Welcome to I.M.P.!

I will be talking about the pilot for a show called Helluva Boss

Now in an earlier post I talked about an upcoming show from Vivziepop called, “Hazbin Hotel”. Today I’m going to be talking about it’s sister show, and it’s called “Helluva Boss”.

There is deep lore the talking about both shows, for instance in this Hellaverse there are 7 rings of Hell, one for each of the 7 deadly sins. But there is also confirmation from the creator herself Vivziepop that Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss while in the same universe would be telling narratives from different perspectives.

Hazbin Hotel would be taking place in the Pride Ring, because when human sinners die they become Sinner Demons in the Pride Ring. Sinners can’t leave the Pride Ring, only Hell-born Demons can travel between all of the Rings. This sets up why in Helluva Boss we normally see more Hell-born demons such as Imps, Hellhounds, Succubi, Baphomets, Demons of the Ars Goetia, and the 7 sins.

Helluva Boss features three imps and a Hellhound who have a freelance business in the Pride Ring. Their business is called I.M.P. standing for Immediate Murder Professionals. I.M.P. was founded by an imp named Blitzo, and he has two other imp employees. Their names are Millie and Moxxie, these two imps are actually married. Blitzo also has a Hellhound employee that is his adoptive daughter named Loona.

So the business Blitzo has is to offer his services to the sinner demons of Hell, so if a Sinner wants someone who got them sent to Hell killed, Blitzo, Millie, and Moxxie go to Earth and kill who they are hired to. Now how I.M.P. gets to Earth is by using magic, cliche I know, but this is special Hellish magic that isn’t available to just anyone. So far there have been only two ways to get to Earth and one is more legal than the other.

The legal way for demons to cross from Hell to Earth is with an Asmodean crystal which are only given to demons from Asmodeus himself. The other less legal option is how Blitzo is currently traveling to Earth, which is using a grimoire that has a spell that Loona uses to open a portal to Earth when they leave and again when they are ready to come back.

The grimoire that Blitzo uses for his business isn’t actually his book. The book belongs to a Goetia Prince named Stolas. At the beginning of the series Stolas has a wife and a child. His wife is named Stella and Stolas has a daughter named Octavia. Stolas has the grimoire to perform his duties as a Prince of Hell, and Blitzo stole his book after they spent a night together. Now in the show they use more explicit language but I’m going to try and avoid that as much as I can.

The pilot of the show sets up things for the show but when season 1 episode one of Helluva Boss was put onto YouTube some things were changed. As the show progressed some aspects of the show changed and evolved with the characters. One thing is that every episode even the pilot has the disclaimer that this show is an adult animation. But as the show continues the disclaimer page would show gradually different animation.

One of the first frames we see at the beginning of the pilot after the disclaimer is a shot of a building and a sign in the bottom left side of the screen saying “Welcome to Imp City”. After watching the pilot and rewatching it, the sign is a clue that Imp City is located in the Pride Ring. We find out that in the building is I.M.P. has their office in there and at the beginning of the pilot we are introduced to a character who we find out is named Blitzo later. Blitzo is conducting a company meeting to brainstorm ideas to drum up business. Blitzo addresses his two imp employees by name, Millie a female employee and Moxxie a male employee.

After Millie throws out an idea for a carwash and Blitzo shoots it down saying “This is Hell Millie, no one cares about cars being clean here.” Blitzo throws out the idea of getting a Billboard and Moxxie shoots down that idea saying out loud very annoyed, “We can’t afford a billboard sir.” Blitzo then moves on asking if everyone forgot what service they provide, and the conversation goes on to talk about a commercial that Blitzo paid for and shows it.

The commercial also has a jingle for I.M.P. that showcases the premise of Blitzo’s business, this displays to the audience what to expect when they get clients in the show. But the jingle gets interrupted abruptly because while aiming at a woman, Moxxie accidentally shoots a kid who walks between him and the woman.

After the ordeal it cuts back to I.M.P. at their office and Moxxie says how it was Loona’s fault that it happened, and he continues to complain about how bad Loona is at her job as the secretary and dispatch for the company. The pilot gives us a general idea of what the character’s relationships to each other are like but because it is the pilot some things did change when the first episode was made.

As all the characters start to argue with each other the kid that Moxxie shot interrupts and is shown that the imps have managed to keep him alive after kidnapping him from the hospital they took him to. Ok, trust me that sentence makes sense when you watch the pilot.

So the kid interrupts the conversation and insults the I.M.P. team and Loona gets a text from the client that the kid was actually the target. So they kill the kid and send the body back to earth, and they are seen by a news team. And the last line of the pilot before the credits start to role is from Blitzo saying, “You’re welcome!”

The first official episode of Helluva also does some setup for the show but these are more official ideas for the show. The first episode starts with a scene of a schoolhouse that looks cute a friendly, like something out of a kids show. With a voice-over saying this person was a good person before something happened and that they had been good all their life. We see a school teacher freak out when her students remind her that it’s her husband’s birthday and she remembers she didn’t get anything special.

One of the students suggest calling him for a special happy birthday surprise, so the teacher video calls her husband on the computer, only to see him cheating on her. Obviously she is upset and goes to leave and in a bling rage she shoots the woman her husband was cheating on her with and then she shoots her husband. Seeing that her students saw what happened she decides to commit unalive. I will not explain that further.

But then we find out that the teacher ended up in Hell and is explaining this story to Blitzo in his office. Blitzo tells the woman that from her story it sounds like her husband and the woman he was cheating on her with are probably down in Hell with her. The teacher retorts saying that the woman survived and that the woman was considered a hero for surviving, and was given money from a lot of people. The teacher then hires I.M.P. to kill the woman she despises from when she was alive. The episode continues with Blitzo, Moxxie, and Millie going to Earth to do the job.

Moxxie has a moral issue when Blitzo attempts to kill the woman they were hired to kill because she looks like an innocent wife and mother of two children. It doesn’t help Moxxie’s moral issues that Blitzo describes her as “A happy mother who just got out of the hospital.” After Moxxie hesitates slightly Blitzo goes to kill the woman but Moxxie makes Blitzo miss his shot. Then we see how the woman and her family reacts to the gunshot.

Which is a surprising reaction, the family that looked nice and wholesome prove the saying that “looks can be deceiving” true. The woman asks her husband in a sweet voice what it was and the husband replies, “I don’t know Martha. But, whatever it is… they’re gonna be tomorrow night’s dinner!” And he pulls out a shotgun, but what is more surprising is that Martha, the same woman that I.M.P. is trying to kill puts down the tray she’s holding on the table.

She smiles, reaches down under the table and pulls out a shotgun as well and a glass of wine. She drinks all the wine and throws the glass down on the floor and says, “Alright kids. Guns out.” So at this moment it becomes very clear that they are not the wholesome and innocent family they pretend to be. Martha and her husband chase after Blitzo and Millie while Moxxie is captured by the two children. I was surprised how easily Moxxie was captured, and if you have seen the episode let me know in the comments how you felt about it.

Martha chases down Blitzo while Millie is being chased by Martha’s husband. Millie tries to kill Martha’s husband but he hits Millie with a glass bottle and knocks her out. While Blitzo is being chased by Martha Stolas calls him and now we get a bit more information on how their relationship is in the show now.

Stolas is a little less aggressive about what he wants from Blitzo. Stolas sets the ground rules that he is willing to let Blitzo keep his grimoire for an entire month except one night during the full moon of the month. Blitzo gets found and captured by Martha, who has gone from innocent looking to looking like a crazy and evil woman.

While Moxxie is still with the children Martha and her husband attempt to burn Blitzo and Millie at the stake as a way to banish them back to Hell. She also reveals herself as a Satanist but her attempt to banish Blitzo and Millie fails with Blitzo saying that her fire doesn’t hurt them. Martha then decides to just shoot Millie and Blitzo but before she can Moxxie kills her.

As Moxxie frees Millie and Blitzo Martha’s husband gets away. Blitzo calls Loona saying they’re ready to go back and Moxxie says he left something at Martha’s house and runs back. Moxxie calls the police on Martha’s husband and children then he returns back to Blitzo and Millie. Blitzo and Millie walk through the portal that Loona opened and Moxxie turns back to look at Martha’s house. He sees that police are there and they blow up the house, and Moxxie seems traumatized and the immediate next scene is everyone celebrating with the teacher that the mission was successful while Moxxie still looks traumatized.

With that the episode ends and the credits roll. I will talk more about the rest of the show in later posts. Trust me I wanted to write more and hopefully get to some more characters. But I think this is a good point to end this post, I wouldn’t want to overwhelm you guys. So stay tuned for the next Helluva Boss post.