I found the first season of Hazbin Hotel to be an enjoyable but flawed season.
It had fun characters and fantastic musical numbers, but the pacing felt especially off.
With the show being a success, I hoped it would convince the bigwigs to greenlight more episodes for Season Two.
Unfortunately, we are stuck with eight again this season.
To be fair though, that does not necessarily mean the pacing is doomed, since Viziepop could still find a way to craft a completely concise story with eight episodes.

As for Episodes One and Two of Hazbin Hotel Season Two, they provide a decent start to the season, which has me excited for the extra six.
For starters, I actually like how these episodes were structured together, with Episode One showing Hell’s side of the story, while Episode Two shows Heaven’s.
That being said, Episode One “New Pentious” is definitely the weaker of the two.
In the aftermath of the Hazbin Hotel fighting off Adam’s Extermination, the hotel has received lots of interest but for the wrong reason.
Instead of demons seeking redemption, like Charlie hoped, they are all there to kill angels.
Well, almost all of them.
A demon named Baxter joins the hotel, hoping to prove his hypothesis that redemption is impossible.
He is quite similar to Pentious, leading to Charlie constantly calling him that, since she is still grieving her friend.
As for Baxter, we do not get enough of him for me to really judge if I like his character or not.
And then there are the hotel’s regular residents.
It was great to see Charlie, Vaggie, Alastor, Angel Dust, Nifty and Husk again.
My favorite of the bunch this episode was absolutely Nifty, with her newfound fame for killing Adam being pretty humorous. 

On the other hand, Vaggie has a subplot with her trying to figure out a new name for herself.
I am absolutely convinced this storyline will just end with her choosing to keep the name Vaggie, so the subplot already feels predictable.
That being said, if it does ends in a different way I will withdraw this criticism.
What I will not be withdrawing is my complaint regarding a specific joke concerning Angel Dust.
Back in Season One, we saw how terrible Valentino treated him, so to see a slapstick joke of Valentino repeatedly abusing him felt really out of touch.
On the subject of the Vees, they seem to be stepping into their roles of main antagonists this season, especially Vox.
The TV Demon intends to use his control of media to manipulate Hell’s populace into turning against the hotel and rebelling against Heaven.
This storyline has a lot of potential with its topical relevance to the problems of today’s media.
I am also curious to see how Vox intends to take over heaven.

We see one such Angel at the end of the episode, Emily, who arrives to quickly tell Charlie about Sir Pentious’ redemption before leaving.
Charlie screams in response, ending the episode.
Her learning that redemption works may seem like a good thing, but one key detail is that Charlie was the only one who saw Emil.
It is also later revealed Sir Pentious cannot leave heaven.
Therefore, I can see Vox twisting Charlie’s boasting about Pentious’ redemption to be a lie, turning the populace of Hell further against her.
But we will have to see.
Now that I have the story content of the episode out of the way, I will discuss the musical aspect.
“New Pentious” has two musical numbers, “Hazbin Guarantee (Trust Us)” and “Once We Get Up There.”
“Hazbin Guarantee” is my favorite of the two, with a great contrast between Charlie failing to get clients with her songs of hope, and the Vees succeeding with their manipulative lies. 

As it stands, “New Pentious” is a good episode, but “Storyteller” is even better.
I will start with the songs this time; Episode Two having three of them, “Like You”, “Sera’s Confession”, and “Gravity”.
Going from weakest to best, “Like You” does a good job of showing Pentious’ situation in Heaven, and how he just wants to get back to his friends.
“Sera’s Confession” succeeded in making me invested in Sera, due to the exploration of her moral conflict.
But by the far the best song is “Gravity”.
This number was teased a while back, and you can absolutely see why it was chosen to advertise Season Two.
Lute’s rock ballad with a hallucinated Adam is incredible to watch and listen to; already being the best song in the season thus far. 

Getting back to the story of the episode, it opens up with Pentious on trial after appearing in Heaven.
Things look bad for him until the Speaker of God arrives and gently asks him to tell his story.
We flashback to the 1800s when Pentious was alive and it is revealed he knew who Jack the Ripper was but failed to report him, resulting in the deaths of five more women.
His failure to act damned him to hell, until he redeemed himself by risking his own life to save his friends, exactly the sort of thing he should have done for those women.
I loved the exploration of Pentious’ human life, and I hope we get more for other characters.
Vox was revealed to have been a cult leader in Episode One, but I want to see what made Nifty so crazy, and just what the hell Alastor’s deal is?

Pentious is released after his redemption is revealed, and the episode then follows Emily guiding him around Heaven, Sera trying to decide Heaven’s next move while dealing with her guilt, and Lute planning revenge while being absolutely pissed that Adam’s son Abel got the position of Exorcist leader over her.
The one time nepotism paid off, I guess.
Sera also tells Lute to back off Lillith, and we later see the woman herself ignoring Charlie and Lucifer’s texts, so the mystery around her is still ongoing. 
The end of the episode ties in with the conclusion of the previous one, with Emily rushing off to tell Charlie about Pentious’ redemption before Sera closes Heaven off.
Overall, “Storyteller” is the better episode of the two.
It has great character work, especially for Pentious, Sera and Lute, and incredible songs, most notably “Gravity”.
As for where Season Two goes now, the Vees are probably going to stoke tension further between Heaven in Hell, which will lead to some confrontation with Alastor, as seen in the trailer. 

Whatever comes next, though, whether it be good or bad, I have no doubt that we will be getting more excellent songs to jam to.
I already look forward to hearing these musical numbers when episodes Three and Four air next week.