Checking In to the Hazbin Hotel as a Musical Hater  

I don't really like musicals. However, I was a child during the Disney Renaissance era, so movies like Hercules and The Lion King were always on. I still sing "Go the Distance" at the top of my lungs whenever I can, so I can appreciate them... Sometimes.

I was skeptical about watching Hazbin Hotel. I'm a sucker for animation and demons and thought it would be right up my alley... until I saw it was a musical, I didn't want to watch another Greatest Showman, so I held out. TikTok got me though. The algorithm knows me too well and started showing me clips of the show as season 2 was ending. Adult humor in animation, anime-esque fights, and demons? Who cares about the musical parts, sign me up! What really intrigued me was Alastor and his voice actor's performance. The perpetual smile makes you so uneasy and you just know he's up to something. The character design is so creepy but at the same time embraces the fantastical-ness of being a cartoon. I just needed to see more. And so began my binge watch.

Two of my favorite musical performances came from Angel Dust and Niffty for both very different reasons.

Angel is a hypersexual, vulgar, and provocative porn star in hell. He absolutely revels in debauchery, or so it seems. The song, "Poison", highlights his toxic relationship with Valentino and his lifestyle. It gets him off, but on the inside it's crushing him. I really saw myself connecting with Angel because he plays it all up for the camera and the crowd, but he is just a scared and sad little boy on the inside. It's the same thing I do. Humor is my armour, so no one can actually see how nervous or anxious I really am. The song was also catchy as hell (pun intended).

Niffty's song, "Clean It Up!", perfectly matched her. She's a tiny cyclops lookin' maid menace that may or may not be stab happy, literally bouncing off the walls and just all around unsettling. The song was chaotic, kooky, and so fun. The random bits of Japanese fried me. The sequence also highlights what makes an animated medium so great. You can animate just about anything you can imagine, while that is not really possible on stage or on a set. Like, how are you supposed to do a whole music video montage with demonic rats, flying brooms, and a sudden shift into a kawaii Harajuku aesthetic, all in around two minutes? You can't.

The world building the show started with had me hooked on an entire power system and the lore scratched my anime-gamer brain so well. The fall of Lucifer is one of my favourite stories of all time. It gives Luci a personality instead of just evil bad guy hates humanity. To me, he is just a stubborn child who got punished for not obeying his father. And I was so excited to see how they would tackle it. In Hazbin Hotel, Lucifer and Lilith as lovers who tempt Eve with the apple from the Garden of Eden, which ends up giving humanity free will. Free will is what allowed evil to spread and Hell was created. Lucifer and Lilith were then banished to the dark pit they birthed as punishment.

The characters brought so much to the show and I enjoyed the main cast dynamic so much. Angels, demons, questionable dichotomies and changes of heart make it so fascinating for me and I just want to know everything about these characters and their world.

Charlie Morningstar, in the show, is daughter to Lucifer and Lilith. She opens the Hazbin Hotel because she wants to help redeem sinners—formerly human denizens of Hell who have been made into demons—get into Heaven.

Some demons do belong in hell, though. Like Alastor. He is probably my favourite character in the entire show. He's the thing that piqued my interest in the first place, after all. He is what I imagine a demon to be: conniving, deceitful, powerful, charming, and a great radio host. Even in life, he was a literal serial killer while keeping up the illusion of a normal man. He also went so far as to dabble in dark magic to cement his spot as the strongest sinner in hell, all while he was still on the mortal plane. He makes and breaks deals with such grace and cunning. It's like he's playing chess two games ahead of you. Homie is a demon through and through. You can tell how much fun the voice actor has. The songs are always bangers and that radio filter they put on his voice is so cool.

Charlie isn't what you would expect from the daughter of the King of Hell. She is quite cheerful, optimistic, and just trying her best. Her initial meeting with Adam, the first man and commander of Heaven's Exorcists, shows you some interesting role reversal. Charlie is what you think an angel would be, and Adam is more demon-like. He is obnoxious, vulgar, dismissive, and just kind of a dick. He talks about exterminating sinners as a matter of fact, even though they are technically human souls. Charlie, on the other hand, argues that sinners can find salvation. This hints that the established system is flawed and maybe things aren't what they seem. She is also the one that gives you stereotypical musical numbers, but everyone side-eyes her and I live for it.

Vaggie, Charlie's girlfriend, confirms that both Heaven and Hell are more than meets the eye (get it? Because she only has one eye). She is a fallen angel and former exorcist who only fell because she showed mercy to a young sinner. Her plight calls into question what makes a demon and what makes an angel. Trying to commit genocide is bad isn't it? What if they're all "evil"? Vaggie proves that not all the residents of hell are absolutely rotted beyond redemption. The songs she shares with Charlie are great and show how great their relationship is.

Another character completely blows that question up out of the water entirely. Sir Pentious was the first guest of the Hazbin Hotel. He was a classic cartoon villain, doing the most but always unsuccessful as their target walks away laughing without a scratch. In a total act of selflessness, which was a result of the bonds and friendships he made at the Hotel, he sacrificed himself to protect everyone. Sacrifice was how Constantine was able to get one over the devil in Constantine, and it's how Sir Pentious got into heaven in this show. The revelation that sinners can actually be redeemed shattered the angels' beliefs and they realized they might have been (completely were) wrong.

All in all, it was a great experience watching the show and I just wish Amazon Prime would order more episodes. The show suffers from the eight episode season curse, so some story beats come off a little rushed. That's my only real gripe with it. So it looks like I survived a musical and ended up liking it a lot. The music perfectly complimented the atmosphere a scene was conveying and the performances were mostly like music videos rather than crying and singing in the rain. They also acknowledge the singing and don't treat it like it didn't happen like I would if I was in a musical.

Now I am off to watch the other show in the universe, Helluva Boss.