#reviewing helluva

[just-being-leonest]

Murder Family Cons

A.k.a, things I disliked about it. Pros are here. Friendly reminder that this is just my opinion, thank you!

Now here are the things I will address under the cut: -Comedy -Art -Character Development -Lore/Writing

Comedy

I will admit, it is very easy to make me laugh, I’m easy to entertain. Although I did find some jokes in this episode to be funny, a good half, maybe more, fell flat. For example: The children all fainting, Moxxie’s mob boss joke, the Stolas button (which I will go more into detail with under Character Development), and Blitzø’s doggy treat joke. Now I’m no expert on comedy, but I’ve been (forced) to watch many, many shitty comedies with no replay value. From what I’ve seen, to truly make a joke land is it’s timing and relevance to either the character’s personality and/or plot. These jokes offer nothing, there’s no set-up (like with Moxxie’s mob boss joke/impression hehe imp), not relevant to the plot or character’s personality, or just bad. I’d say the main joke-killer in this episode was the severe lack of set-up. Jokes coming out of nowhere can be funny, I personally found Ms. Mayberry throwing the girl into ceiling funny because it was out of nowhere, but that is very hard to pull off and just using the same formula is very tiresome and repetitive. 

Good comedy tends to have a lot of different types of humor, like Rise of Teenage Mutant Turtles (rottmnt is my latest hyperfixation sue me) has a variety of humor like slap-stick, one-liners and puns, and visual gags, all of which have proper set-up and relevance to either the plot or the characters. Granted rottmnt and Helluva are very different, and rottmnt is not in any way perfect but it does execute comedy that is funny to not only it’s target audience (9-12 year old boys) but to many adults/teens as well, something that Helluva struggled to do even with it’s target audience.

Art

I personally liked the art on Helluva so no comment.

Character Development

Strap in your seat belts, this is gonna be a long one and it’s mostly about Stolas.

Stolas is... not the best character in this. For one example, on a list of buttons that Blitzø is implied to have as “panic buttons” has Stolas on one of them. That implies that Blitzø panics or is severely uncomfortable when Stolas is in the room, which is not a good thing to have, if your end goal is to have them get together. 

And then his phone call with Blitzø oh good lord... it was very sexually charged, unnecessarily so, especially since Blitzø was being very clear on how unwanted the sexual undertones were. He repeatedly said “now is not the time” or something very similar, which Stolas completely ignored. All that is telling me is either Stolas sucks at picking up hints (which I highly doubt and would make no sense with his character arch) or he just doesn’t give two fucks. I’m more inclined to the latter, considering he was still talking when Moxxie ran by, telling me that he didn’t care if Blitzø was listening. Honestly, Stolas in general makes me uncomfortable with his sexually charged comments, and I’m someone who’s used to this shit both from movies and irl from my dad. 

Lore/Writing

So... the human world, huh? Genuine question, is it purposefully portrayed as this shitty for lore/plot or is it for the sake of comedy (which falls flat). If it’s comedy then... not a really good joke, it’s a very overused trope that I’m tired of seeing. Same thing regarding if it’s just for plot/lore, it’s very overused and depressing.

The voice acting was... kinda meh, especially for Martha’s husband but that’s just me being nitpicky so take it with a grain of salt if you want.

One thing that has bugged me for a little while is how Ms. Mayberry knew Martha survived and got famous. Didn’t she commit suicide? If so, how did she figure it out? And why did the police explode the house? Did Moxxie inform them about the stuff going on? But that would warrant investigation, not immediate explosion. And there are kids in that house. I get that cops can be, will be, and are shitty, but they still have laws and rules to follow and just straight up bombing a house is not allowed in any situation, not with the children there and how little information and proof there was.

Also the atmosphere of Moxxie discovering how vicious and evil the family was very jarring, and I really can’t tell if that was the intent or not :/

The ending... was horrible. Everyone ignored Moxxie’s feelings and it just felt so fake. To be fair, I hate endings where everyone laughs and laughs. Unless you’re MLP, that shit usually just makes me wince from the fakeness.

Also why the sex scenes? It could just me being ace but having Martha being fucked while being called a hero was... not necessary at all.

Overall, I’d give the episode a 6, maybe 7 out of ten. It wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t the worst. It’s a good start to the series.

[just-being-leonest]

Murder Family Pros

A.k.a, things I liked about it. Cons are here. Friendly reminder that this is just my opinion, thank you!

Now here are the things I will address under the cut: -Comedy -Art -Character Development -Lore/Writing

Comedy

Now it’s very easy to make me laugh, and some of the jokes in this episode I found genuinely hilarious, with great timing. Like with Ms. Mayberry throwing that girl into the ceiling. It had great timing in my opinion, with her just moments before being cheerful and happy and loving. 

I also really liked the wordplay/oneliner Bliztø made with Moxxie. “But we’re killing a family!” “No, we’re killing a mother. We’re ruining a family.” I’m always a sucker for oneliners and wordplays, especially clever ones, and this episode did pretty okay with them.

The banter was pretty good as well, especially with the fire scene, which I’ll talk about more under Lore/Writing.

Art

I like the little visual hints about the true nature of the family, that was very clever.

I LOVED the imagery on Stolas’s side of the phonecall, although it might be because I am very partial to blue and purple and it was a nice refresher from the harsh, bright colors of the rest of the show. 

Character Development

I’ll start with Bliztø because why not. In general, he was an asshole, but in a way that was understandable. He’s an asshole sure, but he lives in Hell so I would assume that’s the default personality. His annoyance at Moxxie for setting the office on fire was very understandable, considering he set the office on fire in front a client. While he was very harsh, again his upbringing. I can also understand the frustration and anger with Moxxie messing up Bliztø‘s perfect shot, they nearly died. It doesn’t excuse him being an asshole, but it’s explainable as to why he is one.

Moxxie I really loved in this episode. While I can understand why Millie was trying to get Moxxie to just take the shot, it is their job after all. But I also love Moxxie’s comment about being more selective, and I hope that is brought up again in the future. The way he called the police to give the children a chance at a better life legitimately made me happy, and Moxxie is quickly becoming my favorite character. One thing I hope they address in future episodes is Moxxie’s anxiety (at least I believe it is anxiety).

Also I’d like to point out how Ms. Mayberry handled the realization that it was her husband’s birthday. She was very silent, and snapped the chalk which tells me “hey, this woman isn’t as cheerful and happy as she seems” which makes the step up to murder just a little less jarring.

Lore/Writing

We were given some interesting bits of lore here! One of those pieces was how Millie, Loona, and Bliztø naturally assume the worst of humans. Millie said so herself about how many humans end up in Hell, which is a clever way of showing and not telling the I.M.P.S thoughts on humans. I like the subtle world building they did with the Imp firefighters. Hellfire not being able to harm demons is definitely a very interesting piece of lore to bring up. Normal fire won’t hurt them and yet bullets will... brings up some questions for me.

Now for the writing, I liked the cute little song at the beginning of the episode, it was very fun. The tone change to when Moxxie was captured and stuck with the children was a bit jarring, although that might be the intention. I love how the atmosphere was set up while Bliztø was being chased by Martha though, I could really feel his panic. 

Overall, I’d give the episode a 6, maybe 7 out of ten. It wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t the worst. It’s a good start to the series.