Hazbin Hotel‘s season two keeps delivering, especially musical, and this week is no exception with the thing we’ve all been waiting for: a sexy sapphic duet between Charlie and Vaggie!
Erika Henningsen and Stephanie Beatriz teased us about it on a red carpet with some hilarious hand motions, and the day has finally arrived.
Of course, this isn’t the first duet between the two of them — they had a very lovely moment in season one during the “More Than Anything” reprise where they reminded us just how very in love they are. But this season, things are heating up, and their duet is a full-sized song with a dance break and everything.
Before we get there, let me set the scene a bit.
In the past few episodes Charlie has been…well, slowly losing her mind. Vox is spreading lies about her and the hotel and every time she tries to set the record straight she seems to make things worse. Vox is enigmatic and good at twisting her words, and the people believe his lies easily; in fact, one of the songs in 205 is called “Vox Populi” which translates to the people’s voice (which is a religious reference and actually very clever.)
Side note: Throughout the season, Charlie has been so supportive of Vaggie trying to find a new name for herself, and is constantly trying the new ones out Vaggie suggests; in this scene, Vaggie rules out “Vannie” – she has yet to try Valerie, unfortunately.
Vaggie finds Charlie’s manic attempts to get heaven’s attention cute at first and decides to try to help in her own way by getting Lucifer to stand up to Vox, but that backfires, too. When Charlie and the angels show up to Vox’s rally to apologize, Lucifer has already threatened them and had to leave with his tail between his legs, so it weakens their cause and Vox is able to rile the people up enough to declare war on heaven.
This turn in the tides also causes Charlie to turn on Vaggie, saying that her asking Lucifer to help is why the rally went so poorly. She doesn’t realize that it definitely didn’t help that heaven didn’t have any plans besides empty apologies and gift baskets, opting for the screenshot of a Notes-app-style apology instead of anything genuine with any kind of action plan attached to it. (Not that I’m siding with Vox; I just think the angels’ approach wasn’t the move.)
I do like that Charlie has to bend over to look Vaggie in the eye. My tol and smol.
Charlie asks Vaggie why she didn’t come to her first, and Vaggie points out that Charlie hasn’t been listening to her when she tries to help. Vaggie says Charlie is the one hurting the hotel and its mission by buying into Vox’s bullshit and letting him get to her, just like he wants. Vaggie is just worried about her, but Charlie accuses her of not caring about the hotel’s mission, and this is what breaks Vaggie. She’s done fighting with Charlie, because they’re obviously not on the same plane of reality if that’s what Charlie thinks. Because while Charlie has been going on TV to clear her name and trying to get Emily’s attention to prove to the world redemption works, Vaggie and her friends have been the ones doing the actual work in the hotel, taking care of guests and running therapy sessions. So Vaggie walks away from this argument until Charlie is ready to join her in reality.
I liked that Vaggie didn’t cave here. She came close, but she stood her ground.
Charlie and Vaggie are still fighting when they learn that Carmine gave into Vox’s requests for weapons for the war, so despite the fact they’re not really speaking, they go to confront Carmine together (who says she doesn’t “have time for this lesbian drama”) and try to talk her out of helping, saying they know redemption works so why fight? But Carmine says helping them started this war in the first place. She asks why they still believe sending sinners to heaven is even the answer, now that they know everything heaven is capable of. This gives Vaggie war flashbacks — she knows all too well what heaven is capable of — but Charlie steps in and says they can be better, because this isn’t what Lilith would have wanted. Carmine says Lilith is gone, so it doesn’t really matter what she wanted; a war is coming whether they like it or not, and she’d rather be on the winning side to protect her girls.
When they get back to the hotel, Charlie calls Vaggie up to their room and apologizes. She made a cake and everything. Vaggie says it’s hard when Charlie won’t listen to her, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t still love her. Charlie admits she has been going so crazy because she thought maybe if she got the hotel working her mother would come back and tell she what Charlie did to make her leave in the first place. HEARTBREAKING.
But Charlie is tired of driving everyone away and doesn’t want to do the same to Vaggie, so Vaggie sings to her.
And that’s where our sexy duet comes in! They roll around in their blanket fort and end up wearing the blankets around them.
I mean this dance would break me out of a mental spiral.
And eventually, they break into a dance sequence where the blankets turn into sparkly dresses.
This show can be so CINEMATIC.
The dance is really fun, and despite the fact that they’re in a sparkly imaginary space with imaginary dresses, and despite the fact that it’s animation, the dance looks very grounded in reality. Like something that could actually be performed by real humans; it feels very thoughtful and well-designed, not just a bunch of twirling around.
Okay, splits!
The lyrics are lovely (and GAYYY), with lines like, “Your heart, my heart, when I am with you.
Two souls, one goal, we’ll never lose.” It’s true: Even when they’re fighting, they do have the same goal. They just sometimes need help getting on the same page. The gist of the song is that if the princess of hell and a fallen angel can find love, “the rest is easy, baby.”
Charlie lifting Vaggie like this???? Yes.
It’s a great song with really lovely animation (as perhaps you can tell by how many screenshots I’m including; believe me, I had more I could have added), and they end up out of breath for more reasons than a dance break by the end.
:standing ovation:
I love that this relationship is so strong and can withstand fights and tantrums and mental breakdowns. There’s a lot going on, but in the end, they have each other. I also love that this relationship was one that was established before the pilot episode, but is still getting attention and development and evolution. We’re still learning things about them and how they operate. And I know it’s partially because there are queer people behind the scenes,
Vaggie says they can do the impossible, together, and Charlie thanks her for being so understanding and forgiving. And I’m comforted to know they still love each other, more than anything.
In other gay news, in these episodes we get to hear a familiar voice when we meet Zeezi, a dino overlord, played by Alex Newell. And also, after having to field Charlie and Vaggie’s argument, Husk realizes that with Alastor gone he can quit the hotel, so he goes to a casino and ends up seeing Angel in drag. (This is neither here nor there but the animation of the glitter/sequins on Angel’s dress was very impressive.) Oh also…turns out Angel has been Vox’s secretly possessed puppet all this time and has been using him to spy on the hotel. Ruh roh!
I hope you’re enjoying this season as much as I am. And there’s more chaos and goodness to come!
