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Animated musical comedy Hazbin Hotel is kinda weird about death. I mean, the show is set in literal Hell (with the occasional visit to Heaven), and yet there's still a yearly event (called the Extermination) in which demons die at the hands of weapon-wielding angels. So what's the deal? Do the demons go some other place when they die? At San Diego Comic Con 2025, series creator Vivienne Medrano, AKA VivziePop, answered that very question.

Medrano was speaking at a press round table that happened just after the very well-attended Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss panel at the San Diego Convention Center. Popverse was also at the roundtable, so we got to hear her answer to this somewhat esoteric lore question. But before she answered, Medrano wanted to clarify something.

"[The question of death in Hell] iss definitely something that we potentially will explore," she said, "So I can't definitively answer."

Well if that's not a massive tease I don't know what is. But fine, Viv, let's just get into those non-spoilery general explanations - it's not like we're dying to know future plot points from the Hellaverse creator herself.

"What makes the stakes so high," Medrano says, "Is that there is essentially a second death in the show. The closest thing I can reference, even though it's not what I got it from, is [Disney/Pixar's] Coco. You can just cease to exist."

Yes, that's a real threat that exists in the world of hit animated film Coco, which deals with a somewhat less demon-infested, far less raunchy afterlife.

"That reality is very scary to me," continues Medrano, "And in some ways is even scarier than people dying. That's why in Helluva Boss, we treat death so trivially. Because in this universe, we know that they'll end up in either Heaven or Hell, so we don't feel as bad as people when people die from the IMPs. At least, I don't"

Those IMPs, by the way, are the Immediate Murder Professionals, the assassins at the center of Hazbin Hotel's sister series. Did you not know that? God, keep up.

"In Hazbin," Medrano concludes, "When people die, even if we do it in a comedic way, there's a much darker tone to that. Because it's a little bit more finite."

A little bit more finite? What does that mean?? I'm just saying, I hope we find out soon -because if there's such a thing as Purgatory on Earth, it's waiting for more lore from Vivienne Medrano's Hell.

Hazbin Hotel season 2 comes to Prime Video October 29.

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