Helluva Boss is So Endlessly Confused

hell of a boss am I right it feels like everywhere you turn on this website it's somewhere in your search bar your home page your recommendations oh chances are if you clicked on this video you're already familiar with it in some capacity yeah sorry if that's not the case and you're totally lost but it's kind of what I expect considering the massive impact it's had on the general YouTube landscape created by popular animator Vivia Medrano AKA vibsy pop under her independent Animation Studio spindlehorse hell of a boss is technically not a fully original property but rather a spin-off of another popular IP of Vivian's husband Hotel I won't be going into detail about that series though as it's currently being developed with the help of a24 so we can only speculate how that'll turn out but to be honest even if it were fully released by now I wouldn't cover it saying is hey hell the boss has pretty much nothing to do with has been other than sharing the same world and B a spin-off should be able to stand on its own without the context of the series it's spinning off from and on that front hell of a boss does just find a distinguishing itself in tone and format the show follows a former circus acrobat Blitz the O is silent and a small crew of employees the immediate murder professionals who with their access to the Living World conduct assassinations on whoever in hell wants dead the semi-main leads outside of Blitz himself a snarky unprofessional and inappropriate but secretly caring boss or luna blitz's sardonic adopted hellhound receptionist Moxie his formal wimpy intellectual subordinate and Millie she's Moxie's wife so far the series has gone on for 10 episodes including its pilot having been funded entirely by fans and that makes it a pretty big achievement for animation on YouTube seeing his animators are often the most heavily discriminated against when trying to find success on the platform these days but putting that achievement aside to be 100 here I'm personally not a massive fan of the series until recently I'd honestly never even paid all that much attention to it other than in passing and from what I saw it it was fine not really my scene though but you know how YouTube is you watch one video on a specific popular topic and your feed keeps recommending you the same content till the end of time plus I see discussions in the series all the time on Twitter and a couple friends of mine keep up with it actively so they bring it up in conversation basically I felt like the universe was gonna keep pushing me to check out the show until I did and once I chose to actively sit down and watch it um I didn't like it there are Parts I enjoy bits of real competency and talent I see the potential ways it could improve if given the right push but overwhelmingly I found hell of a boss to be an absolute gaping tumor of inconsistency spurred on by an Earnest but misguided attempt at over ambition to go further into that though I'll have to tell you about the series so we're better to start than by discussing the World building around hell of a boss or I suppose the lack thereof so what's unique about this version of hell that our little quartet of Misfits calls home well from the small amount of information given to us about the setting as hell of a dozen Focus too heavily on it when they don't want to this interpretation of Hell basically mirrors Human Society in almost every way except it's split into seven areas representing the deadly sins Everyone's an [ __ ] and gangs are always fighting over territory though that's more of a has been Hotel thing that we don't witness at all in hellva and from there I thought about going into a dissection of how hell as a background for portions of the series isn't all too well defined Beyond resembling a slightly redder version of Earth with the atmosphere of South Detroit rather than feeling like well well hell but I couldn't figure out where to start that conversation and end it as there's so much I could talk about story of me writing this review I suppose at first I wanted to tackle the angle of why hell appears to have businesses and a monetary system when there isn't anything governing the citizens Beyond gangs and royalty that doesn't really give a [ __ ] so why or how could they form a regular economic system with classes rules Etc when there doesn't seem to even be some kind of law enforcement but then my mind just kept wandering aimlessly from there because the holes in Logic for this series in the world it tries to build are near never-ending it's sort of like trying to find all the flaws with the universe of cars they appear so deceptively simple when looked at from a non-critical lens but then one question just leads into another till the end of time you start by wondering why there are sidewalks if people don't exist and then it extends to wait a second how are houses businesses and whatnot built if none of them have hands and then wait another goddamn second how are cars in this universe made alive were they built or organically born to finally you're at wait another another God damn ass blasting minutes how do cars grow in age what I'm saying is that tackling the general flaws of hell of a boss and by extension has been hotel's universe is an impossible task so instead to keep it simpler I'm going to stick to the specific questions and narrative holes related to hell of a bus that would be important to address in the context of the stories it wants to tell though really that only narrows it down so much sorry if I switch from topic to topic quickly in this section most of the questions I'm about to ask don't have clear answers at least within the confines of what the show tells us so it's better not to dwell on them the first of which I want to ask being how does Death work for demons because a major aspect of the series is that the imps are constantly getting into trouble that could potentially kill them but if they were to die where would they go would they not just end up in hell again or were they like stop existing entirely rewatching has been Hotel they allude to these events in Hell called exterminations and the concept of territorial genocide but there isn't all too much elaboration there plus like I mentioned helva boss should be able to make its Concepts clear to the audience without me needing to look at supplemental works and I'd say this is a super important question to ask seeing as it could completely make or break several conflicts throughout the series The imps are in danger of dying in episodes 101 102 103 104 105 106 and 202 plus stolis a character I'll discuss later has assassins after him in episodes 102 and 105. so what happens if a demon dies in or outside of hell that's not something you can Leaf up to the imagination of your audience Viv it needs a statement of fact to determine why we should care if the imps or whatever demon characters potentially die and while we're on the topic of death I feel the need to seriously question the imp's business model their whole MO is taking out the living on behalf of clients that often have a grudge against their targets but what about when those targets are terrible people that would end up in Hell anyways when they died couldn't they just come after the imps or their clients later so far there have been two direct episodes where this question is relevant 101 and 104 and while in one of before they make it a point to address that bad people will go to hell 101 doesn't despite it arguably having more of a reason to address what that idea would imply basically in 101 the gang technically kills an entire family of humans that are shown to be absolutely evil to the core and once the deed is done the imps go back to Hell celebrate and that's where the episode ends but what about the family they just killed they're terrible people who worship Satan so logically they would end up in hell right meaning that while we don't have all the mechanics of death worked out here they could hypothetically come find the imps and kill them yeah isn't that like a massive oversight that the imps targets would hold a grudge in hell and come after them or the clients I mean in the highly specific scenario of 104 they're able to sort of brush off that concept but retrospectively 101 opens us up to this idea and it seriously makes me wonder why this has never been a problem for them before the imps no evil targets of theirs will go to hell that's been established yet they haven't so much has come up with a self-imposed rule to never take jobs with the idea that it could come back to bite them in the ass Moxie has illustrate a moral dilemma about killing Innocents in 101 so we can assume the majority of their victims aren't innocent and would go to hell so why if they never face serious consequences for this and speaking of serious consequences we're told across the series that the imps being found out could lead to them and by extension stolis getting in trouble but were never given an explanation as to why what exactly are people of the Living World going to do if they find out demons are real and Hell exists become better people so they don't end up in it or are we treating this like an underground Society type deal where the demons will be exterminated or get into a war with humans if they're found out first of all I don't really know why they would get into a war in the first place but in that case how would it happen we know only certain kinds of demons can travel between worlds so it isn't like there are a ton of portals waiting to be found or anything there's no direct line for the humans to get in so why is their existence treated like a secret the public can't dare find out about what repercussions are there to be had or is it a matter of stolis getting in trouble for allowing lower creatures to use his magic to access the human world but that can't be the case either since blatantly advertise their services and how they do it plus other members of stolus's family know about him giving it out to the m so what's the deal I guess we'll just have to throw it on the pile keeps on growing and it's not gonna stop anytime soon but I can already imagine the kind of comments I'll get for this that these internal logical fallacies aren't important because hell of a boss is more focused on its individual episodes and how it relates to the characters plus their developments I strongly disagree with that sentiment based on how many complete omissions of information there are but don't worry I can play this game however you want me to in fact I was counting on it dissecting the characters and their relationships is going to be a Pandora's box of its own for reasons you'll come to understand when it happens though so for now let's stick to non-character-related plot contrivances conveniences and inconsistencies on an episode episode basis because hell of a boss has a hell of a lot of them oh yeah that was so goddamn clean 101. I've basically already rung out everything here but it's got a [ __ ] ton of issues 103 Blitz gets into an altercation with an ex of his that's also a pop star succubus for and makes a bet that the imps can kill more people in a day than they can have sex with competing on a beach as high Jinks ensue and the way this whole thing's executed is a massive issue the imps are very clearly seen all around while they're killing targets and hanging out on the beach plus when they fight a fish monster that's also way out in the open I've already stated how the being discovered thing is unclear and how it would actively affect them or any other demons but regardless it's still an idea that they created so why does this episode display so much disregard for that rule and while I'm mentioning that with how seriously the crew takes not getting caught isn't it super negligent that they wouldn't have disguises I know Luna mentions this in the episode though I've got no idea why she'd have a disguise while the active assassins wouldn't but even after that the imps still never get full on human disguises seven episodes later why I can get Blitz not being prepared at first but Moxie and Millie it's sort of weird that they don't try anything to cover their appearance but don't worry guys for plot convenience's sake in this episode they're thought to be possums it's almost like they didn't need disguises at all since the the writers covered for them anyway funny how that works out huh just like the imps were able to get so many targets that happened to all the ginzier Spring Breakers in the exact same spot at the exact same time as their competition's concerts I mean people from Hell might come from all parts of the world with incredibly diverse backgrounds which could potentially be used to put the imps and unique situations with diverse settings and cultures that the writers chose but we also need the competition between imp and the succubuses to happen at the same time in the same place so suck it up buttercup it just works when did Todd Howard get here 104 oh boy this whole episode could be labeled a plot hole there's so many where do I even start the basic premise is that a Duo of billionaire inventors create a de-aging machine to be immortal or whatever you know as billionaires do but they accidentally haven't switched to Old instead of young not sure why they'd add an old lever to a d aging machine but okay and one of them live but the other doesn't so it comes straight to the imps asking to kill the living one so they can be reunited in Hell before they can kill him though it looks like he'll kill himself because he's old and whatnot before he can do that though I have an equivalent to amp cherub which saves people from dying shows up and tries to convince him life is still worth living for and from there the episode devolves into the imps trying to convince the billionaire of the opposite and that life isn't worth living for so he'll kill himself oh this is all so contrived first of all the imps have no reason to not end at all by killing this guy like they were hired to do instead of keeping up this tiresome back and forth with the cherubs like they do like by the end of the episode they make it sound as though the billionaire no longer craving death means the imps have no other way of killing him but they could shoot him at any time if they wanted to I've heard some attempting to justify the episode going on like it does by rationalizing that the imp's just like messing with the cherubs for the sake of it but dialogue suggests that they thought the only way to kill the guy was by having him do it himself but disregarding that the whole reason the billionaire wants to die is from being old so why doesn't he turn the switch on the de-aging device so it actually ages him back down it didn't explode or anything it's still there why doesn't he use it I suppose the writers didn't take that into consideration when they were setting this whole situation up though again regardless of if he wanted to live or not the imps should have been able to kill him at any time 106. Moxie and Blitz get captured by a group of paranormal investigators dork that want to ring information out of them well at the same time Millie and Luna infiltrate dork's base to save them really the only major problem I have with this episode story wise is the ending which is incredibly stupid and obviously a deus ex machina what happens is that after an impressive extended tracking shot fight scene the aims have run out of ammo and are implied to be left at the mercy of the remaining dorks who have guns I'd argue they could still easily win with Luna at their side and all the weapons around the people they've massacred but let's forget that with the crew seemingly at the mercy of the dorks and nowhere to run it looks like this is the end of the line oh but wait stylus comes in and saves the imps out of nowhere um how well he has his ways of knowing when they're in danger of course but if that's the case why didn't he show up earlier and for that matter back in 105 when Bliss was in danger of dying to strike her why didn't he intervene or in any of the other circumstances where Blitz was close to death obviously it's because they needed stolis to show up at the end for thematic reasons but in creating an excuse for him to do so they've inadvertently opened us up to wondering why he's never helped out before but what's worse than that is how stolis leaves the Dork agents alive why what's the strategy in that not sure if you noticed stolis but the imps have kinda already killed no less than 72 on-screen dorks if my accounting's correct he act so nonchalant about the whole thing saying no one will believe the demon obsessed lunatics but somehow he doesn't come to the conclusion that this massive compound would have basic security cameras like look it's right there in the background how are you not seeing this and even if he didn't see them there's no reason to leave any Witnesses no matter how the writers try to explain it but you know how it is if the dorks weren't Left Alive we never would have gotten the Cliffhanger that they have video footage of the imps they can use to be taken seriously uh but hold on the episode opens on them having footage of the imps already why did they need this when they already had proof whatever eat a dick that's why I beg your pardon but you know what in the end who cares hell of a boss is all about the characters baby love them characters hell yeah but there's a good couple missing pieces there as well and that's supposed to be the main selling point of hell of a boss I think so it's got the least excuses to be less than solid not that the other issues I've highlighted weren't also valid but you get what I'm saying if the character writing in the character-based show isn't up to Snuff then what are we doing here before ripping into the negatives though I do want to give a bit of a spotlight to the characters and Dynamics I believe have been done well after all the show did get popular for a reason other than shipping and I'm not going to avoid singing a Show's Praises when it's deserved mainly Blitz as a character has to be the most competently written out of any in the main cast and he really stands out both within the confines of the show and the overarching universe he inhabits if you've watched the pilot for husband and paid attention to helova it's no secret that the shared World we're introduced to has tons of characters acting outwardly shitty for reasons that almost never go much deeper than people and hell are [ __ ] so it's super refreshing that blitz's vulgarity and unprofessionalism actually has a purpose and significance beyond that and it's executed so well at first we're led to believe Blitz is exactly like all the rest if not a bit more lewd and show busy fitting of his background but as his past is continually explored and keeps coming back to bite him we learn in 106 that this outer Persona of his is nothing more than a front he uses to drive people off when he thinks they're getting too close it's a subconscious coping so Blitz doesn't have to admit he's been burned by love time and time again to the point he might be scared of showing it and that adds so much to his character including when viewed in retrospect it adds a whole other dimension to why he's so reluctant being honest with his employees went out of his way to destroy a symbol of his past in 102 tried to upstage verasica in 103 and so much more he wants to show he's moved on from a gun over these mementos of his trauma but in reality it's his reluctance to accept the outcomes of these relationships that's led to him never addressing them and the problem continuing to get progressively worse he's scarred physically and emotionally from some past event when we don't have the full details for yet but know enough to understand it was the Catalyst for his self-destructive Tendencies and the longer he goes without coming to terms with it the more it will affect his relationships in the long run leaving him even less likely to confront it head-on in the future but more importantly leaving him even more deprived of love and this behavioral mindset of his adds insight as to why he cares for Luna as much as he openly does he wants an outlet to express his true feelings his true self and Luna as his adoptive daughter is someone he's comfortable doing that with so he accidentally over indulges that's a sweet Bond that's left up to interpretation of points but established enough for us to create a picture of why Blitz acts like he does towards her and blitz's relationship with Moxie adds on to his character in another way pushing him forward to open up be more honest and act less antagonistic since Moxie knows that isn't who he is and Blitz craves exactly what he has as I described at the beginning of this video Moxie is most commonly formal and wimpy which Blitz uses as his main ammunition to make fun of him as often as possible but he's also incredibly vocal about his feelings and willing to love others openly which Blitz from as far back as the pilot has been shown envying so he's got a dichotomy with Moxie that isn't so direct at first but becomes obvious the closer they get as co-workers and friends it's a charmingly complex connection but inversely they've also got a childishly simple Dynamic that's entertaining and fun to watch so while seeing all this character development is nice you can also enjoy individual episodes of them just bouncing off one another since they're so well characterized what I can't say the same for on either front though are the other imp employees who are more so included to better assert Blitz and Moxie's aforementioned personality traits which wouldn't be a problem on its own if everything else about them wasn't so undercooked Millie especially as Moxie's wife does a great job accentuating the qualities he's got that Blitz Longs for but she's also by far the least focused on of the imps in an individual context and has little to no screen presence of her own that moment earlier where I called her Moxie's wife instead of listing off her defining character attributes that wasn't a joke she's seriously most often used as a prop to accentuate Moxie's character and I do like Moxie as I've made abundantly clear but considering she's one of the four technically main leads of the series I'd like her to have a more independent use in the story than just as an accessory to another character she's cheerful and likes killing sure but Viv and Brandon have rarely gone beyond that to give her truly three-dimensional character traits 105 almost did mainly centering on Moxie's relationship with Millie's parents which you'd assume would give her a Time To Shine for for once but no Millie herself isn't a prominent character at all in the story before the climax where she keeps up the same routine she's always had telling Moxie he's loved and helping to Define his character while simultaneously finding a way to not do the same for her own at all really Millie's whole existence and hell of a boss feels more like an afterthought tacked on at the end rather than a conscious addition like the other imps think about it this way if I took Moxie out of hell of a boss and put him into another setting with a new cast to interact with you can imagine how that would go right of course you would Moxie has such a strong identity it'd be hard not to understand how he'd react same with blitz but what about Millie how would she Fair have taken out of hell of a boss doesn't matter the setting just imagine a version of her that's not in hell isn't an assassin and doesn't have Moxie you can't almost everything her character is is directly related to the setting so without it she's got nothing going for her she's entirely undefined and Luna has the same general issue just under a whole new set of circumstances what I mean by this is she follows the same general idea as Millie by accentuating Blitz and his capacity to love but rather than lacking an identity of her own Luna's missing definition as a character comes from how she seemingly faced a massive Attitude Change in the one episode of season 2 she's appeared in so far and worse than that it also wasn't a good or worn to change season one gave us a Luna that was sardonic and repressive of her emotions but not uncontrollably aggressive at least not to the other imps she always had a subtle sort of Ugg whatever reaction when given orders but it was clear she still had respect for Blitz as her boss as well as positive feelings for him as her adopted father the most clear representation I can think of being in 103 which sets up a conflict of her potentially realizing that she could appreciate him more instead of shrugging off all of his affection that's a realistic conflict that tons of older teens whether adopted or not can relate to on a personal level and us getting to see a side of Luna that clearly indicates she cares for Blitz and doesn't tend to hurt him as nice plus after 103 there are a couple explicit moments done to show how she's becoming more open to respecting his orders and accepting his love too bad it still hasn't gotten to proper conclusion as far as we know yeah I know there's still an episode in season one that's yet to release because of copyright issues but based on what's come out so far for the next season I doubt it's going to change their dynamic in a positive way and if it does resolve the emotional conflict between the two that honestly makes Luna's appearance in season 2 so much worse you see whereas in season one she wasn't onto a motive intended to passively shrug off Blitz or half-heartedly accept his affection now she straight up decks him whenever he tries to hug her freaks out at the slightest hint of criticism and completely shrugs off what she's ordered to do until she wants to like what happened here it's as if all the development she got beforehand was forgotten in favor of bringing out her aggressive side that was more prominent in the pilot but we're not even just a few episodes out from the pilot now we're a whole season I get it's the first episode written by a new guy to the team and all but if this is how they're going to be writing Luna from now on I'm really not on board with it it completely messes up the previous ties between her and Blitz ignoring everything done with the characters so far to act like she always had these kind of behaviors when there was no indication beforehand oh look it stole it okay so stole this is a character I've actively gone out of my way not to talk about until now since I have so much to say about him and the Quasi relationship he has with lids I knew I had to save it till the right time so it didn't feel like I was going off on a massive tangent and guess what it's time [ __ ] so what's up with this bird Prince thing well starting from his brief appearance in the pilot stolis was at first a side character that explained how the imps could travel to the human world while other hell denizens couldn't coming from a long line of royalty that granted him access to a book The grimoire which lets him travel across Realms and Blitz got access to it by being stolus's butt buddy that was the full extent of their relationship in the beginning and to be honest I was fine with that he worked as a running gag slash plot device to get the imps into interesting scenarios and he wasn't fully two-dimensional thanks to an episode about his family life and how his sleeping with blitz was affecting that but then 106 came along and tried to add more death Tao stole some Blitz felt about their relationship and they did it in a way that for now let's just say lessons move the additional depth in question is implied to us in a dream sequence between Blitz and Moxie meant to describe blitz's personal issues using two opposing Styles based on the perspective of who's dreaming Moxie's Hallucination is a pretty basic if well animated musical parody extrapolating on what the audience has already been led to believe that Blitz is selfish and pushes people away but Moxie is willing to look past to help him open up after sharing his true feelings everything is super clear befitting Moxie's brand of personable honesty so as you'd expect blitz's dream in contrast is chaotic and messy bringing up the examples of why he acts the way he does using characters he's been implied to have a past with to do it this includes fizzeroli blitz's ex-partner that reminds him why he doesn't want to work alone verasica his old love interest that serves as a result of his selfish neglectful behavior and Striker a newer entity that Tim splits to betray the imps implying he still craves intimacy they're all super relevant to what's being presented and help give definition to ideas we'd already been introduced to but left to think about and then they're Solas so far in terms of his connection to Blitz the only idea we've ever gotten about it is as a transactional hookup and nothing more but in this dream sequence he's portrayed as blitz's ideal lover the thing he wants more than anything sat atop a pedestal to represent as much in everything however still is can also only bring Blitz closer to him through chains indicating that from the way I interpret it splits either feels the relationship is only able to happen through allowing someone else to control it or he's Shackled by the fact the relationship is only transactional and can't be genuine due to their opposing statuses personally I think the former is a stronger contender in this case but they both come back to one idea Blitz wants to have a real relationship with stolis but can't because of the way their relationship currently functions and I have a problem with that not necessarily the idea itself that's a fine conflict an interesting one even but we've never had that kind of implication before pilot stolis says he wants blitz's peen 101 he says Blitz has to give him the peen monthly to keep using the grimoire 102 he brings Blitz along to an amusement park trip meant for his daughter explicitly to flirt with him and say he wants blitz's peen 105 in the aftermath of a particular Affair he says Blitz can come to some random events nowhere in here do we see Blitz viewing what he does with stolos as anything more than obligatory so how can the show claim Solus blitz's ideal love when we've never seen any other side to how they interact furthering on from 106 to 107 Blitz uses the pretense of date with stole this to spy on Millie and Moxie clearly not caring about actually being attentive to Solace at almost any point yet at the end of the episode we're shown a picture of Blitz with stolis that implies He does care about it and so I gotta ask why what why what drives him to care so much about wanting something deeper from stolis there has to be a justification like into a one we see from beginning to present how Blitz installs his relationship started they met his kids and hung out for a day then 25 years later they offhandedly happen to meet each other and amidst Blitz trying to get the grimoire Solas mistook it for Blitz coming on to him and Blitz banged him out of pity after stolla said he was his first friend it gives us all the context for how their Deal started up so where is blitz's motivation for specifically wanting to be with stolis Beyond getting to use the grimoire I'm not asking for much I just want one goddamn interaction between them that displays what Blitz values in stolis that's what the show is trying to imply the blitz has rejected so much affection in his life out of a fear to love and still listens Blitz is ideal for that to potentially change but if you're gonna give us that you need to show why and the exact same is true on stolus's end remember how I said Blitz didn't show any more meaningful affection for stolos Beyond horish bartering till 106 that holds just as much truth on the opposite side from the pilot to 105 the most we'd learned about solos's motivation for sleeping with blitz was because he was unhappy in his marriage that's where it started and ended there was no hint that he valued their sexual escapades as anything more than a fun fling to get away from his turbulent family life with a wife that only cared about status but since 106 goes ahead and says blitz's perception of Solus is completely different from the one we've come to know the cannon flips on a dime so now stolis also wants a real relationship with blitz and desperately at that we weren't led to believe that was the case at all before blitz's dream sequence but now starting with 107 stolis is super keen on having a romance with blitz that isn't purely sexual but where does this come from and more importantly why what does he see in Blitz that he doesn't see in anyone else returning to 201 still seems to have a fall in love at first sight typing Contour Blitz when they're kids coming to love him from there on but we're never told why that's the case you can't just say stole his fell in love at first sight and not give any more detail s this a fairy tale is Sebastian from The Little Mermaid gonna come out and start singing kiss the boy I guess he'd fit in with all the [ __ ] [ __ ] look you've set up the reason for why both Blitz and stolis would want Mutual sincere love from a partner but of Hang-Ups about if they can manage it you've set up why they have the relationships they do and through misunderstandings believe that neither wants to be together when they do you've shown the toxic lustful side of their relationship that hurts both parties but you haven't given a satisfying answer as to what makes them especially want each other without that their feelings are shallow they're unclear they're open to potentially changing again if it remains so ambiguous and that's also exactly how I described stolos's family life with Stella and his daughter Octavia split between conflicting ideas and leaving out scenes that we need in order to believe it so the whole thing feels Hollow starting with Octavia I'll give hell of a boss this it does a great job portraying teen characters with emotional problems when they aren't acting inconsistent as hell and Via perfectly represents a kid that's grown up in a household where the parents don't love each other she acts distant from stolis but that's only to cover for how much he's hurting over the situation she doesn't quite understand the complexities of adult relationships so she jumps to conclusions which scares her and though she isn't willing to admit it at first she cares about stolus way more than she lets on I like that she's written about as realistically as you could for a character in this environment there's absolutely nothing wrong with her no the bigger problem with via isn't even her own fault it's how much the show wants to try convincing us solos isn't a terrible dad to her and has been trying his best when within the show we've rarely seen that and instead mostly been told in moments like the end of 201 stoless and by proxy the writers go to Great Lengths stating via means everything to him and that he wants to create the best possible scenario for her despite the circumstances only held back by the cruelty of Stella but that's not what we've seen I already mentioned that in 102 stolis hired Blitz as a bodyguard in order to flirt with him when it was meant for Via but what I didn't mention was that it was a trip meant to take her mind off everything that was happening between her parents you know the one that directly involves Blitz how am I supposed to believe that still is trying so hard to be there for Via when he doesn't so much just pay attention to her until the very end of the episode it'd be one thing if stolis went to the park with via in a genuine attempt to take her mind off things and happen to meet Blitz by chance slowly shifting his Focus unintentionally as via realized her dad was paying more attention to the Imp he was banging on the side than her as a matter of fact that'd be an amazing way of naturally bringing us to the same scene at the end where stole his Comforts via and reassures her that he does care and would never abandon her but he hired Blitz to come and put all his focus on him from the beginning you can tell me Solas cares deeply about and has tried to make a livable home for Via her whole life all you want but when the episode where you try to make that clear is so full of contradictions to that premise I gotta question ya yes we get the moment at the beginning of the episode where stole his conference via as a kid yes we see him have a heart to heart with her at the end of the episode but with the context of what happens before in the same story the latter interaction comes off less like a father in disrepair trying to explain to his kid why he still loves her despite how things may appear and more like BoJack Horseman doing another shitty selfish thing and claiming he didn't mean to hurt anyone the difference being that Bojack goes out of its way to say no you were a selfish piece of [ __ ] that wasn't thinking of anyone but yourself it doesn't matter what kind of excuses you give whereas in hell of a boss still listen via's conversation barely mentions that he almost completely ignored her by bringing Blitz along and nonchalantly moves on to the next subject that shouldn't be dropped so easily when it's such a majorly shitty thing to do why don't they talk about that more how stolis's Lust For Blitz is taking over what should be meaningful moments with his daughter how what was once something he attempted to hide from via is now out in the open to the point he basically is shoving it in her face these are questions I'd love for the series to confront to give answers to but they don't so how can I consider stolis a caring father let alone empathize with and want him to get together with blitz when all you do is tell me that's the way he really is without showing it hey I've got an idea a hell of a boss staff writer yelled from his work cave where no sunlight reaches let's just make Stella a massive unrepenting [ __ ] now I'm not saying Stella wasn't a [ __ ] before she was outright said to be in 201 she had almost no screen time before that point but in what we did see there were signs that it wasn't solely stoless's fault that the marriage wasn't good for instance in Stella's debut speaking roles she's more upset at stoas for sleeping with a lower class citizen than the fact that he cheated on her to begin with and subsequently at the end of 105 it's revealed she hired a hit against dolas right in front of him so she's not exactly been wife of the year but until 201 there was still a level of ambiguity to why they were so dysfunctional that stolos could only be satisfied by having an affair with blitz but 201 throws all of that out to just straight up say she's been an insane Mega [ __ ] from the day she was born that likes tormenting Solas because she gets off to it and that is so God damn lazy not to mention out of character for the show so much of hell of a boss is about trying to unpeal characters that are at first deceptively simple but are more than what they front as Bliss isn't an [ __ ] that pushes people away for the sake of it he does it to keep them from getting close and gaining the potential to hurt him Luna isn't angsty and despondent cause why not she has no social skills or friends and acts as though she doesn't care to cover it up and despite it's like a build up the show in this same episode Stella is revealed to be a [ __ ] attempts to convey that stolos isn't into Blitz just for sex but actually loves him no matter how little chemistry or Reason is given point is them turning Stella into a super villain that's always been evil from childhood for no particular reason to flies in the face of all they're trying to accomplish and it transforms there could have been a compelling conflict into a cut and dry abuse story that makes stolis going after Blitz okay cause Stella doesn't deserve your sympathy and I'm not implying that she needs to be sympathetic or that she was sympathetic at any point beforehand just that I wish she was given more reason for being the way she is and acting as she does then that's how she's always been since it fundamentally goes against what the show has tried to do with its main cast though to be fair all I've talked about so far has been in service of returning to my original thesis which is that the show has been trying to do so much over so long it could be actively harming helova When taking into account the show's format as I mentioned when summing up the series back at the beginning of this video it currently has nine technically 10 episodes that have been released so far and for sure that's a massive achievement don't get me wrong but we also need to remember that spindlehorse is not a network funded prime time animation studio it's an independent company primarily made up of Freelancers and funded through fans which means they don't have the same resources to constantly be working on several episodes at a time like Studios with bigger teams often do assumedly they have to take a slower more precise approach depending on monthly Revenue time needed to finish one project over another Etc and so on average a new hell of a Boss episode comes out around every two to three months excluding the long periods of time between Seasons anyway there's nothing wrong with them being a bit slower at least in a vacuum that's just how it is where it becomes a headache though is when the crew sets up as much as they have in terms of loose character Dynamics hanging plot threads expansive Concepts and ongoing narratives that all need to have resolutions and they just keep adding more without resolving the previous ones because they don't have time now I can totally understand the want to leave your audience on the edge of their seats by not concluding a story or character Arc or conflict right away that's the point of the Cliffhanger right but eventually if you add too many Cliffhangers and open-ended ideas without concluding them the audience is gonna start to think okay so when is this gonna happen and I'm no exception I've been expecting an episode that describes what Blitz season stole us as more than a butt buddy since 106 one that has Luna come to terms with how she treats Blitz since 103 and one that shows the positive side of solace's relationship with Octavia since 102 but no we still haven't gotten any of them in fact 202 one of the few episodic Side Stories however also likes to do between setting up all its plot threads because of course we have time for filler can't have Avatar without the [ __ ] great passage or whatever the [ __ ] does everything it can to act as though the rest of the show hasn't happened at all and it is so frustrating as I said before Luna regresses from how she developed Alton season one to be way more aggressive and once again dismissive of blitz's feelings but also stolis acts sexual with blitz as the 107 and 201 didn't come right before it which were about him being disillusioned to their relationship and how Blitz doesn't like that kind of stuff yet here it's not so much as mentioned or hinted to have happened everything's got a bagged business as usual you can't do that what's the point of creating all these hanging threats for characters and stories if the crew are gonna completely ignore them when it's easiest I don't understand I don't understand what they're trying to do with the show one moment they're developing character arcs and relationships the next they're setting up entirely new characters to get developed later the next they're switching up already established relationships to be completely different the next they're adding lore that opens up more questions than answers the next they're doing episodic one-offs with villains they wait until some far-off date to bring back the next they're throwing all that out to act like it didn't happen it's been so hard trying to format a full-on review of this show that has a thesis and clear indication of the point I want to make because it keeps all filtering what it wants to be and we can't even get a definite [ __ ] Focus isn't the imps in their business is it stole this and blitz's relationship is the slow build of one-off stories a continued narrative isn't about [ __ ] wacky Wally wackford is it is anyone's guess at this point the show clearly can't make up its mind what they want to focus on more despite the fact they don't have nearly as much time as basically any other long-running show Dempsey you Brandon and the new guy need to think about the big picture when you write this [ __ ] that or get a continuity supervisor so they can do it for you because you're not very good at this yourself [ __ ] based on storyboards and sneak peeks vivzi and crew have given us over the course of this year it looks like the next few episodes are going to be more prominently about characters we've been waiting to get expansions on or have continuations for such a striker and fizroly which is a step in the right direction but I want to say this vivzi Brandon new guy listen closely listen to my words stop adding characters stop creating relationships between characters that haven't had them before stop adding overarching conflicts to expand on later okay you have enough there's no need to add any more right now what you should be focusing on at this moment is making sure all your characters have good motivations for why they act like they do to others keeping those characters consistent with their development and growth over the series so far giving closure to the villains you've set up which you seem to currently be doing maintaining continuity on an episodic and overarching level and figuring out where your main focus lies is it about the imps and their job or do you want it to be more about stolets as a relationship and how it relates to the two's respective families whether found or blood related on a regular cartoon with seasons of 20 episodes or more fitting the two together on equal footing would be very possible but with spindle horses production schedule and how distant episode releases are it kind of feels like one is restricting the other and vice versa you don't have to get rid of either that's not what I'm saying but choose which one should be more prominent and stick with it because I want the series to succeed not only on a commercial level but as a piece of Storytelling there are plenty of great ideas and implementations hell of a boss has had so far it's obvious how much passion the crew has for the project it has impressed me on multiple levels with its production quality in terms of Animation songwriting voice acting and more but everything on the writing side is becoming more confused unfocused and chaotic as its ambition becomes so overwhelming the series can barely keep up with it anymore so to sum it up take a step back remember what you're trying to make keep the scope of what you're doing in mind and do the best you can I've been just stopped and you've been out all night Mister care to explain peace out [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] thank you

Channel: Just Stop

Views: 704,437

Keywords: Helluva Boss Review, Helluva Boss Rant, Hazbin Hotel, Helluva Boss Just Stop, Stolitz, Blitz Helluva Boss, Loona Helluva Boss, Helluva Boss Deconstruction, Just Stop Hazbin Hotel, Vivziepop, Brandon Rogers, Richard Horvitz

Id: eCVW7pLyx60

Length: 39min 29sec (2369 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 25 2022