This article was originally posted as a pair of Twitter threads between the release of "The Circus" and "Seeing Stars." I've revised and updated it for this site.

If you're new to Helluva Boss and its fandom, you may wonder what it was like to follow the first season in real time. Here’s one account of doing that.

Before we begin, take heed of some disclaimers:

1. This is one person’s recollection, not a definitive guide to the experience of watching Helluva Boss’s first season as it unfolded.
2. I didn’t see the Helluva Boss pilot until August 2020, about two months before the series premiere.
3. For nearly all of S1’s run, I conducted my fan activity almost exclusively on Reddit and Tumblr, and I didn't even talk to people on the latter site.
4. Some of the comments excerpted here are stupid, though I’ve avoided sharing the most infuriating ones.
5. With a partial exception for “Ozzie’s,” no episode will be broken down in detail here. This piece assumes you’ve seen the entire first season.
6. The documentation of fan conversations here is not exhaustive.
7. I wax autobiographical occasionally.

Without further ado:

In the beginning, Helluva Boss fandom was largely a subset of Hazbin Hotel fandom. While that wasn’t universal, many people who saw the HB pilot before the series debuted got into it through the HH pilot.

HB’s pilot was roughly a third as long as HH’s and much nastier in tone. Back then, comparing the two pilots seemed logical. The other official Hellaverse content consisted of “Addict,” the two HH prequel comics, and the Instagrams, the last of which did not depict canon events. So it was easy to misconstrue HB as HH’s opening act rather than a parallel series that shared a setting with it.

That impression diminished only slightly with HB’s series premiere, “Murder Family.”

This episode carried over the twisted humor from the pilot, showed I.M.P. functioning as a squad, and demonstrated that the characters were not identical to their pilot counterparts.

Instead of an idealist dreaming of a career in musical theater, Blitzo was bitter, cynical, and invested in assassination. Moxxie was a more reserved, optimistic individual who had by far the most functional moral compass of the group.

The biggest surprise was hearing the new voice actors. Vivian Nixon, Millie’s replacement VA, gave her a more pronounced southern twang than Erica Lindbeck did. Bryce Pinkham made for a high-pitched, almost giggly Stolas, unlike Brock Baker’s commanding aristocrat.

Unsurprisingly, not everyone received these changes happily.

Though I enjoyed the episode, it didn’t have the emotional resonance I wanted. The highlight was visual: seeing Stolas in his bathtub surrounded by the model of the zodiac. Also, the bitter social commentary warmed the withered cockles of my heart.

HB was still secondary to HH in my mind. I was more eager for the release of HH’s first season than I was for additional HB episodes, and the way I participated in Hellaverse fandom reflected that.

Then “Loo Loo Land” came out.

On December 9th, 2020, roughly six weeks after the release of “Murder Family,” “Loo Loo Land” introduced multiple dramatic elements: Stolas’s relationship with his daughter, Octavia; Octavia’s own mixed feelings about him; Stella’s rage against Stolas and indifference to Octavia; Blitzo’s hinted-at falling-out with his former friend and coworker Fizzarolli; suggestions that Blitzo wanted yet rejected love.

Previously, Stolas could have been read as a sexually predatory running gag. Here, however, he showed that he was a loving father in a bad marriage. His entire character had been overhauled since the pilot. Bryce Pinkham’s voice was the perfect fit for him, and no scene demonstrated that better than the Bowie-esque lullaby "You Will Be Okay," sung to a child Octavia. (This song would turn out to have a very different meaning from the one some viewers predicted. That's a story for the second season, though.)

Additionally, this episode showed off a new infernal location for the first time and ended on a visually appealing conflagration, complete with a wyvern eating Blitzo’s robotic enemy.

“Loo Loo Land” was the episode I’d waited for, and much of the fandom agreed. This episode indicated that HB was not content to stand in the shadow of HH’s promise and could be more than a violent, raunchy comedy.

HB’s canon now comprised two tonally different episodes. That made the future of the series impossible to predict. For many fans, the succession of gory hijinks with tender family interactions also made the characters hard to judge.

For example, not everyone was sure of how to evaluate Stella’s actions. Was her throwing the butler across the kitchen and destroying Stolas’s plants slapstick comedy or domestic abuse? Was HB playing any violence seriously? After all, the imps killed a child in the pilot.

In hindsight, the answers are clear. At the time, however, many fans gave Stella the benefit of the doubt.

The hype barely had time to die down after that episode’s release.

On December 31st, 2020, the fandom received its favorite thing: a pleasant surprise from the show’s creator. This one came in the form of the official trailer for HB’s first season.

Inevitably, this 46-second video, which featured an array of shots promising new characters and settings, inspired a flurry of speculation.

Fans returned to the trailer throughout S1 as a source for their predictions. People wondered about the male hellhound who appeared in one shot, for instance. Did he have some link to Loona?

“Spring Broken" came out on January 31st, 2021, and disproved more than one fan theory. In this episode, the human singer from the trailer turned out to be the disguised form of a succubus pop star named Verosika Mayday—and Blitzo’s ex, at that.

The hellhound from the trailer was Vortex, Verosika’s bodyguard and a mellow guy about Loona’s age.

Vortex and Loona had no previous connection; instead, she met him for the first time, developed an instant crush on him, and learned that he already had a girlfriend.

“Spring Broken” set up an ongoing hostility between Blitzo and Verosika and showed more facets to Loona. In the first two episodes proper, she came across as a mean-spirited grouch. Here, however, she demonstrated a softer side, letting her loneliness and vulnerability show.

Her argument with Blitzo implied that they were more alike than either character might realize. Unlike Octavia’s conversation with Stolas at the end of “Loo Loo Land,” which led to a better relationship between the two, Blitzo and Loona doubled down on their animosity.

Although “Spring Broken” lacked the emotional punch of “Loo Loo Land,” it introduced intriguing new characters and lore elements—Verosika and Succ Ink. (and succubi and incubi in general), the concept of human disguises, and the transformative powers of Beelzejuice.

And, of course, this episode delivered vulgar comedy, bloody action, and beautiful art and fluid animation.

That wasn’t good enough for some people, though. They wanted something similar to “Loo Loo Land,” so they found “Spring Broken” lacking.

Personally, while I missed seeing Stolas and Octavia, I knew they would return, and I was generally pleased with everything this episode did.

Meanwhile, some of the fandom found Blitzo’s ability to seduce Stolas and Verosika just as surprising as the rest of I.M.P. did. A few people praised the game they imagined Blitzo had.

Happily, we didn’t have long to wait for the episode following “Spring Broken.” On March 14th, 2021, Vivziepop released “C.H.E.R.U.B.”

Like “Murder Family,” this episode focused on I.M.P. going after an assassination target. This time, the group worked at the behest of their intended victim's newly dead business partner.

Said business partner was suicidal, so the imps tried to convince him to end his own life. Antagonizing the imps were the episode’s titular trio of cherubs, who tried to talk the old man into staying alive.

The cherubs' efforts invariably made matters worse, sometimes bloodily.

Of course, the world really would be better off with Lyle Lipton and individuals like him. He and his partner, Loopty Goopty, were industrialists who experimented on poor people. For some warped reason, the cherubs believed he could be redeemed.

At the same time, the episode implied that Heaven took bribes and that God wasn’t the most benevolent of dictators. You couldn’t honestly say that the cherubs were the imps’ moral superiors, especially when one of those cherubs, Keenie, expressed her prejudice against imps as a species, which led to even more violence.

In their zeal to convince Lipton to live (which they technically succeeded in doing), the cherubs set in motion a chain of events that accidentally killed him, which prevented their return to Heaven. A fourth cherub, the representationally named Deerie, delivered this news as smugly as possible. (Vivienne Medrano herself voiced this character, in a brief but memorable performance.)

Whereas “Spring Broken” was mostly comedy with a serious moment or two, “C.H.E.R.U.B.” was nothing but bloody slapstick comedy with more than a sprinkling of acerbic social commentary. Out of all the episodes in the series proper, this one felt spiritually closest to the pilot.

“C.H.E.R.U.B.” quickly became the most controversial episode in the fandom. Fans who wanted more “Loo Loo Land”-like drama were disappointed for the second consecutive time.

On top of that, the way the episode represented angels and Heaven displeased certain pious viewers.

I could not agree with the complainers. This episode still had plenty to offer. That signature brand of dark comedy pleased me, especially as a depressive person who had major issues with Christianity. (Also, I had and still have no patience with people were morally anti-suicide but uninterested in learning why someone might want to end their own life.)

And I wasn’t alone in liking “C.H.E.R.U.B.” Most of the initial comments on it were positive.

While some of those unhappy with the episode complained about the cherubs’ annoying attitudes, the character of Collin, the meek sheep-like cherub, gathered something of a following. People liked his timid personality.

Some people understood that even if the episode didn’t advance the main characters’ arcs, it was still important to the worldbuilding, showing the viewers something significant about Heaven. (Knowing this was even more productive when you considered “C.H.ER.U.B.” within the context of Hazbin Hotel.)

The first season was halfway over. At the time, I thought, “I guess HB will be a mission-of-the-month series from here on out, with I.M.P. going after a different target every time.” Although that wasn’t exactly what I wanted, I trusted that Medrano knew this story better than I did.

The next episode proved me wrong about the series and right about Vivienne Medrano.

On April 30th (Walpurgisnacht) 2021, “The Harvest Moon Festival” took HB into a different place, in more ways than one. Rather than popping up to Earth and murdering humans, I.M.P. visited Millie’s family home in the Wrath Ring, thanks to an invitation from Stolas. In fact, the episode opened with the aftermath of a sexual encounter between him and Blitzo.

In this interaction, Blitzo revealed his nonchalance about the arrangement and even looked pleased when Stolas invited him to the festival, a change from the irritation Blitzo displayed toward him in previous episodes.

“The Harvest Moon Festival” sent the main cast to a new ring of Hell and introduced new characters, much like “Loo Loo Land.” Millie’s parents, Lin and Joe, were funny to watch, and her sister, Sallie May, immediately became beloved as HB’s first trans character with a speaking role.

(Viewers who didn’t understand subtlety had to have her trans status explained to them, of course.)

The most significant new character by far was Striker, who stood apart as the show’s first genuinely threatening antagonist. Instead of a humorous pest who got defeated and either died or slunk off, he got defeated…and survived to stalk I.M.P. and Stolas another day.

And when the episode revealed that Stella was the one who ordered Stolas’s assassination, much of the fandom’s sympathy for her dissipated.

This episode attracted a lot of praise. Viewers liked the fight scene (the show's most intense at the time), Striker, Sallie May, the interactions between Millie and Moxxie, and the signs that Blitzo was concealing deeper feelings for Stolas—whom they were glad to see anyway.

Not everyone was content, though. Some viewers disliked that the episode seemed to set up Millie as the lead only for Moxxie to step into the spotlight instead shortly after Striker appeared.

Speaking of Moxxie, some people were unhappy with the treatment he received here—and made it very clear just how upset they were.

“The Harvest Moon Festival” was the transition point between the earlier episodes’ comedic capers and the more dramatic, ambitious installments that would follow. For some fans, this episode was the one that made them root for Stolitz.

Shortly after “Harvest Moon’s” release, HB’s official Twitter account tweeted that S1E6 would be the longest episode of the season and thus require a longer wait.

No one knew long a wait to anticipate. The fandom had become used to seeing a new episode roughly every six weeks.

During the wait for S1E6, though, fans let their predictions flow freely. One common belief was that the episode would be set in the Lust Ring. After all, the only S1 trailer scenes that hadn’t appeared in the show yet took place there…right?

We waited until August 21st, 2021, when “Truth Seekers” came out.

It did not take place in the Lust Ring.

No one in the fandom saw this episode coming, primarily because almost none of it was in the trailer. Only two clips in the S1 trailer were from “Truth Seekers,” and one of them was easy to confuse with a scene that would appear in the seventh episode.

When I saw “Truth Seekers,” I realized why hardly any of it appeared in the trailer and why all the official teaser GIFs came from the scenes of Moxxie and Blitzo’s capture and interrogation. SpindleHorse wanted to keep the episode’s juiciest moments a surprise.

And this episode was composed almost entirely of juicy moments: Moxxie and Blitzo’s psychedelic trips; the bloody mayhem I.M.P. unleashed on D.H.O.R.K.S.; Stolas’s summoning his own full demon form. SpindleHorse, with the help of Chaos Emporium, Inc., had outdone themselves.

Everything was upgraded. The musical sequence looked more deeply into Blitzo’s insecurities, desires, and relationship issues than ever. The action set piece showed I.M.P.’s teamwork at its best. Stolas’s rescue of the group resulted in a passionate kiss between him and Blitzo.

Finally, the episode’s ending, in which Agents One and Two looked over the captured footage of the slaughter of their teammates and declared that this proof of demonic activity could not be ignored, seemed to set up a high-stakes conflict that would play out in the next season.

The fandom loved this episode. “Truth Seekers” was an index of HB’s best qualities: resonant characterization, organic storytelling and worldbuilding, dark comedy, fast-paced action, vivid visuals, memorable musical numbers, and honest depictions of gay attraction.

On that last note, the kissing scene surprised viewers who thought Blitzo would never receive Stolas’s attention enthusiastically, that Stolas was interested only in kinky sex, or just that HB would delay any moments of sensual romance between Blitzo and Stolas until much later.

Just as “Truth Seekers” settled into our minds, we got ginned up on the anticipation of the season finale. By process of elimination, S1E7 had to be the Lust Ring episode, and everyone was aching to see that.

The thought of the Lust Ring episode was tantalizing enough. If the S1 trailer was any indication, this episode would reveal the identity of the hulking silhouette from the trailer, divulge the reason behind Stolas’s evident sadness, and, of course, show off a new location.

The teasers on HB’s official Twitter account ratcheted up that eagerness even further. At last, we’d see the original Fizzarolli, that mysterious figure who previously appeared only as a black-and-white figure in Blitzo’s truth-gas trip.

Well, on Halloween 2021, the promisingly titled “Ozzie’s//S1: Episode 7 — FINALE PART 1” was published on YouTube. In stark contrast to “Truth Seekers,” this episode had no action. Instead, it had a sizzling musical number performed by Broadway actors James Monroe Iglehart and Alex Brightman, who voiced the newly introduced Asmodeus and Fizzarolli.

This number, which showed the influences of “St. James Infirmary” and “Oogie Boogie’s Song,” consisted of the Deadly Sin of Lust and his sidekick (with an assist from Verosika) humiliating Moxxie, Blitzo, and Stolas in ways that revealed something about each character.

Moxxie aroused Ozzie and Fizz’s ire by singing a tender romantic ballad to Millie rather than a vulgar copulation anthem like the club’s musical acts were expected to perform, meaning Moxxie and Millie were champions of true love even in places that vaunted loveless sex.

Fizz called out Blitzo because his “love life was a pile of shit,” at which point Verosika sang about Blitzo’s selfishness in sexual and all other contexts right to his face, seeming to confirm that Blitzo had a history of ruining his relationships. (The former interaction also seemed to back up the theory that Fizz and Blitzo were once lovers. How else would Fizzarolli know about Blitzo’s love life, after all?)

And when Ozzie declared that Stolas “used to have a smokin’ wife [and] a kid” but “sold [his] life for a thrust” by being with Blitzo, that meant that the truth about Stolas’s marriage wasn’t known to the public. As far as Ozzie and anyone else knew, Stolas’s family life was perfect until he, like Blitzo, did something selfish to spoil it. Ozzie was wrong, of course, but the rest of the cabaret audience couldn’t have understood that.

Furthermore, this scene—Wally Wackford’s outburst of “Are you sleepin’ with an imp?” especially—apparently indicated that a sexual relationship between a Goetia demon and imp was frowned upon by Hell’s wider society, not just the upper crust.

Ultimately, Millie and Moxxie proved the strength of their bond, the former by saving Moxxie from his hecklers with a well-timed blow over the head and the latter by finishing his sincere love song to her.

The situation wasn’t so sunny for Blitzo or Stolas, however. An apologetic Stolas began offering to make the evening up to Blitzo, who immediately interpreted the invitation as a request for sex and turned him down.

When Stolas clarified that he simply wanted to share quality time, Blitzo insisted the relationship was nothing but his fulfilling Stolas’s carnal desires. Stolas decided not to argue with Blitzo and let him drive off.

Upon his return to his one-bedroom apartment, Blitzo walked past a wall of photographs, each of which had his face scribbled out, and scrolled through a gallery of pictures on his phone.

These images gave fascinating glimpses into Blitzo’s past and present—his secret enjoyment of sex with Stolas, his friendship with Fizzarolli, his adoption of Loona, his apparently tiring relationship with Verosika, and much more.

In the end, Blitzo cried himself to sleep, and then the credits rolled.

“Ozzie’s” inspired a strongly positive reaction in me, not least because of Moxxie’s line “[we] don’t have to pretend to want to things we don’t.” It was a palpable relief to see HB rebut the idea that having boundaries was uncool. (I’d feared that HB would fall into the “everyone should have lots of hardcore sex” trap. But it didn’t!)

The fandom derived much enjoyment—and anguish—from this episode. They received Ozzie and Fizz gladly and were happy to see Verosika reappear. What left people feeling sad and conflicted was Blitzo and Stolas’s falling-out. Fans wanted someone to blame for that.

But the downer note this episode ended on wasn’t so bad, was it? “Ozzie’s” was just the first half of the season finale. The eighth episode would make it all better, wouldn’t it? S1 couldn’t come to such a miserable conclusion, could it? Blitzo and Stolas were going to kiss and make up in S1E8, weren’t they? We just had to wait, didn’t we? Sure, we had no way of knowing when the next episode would release, but it seemed that we could reasonably expect it in a couple of months. The show’s Twitter account said nothing about S1E8 taking a long time, so this wouldn’t be like the wait for “Truth Seekers,” right?

On December 17th, 2021, Vivziepop released the Helluva 2022 trailer, which began with several seconds of footage from S1E8. This scene, which involved Loona trying to convince Blitzo to stay longer at a party, sparked much speculation… And the timing of the release gave the impression that S1E8 was just around the corner. We didn’t have to wait on needles and pins for Blitzo and Stolas to patch things up, would we?

We did wait. From mid-December through January, we discussed more informed theories for S1E8. And many people predicted Valentine's Day as the episode's release date.

The February first announcement that S1E8 would be “more ambitious” than the team anticipated only heightened our desire for the episode.

More months passed. Fans were going out of their minds waiting for S1E8. r/HelluvaBoss started running on fumes, climaxing in tedious arguments over which character was the sexiest.

May the third came and brought with it an S1E8 teaser, revealing that the episode would definitely take place at least partly at a hellhound party. So we wouldn’t have too much longer to wait, would we?

Well, exactly one month later, the show’s official account shared a major announcement in four images.

To wit, S1E8 could not be released in its current form. Narratively speaking, the announcement continued, that was not a problem, because the episode didn’t resolve anything from “Ozzie’s.”

Rather, S1E8 was to be a visual extravaganza celebrating S1’s completion. The episode would be released, but no one knew when. The viewers could watch the start of the second season without missing any significant story beats, and that second season would begin on July 30th.

And so, it sank in: The happy ending that fans wanted in S1 was not to be. Blitzo would not approach Stolas with a bouquet of roses in his hand and an apology in his mouth. They would not fly to the moon on a winged horse and confess their love. The second half of the finale would be no remedy for the wounds inflicted in “Ozzie’s” or a look into anyone’s psyche like the drug-trip scene in “Truth Seekers.”

Even when fans learned the probable reason for S1E8’s delay was a song cover, some people were unsatisfied. They’d had to wait eight months for an episode that didn’t advance the story! Why, SpindleHorse even advertised merchandise drops in the interim! How dare they!

The poor behavior didn’t end there. During this time, some individuals went so far as to harass Vivienne Medrano outright, which in turn spawned more controversy in the fandom.

Overall, the period between the delay announcement and the second season’s premiere marked itself with thinly veiled self-pity (from people who didn’t think they should have had to wait as long as they did) and self-congratulation (from fans who acted like any behavior within the fandom short of harassing Medrano directly was acceptable).

Fortunately, many people took it well when they learned about S1E8's postpostment and the upcoming premiere of the second season.

And the complainers got some pushback from other members of the fandom, which was refreshing to see.

Eventually, I decided to move my Hellaverse fanac to Twitter and return to Reddit only after S2 began. Hellaverse Twitter proved to be more rewarding overall than Hellaverse Reddit. I could stay in the #Stolitz hashtag and avoid almost everything I disliked about the fandom, which was not an option on Reddit because of the way the communities were organized.

At the time of this writing, the show is less than halfway through its second season. Each episode has lit off whole new controversies as it forecloses some viewers’ favorite storyline predictions and character interpretations, many of which could warrant essay-length examination on their own.

People who are angry that the show denied them specific outcomes they wanted are still complaining about it, as are those who thought the show would abandon sex jokes after the first season. In other words, some people started watching the show for something other than Medrano and Rogers’s creative vision and are becoming more obvious about that. More of us, however, seem to be invested in that vision as it is and watching happily.

I expect more controversy to ensue, since it always does. Whatever happens in the fandom, though, I think I’ll be with Helluva Boss until the end.