YMMV / Helluva Boss S2E2 "Seeing Stars"

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Stolas insists he's not trying to turn Octavia against Stella, right before calling his ex-wife a bitch to his daughter's face. Is Stolas willfully lying to Octavia, or genuinely trying not to without seeing how this comes across? Either way, what it says when held up next to his claim that he's always tried to do his best for his family is a debated point.
• Angst? What Angst?: Neither Blitzo nor Stolas seem even uneasy around each other, despite the tense and upsetting way that their last encounter ended. The events of the last episode aren't brought up, neither apologize to the other, and a future episode would basically condense all their issues from the events of Ozzie's in a text message.
• Broken Base: Loona's behavior throughout this episode had left people divided, especially towards the end where she kicked Blitzo, her dad, in the balls when trying to hug her. Many defends Loona's actions, arguing that given Loona's past that was revealed earlier and Blitzo being an overbearing parent with boundary issues (and threatening to replace her at the start), her behavior, while surly, was justified. The other side however argues that despite her trauma, she came off as really nasty, and beating up Blitzo over him offering constructive criticisms (which is jarring as in previous episodes, the most physical she got was shoving him in Spring Broken). Lastly, her nutshot towards Blitzo felt unnecessarily mean-spirited, especially coming after she told Octavia to cut her dad some slack (a man who she had little to no interaction with before). Vivziepop mentioning that Loona's behavior was a product of what happened in Queen Bee did little to assuage things, and when the episode came out, the statement made even less sense, as Loona was not only proud to call Blitzo her dad, but even looked after him on the way home.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Loona's treatment of Blitzo here is this when you remember her kinder behavior in "Queen Bee" (which takes place before this episode). In the latter episode, Loona was shown to actually be proud of Blitzo and reassures him when he drunkenly admits he's afraid of Dying Alone, calling him "dad" and making clear she'll always love and be with him. Here, she is much more antagonistic, lashing out when Blitzo criticizes her receptionist skills and made the empty threat of replacing her, and proceeded to nail him in the crotch after he tried to give her The Glomp right after telling Octavia, even if their father's screw up at time, she should let Stolas have the chance to do right by her.
• Informed Wrongness: That Blitzo was the one in the wrong - his conversation at the start of the episode is just an attempt to get Loona to improve her skills as a receptionist (the literal first impression most will get of IMP as a business), to which she flies completely off the handle and beats him bad enough to give him a black eye. To make matters worse, she's the one who first brings up 'why don't you just replace me?' making Blitzo's response come off more like he's just not playing her game anymore than any kind of genuine threat. By the end of the episode he apologizes to her but she responds with more physical abuse, hitting him in the face with the book and giving him a Groin Attack, implying that makes them even.
• Karmic Overkill: Blitzo was meant to learn that it was wrong for him to tell Loona that he will replace her as an empty threat knowing where her abandonment issues stem from, but some fans felt that the Groin Attack he received at the end was a step too far even while understanding where her hostility stems from. It doesn't help that the attack follows a touching scene of her telling Octavia that that their dads care about them despite their mistakes, causing a bad case of Mood Whiplash.
• Les Yay: While the ship has been around even before the episode, upon seeing their scene together, many fans and reactors started wanting to see Loona and Octavia together, despite their fathers already being in a sexual and potentially romantic relationship with each other (as well as the fact that Octavia is technically underage due to being canonically 17 years old), due to how sweet, warm and friendly they were to each other. Octavia lighting Loona's cigarette, them looking at the moon, holding hands and sharing a warm hug, being heavy fuel for their ship.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Moxxie sings again, but this time Millie joins him and her voice is beautiful.
• Padding: Millie and Moxxie's inclusion in the episode doesn't really add to the overall story, namely the search for Octavia or the issues she, Loona, Stolas, and Blitzo are going through. It's mostly just Moxxie being overly sympathetic to "struggling artists" and singing on the street to get money to pay them, all while Millie gets more and more frustrated at Moxxie's gullibility. While the song they share is beautiful, and gets a nice reprisal during the end credits, it ultimately just serves to pad the episode runtime, and doesn't have anything to do with the episodes resolution. While this does fall in line with how Moxxie and Millie had their own subplot in Season 1's "Loo Loo Land", another episode focused on Stolas and Octavia, that episode actually gave the excuse of Blitzo giving them time off to have fun, and they did get involved in the main plot later during Blitzo's fight with Robo-Fizzoroli, requiring they act as Stolas' bodyguards in Blitzo's stead and killing an Imp that tried to assassinate him, unlike here where they get seperated from the start and are mostly doing stuff offscreen, and in no way contribute to the plot (and it might have made more sense for Blitzo to bench them both, since they need someone to man the phones without Loona there to do it and a smaller party of demons would be less noticeable in LA).
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Loona. She gives Octavia a speech of how not all dads are perfect but they still do their best. A well-meaning speech... except this came from the girl who spent all episode either beating up her adoptive dad over him offering constructive criticism or disregardiing his orders at first to find Octavia. In fact, she kicks him in the crotch almost immediately after said speech when he was just happy to see her again and attempting to hug her, even apologizing for threatening to replace her. Her actions are meant to be played off as humorous and endearing, but it made her come off as bratty at best, or just a bitch at worst. The revelation that Blitzo saved her from the pound all those years ago does little to assuage things (dividing fans down the middle whether it justified Loona's lashing out at Blitz or makes her come off as an Ungrateful Bastard). It does not help considering that the episode giving Loona positive development in her and Blitzo's relationship was delayed until months after this episode, retroactively making Loona come off worse
  • Stolas. He understandably vents his anger at Stella over the phone, but also calls her a bitch right in front of his daughter after claiming he wasn't trying to turn her against her mother, and is generally at his pettiest, squeezing an imp butler like a stress ball. He pursues her to the human world but wastes time watching Blitz perform instead of letting him handle it to go look for his daughter despite Blitz being an adult assassin who could likely handle himself if it came to it, and Octavia being a lost and scared teen. When Octavia rightfully asks Loona why Stolas isn't the one to come find her, Loona delivers a speech about how she should cut him some slack even though he's frequently neglected her in favour of Blitz or arguing with Stella before. He barely even gets out an apology before Octavia forgives him, giving the impression she's settling for the bare minimum from him. To make matters worse, Stolas has clearly not taught his 17 year old heir enough magic to look after herself if she needed to - the episode's plot could have been avoided if, even if Octavia had run off, she had been able to get to see the stars safely herself.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Blitzo and Stolas, despite the episode's focus on it, never talk about their daughters or fatherhood. When Blitzo is hovering on the verge of a panic attack over having to perform on stage for the first time in years, and Stolas has the opportunity to offer him some sincere comfort, he instead reiterates how good he finds Blitzo in bed — something quite a few viewers, as well as Blitzo himself in Season 1's finale, have become extremely tired of hearing.
  • Many fans were hoping there would be some tension or even a conversation between Stolas and Blitzo regarding the events of "OZZIE'S", considering chrolongically that this would be their first time interacting since that episode. Some were promptly disappointed when the two proceeded to behave around each other normally (Stolas outright flirting with him), as if their fallout had never happened.
  • Some fans were disappointed that the episode was not more focused on Loona and Octavia. The duo were featured prominently on the thumbnail, yet the two barely had any screentime, mostly being towards the beginning and the end of the episode, with most of the screen time being focused on Stolas and Blitzo (whom already had the last two episodes dedicated to them), and Moxxie and Millie (who became irrelevant to the episode's plot pretty quickly)