But with season 2 ended, what comes next? A24 and Prime Video have already greenlit Hazbin Hotel’s third and fourth season (Medrano is hoping for five, ultimately), but there’s no clear timeline for them to air. So Polygon talked to Medrano about the season finale — Vox and Alastor’s rematch, the lack of payoff for Lute’s season 2 rage and rebellion over Adam’s death, what parts of her ongoing story she was happiest to finally get into fans’ hands, and what they can expect when season 3 arrives.
This interview has been edited for concision and clarity. Spoilers for season 3 ahead.
I went back and re-watched Hazbin’s 2019 pilot, and noticed how much of season 2’s conflict is teased there, in terms of her face-off with the media, and the question of proving whether Sinners can be redeemed. It feels like you were planting season 2 seeds really early. Was this whole season planned out to some degree when the pilot went up?
Vivienne Medrano: Yes and no. Obviously, a lot has changed — it’s been years since the pilot. But the narrative of the show, I’ve had in my head for a very long time. So I was able to put some of that into the pilot. And that’s why spiritually, it made sense to just jump into a season spiritually following the pilot, instead of retelling it. I was like, Enough of this holds up that if you watched it, it still leads into the season of television.
What was exciting about this season was, there were certain things in the pilot that we didn’t get to do, certain jokes, certain comments. I love that we got [season 2’s first episode] to spiritually follow the pilot even more, and kind of get almost a scene that feels like it could have been from the original pilot. The pilot had a lot of Easter eggs that ultimately will age like wine in the show. [Laughs]
There’s a huge mid-season throwdown between Vox and Alastor, and then they have an even bigger fight in the finale — how did you approach those battles in storyboarding, especially in terms of making them both dramatic but distinctive from each other?
I can’t take the credit! The board artists are phenomenal on the show, and actually both fight scenes were combinations — the fight scene with the Vees, the point of that fight was just to be fun. I really wanted a fight between these two groups of characters that we’ve come to know — the Vees, who are a really amazing threesome, and the “Alastor gang,” as they call it, which is Alastor and the two souls he controls. Getting their dynamic together, and getting to see them face off against the different Vees, was just a really fun concept that from the beginning we wanted to happen. But the tone of that fight is obviously just to be fun, to be cool, and to get to see these characters in action, get to see how they fight, get to see how the dynamics between the two clash.
The finale fight has a lot more weight. It’s a lot more emotionally driven. It’s really about these two characters who have this really long history, and this really distinctive dynamic, really having it out. So the finale fight, I think, was a combination of at least four artists. A lot of artists put their work into that fight, into that finale, and did an amazing job. That episode in general just had so many people touching it — some people would just do this part of the fight, some people just do this part.
Obviously the scale was different: The first fight was dynamic and cool and stylish, and the second fight was grand, and the scale was huge, and much more destruction was happening. So we had to approach the two differently. I love how it turned out.
Lute’s anger and her resistance to Heaven backing down from war is one of the bigger threads running through this season that hasn’t come to a finale yet. Is her story going to come to a head in season 3? Season 4?
I probably can’t say definitively which season we’ll get a payoff, but I will say it’s within those two. The thing about Lute that I think is so interesting is, she’s unraveling. I think it’s really important that we set up her motivation and her anger and her reaction to the death of Adam in season 1 — I think it was really important to plant that flag, about her anger and her mental health deteriorating. I think we need that marker, so as the show goes on, it can lead to that culmination for her.
It always made sense that she probably won’t have her authentic conclusion until later in the show. She’s the character with the most pent-up, the most built-up emotions, in terms of how she’s treated, and her just witnessing all the other narratives between Heaven and Hell. Clearly she’s the character that is the most black-and-white of all our characters, in terms of how she views the world. So seeing all this change and development, and all that’s going to happen over the course of the show is impacting her. And that’s something I felt very strongly that we need to build to.
What are you most relieved to have out there at this point? What in season 2 did you most enjoy fans digging their teeth into?
The character of Vox has really grown on me. Obviously I loved him from the start, but writing this season, and knowing where his story goes in the future, I really fell in love with him as a character. I love villains, but I also love villains that have a lot of range, and dynamic shift and growth, for better or worse. So I’m very excited for people to see the full scope of his character — this season, we got to see almost every dynamic, every emotional range of him. I am really relieved to have a character like that have such a 360 view.
But I’m just excited for people to see the tone shift and the quality of the animation. Everything that’s been so elevated. Some of my narrative like, Oh God, I can’t wait for people to see that is in season 3. That’s when we get so many of the reveals. Season 2, I’m just relieved to see how people react to backstories like Sir Pentious’, like Alastor’s. I’ve stated Alastor’s backstory before, but I was excited for people to get to see that for real.
What can you tease about season 3 at this point?
I’ve been pretty open that it’s my personal favorite part of the story. So I am excited for people to see a season that is really emotional, in a lot of ways. It’s the most romantic season, which I love as a romance writer. I just love the dramatic, the angst, the twists and turns of season 3.
And I’m also excited for people to see a character we’ve built up — I won’t say who, just to be extra-safe, but I think people will know by the end of this season who I’m talking about. A character who’s been built up as sort of a friendly face, or an anti-hero, a character who is on the right side for the first two seasons, getting to step into a villain role, and getting to see the nuance and the real motivation behind a very trickstery, devious character who has his own agenda that’s much more sinister in season 3. Getting to see that arc play out, and getting to see that dynamic, I’m personally very excited for that aspect of the story.
I’m also just excited to put more focus on the Morningstar family. They are some of my favorite characters in my universe, and I am really excited to explore more of them, because the first two seasons have been so granular, and have been about these external forces. So to pull season 3 a little bit more inward is something that I’m really looking forward to everyone seeing.
Hazbin Hotel season 2 is now streaming on Prime Video.
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