Tear Jerker / Helluva Boss Season Two

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The Circus

• Paimon apparently has lots of kids that he barely spends any time with, to the point that he barely remembers Stolas's name without prompting. He can't even be bothered to go to the circus in person with his son to cheer him up, having his imp butler do it instead while watching through a magic mirror.
  • Paimon mentions that Stolas has no friends, something which Stolas later confirms to Blitzo. Since we don't see any of Stolas's other siblings celebrate his birthday or play with him, it doesn't paint the rosiest picture of Stolas's relationship with the rest of his family. And the only reason Paimon decides to buy Blitzo as Stolas's playmate is so he doesn't have to deal with Stolas.
  • Stolas's crestfallen expression when Blitzo complains that his books are boring, especially since Stolas was so excited to talk about them. The first friend the poor kid's ever had doesn't even care to know about his interests.
• Blitzo's own childhood. Despite having a sleazy jackass for a father, he was so full of childish glee and hopes for the future, with dreams about owning his own circus and having his own office and being able to live life on his terms. In the present, well...let's just say Blitzo's dreams haven't really worked out. Sure, he does have his own office, but he doesn't own. He gets to indulge in his acrobatic side while he kills people, but other than Moxxie, Millie and Loona, no one is around to appreciate his skills, and the three of them have their own preoccupations. And while he gets to take the jobs he wants due to being freelance, he's limited because he needs access to Stolas' Grimoire. He might be allowed to keep it most of the time, but he knows full well that this is all dependent on Stolas being so love and affection-starved that he keeps Blitzo around to have sex with. His business is completely dependent on Stolas' good graces, and considering their adult relationship began with him trying to outright steal the Grimoire, knows that Stolas could, at any time, take the Grimoire back, shutting I.M.P. down for good.
  • Earlier on, Blitzo's father, Cash, accepts a comically low payment for Blitzo to spend the day as Stolas' friend. While Stolas didn't know about this, it's another reminder of the class divide between the two — Paimon basically buys Blitzo's time for his son to have a friend, regardless of what Blitzo feels. Sure enough, Blitzo is initially bored and upset about being pressured into stealing by his father, but eventually starts to enjoy his made-up game with Stolas.
  • A subtle one: when Cash is trying to convince him to steal from the Goetia family, he asks "Don't you wanna help me and your mama out?", to which Blitzo responds "Of course I wanna help Mama!" He used Blitzo's love for mother as a tool to get what he wanted.
• Blitzo and Fizz playing with their balloon horses is a bit harder to watch when taking into account how Blitzo's green horse has amputated legs after a bloody accident... and Fizz has mechanical limbs in the present.
• As it turns out, Stolas only married Stella because his father Paimon arranged it in the hopes that Stolas would father a powerful new addition to the family. As this episode shows, their marriage was absolutely miserable, to the point that Stella threw parties about how they hadn't divorced yet and talks trash about him to her friends while he's in earshot. While Stella gossips with her friends, she tells them how terrible in bed Stolas was, and how he just blankly stared at the ceiling while she did all of the work. She then gloats how happy she was that at least an egg popped out of her so she didn't have to keep pretending like she wanted to fuck Stolas. All Stolas can do is glower and order something stronger than wine to calm himself.
  • Special mention to the part where Stella merely refers to Octavia as "an egg", further hinting at the neglectful nature of Stella's relationship to her own daughter at best and viewing her as little more than a necessity to the family at worst.
  • Stolas's first reaction to seeing Stella's picture, showing her violently strangling a dog after presumably hurting another one beforehand, and being told he's to marry her is to start bawling. What makes it worse is that Paimon does not at all care about his crying and just tells him to quite literally stop being a bitch. It is very obvious that Paimon treated Stolas with very little regard for his happiness - unsurprising given how many kids he has and how he clearly sees them as heirs to the Goetia family and nothing more.
• At the same party, Stolas is so desperate for emotional connection that, when he met Blitzo again, he convinced himself that the imp was sneaking into his room to seduce him. Blitzo, who hadn't seen him in twenty-five years and was only after the book, took advantage of this - not realizing Stolas was after a genuine Childhood Friend Romance and leading to the collapse we saw in "OZZIE'S".
  • It's also revealed that Blitzo was planning on just tying up Stolas so he didn't see him steal the book...then changed his mind and decided to give Stolas a fun night after discovering just how empty Stolas' life was, looking genuinely guilty upon realizing what kind of emotional damage that abandoning someone in makeshift BDSM would do to him. Especially someone who, in that bondage, called Blitzo his “first ever friend”. "OZZIE'S" has made it very clear that Blitzo might put on a front for everyone else, but I.M.P is his attempt at creating a family "circus", and he doesn't actually have very many friends of his own, having pushed his old friends away years ago (Fizzarolli, Verosika and even kept Stolas at arm's length as a child), and continuing the pattern with Moxxie and Stolas.
• As the two walk to Stolas's chambers, Blitzo looks up to see the family portraits. With Stolas and his father, Stolas holds an imposing figure while also holding the mirror where Paimon can look through. With Stolas and Stella, the two are obviously annoyed at having to be anywhere near each other. The only portrait where Stolas is genuinely smiling is with him and a child Octavia. His father can't be bothered to actually physically stand next to Stolas for what appears to be an important moment in his life, while Stella and him are just plain miserable next to each other. Even Blitzo seems to realize that the only bright spot in Stolas' upper crust life is his daughter.
• A smaller detail that might be missed on the first watchthrough but it should be noted that Stolas is taking happy pills, or what likely is antidepressants, straight in the morning when he wakes up whilst being married to Stella which suggests that he's had struggles with depression, possibly during the entirety of his marriage to Stella. Not only that but it's implied that Stolas might also be Drowning His Sorrows a lot of the time when weathering Stella's emotional abuse. Combining alcohol with antidepressants is a common suicide method, though it probably doesn't work on a demon prince.
• Stolas takes a moment to check the photos on his phone and finally comes to the sad realization that Blitzo never looked happy to be with him in a single one.
• If you listen to the song "Stolas Sings", you'll realize this has been his leitmotif throughout the series. This shows that the owl demon has been carrying this burdensome baggage for years and it's destroying him.
• By the episode's end, back in the present, Stolas is very much distraught over what his life has become, singing a melancholy song to best reflect on how everything's gone so wrong...and then Stella walks in, completely unsympathetic to her husband's brooding and demanding he shut up already.
  • As for why Stella's still hanging around the mansion at this point, well...if her behavior at the parties in the past didn't make it clear, she likes to see him suffer.
  • Stolas can't even bring himself to feel guilty about cheating on her, because he knows that he didn't actually hurt her - at worst her pride was wounded, and his affair has become just one more thing that Stella can use to torment him.
  • On the other hand, even if he's not hurting Stella by breaking her heart, he's certainly hurting Octavia, and he could be hurting Stella in other ways. While it's understandable that he sought love outside the loveless marriage, he's ruining the family's reputation among the racist upper-class snobs they're obliged to work with, probably making Octavia's peers turn on her (human Teens Are Monsters, how much worse are they in literal Hell?) and potentially fucking with their power base by making himself look soft on imps and making other imps think about how if Blitzo earned a royal's affection they deserve better than the shit the caste system puts them in. The Stolitz and Fizzmodeus situations could be leading to outright war, and cruel as she is, Stella's entitled to be worried about that.
• Even if their marriage was arranged, even if he wasn't at all happy, even if he only tried to preserve it for the sake of Octavia's home life, Stolas has had enough. As of this episode, Stolas demands a divorce.
  Stolas: I tried, so many years to make it comfortable for us! To have this family, but it was never enough! The only reason I have endured your constant insults and cruelty was for that girl to have a normal life!
  • Stella's reaction doesn't make it much better. Not only is she more upset about her stung pride than anything else, she takes a vicious satisfaction in pointing out that Stolas has pretty much ruined his own reputation by now, and that he'll be punished for it.
  • Stella also moves to try to physically abuse Stolas for demanding a divorce and standing up to her, the fact he catches her hand so quickly as she tries to slap him suggests that she likely has physically abused him before. And given how desperate he's always been to give Octavia a normal life, he probably only barely defended himself in the past. Affection starved is right.
• Stolas only endured living with Stella in an attempt at giving Octavia a normal life. As "Loo Loo Land" shows, he failed that task so badly that Octavia is thinking that he is the one who ruined her home life.
  • Alternatively, you could read that as Stolas having done an excellent job in the past, having given Octavia a home life that was free from all this drama until he couldn't take the loneliness anymore. It's clear from "Loo Loo Land" that Octavia didn't have any idea how fraught her parents' marriage was before Stolas and Blitzo had sex.
• Stolas and Blitzo's relationship seem to have been very much headed for doom from the beginning, and it's clear that both Blitzo and Stolas has never had a healthy and meaningful relationship with anyone except maybe Octavia for Stolas and M&M and Loona for Blitzo, and even those relationships are fraught. It probably isn't a coincidence that both Blitzo and Stolas seem to be trying to make up for their horrible fathers by being better dads/dad figures to the people in their care. Stolas has been so deprived of love and affection for his whole life, other than Octavia, that he has no idea how real, non-transactional relationships work even though he desperately wants one. Blitzo's the same, though he's spent more time hiding that, which is understandable given that he's a trained clown that has to hide his emotions. He, just like Stolas, desperately craves intimacy and a relationship of his own, but he doesn't understand intimacy without some non-love motive behind it, and he pushes others away to the point of resentment because his upbringing/mistakes with relationships in the past have led him to see himself as a failure and horrible person who doesn’t deserve love, despite being terrified of Dying Alone as a “wrinkly, old, withered waste”. Not to mention that Stolas, being a very sheltered member of the Goetia family, has a very poor understanding of power dynamics and as such, his "kinky fantasy" of “favors for favors” has real implications that he failed to consider, which may have permanently impacted his relationship with Blitzo. Only time will tell if they can make things right.

Seeing Stars

• The episode starts with a young Octavia being promised by her father that they were going to see a meteor shower that only happens once every thousand years. Despite now being a Troubled Teen, Octavia was still looking forward to seeing the meteor shower with her father. Sadly, the day arrives when Stolas is busy arguing with Stella over their incoming divorce. Realizing that her father forgot his promise, Octavia runs out.
• Octavia generally has a miserable time in L.A. All her attempts to find a place to see the meteor shower are in vain and she's gawked at for her appearance. Then when she finally thinks she's found a good spot at the observatory, there's too much smog and light pollution to even see the stars.
• Blitzo performing for the first time since the circus. The only reason he gets a laugh out of the audience, save for Stolas, is because of the prompters telling the audience to do so, leaving him unaware and confident he's finally getting the attention he's craved.
• Stolas reacting with horror and fear upon learning that Octavia ran off to the human realm. In the previous scene he went full Papa Wolf by turning into his real form. The next scene has him distraught at what happened.
• When Blitzo's Trauma Button gets pressed by a child actress asking in-character if she can adopt his character's dog, he flashes back to the day he adopted Loona; the "adoption center" looks like a cross between a run-down dog pound and a Juvenile Hell, with most of the hellhounds Blitzo sees looking malnourished and/or deformed. When he sees Loona, her cellmate is threatening her with a bloody nail bat before she flings him at the bars, growling and curling up in a Troubled Fetal Position. Then she starts crying, looking more like a frightened, feral dog than anything. The social worker's indifferent description of her in her emotionally dead tone doesn't help, saying all this directly in front of Loona's cell, and only highlights how lonely Loona's life had been for almost eighteen years:
  "Oh, her? That’s just Loona. What a nightmare. Serious attitude problems. She’ll be out of our hair next month when she ages out. Good riddance if you ask me. She’ll never amount to anything much."
  • The Nightmare Fuel page points out that the kid with the bat appears to be trying to push it into Loona's groin before she tucks her tail and growls at him. Sexualised bullying is a form of Troubling Unchildlike Behavior which is often a sign the kid has been molested themself.
  • Loona's living space gets more tragic the longer you look at it. The back and side walls are covered in tally marks scratched into the tile. And there's a typical "Hang in there!" poster ripped with obvious claw marks, making it clear Loona had long given up hope of being adopted into a family.
  • There are some drawings on the walls of Loona with storm clouds above her head and a giant version of her stomping on a city. Either they were drawn by Loona in which case they show just how frustrated and fed up with the world she has become over the years, or they were drawn by the other hellhound kids who only see her as a vicious monster.
  • The fact that this place is essentially a pound and not an adoption place paints Loona's situation as much grimmer. They're not treated as individuals but as animals and would normally just leave as rescued dogs. When the social worker mentions that Loona will age out it's implied that it doesn't mean that she's exactly leaving safe & sound.
    • You can actually see that Loona takes a look at her tally marks, and as it lines up with the social worker's statement on her aging out, it wordlessly states Loona knows about this. Whether she's put to sleep or kicked out ownerless, it's a cloud of pitch-black dread she can do nothing about except countdown to.
• The social worker's assessment that Loona has an attitude problem, while not completely inaccurate, doesn't match up with what is shown. The younger hellhound is the one who tries to pick a fight with Loona and instead of continuing to attack him after she knocks him away, she instead tearfully tucks herself further into the corner. It makes you wonder how much of Loona's reputation as a problem child came from her simply defending herself.
  • Emphasis goes to the fact that the social worker is watching with Blitzo as Loona is threatened. She doesn't step in to stop it nor does she acknowledge what's really going on.
  • The social worker's dialogue makes it clear how hellhounds are treated in this world. They're not treated as sentient individuals; instead, they're valued for either being strong laborers or cute family pets. Loona is both strong and attractive, but being a self-actualized person with internal struggles and self-preservation instincts makes her undesirable. For an imp — one of the lowest creatures in Hell's hierarchy — to be able to adopt a hellhound as a pet or servant shows that despite their strength and magic talent, they're seen and treated as even lower than imps.
  • The social worker is herself a hellhound. This demon is being paid to literally sell out her own kind (if she's even paid at all...)
    • The social worker reminds one uncomfortably of a certain house slave...
    • Judging from her apathetic demeanor and languid body language, it's not hard to see the social worker as someone who has long given up on fighting the unjust system of Hell. In other words, she's become the living embodiment of the saying "If you can't beat them, join them."
• A mix of Heartwarming and Tearjerker. When Loona finds Octavia at the observatory she's just sitting alone crying, upset that she couldn't even see the stars like she wanted. During her talk with Loona she reveals that she's upset because she thinks that Stolas hates Stella more than he loves her. The sad thing is that Stolas doesn't hate Stella more than he loves her at all. Loona even points this out by saying that it's more complicated than that, that dads have a lot of issues, and sometimes dads just make mistakes. Loona also points out that her dad is actively trying to find her at that very moment so it certainly isn't a case that he doesn't care.
  • Full-blown tearjerker with Octavia's question about "Why does he hate [my mother] more than he loves me?" is one that resonates with a lot of children from broken homes.
• Near the end of her monologue towards Octavia, Loona briefly glances at her lighter, which has an I.M.P sticker on it, as she finally gets it to light, smiling softly as she comments that even though dads fuck up a lot, what matters most is that they're trying their best, obviously referring to not only Stolas, but Blitzo as well. Even though she definitely doesn't want to show it, it's pretty obvious that deep down, Loona loves Blitzo; and appreciates him in her life as a father figure.
  • Also, a bit of a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, but when Stolas and Octavia reunite at the end of the episode, you can see Loona flash a loving smile at Blitzo; both when she smacks him in the face with the grimoire, and when he jokingly likens the oncoming fireworks to his acting career.
• Stolas finding out why Octavia was so upset. While he doesn't have the words for it, it’s obvious he's upset with himself that he forgot such an important promise to her. Considering how bad his own relationship with his own dad was it must have hit him hard that he accidentally forgot about her when fighting with Stella. He's so shaken when he realizes he'd forgotten his promise that he briefly gains Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises when he normally doesn't have irises.
• Octavia never does get to see Azathoth's Tears. Fireworks are nice but she could see them any time.

Exes and Oohs

• Crimson was seriously abusive to Moxxie as a child, and the fact that he doesn't recognize Moxxie as bisexual or consider his marriage to Millie legitimate is just the tip of the iceberg. Not to mention that it's implied that he murdered his wife simply because she was a loving mother to their son trying to protect him from the gangster lifestyle.
  • From what little is shown, Moxxie's mother was anything but happy being the wife of a mafia boss. She shies away from Crimson's touch at the dinner table and he slaps her during an argument they have. It's unclear if Crimson's treatment of Moxxie is what lead to the breakdown of their relationship or if things were already bad between them and the disagreement in how to parent their son was the final straw.
  • Given the episode's focus on arranged marriages, it's likely that Moxxie's mother could have been forced into one herself.
  • While she was able to shield Moxxie from Crimson's crimes at first, when she is gone, Crimson has Moxxie aid him to give the Cement Shoes treatment to some hapless victim. When the bagged imp starts whimpering, Moxxie becomes concerned before Crimson slams his head against the cement block. He then tearfully drops the weight and the imp to its doom. Crimson then implicitly threatens him with the same fate should he disobey, with a Wham Shot of the shoe that Moxxie's mother was wearing resurfacing from the water. Harmful to Minors doesn't begin to describe this whole ordeal.
    • While it's been subject to debate who the boat passenger is and what exactly they are saying before they're tossed overboard, they clearly call out Moxxie by name and tries to plead with him that they have a daughter, making the moment sting much more.
    • This also paints Moxxie's initial hesitation towards killing Martha in "Murder Family" in a whole different light; he knew what it was like to have his mother cruelly and violently ripped away from him at a young age. He didn't want to do the same thing to Martha's children, who are also representative of what he could have become had Crimson been successful at grooming him into a cold-blooded killer. The fact that they died because all they ever knew was a life of violence forced upon them by their parents must have been very sobering for Moxxie.
      Blitzo: Don't be a puss, we're just killing a mother. We're ruining a family.
• It's implied that Chaz legitimately had feelings for Moxxie and he looks just as crushed as Moxxie when forced to abandon him. Him trying to force Moxxie into an Arranged Marriage via conning his dad may have been, in his mind, the only way he could get a second chance.
  • With that said, even if Chaz had feelings for Moxxie that didn't involve sex he was perfectly willing to destroy the life that Moxxie made for himself and both trap him into an unwanted marriage and put him back under his abusive father's control. Doesn't get more opposite of I Want My Beloved to Be Happy than that.
• Moxxie upon getting thrown into prison looks completely destroyed. Chances are, he knew that his father wouldn't come to save him and his boyfriend just abandoned him. If it hadn't been for Blitzo being his cellmate, chances are he would have hit the Despair Event Horizon.
• After Moxxie kicks Chaz out of his room, he simply slumps to the floor with his back against the door, and he finds himself so overwhelmed and stressed out that all he can do is hug his knees and start flat-out bawling. It’s made clear as day that not only being tricked into returning to his family’s estate, but Crimson forcing him to marry Chaz and threatening him with both his and Millie's deaths if he doesn't comply, has opened up a lot of emotional wounds and trauma for Moxxie. The episode is basically one long string of Break the Cutie moments for the poor man, and it’s soul-crushing to watch.
• After he unsuccessfully tries to make a pass at Millie and Moxxie, Chaz goes to Blitzo’s room and makes a pass at him. At first, Blitzo refuses since he doesn’t want to betray his friends’ trust, but eventually gives in. The two are then heard having sex a few rooms away from Moxxie’s. Moxxie covers his face with a pillow and looks awfully sad, implying he’s hurt because Blitzo was completely aware of his past with Chaz, and still gave into having sex with him probably only a few hours later. Even if Blitzo was only doing it to see what M&M were into, it looks very disloyal in Moxxie’s eyes.
  • It's worse than that. Moxxie isn't paying any attention to them at all - he's too busy flipping through photos from his wedding with Millie. Remember, this is just hours after Crimson ordered him to marry Chaz with the threat of harming or killing Millie if he didn't. As far as Moxxie knows, what's going on next door isn't a betrayal so much as a preview of what his life is about to turn into... permanently.
  • It’s a situation where there is no good outcome for either Moxxie or Millie. Moxxie either obeys his father and marries Chaz, or refuses which will lead Crimson to order for Millie and/or him to be killed; Either way, he’ll never see his beloved wife again. The way he sobs as he looks at his wedding photos is heart-breaking. That is, until he stops being sad and gets pissed off…

Western Energy

• At the beginning of the episode, Stolas is checking his phone before Andrealphus speaks for the first time, and there's a reminder that he has a meeting with Ozzie in three days. At the end of The Circus, we saw Stolas looking up Asmodean crystals in a book. In the episode after this one, Unhappy Campers, Blitzo needs the assistance of people to portal to and from different rings as well as to the living world using a crystal (even Barbie uses one to leave the living world at the end). This seems to indicate foreshadowing that Stolas is about to negotiate for an Asmodean crystal from the King of Lust so that the arrangement between him and Blitzo as it stands can be dissolved. Considering the episode after Unhappy Campers has been shown to feature Fizzarolli and Ozzie, will there also be a turning point where Blitzo is now able to interact with Stolas of his own free will rather than under their agreement?
• When Striker starts stabbing Stolas with a knife and name calling in multiple ways, including mentioning hurting his daughter, Octavia.
• After Blitzo gets everything settled with Loona's appointment, he's promptly trampled by the media and paparazzi, only catching a brief glimpse of Stolas as he's rushed into the hospital due to his injuries. He's obviously frustrated and confused as to what's going on, but when Moxxie and Millie explain what happened, he comes to a horrified realization at just how much danger Stolas was truly in.
  Moxxie: Sir, are you okay?
  Blitzo: Oh, peachy! Yeah, no, today's been wonderful. What the fuck was that about?!
  Millie: Stolas got hurt bad.
  Blitzo: Stolas got what? Uh-wha-how? (stares at the crowd of paparazzi as they enter the hospital) …He can get hurt?
• Surprisingly, we get one for Striker too. His rant towards Stolas makes it pretty clear that his beef with the Goetia royalty is deeper and more personal than just hating them for their privilege...
  Striker: Look, not every ring is some fancy-ass city with some fancy-ass mansion that only fancy-ass royals get to live in! Some of us have hard lives to live. And some of us have everything we care about taken away by fuckers like you!
  Stolas: I have no- (gets stabbed in the shoulder) AAAAGH!
  Striker: YOU don't get to talk over me! (whips his face with his tail) I don't have to listen to your bullshit! (slams his boot into Stolas' wound) All you royals ever do is try to talk over us!
• Stolas puts up an incredibly brave front throughout his torture, shrugging off even a holy knife plunging through his leg without much more than a strained tone of voice. Even so, after what's implied to be a long time - maybe even hours - he's actively whimpering and no longer able to speak louder than a ragged whisper, even when Via is threatened.
  • For an extra twist of the knife: Stolas' brave front is built entirely around Blitzø. Every comment we see him make to Striker, barring his response to the imp mentioning Via, is a comment as to how much rougher and more effective Blitzø is at causing pain. Since we have ample evidence that Stolas and Blitzø engage in hardcore BDSM, which requires the consent of everyone involved and relies heavily on boundaries, safewords and aftercare, Stolas' repeated comments that "Blitzø is rougher with [him]" and "Blitzø's knife is sharper and goes deeper" comes across as Stolas antagonising Striker by reminding the imp and himself of someone who cares about Stolas.
    • It also gives the impression that Stolas believes being with Blitzø makes him stronger or that Stolas believes Blitzø would never crack under torture from Striker if their positions were reversed, so he's trying to act with the same attitude that Blitzø has - an attitude that Stolas probably admires. Moxxie also has an element of this when Striker is choking him and Moxxie just says, "Harder" with a grin on his face. How telling is it that the two closest men to Blitzø see him as someone they can draw strength from when facing certain death?
• The episode ends with Stolas, alone in his hospital room, getting a get well soon text from Blitzo. The sad part comes when Stolas replies by saying that Blitzo can come visit, and Blitzo starts replying... but can't bring himself to do it, sad music playing as Stolas puts his phone down.

Unhappy Campers

• We finally meet Barbie Wire, and she doesn't like Blitzo one bit.
  • The way she behaves with her brother is similar to Blitzo/Stolas dynamic where she is in the role of the former. She refuses any Blitzo's genuine attempts to help her, just like he refused Stolas's genuine love earlier. Like brother, like sister, indeed.
  • Pay attention to Barbie's body language when she's laying into Blitzo. She is notably pointing towards his necklace, the same necklace their mother once wore. As if she's blaming him for her death...
  • Barbie’s rejection somehow manages to be even more devastating than that of either Fizzarolli or Verosika. The latter two go out of their way to confront Blitzo about their dislike of him when they meet, but Barbie avoids him like the plague. Blitzo – who has been vehemently denying any reference to his old name, life, and identity – was keeping tabs on his sister this entire time and she’s one of the few people he keeps images of openly in his apartment and office. It’s clear he’s been holding onto hope that they might reconnect. Barbie is more than likely the last remaining member of his biological family, not to mention she’s his twin. A fundamental part of himself now hates him forever (and the guy already has enough self-loathing to spare).
  • Blitzo's facial expression to hearing Barbie's "I don't want to see you again" speech is heartbreaking in it's own. It's Blitzo having learning the hard way that the ones he once loved and wronged wants him out of their lives for good.
• This is the most humiliating episode for Moxxie so far. He had one time to lead the case methodically. And during that he got rejected numerous times, was upstaged by his wife and had a quarrel with her, spend an entire week trying to find a target his way and as a cherry on top - was called a "fucking disgrace" by Blitzo at the end of the episode, just when he thought he would get some praise. His reaction at the end is heartbreaking and Millie is understandably pissed at Blitzo.
  • Overall this episode shows just what kind of dark side Moxxie has. All that planning, all that effort of inventing characters and feeling so upstaged by Millie, all of it from some need for validation and a seriously fragile ego. Just shows how having the kind of childhood he’s had has really had an effect on him in more ways than one.
• It's revealed that Millie feels like a third wheel sometimes and she just wants that acknowledgment and fulfillment of being praised for being her instead of screamed at by her victims when she's murdering them. But in her moment to shine, she can't get the support of her own husband (initially).
• Blitzo cruelly taking back his claims that Moxxie did good on the job after praising him, which was seemingly done just because he was bummed about his sister and he didn't want Moxxie to be happy. While he had every right to call out Moxxie over how badly he botched the mission, the fact he choose to do it this way was just awfully petty.
• A subtle one right in the first two minutes of the episode: Since we know Stolas was admitted to a hospital in Sloth, viewers might have assumed that was who Blitzo was trying to sneak in to visit. Nope - he was trying to check in on Barbie, and Stolas doesn't even get a mention in the entire episode. On one hand, it's perfectly understandable that Blitzo would prioritize his family over his "transactional fuck"; on the other, poor Stolas...
  • Doubly so because in the last episode, Blitzo prioritized Loona over Stolas too, even if Blitzo clearly felt as though he should be able to do both (whether it's because he cares about Stolas or because Stolas is the reason his business stays afloat, or both, is anyone's guess).
  • On the other hand, Stolas seems just fine by the next episode, so it's entirely possible he was already out of the hospital by the events of this one.

Oops

• Fizz, unlike Blitzo, spends most of the episode terrified due to not being a fighter or being used to being in danger like Blitzo is, at one point even wailing that he just wants to go home.
• The fact that in the flashback, Blitz was the one who inadvertently burned his own friend is one thing but given a photo of his mom burning to ash, its implied he accidentally killed his own mother, all during Fizzy's birthday.
  Blitzø: Look, I'm sorry, Fizz. I am so sorry you got so hurt. I'm sorry for what you lost, and I-I know I can never make that right. But you have no idea… what I lost in that fire. I mean, it's-it's all my fault. I-I'd hate me, too.
  • Want it to feel even worse? You can make out young Blitzo saying "Mom?!" when he realizes the tent, she's in is up in flames.
    • And if Barbie knows this, it could explain exactly why she never wants to see Blitzo again. If he feels responsible for their mother's death and admitted it to her, she will hate him for it. By all accounts, it sounds like their mother was a good parent while Cash was decidedly not.
    • Hellborn demons don't have their own afterlives in Hellaverse. Blitzo will never see his mother again.
    • Before that, you can see Blitz trying to get an imp's attention to point them out to where Fizz was. Blitz genuinely did all he could to try and help, and it didn't work.
  • As if all of this weren't enough: the horses!! The same three circus horses which Blitzo adored were in the next tent adjacent to the party and are seen fleeing in terror. Nearly everything and everyone Blitzo loved at the time was in flames because of this accident (we don't see Barbie in the chaos but that makes it no less heartbreaking).
• The reason that Fizz hates Blitzo so much? Because he was led to believe that Blitzo caused the fire on purpose due to everyone liking Fizz more than him, because he saw Blitzo angrily staring at him, followed by the tent catching fire, and then Blitzo seeming to run away when he reached out to him. The fact that Blitzo seemingly never came to visit him while he was recovering only convinced Fizz that his best friend, who he looked up to, tried to kill him out of envy.
  • Even worse, Blitzo reveals that he tried to visit him, because he was all he had left. But "They" told him that Fizz didn't want to see him. Fizz looks confused and hurt by this revelation, saying that he had never told "them" that. When Blitzo voices his disbelief, Fizz insists that he really never did- in fact, he says "they" never told him he even showed up. One wonders whether or not Cash had something to do with it...
    • Just the fact that Blitzo mentions Fizzarolli being "all [I] had left" really drives home how isolated he became after the fire accident, even though the fallout has yet to be fully seen. His mother dead, his sister and father wanting nothing to do with him, and the other circus employees holding resentment to him.
  • And what was it that caused Blitzo to storm out of the tent, unknowingly knocking over the birthday cake and starting the fire? Seeing his own father giving Fizz a birthday card outright saying that he wished he was his son.
  • Before storming off, Blitzo is seen holding two items in his hands - a flower, and a letter with a heart sticker. Sharp-eyed viewers will see writing on the envelope - "Fizz's eyes only". The implication is that Blitzo had developed feelings for his friend, and was going to confess, but seeing everyone fawning over him, even his own father, sparked Blitzo's insecurity and jealousy, causing him to storm off. Blitzo's actions didn't just hurt his best friend, but his potential first love. No wonder he's in that deep denial over the Stolas situation.
  • Notice all those demons in the flashback? The ones that supposedly loved Fizzarolli so much? All of them, including Blitzo's father, abandoned Fizz and left him to die as soon as they saw the fire. It says a lot that Blitzo, the one who started the fire in the first place, was the only one who tried to help him.
• It's worth noting that this is the first and so far, only instance of Blitz owning up to the fact that a previously friendly or at least cordial relationship souring was his own fault. He refused to take any responsibility for his own role in his relationship with Verosika falling apart, and he tried to force himself back into Barbie's life despite the fact she's clearly still broken and embittered from his role in their mother's death, but with Fizz? Once he realizes exactly why Fizz hated him for so long, he almost immediately agrees that he has every right to be angry.
• Fizz ends up in a very similar situation to the above one in the flashback - hurt by an explosion, lying helpless on the ground, and surrounded by fire. The similarity was likely too close for Blitzo, who very visibly panics and screams Fizz's name with painfully raw desperation and fear. You can practically hear him vividly reliving that fateful moment in his head when he said that. And thankfully, he leaps to Fizz's rescue without hesitation this time.
• Even though Fizz is very relieved to be back home with Ozzie by the end of the episode and is not eager to go on solo ventures anytime soon ("Today I learned that I hate going outside!")... notice the look on his face when Ozzie replies that "[he] won't have to again". Fizz is still a popular showman, and while he is living in the lap of luxury with someone he clearly loves, it's no less a gilded cage, even if he's happy and protected. The power imbalance and class difference are still there, if the constant trouble of tabloid headlines is any indication.
  • This was even subtly hinted at during their conversation in the beginning — While Ozzie doesn't do anything abusive and/or coercive to Fizz, only showing genuine concern for the jester's safety, Fizz's nervous reaction implies he might be feeling unheard in their relationship but doesn't directly bring it up. And his comment about Ozzie "not being big on the whole Mammon thing" also implies that the Sin of Lust has issues with his lover having a job with Mammon, which may have caused tension at some point between the two.
• The look on Fizz's face when Ozzie takes out scissors to cut his sleeve. He may have medical PTSD, especially since Sloth doesn't seem to take good care of their patients. It's possible that they fully chopped off what was left of his burnt arms with scissors.
• The fact that despite Fizz's immense talent and success, especially for an imp, there are indications (as seen through the comments from Blitzo and Striker), that many other imps see him as nothing more than a "purse dog" for Asmodeus. Or see him as a Gold Digger. And this same episode reveals how he was horrifically burned as a teenager, losing his limbs and horns. And while much of his backstory hasn't been revealed yet, there's little doubt how much physical and emotional pain he had to go through before beginning his career. And despite all of that, there are still Hell citizens out there who will only ever see him as a lowly imp.

MAMMON’S MAGNIFICENT MUSICAL MID-SEASON SPECIAL (ft Fizzarolli)

• Arick's first encounter with Fizzarolli is bad enough, but when he comes back just to give him a scathing "The Reason You Suck" Speech, Fizz starts having a genuine panic attack.
• Throughout the episode, Asmodeus keeps showing concern for the pressure Fizz is putting himself under working for Mammon, going so far as to call Blitz to try and convince him to quit.
• After being a Stepford Smiler for the majority of the episode and having a full-on panic attack in his dressing room, Fizz finally pours out his insecurities to Asmodeus, telling him that he's terrified of losing him if he doesn't win the pageant because he feels that Ozzie's only with him because of who he is under Mammon's patronage. He even yanks his jester hat off - revealing his scarred, splotchy head and the jagged stumps of what remains of his horns - in an attempt to show Ozzie what he believes he is without Mammon: an ugly, broken, worthless imp.
  Fizz: You’re with me because of who I am at my best! I’m barely worthy of working with a King of Sin ‘cause this is who I am! Without all this, I'm just nothing, and Mammon made me this. I owe it all to him…
  • This makes a comment from “Oops” Harsher in Hindsight- remember when Fizz tells Blitzo that the accident didn’t ruin his life and “it’s not like I’m broken”? He was lying, and does think he’s broken.
  • “Crooked” the song directly after this, while sweet, has moments of Fizz still doubting himself and believing he's inferior to Ozzie:
  I don't know why you waste your time on me
  When there's so much I'll never be…
• A very subtle moment when Mammon and Asmodeus almost fight over Fizzarolli - when the Sin of Greed threatens to reveal their romance to the audience, the couple have different reactions. While Ozzie is only briefly shocked by Mammon's threat before angrily stating he doesn't care about it anymore, Fizz is noticeably not only scared but worried. Despite being reassured by the moment they shared in his dressing room, Fizz still fears losing Asmodeus if it became known that they're in love.
  • And during Mammon's threat to expose their romance, the greedy asshole basically devalues Fizz's own autonomy - he mockingly refers to the imp as Oz's "little secret" and says that if Oz lets him quit, he'll tell everyone present. Now, it was made clear from his introduction how much of a greedy, exploitative jerk he was, but this subtle moment is still telling.

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