Vivienne Medrano has created two animated hits, Hazbin Hotel on Amazon Prime Video and Helluva Boss on YouTube, both set in the same version of Hell. Of the two, Helluva Boss is the better show.
To be clear, they’re both great. Hazbin Hotel is a touching story of an oppressed class fighting their way out from under religious dominance. The art is gorgeous, the characters memorable, and most of the musical numbers absolutely slap (“Hell is Forever,” “Loser” and “Poison” are instant classics). There is a grand scale to Hazbin despite the porn studios and rundown titular hotel.
Meanwhile, Helluva Boss is much smaller in scope. The extermination of Hell’s residents isn’t a plot point. Instead, the story centers on Blitzo, the imp boss of the Immediate Murder Professionals and his dumpster fire of a life. All the same themes Medrano loves to explore are there, such as overcoming childhood trauma and how unnuanced ideas of sin lead to unnecessary marginalization. Helluva Boss makes these themes personal rather than systemic.
Hazbin’s main character, Charlie Morningstar, is essentially a Disney princess living in Hell by circumstance rather than damnation. She is good-hearted by nature and keen to use her position to better the lives of people around her. In short, she’s a trust fund kid who starts a non-profit.
That’s not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination. Certainly, the world would be a better place if Charlie was the template for our leaders, but it makes her an uncomplicated character. Like most modern Disney princesses, her story arc concludes by her finally believing in herself, an act in this case that unleashed her true power as a Lord of Hell to slaughter a threat to her friends.
Charlie as the main protagonist has the gentlest of flaws, a timidity about asserting herself. Watching her overcome it is satisfying, but simplistic. For a show that is raunchier than South Park, it’s surprisingly naïve. All the complicated characters like Angel, Husk, and Alastor are side pieces for her destiny, and it makes the show comparatively shallow.
Blitzo, though, is an incredibly complicated character. Imagine him as the disc part of a table saw blade and the teeth as his myriad flaws, shining and cutting. A short list: raised by a heartless dad in the circus; forced to betray a childhood friend; responsible for the crippling injuries to another; a bull in a china shop involving romantic relationships; and a huge chip on his shoulder over being near the bottom rung of Hell’s racial hierarchy.
Through all of that, he is remarkably likable. Medrano peppers Blitzo’s story with moments of him trying so hard. He adopts a teenage Hellhound, Luna, just because he can’t stand to see her chewed up and forgotten by the foster system. For all that he spends his free time spying on his married employees, Moxxie and Millie, it’s clear he sincerely wants to learn how to love the way they do. When his high-born lover, Stolas, seems like he may be interested in ending the relationship, Blitzo vows to become the best partner he can.
At no point does the show shy away from the damage Blitzo is dealing with. Unlike Charlie, who rarely ends an episode without having learned a lesson or overcome an obstacle, Blitzo fails as often as he succeeds. This most recent season has left him crying in despair at the end a couple of times because there are moments when trying too hard simply does not get the job done. Sometimes, a good heart is just inadequate to undo the harm you commit when you’re broken and despondent.
That’s what makes Helluva Boss so much more punk rock than Hazbin Hotel. Imagine that Hazbin is Green Day’s American Idiot, a sweeping concept that plays in the dirt but is still palatable to Broadway fans flying in from Des Moines. Helluva Boss is Dookie, a rougher, more genuine chronicle about being mangled by the world as a young adult. Both great works, but one of them is as real as someone that pulls out their stitches with their teeth because they can’t afford to go to the doctor.
Speaking of music, Helluva Boss has the consistently better soundtrack. The song “2 Minute Notice” is going to be hummed under the breath by an entire generation of fed up workers for the foreseeable future. “Cotton Candy” was co-written by Kesha, so no further argument needs to be made. “Crashin’ a Muthafuckin’ Wedding” is a great example of how Helluva Boss plays around with genres more freely than its sister show, which sticks to mostly to pop ballads and Broadway book numbers.
Again, none of this is to say Hazbin Hotel is bad. It’s very good. The show tackles extremely adult themes handily, and is an incredible subversion of classical animated tropes. Many of the aspects I mentioned in Blitzo’s story are present in the side characters of Hazbin.
It’s just that Helluva Boss puts those traits front and center. Not only does this give the show extra sincerity and reliability, it allows Helluva Boss to be sillier. Lots of episodes have a kind of Doctor Who/X-Files monster-of-the-week quality that gives it room for experimentation. Sometimes, Blitzo just has to deal with his job assignment of killing an incredibly horny fanfic writer and the larger plot can wait.
There are rarely those gaps in Hazbin, Everything is in service to setting up the epic confrontation at the end of the season. That’s good storytelling, but it’s also something we’re all kind of burnt out on after 16 years of Marvel movies. Hazbin Hotel is a well-constructed machine. Helluva Boss is a pile of gears and screws Medrano gets to take apart and reassemble however she likes. What it costs the show in tightness, pacing, and cohesion, it more than makes up for with surprise, humor, the ability to react to fans faster, and a strong focus always on Blitzo rather than the greater goings on.
Now that Hazbin Hotel is a hit on Amazon, maybe Medrano will get a chance to shake it up a little bit. Until then, Helluva Boss is the one I’m counting down the days waiting for new episodes.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
