This article wasn’t supposed to exist. 

Early in 2024, I reviewed the first season of “Hazbin Hotel,” the brainchild of Vivienne “Vivziepop” Medrano, created by A24, Bento Box and Viv’s own SpindleHorse and released on Prime Video. Overall, I liked the first season at the time, really enjoying the voice acting and characters, the animation and especially the music, even with some criticisms for the writing and pacing. I initially planned on writing an article comparing the music between seasons one and two when it came time to start thinking about covering the sophomore season. With that in mind, I got ready to sit down, watch all eight episodes and share my thoughts once again. 

At the same time, in my “Cinematic Catch-Up” for 2024, I briefly included the smash hit “Wicked” on that list and made a point to say that I was not a fan of the film, but that I found some things worth enjoying in it. When it came time for the follow-up and second half of the story, “Wicked: For Good,” I assumed it would not be any different. That I would find some good in it, find some bad or things that I generally didn’t care for, but I would ultimately have a serviceable enough two hours at the theaters. 

Yeah, so things got complicated on both sides. 

I will be completely transparent with you. I have not finished season two of “Hazbin Hotel.” In fact, I probably won’t finish it for a while. After watching the first four episodes, I found myself falling rapidly out of love with the show, finding numerous problems I simply didn’t see before in the first season and just not enjoying it as a whole. Suffice it to say, I dropped the season and am currently debating when or even if I’ll pick it up again, whether to give it an honest try again or if I am just done with the show I used to love. 

I have just seen “For Good,” and I speak no hyperbole when I say, despite my tempered expectations and good faith walking in that Jon M. Chu and the rest of the team would at least make something decent, as I watched the film, I quickly felt my apathy turn to anger and my disinterest morph into genuine hatred for what I was watching unfold. Is “For Good” the worst film I have seen this year? Of course not, not when borderline mistakes like “Smurfs,” “A Minecraft Movie” and “Hurry Up Tomorrow” exist, but it is definitely the film I dislike the most this year and the one I feel genuinely upset at the stupendous success it is bound to have with audiences and at the box office. 

So, what is this article, then? To put it simply, it’s to give my thoughts on both “Wicked: For Good” as well as the first four episodes of “Hazbin’s” second season. A fitting enough pairing, considering they are both musicals. With that said, in the case of “Hazbin,” I am aware the season just came to an end and that several of my former criticisms no longer stand, but without delving into spoilers, I will still get into what my issues were at the time. 

My problems with “Hazbin” season two started small at first but quickly compounded when episodes three and four were released. For one, almost all of the main characters were very poorly characterized or made really stupid decisions throughout, especially Charlie (Erika Henningsen), whose naivete is dialed up to eleven and leads to her making a lot of questionable choices. Alastor (Amir Talai) also felt significantly weaker both in terms of writing and literal power, and while I know now that he does improve in the second half of the season, it doesn’t dismiss the fact that he is hampered in the first half and his eventual comeback should have been built-up and teased more. The other characters also don’t do a whole lot in the first half of the season, with one of my favorite characters from the first season, Velvette (Lilli Cooper), doing basically nothing other than spouting snarky remarks and being the quirky social media and fashion overlord. 

The characters and writing were not completely flawed, though. Sir Pentious (Alex Brightman), Lute (Jessica Vosk) and Lucifer (Jeremy Jordan) were all still written incredibly well and I was slightly lifted whenever they appeared, and the animation and pacing are definite improvements over the first season. The music, on the other hand, is a complete mixed bag for me. While there have been a few more great songs in the second half, I am not at liberty to judge them since I haven’t watched the second half yet, so as it stands, the one song that really stands out as on the same level as season one’s soundtrack is “Gravity,” a powerful and rocking duet between Lute and Adam (Brightman). All in all, “Hazbin Hotel’s” second season did not get off on the right foot, and while I hear it improved in the second half and it very well may get better, I am personally just taking a step back and trying to take it all in before diving back into the show. 

Moving onto “Wicked,” whereas I felt general apathy leaning slightly positive with the original, I find myself genuinely disliking “For Good” in most aspects. The poor lighting and direction from the first film are still on full display, with the night scenes looking straight out of a Zack Snyder film at points, and even the scenes during the day just look dim and gross. I know Chu can direct good films (“Crazy Rich Asians”) and even good musicals (“In the Heights”), so I really have no idea what happened here. On top of that, the bulk of the cast, outside of the admittedly still excellent Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero, is just sort of going through the motions, only exacerbated by Cynthia Erivo’s middling turn as Elphaba and Ariana Grande’s overly cheerful and distracting performance as Glinda. 

Then come the contradictions with “The Wizard of Oz” and how the whole film tries to tie into the classic. I will not get into specifics for the sake of spoilers, but every moment where the story tried to connect itself to “Oz” or contradicted something from the original, I found myself groaning and I had to stop myself from shouting in the theater at one point when a certain iconic image appeared. 

But hey, at least the music has to be good, right? These are iconic numbers, after all! “No Good Deed,” “The Wicked Witch of the East,” “Wonderful,” “For Good” and so on. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but every single song falls flat on a technical level, and I felt nothing whenever the characters broke out into song. The choreography is distractingly minimal, mostly consisting of characters walking and occasionally twirling or flying around, and while Erivo, Grande and Bailey are not bad singers, the technical elements are not helping them in the least. As for people who are bad singers, please never let Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum sing again, they are grating and lifeless whenever they are part of the numbers, on top of their actual performances being ham-fisted and stale. 

All in all, I have incredibly mixed thoughts on both season two of “Hazbin” and “Wicked: For Good.” While I have some mild positives with both, more so the former, I do have serious issues with them as well, to the point where I didn’t even finish the second season, at least not now. As a fan of “Hazbin’s” first season and as someone who at least tolerated the original “Wicked,” it honestly pains me that both of these new installments fell flat, and I honestly hope whatever comes next, at least for the former, stands out more and lands better than what we just got.