Ricky Church reviews the fifth episode of Hazbin Hotel season 2…
Now that we are in the second act of Hazbin Hotel‘s second season, the stakes have been raised an incredible amount now that Vox has amassed a powerful base and Charlie, Vaggie and Heaven itself has been dealt a severe blow. It also firmly established, in case it wasn’t already apparent, just how much of a threat Vox truly is going into these final episodes.
The premiere had Vox make a passing reference to his mortal life as the leader of a ̶c̶u̶l̶t̶ “movement” and ‘Silenced’ gave us our first glimpse of Vox’s ability to capture a crowd’s attention. Every aspect of Vox’s rally screamed of a televised Evangelical presentation (Vox even wearing a pristine white suit). For a character who was previously thought of as a bit of a joke – both in universe and out – Vox has come into his own as a significant villain able to weaken multiple characters through his words and charisma.
The setback the protagonists were dealt with was pretty major in personal ways. Charlie and Vaggie’s breakdown in communication has been a longtime coming as Charlie has continually ignored both Vaggie’s advice and affection in favour of following her own naive ideas to fight back against Vox, which unfortunately has played into his hand each and every time. While her idea to interrupt Vox’s rally with Emily and Sera in a bid to calm the tensions and prove redemption is possible isn’t bad on paper, Charlie should have foreseen how quickly Vox would have spun it or that the angels’ method for apologizing for the Exterminations were not nearly adequate or even appropriate. The same goes for Vaggie that while her idea to get Lucifer to bluff Vox was good on paper, she and Charlie should have worked together on a better response. The argument between them in the conclusion has been building for several episodes and the moment it spilled into the open was a good payoff for Charlie’s development.
Likewise, Heaven’s own arrogance is a case of feeling the consequences to their own actions. While it is true Emily and most of the other angels had no idea the Exterminations were even happening, witnessing Hell’s anger is an important moment as it somewhat shattered Emily’s bubble (especially after the gift baskets were her idea) and Sera came face-to-face with her self-fulling prophecy of a Hell-wide uprising. It certainly didn’t help how she still tried to justify it once her anger got the better of her. The parallels between Emily and Charlie were utilized nicely in their reactions while Sera’s indifference both to the Sinners’ feelings as well as Sir Pentious’ thoughts (and Charlie’s concern for him) juxtaposed Vox’s own position as he’s only using the Sinners’ anger and hurt for his own ends.
The songs were quite good in ‘Silenced’ with Vox having a strong presence in each of the three musical sequences. ‘Bad With Us’ is a perfect second act opener if this were a stage play, but ‘Vox Populi’ and Vox Dei’ were the showstoppers. Jeremy Jordan’s brief riff as Lucifer in ‘Vox Populi’ deserves its own single and Christian Borle did an amazing job at Vox’s gospel-like vocals while transforming into rage and smugness for ‘Vox Die’. The visuals for those were songs were great with imagery the show hadn’t done before, namely the 180 degree spins around some of the characters.
Most of the supporting players took a backseat this episode, but that was okay as a lot happened in ‘Silenced’ without feeling too crowded. The movement of Charlie’s development felt earned and Vox is a formidable threat to both Heaven and Hell’s future, but it is at least clear that Alastor might be the only character who is ironically right where he wants to be despite being a captive as he’s looking to tear the Vees apart from within. The events here certainly pushed things forward in interesting areas and sets up the next episodes well.
Rating: 8/10
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