Recap / Hazbin Hotel S1E3 "Scrambled Eggs"

RECAP:
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"Meager proof!? It's a dead fucking Exorcist! I'd say that's pretty fuckin' definitive!"

— Velvette

Alastor goes to a meeting of Hell's Overlords while Vaggie takes it upon herself to build trust among the hotel's residents.

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Tropes:

• Advanced Tech 2000: Sir Pentious designs a cannon-like weapon known as the "Skinflayer 5000" at the beginning of the episode due to his distrust of the other occupants.
• Anti-Villain: While she is an overlord of Hell with all the terrible things that implies, Carmilla also cares about their citizens, and is worried that should word get out that the angels are killable, it would rally the citizens to fight them directly, causing countless casualties.
• Appeal to Force: After Vaggie is the only one to catch Charlie as she falls, she says someone other than her has to catch Angel unless they want her to hurt them.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: During the trust fall exercise, Angel tells the group he "likes to suck—", only to be cut off by Husk angrily stating the next word better not be "dicks". Angel then says it's "popsicles" and falls into Husk's arms.
  Angel: But, y'know... dicks too. [Husk drops him]
• Beneath Notice: Because the Egg Bois are dumb and small, when Frank accidentally goes with Alastor to the meeting with the other Overlords, they don't notice him or pay much attention to him, and Alastor doesn't even say a word about him when he's in the meeting room or even bother to send him back to be with the other Egg Bois. While Rosie notices him, she scares him off by giving him a Slasher Smile, but doesn't bother to let the others know he's there. After the meeting comes to an abrupt end, Alastor takes advantage of Frank being unnoticeable and has him follow Carmilla and Zestial to see what's going on with them. Frank is successful and learns that Carmilla killed the angel and informs Alastor of this.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: Played for laughs — one of the demons who sees Zestial and Alastor chatting responds by screaming, dousing himself in gasoline and lighting himself on fire.
• Bigger on the Inside: Alastor's room at the hotel is shown to open into an entire bayou, where he evidently hunts deer for meals.
• Bondage Is Bad: Zig-zagged. Angel attempts to take Charlie and the rest of the Hotel to a BDSM club to help "build trust" (an act that BDSM is legitimately heavily built upon, but whether he was doing it sincerely or not is open to interpretation), and while it's shown in a mostly-neutral-to-positive light, it clearly makes everyone deeply uncomfortable and is a transgression of acceptable behavior on Angel's part, especially to Vaggie.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Velvette and Zestial with regards to the discovery of the Exorcist's body. On the one hand, Velvette makes a decent argument that the revelation that the Exorcists can be killed is a massive game changer, and the fact that the Angels are moving up the extermination schedule is a threat that has to be dealt with, even more than she knows. On the other hand, Zestial makes a good point that a) they have no idea what actually killed the Exorcists, and b) even if they did, actually attempting a full-blown war would lead to massive reprisals from Heaven.
• Cassandra Truth: Alastor tells Frank not to share the information about the angel's death with anyone. Frank naturally spills the beans to Sir Pentious almost immediately, but Sir Pentious is getting ready for bed and writes it off as a flight of fancy.
  Sir Pentious: Oh, I'm so sure, and maybe you'll meet martians tomorrow, but now is time for sleep.
• The Character Ice Cream Bar: In-universe. During "Respectless" an ad can briefly be seen for ice cream bars made to look like the Vees' faces. Vox's is called "Voxsicle", Valentino's "Bubble-O-Val", and Velvette's "Velvetto".
• The Comedy Drop: When Husk catches Angel during the trust fall exercise, Angel flirts with him, causing Husk to drop him in disgust.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Implied. When Vaggie asks Alastor to dispose of the Egg Boiz, she specifically heads him off at the pass by telling him to do it humanely, insinuating he would have normally disposed of them in some overly horrific fashion For the Evulz.
  Alastor: Hm! Well, that's a lot less    fun,    but I suppose I can take care of that on my outing today.
• Cute Indignant Girl Stance: When Charlie stops Vaggie from tossing Niffty into the turf war, Niffty chases after Charlie hopping up and down and waving her arms like a little kid wanting to be picked up. When Charlie doesn't notice her, Niffty scowls and stomps her foot in frustration with her arms down at her sides before climbing over the edge of the roof herself.
• Cut a Slice, Take the Rest: Carmilla starts to pour herself a glass after the meeting, then gives up and drinks straight from the decanter.
• Deadly Euphemism: Vaggie tells Alastor to "get rid of" the Egg Bois. Seeing his eagerness to complete the task, she then clarifies, "Humanely."
• Decapitation Presentation: Velvette tosses the severed angel head onto the conference table as proof to the other Overlords that they can be killed and they should mount a defense against Heaven's next genocide. Her argument falls flat because she doesn't know how the angel died, so they'd be risking their lives on a gamble.
• Didn't Think This Through: The Vees are eager to rush to war with Heaven now that they know that Exorcists can be killed, but as Zestial points out, they have no idea how it was done or even if it was done by a demon at all, and that such a rebellion could trigger an even worse reprisal than an extra Extermination a year if they fail.
• Distant Duet: "Whatever it Takes" is a duet between Vaggie and Carmilla, the two singing in different parts of town about how they'll protect the ones they love.
• The Dreaded: While Alastor and Zestial are speaking on the street, several sinners can be seen watching them or freaking out at the sight of two Overlords casually chatting in the street.
• Double-Meaning Title: "Respectless" is named both in reference to how Velvette has no respect for the older overlords, but also in how she believes that they're not worthy of her respect, I.E. "Respect-less".
• Dramatic Irony: During "Whatever It Takes", Carmilla sings how she'll keep the secret that she killed an Exorcist in order to protect the people she cares about, unaware that Frank the Egg Boi is eavesdropping on her and would later report this information to Alastor.
• Dressed Like a Dominatrix: When Angel takes the Hazbin crew to a BDSM club, Niffty quickly changes into a Hell-Bent for Leather dominatrix outfit, and starts talking about punishing "bad boys".
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: When Charlie decides to let Vaggie head the trust exercises, the latter unfortunately opts to treat the exercises more like they were military ones with her in particular speaking like a military official. The first one Vaggie handles just has her treating what's meant to be a simple trust fall exercise as if it were more serious than it actually is. The second one however has her straight up throwing Angel and Sir Pentious off a building into a turf war on the reasoning that they'll become Fire-Forged Friends.
• Dude Where Is My Respect: Alastor is clearly miffed when Carmilla declares the other Overlords didn't really care that he was gone for seven years.
• Enraged by Idiocy: Downplayed. While Alastor does get annoyed by the Egg Bois' idiocy, he still remains calm and maintains his smile, only showing his annoyance towards them through his Twitchy Eye.
• Failed a Spot Check: Before taking the elevator to the meeting, Alastor tasks the Egg Bois to stay behind and "guard" the elevator until he returns, but he failed to notice that Frank the Egg Boi accidentally stays on the elevator and ends up going to the meeting with him. In fact, everyone failed to notice Frank in the meeting room, except for Rosie. It's unclear if Alastor really failed to notice Frank or if he knew and just didn't care enough to have him leave, but it might be the latter since he wasn't surprised to see that Frank had followed him when he tasked him to do a job for him.
• Feet-First Introduction: The first time we see Carmilla is a shot of her sharp ballerina shoes clinking along the floor as she walks into the conference room.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Invoked by Vaggie, who tosses Sir Pentious and Angel into the middle of a turf war so they'll learn to trust each other. Charlie is horrified, but it works.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: As Velvette points out a few minutes later, when she first throws the angel head on the table, everyone is shocked... except for Carmilla, who seems angry at this development, suggesting she already knew about it.
• Flowery Elizabethan English: Zestial speaks in this way, using the archaic version of words. It's also notably accurate, with the writers having obviously Shown Their Work when it comes to his sentence structure, word choice, and conjugation (such as adding -(e)th to the end of verbs in the indicative mood when 'thou' is the subject, abbreviating 'it is' to 'tis' instead of 'it's', and using 'be' as a verb on its own to indicate the presence of something in a way we would now use 'is').
• Foreshadowing:
  • Vaggie acting like a drill sergeant, talking about brothers in arms as she was a veteran, and saying to Charlie "How many of your people have to be exterminated?" instead of "our people". It's because Vaggie is a Fallen Angel and used to be an important soldier amongst the Exorcists.
  • Similarly, a lot of Vaggie's lyrics and actions in her half of "Whatever it Takes" references her past an as Exorcist and meeting Charlie, like her looking towards Heaven in Hell's sky.
  • There is a reason why (besides her Early-Bird Cameo in the pilot) the first thing we see about Carmilla is her Feet-First Introduction: It's because it is with her Combat Stileto made from angelic steel she was able to kill an angel.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: During "Respectless", when Velvette is shown with social media posts around her, the background includes some gags that are only onscreen for a couple seconds:
  • A Voxtek advertisement for "Instant Delivery", with the disclaimer:
    Instant delivery varies between 50 or 500 business days. No legal promises are made.
  • An ad for ice cream bar versions of the Vees.invoked
• The Friend Nobody Likes: None of the other Overlords seem to like the Vees, with Velvette showing that the feeling is mutual by dissing them for not wanting to go to war with the Exorcists despite there being little-to-no information on how to kill them.
• Funny Background Event:
  • As Alastor and Zestial walk the street, regular citizens lose their cool seeing two Overlords in person and some try to take pictures.
  • While Velvette and Zestial are arguing over the fact that Exorcists can be killed, Alastor can be seen getting a taste of the dead Exorcist's blood.
  • After the failure of the Trust Fall exercise, as Charlie and Vaggie talk in the foreground, Niffty proceeds to throw herself off the stage over and over again while Angel, Husk, and Pentious blankly watch. Angel then notices them talking and conspicuously sneaks up on them.
  • When Vaggie starts throwing people off a roof into a war zone and Charlie argues with her over it, Husk gets wide-eyed and discretely removes himself.
  • After Vaggie tosses Sir Pentious and Angel into the middle of a turf war, while Charlie and Vaggie are talking, Pentious and Angel's screaming (mostly Pentious) can be heard in the background.
    Pentious: A MINION! A MINION! MY KINGDOM FOR A MINION! AAAAAGH!
    Angel Dust (referring to Vaggie): I BLAME YOU FOR THIS, YOU CRAZY BITCH!
• Get Your Mind Out of the Gutter: Said verbatim by Angel after he baits Husk into getting riled up during their trust exercises.
  Angel: Somethin' about myself, huh? Well, how 'bout this? I love to suck—
  Husk: I SWEAR TO FUCK, IF YOU SAY DICKS—!
  Angel: Popsicles, ya sicko! Get your mind outta the gutter! But y'know, dicks too!
• Go-to-Sleep Ending: The episode ends with Sir Pentious and his Egg Bois going to sleep.
• Hell Is War: Vaggie takes the Hotel's residents to one of the several parts of Pentagram City ravaged by endless turf wars between petty gangs in an effort to get them to trust each other under the pressure of combat.
• I Shall Taunt You: When Velvette notices Carmilla's reaction to the dead angel's head is different compared to the other Overlords, she deduces that Carmilla may know something about it and decides to push her buttons by openly disrespecting Zestial in front of everyone to confirm her suspicion.
• Ignored Confession: Falling asleep and used to the Egg Bois' inane babbling, Sir Pentious thinks Frank letting it slip that Carmilla killed an Exorcist is something his minion imagined.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: At the start of the episode, Charlie is vouching for Vaggie that Sir Pentious is definitely not going to fall back into his old ways and try to conquer the city with his Steampunk weaponry. The moment she says this, Sir Pentious enters the frame pushing a giant Steampunk cannon he just made.
• Intergenerational Rivalry: Velvette is the youngest of the Overlords of Hell and explicitly picks a fight with Zestiel and Carmilla, who are some of the oldest Overlords of Hell. The age gap is partly what fuels the conflict, as Velvette sees them as old and conservative while they see her (and the Vees as a whole) as brazen and inexperienced. Velvette even insults them by bringing up their age, calling Zestiel a "fossil" and mocking Carmilla for having wrinkles. Their Quarreling Song also uses techno and guitar backgrounds accordingly.
• Internal Reveal: The overlords learn from Velvette that an Exorcist has been decapitated, which was shown in the first episode.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Angel Dust argues that BDSM is a great activity to build trust. While he still disregards what the Hotel is for, his choice is something that relies heavily on communication and safety precautions. It's even the club motto!
    Angel: No bond is stronger than those formed through bondage!
  • Velvette is a complete asshole but she correctly guesses that Carmine knows what killed the Angel and is withholding this information. And while he doesn't admit it out loud, Zestial seems to agree with Velvette because he confronts Carmine about it, pointing out that it's unlike her to lose her temper like that, and he easily deduces she was the one who killed the Angel.
  • This is the reason why Vaggie’s idea of learning how to trust people (throwing their hosts in a turf war), while unorthodox, is Crazy Enough to Work. She forced them in a scenario where working alone is not an option, and they must to rely on others to survive, becoming Fire-Forged Friends in the process.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Alastor declines to tell Zestial why he's involved in the Hazbin Hotel, but encourages him to speculate stating "I'd love to know the theories". This alludes to the endless speculation in the fandom about what his ultimate goals are.
• Literal Metaphor: Vaggie's reaction to Angel taking the group to a BDSM club is "What the actual fuck?"
• Mama Bear: Carmilla killed the angel to protect her daughters, even knowing the reprisal it would invite when discovered.
• Mood Whiplash: After "Whatever It Takes", a powerful ballad sung by Carmilla and Vaggie who sings about protecting the ones they love, the next scene is the Egg Boiz playing in a dumpster.
• Mythology Gag: Angel mentioning he likes to suck popsicles harkens back to a scene from the pilot where he grabs a popsicle out of the hotel's refrigerator and begins to suggestively caress it with his tongue.
• The Noisy Straw: A non-straw variant. Zestial takes the wind out of Velvette's speech by loudly sipping his tea.
• Not So Above It All: Up until this point, Alastor has acted like he knows more than everyone else and can run rings around everyone else if he wants to, and acts incredibly smug because of it. But even Alastor dials it back a bit in the presence of Zestial and is briefly thrown off when the Egg Bois embarrass him, showing even someone of his power will show deference to those he respects. His Twitchy Eye when dealing with the Egg Bois marks the closest he's ever gotten to losing his cool outright at this point in the show.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: We don't know how Carmilla killed the angel, but it must have been impressive considering no demon has ever managed to do so before. This is subverted in the 7th episode, where we learn that Carmilla killed the angel by beheading it with the shoes on her feet.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Despite being tasked to get rid of the Egg Bois (humanely) and finding them annoying, Alastor honors Vaggie's request not to harm them and ultimately brings them back to the hotel after they prove useful to him, implying that he might want to requisition them for a similar task in the future. And even though he knows that Frank knows that Carmilla killed an Angel and he could potentially reveal it to someone (which he does to Sir Pentious, who doesn't believe him), instead of killing him to keep it a secret, he settles for threatening him into compliance.
    Vaggie: Alastor! Failed to get rid of the eggs, I see?
    Alastor: Yes, well, the little monsters proved to be    rather useful.   
  • Vaggie allows Sir Pentious to keep the Egg Bois once Alastor returns with them, on the condition he stop making weapons.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • The Overlords are upset with the extermination because their power relies on the souls they made deals with, and the extermination cuts into that.
  • Subverted with Carmine; while in the meeting she framed the extermination in pragmatic terms, her song demonstrates that she cares about the sinners as people rather than just resources.
• Power Ballad: "Whatever It Takes" is a Distant Duet about Carmilla and Vaggie's odes love to their loved ones. It's filled with heavy 2000s Alternative Rock style distortion reflecting how tough both characters are.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Velvette is this in spades. Despite being a grown woman who's the head of a business she behaves like a petty teenager, mocking the other Overlords for being "old" and is overall impulsive and reckless.
• Quarreling Song: The song "Respectless" is sung by Velvette and Carmilla as they both argue over what to do about the dead angel, with Velvette openly disrespecting the other Overlords for being reluctant to take up arms against the angels.
• Rage Quit: During the Quarreling Song, Velvette, and Carmilla are arguing over the dead angel and insulting each other, but when Velvette points out Carmilla's reaction to seeing the dead angel's head and deduces she knows something about it, Carmilla decides to abruptly end their meeting with the other Overlords when she doesn't have a rebuttal.
• The Reveal: Carmilla Carmine is responsible for the death of the Exorcist which prompted the crackdown from Adam, in defense of her daughters.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • Husk actually likes the BDSM club at first, treating it as a sort of kinky spa by having a woman rub his back but seeing Niffty in full dominatrix gear is a bridge too far and he immediately calls it quits.
  • Then when Vaggie starts throwing people off a roof into an active war zone, he quietly runs off.
• Secret-Keeper: After learning from Frank that Carmilla is the one who killed the angel, Alastor decides to keep this information a secret for now and tells Frank to also keep it a secret. While Frank accidentally tells Sir Pentious this, he doesn't believe him and thinks he just imagined it.
• Ship Tease:
  • Carmilla makes it pretty clear during "Whatever it Takes" that she includes Zestial among the people she wants to protect. Even before that, we see Zestial has a seat next to Carmilla at the head of the table during the Overlord meeting instead of along the side with the others. It's Velvette's utter disrespect toward Zestial in particular that sets Carmilla off despite her attitude towards everyone in the room being the same.
  • Angel Dust makes a comment early in the episode that seems to make Sir Pentious more than a little unruly while flashing him a coy smile:
    Angel: Oh, I will [put on a show], but it's cash up front. And I know that one [gestures at Pentious] can't afford me.
    Pentious: Gross! I'd never think of it, ssspider!
• Shout-Out:
  • Sir Pentious screaming "A minion! My kingdom for a minion!" is a reference to the "My kingdom for a horse!" line from William Shakespeare's Richard III.
  • Niffty's Scary Stitches-patterned dominatrix outfit is clearly inspired by the Catwoman costume from Batman Returns.
• Smug Snake: Carmilla outright calls the Vees "smug wannabes" in "Respectless", and it's pointed out that their plan to wage war on Heaven is not only foolhardy due to the lack of information about the slain angel but could invite a bloody reprisal, which is backed up by Adam moving the exterminations up in response to a single angel death.
• Spotting the Thread: Velvette deduces from Carmilla's reaction to the severed head that she already knew about it and is likely responsible.
• Suicide as Comedy: Sir Pentious' trust fall is jokingly framed as him attempting suicide, with him dramatically declaring that he can't live without his minions and that nobody should catch him before hurling himself off the stage. He's peeved when he is caught.
• Supermodel Strut: During "Respectless", Velvette uses Carmilla's table as a catwalk as she confidently struts along it while insulting and taunting the other overlords.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Alastor now understands why Sir Pentious is often annoyed by the Egg Bois.
• Tears of Joy: When Vaggie allows Sir Pentious to keep his Egg Bois, he wails out of joy as he hugs his minions.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Sandwich: When Vaggie asks Alastor to dispose of the Egg Boiz, he immediately gets up and heads to the meeting of the Overlords, leaving the freshly-killed deer carcass he was eating behind.
• Too Kinky to Torture: Niffty enjoys failing the trust fall and keeps throwing herself off the stage for fun. She also willingly jumps into the turf war after Charlie stops Vaggie from throwing her.
• Trust-Building Blunder: The first exercise Vaggie tries is the trust fall. Vaggie catches Charlie, of course, but points out that the whole crew is supposed to participate. Angel ends up falling into Husk's arms and is quickly dropped when he starts flirting. Sir Pentious tries to talk them out of catching him, but they do it anyway. Finally, Niffty explains how she sometimes kills mother bugs in front of their children as a warning to others, and everyone backs away from her immediately, letting her fall.
• Trying Not to Cry: When Vaggie tells Sir Pentious to get rid of his Egg Bois, he tearfully tells them to go away while trying to be firm about it. As his minions leave, Sir Pentious sniffles before bawling his eyes out.
• Twitchy Eye: Alastor's eye starts to twitch in annoyance at having to deal with the idiocy and incompetency of Sir Pentious' Egg Bois.
• Vertical Power Play: Velvette climbs on top of the table of the Overlords' conference room as a power play, even walking around on it as she insults everyone there.
• "YEAH!" Shot: Charlie and Vaggie announce their "Trust exercises!" by jumping into the air in front of a spinning orange background. Then the background shatters and Vaggie falls on her ass, while Charlie lands gracefully. Charlie complains that they rehearsed it after the gaffe.

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