The Animated Series' Showrunner Unveils Rosie and Alastor's Backstory Is a Major Teaser for Season Three
Dedicated viewers of the series finally got a much-anticipated origin story in season 2's episode 4, called “It's a Deal.” This episode will probably spark a lot of discussion and raise numerous inquiries about the essence of one particular demon Overlord who appears far more powerful than anyone before realized. The new revelations feature a look into the human life of a fan-favorite character before his death and condemnation to Hell.
A Major Tease for Future Seasons
The show's creator shared a secret about “It's a Deal” – it acts as a huge hint for the third season. Additionally, she offered more insight into the methodology of designing the mortal forms of her demonic cartoon figures.
Warning: Spoilers for episode 4 of Hazbin Hotel, the show's second season.
In “It’s a Deal”, a look back reveals that popular character Alastor the Radio Demon was a mass murderer in his mortal days. Being aware he was destined for Hell, he established communication with the afterlife beforehand to secure a strong position in Hell. The charismatic leader, who leads the cannibal faction in Hell, promised Alastor he would become “the strongest Sinner in Hell” in return for his soul.
This raises the question: How is Rosie sufficiently strong to elevate Alastor above all other Demonic Sinners?
“The agreement between Rosie and Alastor is the initial building block in a much bigger story that encompasses so much, moving into season 3,” the showrunner explains. “Clearly that is an excellent question: How is she that powerful? The answer might be many things, but the revelation is in season 3. I am thrilled for people to witness it.”
There’s no telling the duration viewers will have to remain for Hazbin Hotel’s next season. The production companies have green-lit the third and fourth seasons, but the showrunner frequently notes that animated production is a time-consuming endeavor, and subsequent seasons have no release dates yet. Nevertheless, she says withholding on specific information is an important part of maintaining the second season's focus in the right places.
“The challenge of any agreement with demons, or narratives that have mysteries, is providing people just enough information to be like, Something's up here, and then revealing that gradually, and letting that be gratifying,” she comments. “So I am quite eager.”
Questions Answered in Season 3
The showrunner assures that the upcoming season will tackle the questions fans have been posing, like why the cannibal leader commanded Alastor to disappear for a seven-year period, which weakened his influence in Hell.
“The whole seven years, and the pacts these individuals are making, and everything — it's feeding into a bigger narrative,” she says.
Meanwhile, the Rosie/Alastor backstory episode offers another glimpse into what the main characters of Demonic Sinners looked like as humans, the second after viewing another character's Victorian-era mortal appearance in the second episode. The creator explains that significant consideration was put into these character designs.
“The human versions of these personas carry so much weight,” she says. “They range from looking quite distinct from their infernal version to looking almost identical. With the first character, the initial design we see, there was a little bit of a debate within the team between going with a design that represents the character, versus selecting an option that's very time-period accurate. We opted for creating something that just seemed like it was him.”
She says the biggest debate over Pentious’ human design was his long hair: “We were like, ‘Nobody typically had long hair of that style in that historical period.’ But at the same time, we think the outline is so important, and we also just thought he appeared attractive. We were like, ‘This just feels right.’ We kind of gave the excuse that he lived in seclusion, so he just let his hair grow out. So there's always a way. As we create the mortal forms of these characters […] it's such a fun thing to explore and figure out. I'm excited for fans to see more of what the human forms look like.”
New episodes of Hazbin Hotel the second season drop on Wednesdays on Prime Video.
