Hazbin Hotel Season 2 – What The Actual Hell?

I never thought I would find another Five Nights At Freddy’s 2 Situation so soon, but I did, and it was worse. Much worse.

Maybe I’m a bit late to the party. I put off watching the second season so that I could watch it all at once, when I had stopped for my pre-Christmas break, and get out Amazon Prime for a month. This would potentially also give me re-watch opportunities, and wouldn’t mean I couldn’t work for a week or so because I was so involved in thinking about it. Yeah, that’s what would have happened with Season 1 had I happened to be working at the time it was released.

Now it could be a completely different show with a completely different writer. In fact it felt like the writer had died and a new one had replaced them without the creator’s notes. 

Five minutes or less in to the first episode of the first season I was hooked. This never happened with the second season, like, at all.  I found myself bored a lot, and that was when I wasn’t skipping over some of Charlie’s dialogue as it was uncomfortable to watch.

The story felt like a mess at best, and most of the time it felt like there wasn’t any story at all due to the mis-mashed way it was presented. Random things happened, things that didn’t link up properly or form any sort of whole. If you asked me what happened this season I wouldn’t be able to say much beyond “Vox tried to blow up Heaven” which is a misleading oversimplification. The pacing was non-existent. I spent most of the eight episodes waiting for something meaningful to happen.

It’s a good thing in a way (for the show, I mean) that I did decided to watch the whole season at once or I would legit have considered stopping after the first episode.

Character arcs didn’t really exist for the most part (with the exception on Sera), and Charlie went backwards if anything. Most of her screen time involved acting awkward and pulling faces because she was having yet another mental breakdown. 

They did Angel Dust dirty. I don’t know how else to put it. They reveal he killed his father but then just leave him feeling terrible at its being revealed. And this is just part of his downward spiral. Oh, and then they leave him having gone back to Val and end it there. 

These sorts of problem are popping up all over the place. Not only does everything feel rushed, but new things are introduced and never addressed. I mean, either you have to push everything into one season and all of those many things have to be tied up at the end, or you’ve got another season in which case you don’t have to shove so much in. 

It feels like a checklist a lot of this time, with things being revealed then completely glossed over.  There is no progress being made, yet at the same time you feel overwhelmed by all the changes.

Too much changes too quickly. Very soon you find that you are looking at a very different Hazbin Hotel than you were in the previous season owing to so many reveals completely changing your perception of everything.

It is disappointing and lacking in imagination. I wouldn’t say the hype was too much, as I was never engaged enough in the fandom to know, but I can say that we were expecting so much more than we got. And yes, the writer having far less creativity than the fans is a deficit here. Clearly it is not the case in this comparison that the fans are so creative that they should expect so much, as the creator is not ambitious at all and lacking any real scope.  

I’ve already mentioned Lute, so now I’m going to mentioned Alastor and say that many were anticipating him being the main villain in season 2 (which would have been a lot more interesting to say the least), instead, he just stands by being comic relief most of the time. 

Certain things, that were introduced in the first season as being super important, are majorly minimised, such as Charlie’s deal with Alastor – its acting more like a deux ex machina in the end, and could have easily been replaced with something else with a good writer put on to it. That deal should have made things very difficult throughout, instead it is only mentioned moments before it is used.

A change in priorities – before a good story was the main thing, and the theme of redemption was part of that. This has been reversed. This muddies things too much, and means you can’t take a side as it were, as you could in season 1. This makes it hard to get behind the characters as it doesn’t feel clear who they are really fighting against. Yes, I know it is literally Vox, but the way it is done means you don’t really feel the same way you did when it was Adam. Nor is the conclusion satisfying because of that. You just feel worn out at the end, glad it’s over.

Things were set up at the end of season 1 as being important that were never followed through. You believe that Lilith is going to be the next main villain, or at least, a key antagonistic character, but not only does she not do this, but she never even turns up. 

Then there is Lute, who should have also been a key antagonist, possibly even falling from Heaven due to her thirst for revenge taking over, but no. You could take her out completely and almost everything would be the same.

The songs – Oh, dear. Out of all the songs only Lute’s Gravity has any impact at all. I can’t even remember a single lyric from any of the other songs. They had no impact at all. They were also random. Like dropped in rather than when a song would be considered necessary. Also, they all sounded the same, and, was it just me, or was the musical style more generalised pop-like, and less Hazbin Hotel-type musical style?

It felt like it was attempting to be more character-driven in place of having much plot, and yet it made you feel absolutely nothing for the characters. Speaking of characters, their screen time seemed to be a checklist too. They dotted around each character from the previous season, and never stayed focussed on each in any significant way. Yes, you get the backstory, but it feels incomplete and lacking. You keep asking yourself “is that all there is?”.

People have been saying the animation is better but honesty I just found it more cartoony, and not in a good way.

Nothing feels earned, or like good storytelling in any way, meaning that everything that is dropped in looks bad and has not impact.

Okay, so I went in thinking there were only going to be two seasons as we were originally told, but apparently it will have four. So it really is the FNAF 2 problem all over again, however, if there are going to be four seasons then they had no reason to rush through everything. 

This season felt like a complete waste of time and concepts, and many concepts subpar compared with previous season. I broke all the rules of basic storytelling to such an extent it become incomprehensible, and nothing felt like it mattered or was earned. It felt like an anti-climax. It wasn’t just a bad season, it was bad in general. I now genuinely wish they hadn’t made a second season because it has marred the marvel that was the first season and you can’t look at it the same way again.