Helluva Boss Season 3 Is Making Some Big Changes on Prime Video

If you squint hard enough, the end of Helluva Boss season 2 almost looks like a happy ending. The series, a companion piece to Vivienne “Vivziepop” Medrano’s other animated adult musical show, Hazbin Hotel, starts out as a violent, antic comedy about a group of imps in Hell who launch an assassination service aimed at humans on Earth. But it rapidly turns into an ambitious, tragic love story, as hyper, oversexed imp Blitzo and effete Hell-lord Stolas navigate the many, many barriers to their romance, including the wrath of Hell itself. Season 2 ends with them dancing together, then hugging, in an uncharacteristically romantic, quiet moment for the series, though it’s still clear Stolas has reservations. Season 3, which launches on Prime Video on Oct. 14, shows that sweet moment wasn’t meant to last.

Season 3 is the first season of Helluva Boss to launch on Prime Video alongside Hazbin Hotel, though seasons 1 and 2 are still playing free on YouTube, and season 3 will eventually join them there. Season 3 will be split into two segments, with the second half launching some time in 2027. Polygon recently sat down with Medrano to ask what fans should expect from part one of season 3 in October, including what she’s most looking forward to, and what fans can expect from the Hellaverse’s first onscreen pregnancy.

This interview has been edited for concision and clarity.

Image: Spindlehorse/Prime Video

Polygon: Hazbin Hotel has a lot of ongoing lore secrets and big character hooks that keep fans discussing and theorizing. By contrast, the end of Helluva Boss season 2 feels like it could nearly be a series finale if it had to be. How did you approach hooking people back into the story?

Vivienne Medrano: It's kind of a "mileage may vary" [situation] on the ending. A lot of people took that away from the ending. I don't think it's a wrong thing, but I wanted the ending of season 2 to feel like… The tonal mismatch of Stolas and Blitzo, that final shot, where Blitzo is hugging Stolas, and then we pan up to Stolas looking devastated, I wanted that to be the indicator of, like, "Hey, things are still not perfectly right, and Stolas still has a way to go. There's more that needs to happen."

When we last talked, we discussed the philosophy behind Mission Zero, the revised Helluva Boss pilot made specifically for the Amazon release. Going forward, have there been other changes to the show or how you approach it?

Not at all. The show is still 100% our creative vision, so it's not really a big thought. At most, it's helped with how we think about content, because obviously on YouTube, there's a lot of content restriction, and on Amazon, there isn't. So it's actually been more, "Oh, we, we probably could go on using this word or whatever."

Notoriously, we have a character in Helluva named Mammon, who is Australian, and he uses the C-word quite often. And on YouTube, that's not a word that can at all be heard. So we had to censor it actively in our writing, like, "We have to be aware that this is gonna be a 'censored' sound effect here and here and here," and that affected how we wrote. So in season 3, we're a little more aware of Amazon being where it would go — we were just able to plan a little better for those kinds of jokes.

It's mostly been a huge lift as far as [us thinking], "That's too violent," or, "We can't curse in the first 30 seconds of a YouTube video." It's been really nice to kinda go, "You know what? Let's just do it the way we wanna do it, and we'll deal with YouTube later. At least it'll get to be seen the way we want it to be seen."

Image: Spindlehorse/Prime Video

What are you most excited about people getting to see with this season of Helluva Boss? What is it going to open up about this world that you're looking forward to?

Firstly, I just have to shout out our studio and our team, because it visually is, in my opinion, one of the best-looking seasons of either show to come out. I think it's just gorgeous to look at, and that's very exciting. I've gone on record saying season 3 of both my shows are my personal favorite, and that is the truth. I really love the whole story of this season. The first half is the setup, and then the second half, the bigger-stakes things start happening. But I think what's nice about the first half is, there's not a single episode where I don't feel like we put in a ton of fun character moments, fun reveals. If there's a new character, it's a really fun guest star.

We have a lot of thematic buildup in this first half. I'm obviously nervous, because I know a lot of our fans are enormous fans of the relationship between Blitzo and Stolas, and I want to make sure everyone is aware that their story is not done. That doesn't mean it's over — they just have a lot of growing still to do, especially in regards to each other and their relationship. But I'm excited because I think this season starts them in a different place and ends up in a different place, ultimately. I'm really excited for everyone to see that journey. We've been sitting on this for a really long time.

Does Helluva Boss season 3 have any particular overarching theme or idea?

The theme is different [for different] characters, because we've got a lot of different character arcs going on. A lot of it is about finding yourself and being yourself, which goes for most of the characters. With Millie, a lot of it is finding her identity, while dealing with her pregnancy. Obviously, I can't say the result, but a lot of that is that internal journey of still wanting to remain herself.

With Moxie, it's very similar. His arc is more in part two, but he still has a lot of fun stuff in part one. Blitzo and Stolas as the hearts of the show, the whole season is about identity, finding yourself in their own ways. And Loona also goes through a couple identity journeys this season, again, mostly in the second half. Millie and Blitzo and Stolas are more the focus of the first half.

Image: Spindlehorse/Prime Video

Speaking of Millie's pregnancy, we still don't know a lot about the life cycle of Hellborn characters — what infancy or childhood or any other stage of growth is like. Are we going to get into that this season?

Yes, a little bit. This season is mostly focused on the characters as they are, and how this is gonna affect their lives. But over the course of seasons 3 and 4, I wanted the feeling or focus of the show to be more about how this world works, and how the Hellborn experience is. So it's definitely going to be explored. We get a good bit of it. In part one, we get a really fun bit of insight into Millie's backstory — not necessarily just her childhood, but a big part of her life. So I think it's gonna be fun to explore, through these characters, what exactly Hellborn society is.

At Annecy, you announced a new movie, Prehistoria, and you’re working on a new series of Zoophobia shorts. Hazbin Hotel season 3 is in progress, and then there's Helluva Boss season 4. What's your day-to-day like these days? How has your focus changed as Spindlehorse expands and you have all these different projects going on?

Oh my gosh. [Laughs] My schedule obviously is a massive Jenga at this point. It's really just about finding the time, physically, for some of the things I feel most passionate about on my shows. I'm very passionate about writing, very passionate about voice recording, and making sure the performances are what we're wanting. So the biggest challenge, and my biggest day-to-day when we are during a time of writing — which at this point is basically constant, with how many projects we have — it's navigating that, while also staying in reviews, and staying on top of the storyboarding and design phases of my shows. So my days are basically nonstop meetings, nonstop reviews.

A lot of different versions of episodes are coming through. Between the two shows, it alternates on which shows are having animatics that I'm looking at, or even first takes of animation coming through. And both shows are a very different process. So it's just navigating the pipelines of each show. And Prehistoria and Zoophobia are finding their place in the schedule. They're a little fresher, there's a little less direness for them to come out immediately, so there's a lot more time. But it's definitely a challenge. But I'm a workaholic and I love it. I love getting to create, so I cannot complain.