Geek Kingdom :  Hazbin Hotel Review

What’s the plot?

The story of Hazbin Hotel revolves around the princess of Hell and the daughter of Lucifer himself, Charlie Morningstar, a young woman who dreams of opening a hotel meant to redeem those who were damned to Hell and give them a chance to go to Heaven. With her girlfriend Vaggie,  along with the carefree stripper Angel Dust, the tired bartender Husk, the psychotic housemaid Nifty and the powerful overlord Alastor, Charlie sets out on a quest to achieve her goal and save the sinners from the yearly extermination done by the angels. Unfortunately her plans quickly fall apart as Adam, the first man and head of the extermination, rejects Charlie’s proposals and makes plans to move the extermination up from next year to six months. Now Charlie and her friends are thrown into a race against time to prove to Heaven that sinners can be redeemed before the largest extermination that Hell has ever seen kills everyone there…

Overall the plot is done really well, but there are several issues which really bring down the quality of the story. The show only has eight episodes which severely limited the amount of time the writers had to advance the plot and develop all the characters, leading to some loose threads which hamper the experience. Adding on to this is the fact that far too many ideas and characters were introduced without being properly fleshed out, leading to half-baked arcs that go nowhere due to the episode count and also limits what could be focused on throughout the show. Finally, there was a lack of subtlety in the character’s personalities and plot development as the audience is essentially told about these things instead of being shown through actions and dialogue. 

While these issues do lessen the impact of the story, the show does manage to do a lot of things right and weave together a cohesive, albeit very rocky, narrative that is worth checking out.