The short was written by Skye Henwood, who isn’t as bad as Lyle rath or Adam Neylan, she’s better than vivienne but that’s not much of a feat.
Lyle Rath has potential as a parody musician. I personally enjoyed Mustang Dong. But his writing is forgettable. I only saw Mission Zero that he is credited with writing and I cannot tell you what happens outside of Stolas coercing Blitz into sex. And that scene specifically feels like a Medrano-written scene. At the very least she was breathing down his shirt collar while he was writing it.
I didn't see his short, however. I know people generally didn't care for it. I think I even saw some fans who were put off by it. I know of the incest joke at the very end and the general premise of Blitz and Moxxie finishing a job only to get cut off and Blitz hunts the guy down in a road rage.
So yeah. That incest joke was not the punchline he thought it was.
He has someone (I think Blitz) mention that the guy could be an incestuous pedophile -or something along those lines -and is racing home to abuse his kid as a hyperbolic statement. This is supposed to be funny because it is so extreme. Then the punchline is the reveal that the guy was, indeed, doing all of that.
Which is supposed to be funny because the extreme thing mentioned before that was supposed to be interpreted as an insane justification turned out to be reality.
Isn't it so funny?
Skye Henwood, I don't care for. I suppose you are right in that she is the best writer in comparison to the menagerie. But in comparison only. Perhaps she could write better if she had a better story, but I have a personal bias against her writing at this time.
In my attempt to put that aside, I would say her work tends to attempt a character focus. Her dialogue is uninspired and cliche, so I guess the lack of anything happening to Barbie is a benefit to her. The things happening around Barbie are where all the action is.
The short gave opportunities for heavy visual storytelling, I will give her that. But for the first time the animation was heavily constrained and so those opportunities came and went unrealized.
We could go back to poking at the budget for that, but this is a great time to highlight how shows and movies are extremely complex forms of art. They are not called "Multi-media" for no reason. Her writing gave opportunities for the animation to do the heavy lifting and it didn't. So the short feels empty.
Which, in comparison to the last 2 seasons of Helluva and how there is never a frame where the important characters are completely still, is a massive change. If I recall, Skye Henwood used to be an animator for the show, and now I'm wondering if the background characterization was her all along.
Or maybe it really is just that Spindlehorse is financially struggling and cutting back on animation costs to the detriment of their one halfway-decent writer.
Adam Neylan holds the award for "Worst writer". He earned it from Seeing Stars and he has consistently shown that anything he has a hand in writing is one of the worst episodes of every show and season across the Helluverse.
The only person in a close second is Medrano herself.
