By I liked Hazbin Hotel well enough. It scratches all of the itches I look for in a show. It’s got solid animation, the adult humor is pretty enjoyable, and it’s a freaking musical as well. And yet, despite how much I should enjoy it, I don’t love it. It was still good, but I just wasn’t blown away by it. It happens.
Going into the New York Comic Con’s Main Stage panel for Season 2, it felt weird for me to be there. Not because I wasn’t a fan, but because I felt like I wasn’t enough of a fan. The crowd went berserk over every tiny little morsel about the show that was talked about, not matter how big or how small. In fact, there was a woman sitting next to me the entire time, screaming at each cast member’s appearance, laughing at each joke, oohing and aahing at each tease of Season 2, and erupting in cheers when a new song was announced. And all I could think about was how the fandom has completely made Hazbin Hotel into a beast of its own, for better or worse.
The panel featured a majority of the cast from the show, as well as Viviene Medranno, aka Vivziepop. The cast were all thrilled to be there and loved interacting with the fans. In fact, the first half of the panel was entirely dedicated to the cast talking about their own experiences with fans. Some talked about the fan reception they got at conventions post-season one. Jessica Vosk, who plays Lute, talked about how she met a cosplayer who spent three months making her cosplay. Christian Borle even did a fake-out when he sent a cosplayer out who did a literal perfect cosplay of his character Vox, complete with a screen face, and had the cosplayer pretend to be him.
Copyright: Amazon Prime Video
There were some light reflections on Season One thrown into the mix. It was fascinating hearing about how Amazon didn’t really expect much of the show and was incredibly strict with what they allowed Vivziepop to do. The season had to be eight episodes, each at exactly 22 minutes, which made Vivziepop had to work within the expectations set for her. In fact, her biggest regret was that the main villain of the first season, Adam, didn’t receive enough screentime in Vivziepop’s eyes, something she hopes to rectify with Season 2, upgrading the Vs (Vox, Val, and Velvette) from secondary villains to straight-up antagonists. The leash has been loosened significantly for Season 2, especially given how future seasons were already announced, but at the same time, the leash seems tighter than ever.
The cast was tight-lipped about virtually everything regarding the second season. They played it off as well as they could, cracking a few jokes here and there, but no one wanted to say anything about Season 2. The cast spoke in vague generalities, and while Vivziepop was laughing and having a good time, you could tell that she was intently staring at each cast member whenever the moderator asked them about their characters in the second season. The only thing that was showed off was a new song, “Gravity,” but that was about it. It was hard to tell whether that was Amazon forcing the cast to be quiet or Vivziepop, but it made most of the panel feel inconsequential.
A part of that may be because of how obsessive the fandom is. A lot of the cast admitted that fans usually figured out who was cast as particular characters by tracking social media posts and likes, often before official announcements were made. In probably the best moment of the entire panel, Alex Brightman joked that the fans needed to stop using their skills to sus out casting decisions and instead use them to solve murders. Even when Vivziepop was showing off the limited edition vinyl for Season 2, the back of the vinyl was taped over with a piece of printer paper to prevent anyone from seeing the track list. One thing was clear by the end of the panel: even if we learned very little about Season 2 of Hazbin Hotel, the fandom is what keeps this series thriving.
Hazbin Hotel Season 2 premieres on Amazon Prime Video on October 29, 2025. Two new episodes will be released weekly for four weeks.
