so... new helluva ep... (rant/review)

spoilers, obvously

i have thoughts about the latest episode (mastermind) so heres my opinion on this garbage fucking piece of trash show. ive been a fan of vivs art since the early 2010s so i am required to watch everything she ever makes forever now i guess even if it sucks. both helluva and hazbins writing sucks so fucking bad but at least theyre nice to look at, especally helluvua

this episodes animation was absolutely incredible, but thats expected from vivs stuff at this point. i totally understand people who say her character designs are ugly and uninspired but you cant deny that this animation is some of the best out there. not even just in indie projects, its hard to find big budget shit out there that looks this good.

now that being said, the pacing was fucking insane. there were so many shots that were literally a second long so i had to rewind and/or pause to be able to even tell what was happening. this episode wouldve been much better if they gave it an extra 10 minutes or even made it a 2 parter, but i doubt theyre gonna fix their pacing any time soon. the last episodes pacing was pretty great tbh. it was a lot smaller of a story mostly focusing on character development and backstory, but this one was super plot heavy. 

i think the reveal of satan was fine but unceremoniously dropping the revealing two sins in the background was such a stupid move. T_T like seriously i dont think either of them even a speaking roll. maybe a max of 30 seconds of screen time for the debut of two of the most important characters in this world. gmfu. they couldve at least had all the sins silhouetted until theyre speaking. that wouldve been cool 

the dialogue was painful as always but at least the song wasnt actually difficult to sit through like the last couple ones. the jokes used to cut the tension of pivotal scenes were alright, a couple got a chuckle out of me but there was nothing really special or noteworthy. this was really supposed to be an intense emotional episode, but the fast ass pacing made it hard for any of the emotional beats to really land. there was no time for any of the characters emotions to really resonate because they would immediately change. 

were well into the second season and its still a little difficult for me to really care about what happens to these characters. like at the end of the episode stolas gets his rank, powers, and territory taken away. where did he even rule over? imp city? just his castle? some other unnamed location? we never see him doing anything related to his rank as a royal. the only time that happened was in season 1 when he did some ritual in a completely different location. it seems like he didnt leave the house much anyway, so outside of getting kicked out of his home how is this banishment going to effect him? since he moved in with blitz at the end of the episode im assuming he was banished just from his castle, not the whole ring. we havent even seen him interact with his daughter in like 10 episodes. it seems like they completely forget about her existence until it comes time for stolas to feel bad about their relationship for an episode.

i fucking hate this show. it couldve been good but the writing is just complete dogshit. belphagors design looks cool tho. i think shes a sheep or something. the sloth ring is supposed to be hells medical industry so i hope they do something interesting with drugs for her or barbie wire, since they seem to refuse to really tackle the themes of addiction in hazbin. (dont get me started on that trainwreck. im just gonna steal angel dust and write an actually good story about addiction and sex work set in hell. or ill just draw more porn of him. yeah...)

anyway, stolas looked hot in this episode. id fuck the bird