Vivienne Medrano and her hit series, Hazbin Hotel, continue to do what they do best. Mixing irresponsible, early-internet visuals and sacrilegious dialogue while delivering crazy animation spectacle with an unbelievably talented and star-studded cast (what do you mean Liz Calloway plays the Speaker of God?!!) There really is no animated show like Hazbin Hotel.
How does the season of the Vees compare to the first?
A Bit More Time to Breathe
Season 2 improves significantly with its expanded cast. The first half has noticeably more character-driven episodes, allowing the story to be told through different factions and perspectives, etc., the Hotel, the Vees and Heaven’s army. The slower pace even gives more opportunities for songs dedicated to one character at a time, versus how the first season relied a bit too much on ensembles at times.
Previously underdeveloped characters or glorified background characters like Sera, Emily, Cherri, Husk, Lute and Rosie are given more time to get some real dimension, even if only for brief moments. My personal favorite example of this ended up being Sera, with how well her arc and her song “Sera’s Confession” elaborated on how her dated Christian values have been challenged by the implication of proper redemption.
The animation has also improved considerably. Hazbin Hotel has always been a good-looking show, but S2 has so much more color, scale and character animation that just explodes in the final few episodes. And so much of this amplifies the big star of the season.
Vox Populi, Vox Dei
Hazbin Hotel Season 2 lives and dies by its main villain, Vox. A tall, charismatic evil-doer with a killer voice performed by Christian Borle, combined with a soft side revolving around his over-dependence on validation, Vox is the ideal form of a popular fandom character. And none of this is done as a cynical focus-test but rather a true love for a classic Disney villain-turned-fandom-obsession-personality. Mix that with several homoerotic arguments with Alastor, and you’ve got your fans frothing at the mouth for more.
Vox is featured in 7 songs (all of which are fantastic), has fleshed out, diverse dynamics with almost every character in the show, and has some of the best character animation in the show. What was originally an unnecessary footnote in Season 1 is now the show’s most fully-realized character who’ll be hard to beat as a major series villain.
Unfortunately, while the threat of Vox gives this season a stronger focus, narrative pacing is still a painful problem that the show continues to struggle with.
Redemption Left Behind
It’s the latter half of the season, when many of the issues plaguing Season 1 return at their worst. As early as Episode 5, the plot turns on high gear and accelerates to a point where most of the cast, especially our main character, aren’t given enough time to stand out. (including the other two Vees, who end up feeling more like glorified lackeys than a fun trio.) Though there are great moments with Husk, Angel, Charlie and Vaggie, their scenes feel uneven compared to the impending war with Heaven and Hell.
“Redemption” is, once again, annoyingly an afterthought to the show. Sir Pentious’s ascension and the ripple effects it has on both afterlives are the furthest the story allows itself to go. But even with these daring narrative concepts and fun characters, the show keeps retracting into disappointingly cliche angles for a war plot that has stretched itself way too thin. For as great as Vox is, even he began to feel played out in the last hour with an ultimately predictable endgame.
Having only 8 episodes per season is an unenviable limitation for the show, but even then, it feels as if the show continues to commit to its favorite choices rather than the right ones. By Season 2, it feels more uncertain than ever if Hazbin Hotel will ever be about the Hazbin Hotel.
And Yet…
Hazbin Hotel as a whole is a strange watch. In retrospect, despite having tons of complaints about the show while it aired, my outward feelings on the show are strangely positive. Despite all of its underlying problems, Hazbin is still an exceptionally entertaining watch for that exact indulgence in spectacle over substance.
It’s that unique purity and love for fanfiction-like sensibilities over all else that has given Hazbin such a lasting appeal to the internet from its pilot to now. Self-indulgence is an intended feature, and despite flaws that it may entail, Hazbin revels in every second of that energy.
Which is to say, there’s a lot more that this show could be, but it’s fantastic at being exactly what it wants to be.
Hazbin Hotel Season 2 is available on Amazon Prime.
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