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TV Tuesdays Free Talk
Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.
Hazbin Hotel Season 2 finished last week, and I want to talk about the season as a whole. Anything I talk about afterwards will be spoiler territory.
Season 2 thoughts:
Firstly, the good. I enjoyed the soundtrack greatly and thought it was a massive improvement over Season 1 based on pure consistency alone. Hazbin Guarantee was the first song they released in advance and it's one that completely blew anything from the last season straight out of the water. People on TikTok hated on the track, until the first two episodes and the music video for it dropped.
In fact, I cannot think of a single bad/forgettable song this season, compared to Season 1 when there were a few stinkers. Each track was either a hit or served a narrative purpose that moved the plot forward. If I had to choose three favourites beyond Hazbin Guarantee, they'd be Piss (A Love Song), Don't You Forget (Reprise) and Hear My Hope.
The animation quality also improved drastically compared to the first season, and that's definitely evident in the last episode where a lot of time went into the fight between Vox and Alastor.
As for the things I didn't like... there are some things about the plot, the actions of some characters, and the presence (or lack thereof) of some cast members that irritated me.
Charlie Morningstar pissed me off, especially in Episode 3 where her first thought after speaking to Emily was to bring Vox and Velvette to her hotel without any proof that redemption is possible, relying just on the verbal testimony of a seraphim who literally appeared and disappeared in front of her, then thought that going on another Voxtech show for a live interview would have somehow cleared the hotel's name. Episode 4 may have brought us an incredible bilingual song from Niffty where she both badmouths the hotel in English and praises it in Japanese, but holy crap did it make Charlie seriously unlikeable.
Unless there is something that literally stops winners outside of the Seraphim and Exorcists from visiting Hell, and I find that hard to believe. I feel like this whole plot could have easily been wrapped up had Emily, Sera and Abel brought Sir Pentious with them.
I hate to admit it but Vox had a point about the peace offerings in Episode 5. Gift baskets aren't an appropriate way to smooth over the fact that Adam, Lute and the Exorcists had spent years purging sinners and slaying countless souls that could have been redeemed.
On the subject of Abel, he is a classic example of star power barely being used, much like Taylor Swift in 2019 Cats. They brought in Patrick Stump from Fall Out Boy and barely utilized him. He had only a few lines prior to the very last song where he got a full verse to himself.
The pacing was a bit too fast for much of the season, and it feels like there was a lot of missed opportunity in introducing other overlords as characters.
The idea that Lucifer is forbidden from harming sinners because that's part of his punishment is a bit puzzling, and makes me wonder what would happen to him if he actually did strike down Vox. Also, he's just acted incredibly stupid and behaved like a fraud, especially in episode 7 where he is easily lured right into a trap.
Did we really need this season to end with another Lilith cliffhanger?