Chalk that up to another causality of the terrible pacing. Viv just has to introduce every single character she possibly can and that doesn't leave much time to dwell on such unimportant questions like basic worldbuilding that ties into what's supposed to be the core premise.
Not to sound like a broken record, but literally what is there to stop Charlie from swatting Angel aside and burning Val to death on the spot instead of letting all these horny twinks talk to her like that?
this has been an ongoing problem of Viv's since Zoophobia. here's a compilation of my previous posts in the thread explaining why:
TL;DR - Viv made ZP a convoluted and character filled mess instead of what should've been a focused main character-driven story.
Zoophobia the webcomic was honestly one of the biggest wastes of potential I've ever seen in any piece of fiction. It was such a shame too because the intro, here to here, in terms of setting up a world and getting you invested in it, is honestly pretty brilliant - and yes I still stand by that. It sets up the main concept excellently, introduces a bunch of characters to you that you'd want to know more about, and has a pretty good balance of comedy (Cameron reacting to the world around her), mystery (the woman with the apple) and drama ("So I'm stuck here?"/the bit towards the end with Zechariah comforting Cameron).
So imagine, you're an impressionable teen and you're blown away by said introduction. You're hooked, and can't wait to see more of the adventures of this zoophobic counselor in the crazy world of animals. What's the next story arc gonna be?!
A high school couple.....with the male forgetting their....anniversary? First of all, this is not how teenagers work. Secondly, weren't we just following Cameron a second ago? It is here where the main problem of ZP starts to rear its ugly head: a complete and utter lack of focus.
One minute, OK, we're following Cameron again, good. Next minute we're with the kangaroo again. Huh? Next minute we're with the demon kid (whose name is Damien, real original there Viv), and he has a robot...companion? Who can transform or some shit?
And finally, we're back to Cameron again. It’s frustrating that ZP hits on a genuinely interesting story in Cameron, but doesn’t seem committed to it, instead plopping us in with a bunch of characters with no proper introduction and no reason to care about them (again, doubly frustrating considering Chapter 1 got it so right). Somebody could take the key components of Zoophobia and make a genuinely good story without having to discard many of them. It needed better pacing. It needed to better understand the story it was telling and be more aware of where it needed to go. There is a decent comic buried here, but it occupies about 25% of its run. I’d never, ever recommend it to another human being, but if you were forced to read it you’d likely find bits to enjoy.
Somewhere, in another universe, Cameron is the main character in a great story about overcoming your fears, meeting new people, and finding your place in the world. Maybe it was the project that put Vivienne on the map, maybe it wasn't. If you do end up reading Zoophobia at some point — maybe because you're interested in Viv's past work — pay attention to the bits involving Cameron. See her interactions with the people around her. Her dialogue. There’s a character there that Vivienne Medrano brought to life in spite of the script, in spite of the comic, in spite of anything going on around her. Pay attention to Cameron. Because she's exactly where the real ZP's buried.
A kangaroo complains that a purple and orange whatever-the-fuck forgot their high school anniversary while a pink demon robot nanny dukes it out with a bunch of police officers because her demon brat got in trouble. That's the Zoophobia we got.
A young, neurotic woman slowly but surely overcomes her fears while meeting all sorts of exotic, memorable characters and uncovering the mystery of the world she unwittingly finds herself in. That's the Zoophobia that we should've got instead.
She's had plenty of time, though. Like others ITT have said, Viv had a whole season to develop Millie, and yet she did jack shit with her. In fact, hot take:
Millie is to Helluva what Cameron is to Zoophobia: a character who has tons of untapped potential, which doesn't get explored because outside of the one character trait (Cameron's being that she's afraid of animals), she's just.....there. Which in Cameron's case, was even more egregious because she was supposed to be the main fucking character.
I think pretty much all of Viv's writing more focused on showing the characters than telling any actual story.
This, as well as the Vox and Alastor duet were the only songs I actually liked listening to, so much so that I replayed both of them to hear them again. Pretty much all the other songs in Episodes 1 and 2 I ended skipping through when I first watched both of them.
Oh, is this even a wonder?Found an old drawing of Viv's that gives a bit more credence to the leak about Sir Pentious dying:
View attachment 5660675
If he does die trying to protect Cherri, I wouldn't be surprised if it led to him being redeemed and becoming a "winner." He'd probably be the first one we see. In retrospect, "It Starts with Sorry" feels like it's meant to foreshow his redemption. But maybe I'm coping.
I'm specifically talking about his redemption. Though I would also not be surprised if he simply died for good considering who he's based on and how Viv is a petty bitch. Either way, the warning flags for him are obvious.
Lilith was Adam's first wife that was banished from eden for wanting to be a girlboss bitch who don't need no man. Pairing her up with lucifer is unironically one of the very few historically clever things the show does.
That'd be a lot easier to consider if Adam and the other angels weren't actively portrayed as fundamentally immoral. Maybe Helluva Boss shows off more traditionally good angels, I haven't seen it, but the representative of Heaven in Adam hasn't been shown to have any kind of moral complexity. If Heaven isn't actually evil, or at least fundamentally corrupt, then why has someone like Adam not only been allowed to rise but become a representative of them?
Because power levels are not established well. From what we can guess demonic power is tied to followers either willing subjects or those indebted to you. Think like orks from 40k.
"not established well"?
It seems to order the demons and Angel's via the teachings of king Solomon. Angel's have different castes. Adam isn't necessarily there by merit but rather due to his caste being the one designated to be there.
