertainment media mogul, and Velvette (Lilli Cooper) is a fashion mogul. Their power grab is motivated by finding the corpse of a slain Exorcist, and attempting to use the revelation for leverage, which is particularly tense for Hell’s top arms dealer Carmilla Carbine (Daphne Rubin-Vega). Meanwhile, Alastor’s return the limelight has angered Vox. I’m not sure what Viv thought she was doing by depicting talk radio hosts and arms dealers as ambiguously sympathetic while casting the media and pornographers as villains.
Perhaps Vox will attempt to found Air Hell as a doomed attempt to muscle in on Alastor’s territory.
As for the show’s reducing Biblical stories to story fodder, Hazbin does end up turning Lucifer into a genuinely compelling character by not depicting him as the wholesome symbol of freedom that is typical of most modernist subversions. In fact, he deeply regrets the mistake he made with the Fall, and has spent most of his time sulking, allowing his wife Lilith to take a more active role in defining Hell’s society. He overcomes his self-doubt and cynicism by saving Charlie from the Exterminators and supporting her in her quest to redeem souls to heaven.
Lilith turns out to be a well-executed mysterious character. She inspired Hell with her free-living personality, but the evidence shows that Hell is an exploitative ghetto. Since then she has been MIA. In an intriguing reveal, the season finale displays her kicking back in heaven with the implication that she bribed the Extermination into existence. It’s also suggested in a short flashback that she also engineered Charlie’s distant relationship with Lucifer. It seems that the idealized description of her by Charlie was a lie told to her as a child. It’s too bad that this moment from the Pilot is non-canon because of how well it fits with the new narrative.
One of the more compelling characters is Angel Dust (Blake Roman), an effeminate, sex-addicted porn star who has joined the Hotel in an attempt to turn over a new leaf. Unfortunately, Angel is still in demonic thrall to Valentino, and the episode that focuses on this drama is the most well-executed and poignant in the series. After some harsh truth-telling from his friend Husk (Keith David), he vows to live a cleaner life off the clock and he even puts some effort into protecting a more naive character from falling into his own vices. My first instinct to praise montage of his sexual abuse (I initially dismissed the song number as a poor man's version of his pre-Amazon theme, but it turns out to fit well in the episode) as well-executed without being too titillating, but apparently Viv and one or two collaborators apparently have a bit of a rape fetish history, and I'm an idiot. It's also cheapened by a character's sexual assault's being played for laughs in the very next episode. It's strange that people with a really screwed-up kink manage to effectively play it for how disturbing it really is to normal people.
The episode is titled "Masquerade," by the way.
While the vulgarity of the show is exaggerated, the one context in which is annoying is when it is from Adam (Alex Brightman). His forced crudeness is probably a cheap way to make him more unlikable than necessary, but this is complicated by his having a pretty cool character design and singing what is far and away the best song in the show.
Another talk of the show is Sir Pentious (Alex Brightman), a Victorian engineer who thinks he’s a mad scientist. He is very much a wannabe villain, attempting to become an Overlord through conquest and technology. Unfortunately, he lacks the cunning and killer’s instinct to be one. One could imagine his ending up in Hell for some mundane reason, seeing himself in the form of a snake, and erroneously resigning to his fate as a supervillain. Having been sent to hotel by The Vees as a mole, his cover is blown and he breaks down, only to be forgiven by Charlie and taken in as a patient. This is the one moment in which is arc is justifiably rushed because nobody wants to sit through a lengthy Third Act Mope after the Liar Is Revealed. On the other hand, his arc is rushed. The pilot gave people a lot of hope that he would spend at least a season as an ineffectual villain before joining the Hotel, but he spends no screen time in this role, and his potentially compelling foe-romance with Cherri-Bomb (Krystina Alabado) is reduced to his final confession of love for her without any of the tense build-up beforehand. In the final battle, Adam instantaneously kills him, but Pentious’ self-sacrifice makes him the first Sinner to go to Heaven. While impeccably timed for comedy, it’s anticlimactic.
Another important character is Vaggie (Stephanie Beatriz), Charlie’s girlfriend. Her highly disciplined nature makes her awkward with dealing with the patients, and she ends up treating them like a platoon during Boot Camp, foreshadowing her reveal as a former Exorcist. Indeed, the world’s worst fears are confirmed when Adam confirms that her name really does mean Vagina! (It’s his fault of course). Vaggie ends up having a tense relationship with Carmilla, Hell’s leading arms dealer. They share a tedious song number before they even meet, and Vaggie eventually confronts her in order to procure a hoard of angelic weapons for the Final Battle. The arc only seems to make sense if the two are either secretly related or end up being shipped (hopefully after Vaggie breaks up with Charlie, of course).
As with some works I enjoy, I have to forgive Hazbin for arguably having more than its share of plot-holes. Carmilla stumbles the ability to kill an Exorcist when she was cornered into protecting her loved ones, and she struggles over the morality of this rash decision despite being Hell's leading arms dealer. It has never occurred to her to try this before despite having access to the Exorcists' only weakness: angelic steel. When Adam reveals that he plans to target the Hotel first during the next Extermination, Charlie and Co. have a golden opportunity to take advantage of this knowledge but instead they decide to hole up in the big mansion where the villain knows to find them because they're idiots. Pentious's death is a Holdo Maneuver within a Holdo Maneuver: despite how effortless and powerful Adam's destruction of the zeppelin is, this is the only time he ever uses this move. After the Final Battle, the Vees discuss a way to take advantage of the resulting "power vacuum" that isn't: not only has Charlie been vindicated by the battle, she also has an army and arsenal at her disposal, as well as the support of Lucifer, who has final grown a backbone and will likely be a more pro-active Ruler of Hell. That is literally the opposite of a power vacuum. Despite Emily's (Shoba Narayan) disillusionment with Sera (Patina Miller), she has no problem having tea with her in the Finale, presumably so we can see their contrasting reactions to St. Pentious' suddenly dropping in. Also Pentious' being the first person redeemed himself through self-sacrifice defies the probability of anyone's having sacrificed himself for another during any previous Extermination or in general. The only way this could make sense is that those people did not conceive of the idea of redemption therefore were not saved. Then again this would justify the "Heaven Is Evil" theme by having work on Calvinist rules.
Some of these apparent flaws could be rectified depending on how the show progresses. Pentious' arc may be rushed, but it may have just begun. He begins to work toward doing what he can to help his friends from Heaven despite admonitions to forget about them. Such a development could vindicate some of our wishful thinking that this show accidentally succeeds in being a based takedown of Reformed Theology a la Star Trek V. I found the episode in which Charlie negotiates a Redshirt Pact with Rosie to be dull, but there's a possibility that this could end up biting her in the ass later, as she's now indebted to an Overlord and while attempting to appease an army of literal cannibals. This could also be true since the deal was Alastor's idea.
I’ve always been a fan of Viv’s style, and I’ve never understood the criticism of its being “2000’s DeviantArt Style” that one is supposed to “grow out of.” I wouldn’t equate Hazbin with Star Wars, but imagine taking cartoons seriously and then being the spiritual successor to everyone who thought George Lucas “wasted” his talent by elevating those silly matinee serials. If anything, I find it refreshing that this colorful and expressive look has finally hit it big in the professional animation realm, especially after years of flat, lifeless animation, especially for adult audiences. It’s cool that Viv has stuck to her guns on this.
A perfect blend of toon stylization and anime embellishment, the artstyle lends inself well to expressive animation. The style arguably qualifies as kitsch (which might explain some the Catholic following, we like flowery stuff), and a relatively good example of it. Ornate, earnest, and splendidly naïve of the sensibilities of the establishment and its minimalism fetish. Sadly this latter attitude has infected the animation industry, and has always been a staple of adult animation since The Simpsons published its contrarian Bible which I would be bold enough to argue singlehandedly ruined the look of adult western cartoons.
The aesthetic does have its limitations. Sometimes the composition is jumbled and characters aren’t that well integrated into their environments. During the meeting of the Overlords, for example, the animation is split on whether Zeezi is a literal giant who can hardly fit through a door or relatively tall as to be slightly awkward in a normal chair.
