Helluva Boss Season 2 Is A Conflicting Yet Beautiful Mess

After the success of Vivziepop’s Helluva Boss’ first season, plans for Season 2 were already in development. It soon released on June 30th, 2023 with an exciting transition from the first season. However, as the plot progressed, loyal viewers noticed the show’s writing and direction lost focus in exchange for more derivative adult humor and filler exploration. Helluva Boss Season 2 ended roughly compared to the first. What could have happened during production that made it into a mess?

Brief Recap of Season 1

Helluva Boss aired its first season during the COVID-19 Pandemic on Oct. 31st, 2020. While the first episode had a rocky start by reintroducing the cast during a hit job, Episode 2: Loo Loo Land is what attracted fans to the series with Stolas’ broken marriage with his now ex-wife Stella. He has a complicated romance with Blitzo and wants to be a better parent for his daughter, Octavia. Due to his duties as a Goetia (bird demon) royal, he is often blindsided by the daily struggles of the imps.

Season 1 was jam-packed with a surprising element of different relationship dynamics. It had a great mix of world-building and storytelling between Hell, Earth, and Heaven. Its finale left the audience wanting to see how Stolas will move past his realization of Blitzo’s manipulative actions in their relationship. The same goes for Blitzo as he hides his fear of loneliness and has trouble expressing his feelings healthily. On July 30th, 2023, Helluva Boss Season 2 released its first episode. How did the fans react?

Season 2’s Promising Start

Helluva Boss Season 2 delivered a grand entry with Episode 1: The Circus. Stolas reminisces about his first meeting with Blitzo up to the pilot episode. They began what felt like a seemingly beautiful friendship despite Stolas’ father, King Paimon offering Blitzo’s father, Cash Buckzo to buy Blitzo for a couple of hours as his son took a liking to him. Unfortunately for Blitzo, Cash asked him to rob valuables from their mansion. This is also how Blitzo learns about the Grimoire as Stolas shares about his father’s plans to become a new king which grants demons the power to create portals between Earth and Hell.

The scenes that were originally from the pilot show the reasons why Stolas is the way he is around Blitzo as he manipulates him with sex to get his hands on the Grimoire for IMP. This time through the perspective of Stolas celebrating his divorce in front of Stella. He then sings about wanting those feelings to return if Blitzo could open up more. Viewers witnessed how deep Stolas’ depression is while tripling the dose of his medication. Unfortunately, the later episodes began to show trouble behind its writing and episode focus.

Season 2’s Shifting Focus

While The Circus showed an excellent transition from Season 1’s finale, the same cannot be said for its mid-season episodes. Viewers of the show who watched Episodes 2, 3, 4, and 5 are where many stopped watching. Here’s why fans saw these episodes shifting the show’s quality.

Episode 2: Seeing Stars

Seeing Stars does a good job on the parent-and-child aspect when Octavia runs away from home with the Grimoire to travel to the Moon for stargazing, only to send herself to California accidentally. There’s a scene where Blitzo is reminded about the time he adopted Loona while impersonating his voice actor, Brandon Rodgers on a live sitcom. He refuses to give up the puppy to the actors and causes a massacre. Stolas seems to be enjoying it a little too much despite their previous conversation from Season 1 Episode 7: Ozzie’s.

Fans felt Blitzo’s outrageous shenanigans could have been toned down. They felt Vivziepop’s team, Spindle Horse didn’t take the opportunity to explore Octavia’s character compared to Loo Loo Land. The focus relied too much on Blitzo and Stolas to progress Seeing Stars’s plot. There isn’t much screen time between Loona and Octavia, but the hellhound listens to the young princess’ troubles in accepting her parents’ marriage.

Episode 3: Exes And Oohs

Exes And Oohs is where fans felt the writing was dropping its quality as it brought back a problem from the previous season, Moxxie-focused episodes. The episode’s intro gave a huge misdirection of his wife Millie throwing a fit in the office. Moxxie asked her what was wrong and she explained that she had seen her ex-boyfriend while walking to work. It soon became a Moxxie-focused episode when it turns out Blitzo’s newest client is his father, Crimson the mob boss.

Chaz then appears revealing he is both Millie and Moxxie’s ex-boyfriend. The job Crimson asked Blitzo for was to deliver Moxxie to force a marriage between Chaz and him because Chaz’s wealth can help support the family. The pretty boy shark’s motive was inheriting money from Crimson to pay off his excessive debt. Viewers didn’t mind watching Millie kicking butt to save her husband but they were tired of Millie being only used as the badass wife.

Episode 4: Western Energy

Western Energy triggered Vivziepop’s fans through the personality change of one villain, the bounty hunter Striker. Striker first appeared in Season 1 Episode 5, The Harvest Moon Festival with an assignment to assassinate Stolas. Stella hired him in hopes of inheriting Stolas’ throne after his death. He failed after getting stopped by IMP.

Striker eagerly returns pathetically when he is ordered to kidnap Stolas and murder him with blessed rope suppressing his stone petrification. His first appearance shows he’s confident in his marksmanship and charisma skills. Western Energy converted Striker into a narcissistic joke with him polishing his statue with a giant boner sticking out of the curtain. His character grew worse when he injured Stolas, remarking with thoughts on Blitzo being better in bed.

Episode 5: Unhappy Campers

Unhappy Campers is where many of Helluva Boss’ fanbase left the series. The plot revolves around Moxxie finally taking charge while Blitzo searches for his twin sister, Barb. The client was a teenage camper who drowned in a lake while rowing a boat with holes. Millie immediately spots the culprit after she and Moxxie enter the campgrounds. Moxxie decided to extend the investigation for a week to be extra sure.

Millie succeeds at blending in with the other campers by being her usual self leaving Moxxie jealous of the attention. Unhappy Campers’ plot could have progressed better as a 12-minute short instead of forcing a story device to extend the watch time to 21 minutes.

Critics Expressing Issues

Many Helluva Boss critics such as Sarcastic Chorus, Just Stop, and Pink King have addressed the show’s issues with its writing. For over 5 years since the pilot, Helluva Boss has shifted its focus from how to tell its story of people who have relationship issues to scattered side stories of negativity. These issues have grown more apparent during its second mid-season. Some say Helluva Boss has gone through an identity crisis unsure if it should be a dark humor comedy or continue to explore itself as an adult humor drama. 

Season 2’s Redemption

After experiencing the rollercoaster of negative feedback, Vivziepop stepped back to see how to regain the community’s trust while working alongside Amazon Prime Video for her long-awaited series, Hazbin Hotel. Spindle Horse would work between the two shows to help finish Helluva Boss Season 2 and prepare episodes for Hazbin’s first season. Somehow, the team created a miracle to end the show’s second run with a strong finish with the original concept of relationships.

Asmodeus And Fizzaroli

Stolas’ older brother, Asmodeus was introduced in Ozzie’s where he was shocked to see Stolas dating Blitzo. While he started as mean-spirited, Asmodeus is a worrisome yet passionate Goetia in Episode 6: Oops. He represents the deadly sin Lust but he shows true affection around Blitzo’s younger brother Fizzaroli. You can hear Asmodeus’ concern for his partner’s safety when Fizzaroli tells him he will be walking around the Greed Ring. Thanks to Blitzo’s awareness, he protected him from the dangers of Striker and Crimson while rekindling their sibling relationship.

It transitions to Episode 7: Mammon’s Magnificent Musical where Asmodeus entrusts Blitzo to convince Fizzaroli to quit the job as he has been manipulated to be created as merchandise for his idol Mammon. Blitzo does everything he can to protect Fizzaroli including a long-time toxic fanboy. At Fizzaroli’s worst, Asmodeus shows his honest love as he wants Fizzaroli to be happy with what he has. Their episodes play an important role in Season 2’s climax.

Blitzo And Stolas’ Breakup

Episode 8: The Full Moon shows it’s the anniversary of Stolas and Blitzo’s relationship. Previously in Oops, Stolas asked Asmodeus for an Asmodeus Crystal, allowing the user to teleport between Earth and Hell without the Grimoire’s portal spell. He offered it to Blitzo for their anniversary to test how he would react to him wanting to set Blitz free. Unfortunately, it was more than Stolas could handle as the vulgar imp mistook his words for sex roleplay. Then he learns how Blitzo for the longest time thought lowly of Stolas using him instead of the other way around.

Blitzo would learn how much of a jerk he is in Episode 9: Apology Tour. He visits Stolas on Halloween trying to get back with him yet continues to fumble his words through aggression. Blitzo later finds him at Verosika’s house on Earth for the Anti-Blitzo party. He watches Stolas sing his feelings out, letting go of their friendship and relationship. His ex-girlfriend, Verosika, tells him the party is for people he had screwed over to have the time to let go of the feelings they had for Blitzo. The vulgar imp takes a guilty walk watching Stolas with someone new.

Helluva Boss Season 2’s Verdict

Helluva Boss Season 2 lost its focus mid-way then later returned to what made it attract its audience. While it ended on a depressing note, the show has become a beautiful mess. The profanity and dark humor became extremely excessive at times. There were good moments that taught morals about the importance of communication as it may lead to somewhere new. Hopefully in the third season, Helluva Boss will stick with the relationship concept between Stolas and Blitzo. If you like to watch Helluva Boss, visit Vivziepop’s YouTube channel to watch Seasons 1 and 2.

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