Hazbin Hotel (season 2)

When I watched the pilot for Hazbin Hotel, I adored it. It had a good balance of serious vs. silly. The musical nature worked. The characters were appealing. And I suppose I could say it has an irreverent edge that drew me in too. The series was one of the few bits of entertainment I would say I truly anticipated and even was the final nudge to get me to subscribe to Amazon Prime.

The first season was pretty great. Some of the voice actor changes were a little off-putting, but grew on me. The season was filled with banger songs. Really, I loved it all around, I think.

The second season didn't quite hit with me in the same way, though. 

Releasing two episodes (of eight) a week was a detriment in my book. The first two episodes were largely showing fallout from perspectives of Hell and Heaven, without moving things forward much at all. The next four then set up the stakes, explaining a few things and revealing others, but they felt moving a little fast and left me thinking "that's an awful lot of threads to try to pull together in the last two episodes." And the last two... well, they did manage to pull most of that together in a way that felt rushed, but managed a pretty satisfying conclusion. I can't help but think having to wait a week at each stage soured me on things rather than building anticipation, though. So I'm reasonably happy with the plot of the season as a whole, I'd say the end was rushed and the pace of release lessened the experience.

Without getting into spoilers, I like most of the character reveals/development, but some of it is disheartening to watch. I should have paid closer attention to a specific scene, as that made it difficult to read some things later. One relationship really feels retconned/fluffed up to me, but doesn't bother me overly much. At the conclusion, there are still lingering questions in a few areas - that's probably good.

I found the songs, as many as there are, comparatively lacking. There seem to be fewer songs and more "characters singing through a scene." That's no sin for a musical, but at the end of the season I can only think of one song with any real presence of its own, and it didn't click with me anything like season one's half-dozen or more songs I'd get wrapped up in and sing along to. So that's not terrible, but it is a bit disappointing.

And that's probably what I would say about the season as a whole. It isn't bad, but it's not measuring up to what came before. Season one is something I would recommend to anyone who is not automatically put off by a crassly adult animated musical based loosely on a religion. Season two is more something I would only really recommend to people already invested in the series. It's satisfying to see the story progress, but isn't as good in and of itself.