The Animated Series' Creator Unveils Alastor and Rosie's Backstory Serves as a Huge Season 3 Tease
Dedicated fans of the series finally received a much-anticipated backstory in the second season's fourth episode, called “It's a Deal.” This episode is likely to prompt a lot of discussion and pose numerous inquiries about the nature of a certain demonic Overlord who appears significantly stronger than anyone before understood. These fresh disclosures include a look into the human life of a beloved character before his death and sentence to the underworld.
A Significant Hint for Upcoming Installments
The show's creator disclosed an inside detail about “It's a Deal” – it acts as a huge hint for the third season. Additionally, she offered further details into the process of designing the human versions of her demonic animated characters.
Spoiler alert for episode 4 of Hazbin Hotel, season 2.
In “It’s a Deal”, a look back discloses that fan-favorite character Alastor the Radio Demon was a mass murderer in his mortal days. Being aware he was destined for Hell, he made contact with the realm beyond in advance to obtain a powerful role there. The charismatic leader, the charismatic leader the cannibal faction in Hell, vowed Alastor he would become “the strongest Sinner in Hell” in return for his eternal spirit.
This prompts an important query: How is Rosie sufficiently strong to elevate Alastor above every other Sinner Demons?
“The agreement between Rosie and Alastor is the initial building block in a much bigger story that encompasses so much, leading into the third season,” the creator explains. “Clearly that is an excellent question: How is she so strong? The answer could be various factors, but the revelation is in season 3. I'm very excited for fans to witness it.”
There’s no telling how long the audience will have to wait for Hazbin Hotel’s next season. The studios have green-lit the third and fourth seasons, but the creator frequently remarks that animation is a slow, lengthy process, and later seasons are undated. Still, she states holding off on those details is a crucial aspect of keeping the second season's focus where it belongs.
“The challenge of any agreement with demons, or narratives that have enigmas, is giving people sufficient clues to be like, Something's up here, and then revealing that gradually, and letting that be gratifying,” she says. “So I'm very excited.”
Questions Answered in The Next Season
The showrunner assures that season 3 will address the questions fans have been posing, like why the cannibal leader ordered Alastor to disappear for a seven-year period, which weakened his power in the infernal realm.
“The entire seven-year span, and the deals these individuals are making, and everything — it's feeding into a larger story,” she says.
In the meantime, the origin story episode offers another glimpse into what the core cast of Demonic Sinners appeared as as mortals, following after viewing Sir Pentious’ historical human form in the second episode. The creator says that a lot of thought went into the visual creation of these forms.
“The human versions of the characters carry great significance,” she says. “They range from looking really different from their infernal version to looking very similar. With Pentious, the initial design we see, there was a little bit of a debate internally between choosing a design that symbolizes the character, versus selecting something that's very time-period accurate. We opted for making a design that just felt like it was him.”
She mentions the biggest debate over the mortal look of Pentious was his long hair: “We were like, ‘Nobody really had long hair of that style in that historical period.’ But simultaneously, we think the silhouette is so important, and we also just felt he appeared attractive. We were like, ‘This just feels right.’ We sort of gave the excuse that he's a hermit, so he just let his hair grow out. So there is always a solution. As we create the mortal forms of these characters […] it's such a fun thing to investigate and figure out. I'm excited for fans to see more of what the human forms look like.”
New episodes of Hazbin Hotel season 2 drop on midweek on Prime Video.
