Hazbin Hotel fans got a long-awaited backstory in season 2 episode 4, “It’s a Deal.” That episode is likely to prompt a lot of discussion — and raise a lot of questions about the nature of a certain demonic Overlord who’s seemingly a lot more powerful than anyone on the show realized. The new revelations come with a look back at the human life of a fan-favorite character before he died and was condemned to Hell.
Polygon has been checking in with series creator Vivienne Medrano (a.k.a Vivziepop) about season 2’s big revelations, and all the lore we aren’t seeing on-screen. She let us in on a secret about “It’s a Deal” — it’s a major tease for season 3 of the show. And she told us more about what goes into designing the human versions of her demonic animated characters.
[Ed. note: Spoilers ahead for episode 4 of Hazbin Hotel, season 2.]
Image: Prime Video
In “It’s a Deal,” a flashback reveals that fan-favorite character Alastor the Radio Demon was a serial killer in his human life. He was aware he was going to Hell, so he made contact with the afterlife in advance to secure himself a strong position there. Rosie, the charismatic leader of Hell’s cannibal community, promised Alastor he would become “the most powerful Sinner in Hell” in exchange for his soul.
This raises the question: How is Rosie powerful enough to elevate Alastor above all other Sinner Demons?
“The Rosie and Alastor deal is the first stepping stone in a much bigger story that involves so much, moving into season 3,” Medrano tells Polygon. “Obviously that is a perfect question: How is she that powerful? The answer could be many things, but the answer is in season 3. I’m very excited for people to see it.”
There’s no telling yet how long the audience will have to wait for Hazbin Hotel’s third season. A24 and Prime Video have green-lit seasons 3 and 4 (Medrano ultimately wants the show to run five seasons), but as Medrano often says in interviews, animation is a slow, lengthy process, and later seasons have no release dates yet. Still, she says holding off on those details is an important part of keeping season 2’s focus in the right places.
“The challenge of any kind of deal with demons, or stories that have mysteries, is giving people just enough information to be like, Something’s up here, and then revealing that as we go, and letting that be satisfying,” she says. “So I’m very excited.”
Image: Prime Video
Medrano promises that season 3 will address the questions fans have been asking, like why Rosie ordered Alastor to disappear for seven years, which weakened his influence in Hell.
“The whole seven years, and the deals these humans are doing, and all that — it’s feeding into a bigger narrative,” she says.
In the meantime, the Rosie/Alastor backstory episode offers another glimpse into what the core cast of Sinner Demons looked like as humans, the second after seeing Sir Pentious’ Victorian-era human form in episode 2. Medrano says a lot of thought went into these character designs.
“The human versions of the characters carry so much weight,” she says. “They range from looking really different from their demon form to looking very similar. With Pentious, the first one we see, there was a little bit of a debate internally between going with something that represents the character, versus going with something that’s very time-period accurate. We leaned toward making something that just felt like it was him.”
Image: Prime Video
She says the biggest debate over Pentious’ human design was his long hair: “We were like, ‘Nobody really had long hair like that in Victorian-era London.’ But at the same time, we think the silhouette is so important, and we also just felt he looked good. We were like, ‘This just feels right.’ We kind of gave the excuse that he’s a hermit, so he just let his hair grow out. So there’s always a way. As we design the human versions of these characters […] it’s such a fun thing to explore and figure out. I’m excited for people to see more of what the human forms look like.”
New episodes of Hazbin Hotel season 2 drop on Wednesdays on Prime Video.
