"Dollface, it's my job. I know you wanna fix everything, but unless you can fix my boss, there's nothin' you can do."
— Angel Dust
Charlie tries to get Valentino to treat Angel Dust better, resulting in a reprisal that leads to Angel walking out of the hotel. Husk learns more about Angel Dust after Vaggie sends him out to make sure Angel comes back.
Tropes:
- Absurdly High-Stakes Game: Husk points out that being The Gambling Addict and wagering the souls which give you your power as an Overlord is a pretty nasty combination if you start going on a losing streak, and eventually he sold his own soul to Alastor before losing everything thanks to his gambling habits.
- A Lady on Each Arm: Gender-inverted. Husk finds Angel at a bar called the Black Dot surrounded by a booth full of shark demons he's picked up and is now sitting in the middle of whilst snorting cocaine and chatting them up.
- Always a Bigger Fish: There is not much Val can actually do to Charlie given her power and status far dwarfs his own even as an Overlord of Hell, and he's smart enough to humor her mistakes instead of resorting to violence as he would normally. So instead he abuses Angel in response and gaslights him into protecting him from a pissed off Charlie.
- Anaphora: Valentino pulls this rhetorical device on Angel Dust to horrific effect while browbeating him as a way of reminding him that he has no free will or agency inside Val's porn studio and that he has to do whatever Val tells him to due to his contract.Valentino: When I say "cum", you say...
Angel: Yes, Valentino.
Valentino: When I say "You are fucking twenty guys before lunch", you say...
Angel: Yes, Valentino.
Valentino: When I say "You'd better get that fucking CUNT out of my STUDIO", you say...
Angel: ...I-I—
Valentino: YOU SAY...!
[...]
Angel: [defeated, scared] Yes, Val. - Anger Born of Worry: At least some of Angel's angry yelling at Charlie is born of misguided fear for her safety. After being abused by Valentino for so long, Angel simply cannot see any vulnerabilities in his tormentor and believes Charlie is the one in danger despite her being in an entirely different league than Valentino, exemplified when he begs Val not to hurt her.
- Armor-Piercing Response: When Husk is trying to convince Angel to come back to the Hotel, their argument is clearly going in circles until Husk makes a comment that causes Angel to retaliate in a way that gives him a much better understanding of who Angel is as a person; he's not a superficial celebrity who hates his life, he's a regular guy who hates his life and thinks he has to be a superficial celebrity to make it worth living. Watching Husk in the background of Angel's response shows he's clearly astonished not only by Angel's soul-bearing, but that he had been so callous and insensitive to someone's pain which is so similar to his own.Husk: Maybe I'd treat you better if you were real! And not some bullshit version of yourself, always pushing my boundaries! Lemme tell you, nobody in that hotel cares who you are! How famous, how hot! So you might as well just... cut the act!Angel: IT'S NOT AN ACT! It's who I need to be! And this...this is my escape! Where I can forget about it all, a-and how much I HATE...everything! A place where I can get high and not have to think about how much it hurts! And maybe, if I can ruin myself enough in the process, if I end up broken...I won't be his favorite toy anymore. And maybe he'll let me go.
- Astonishingly Appropriate Interruption: Angel is in the middle of filming a porn scene when he hears the door open and glances over to see that Charlie has arrived, causing him to exclaim her name as if having a Wrong-Name Outburst.Angel: So, what are you gonna do to me... CHARLIE?!
Porn actor demon: Uh, my name's Rocky.
Angel: No one gives a shit. [Shoves him off] - Awesomeness by Analysis: Husk shows off early in the episode and persistently throughout that he's capable of using his position as The Bartender to lay out —accurately, it's worth noting— everyone at the Hotel's character flaws and motivations (some of which don't get explored until much later in the season), demonstrating he's very good at reading people despite his grumpy and antisocial exterior.Husk: Everyone likes to bitch to the bartender! I know everything about you and these motherfuckers at this point! [Sir Pentious] is an insecure buffoon whose lonely ass watches you idiots sleep, Princess is a bleedin' heart who wants to solve everybody else's problems 'cept her own—
Charlie: What? No, I—! What?...pfft, no!
Husk: [Vaggie] judges everyone and everything because she hates herself, and Niffty? Eugh, you don't even wanna know what her deal is!
Angel: [laughter] Oh, you weren't kiddin', hoho! Wow, kitten's got claws, ~meow...~
Husk: And YOU! Don't get me started! I see right through you and all this bullshit, and how fake you are! - Bad "Bad Acting": Angel is clearly a middling-to-low actor in terms of actual acting capability from what little we see of his filmsnote . Justified, as they are Porn Without Plot and Angel is primarily valued for his looks and sex appeal.
- Bad Girl Song: "Poison" is an extremely, extremely Rare Male Example which additionally deconstructs its own premise. At first it sounds like it's about Angel resigning himself to his fate and embracing being a slutty porn star, but thinking about the lyrics for even a second indicates that he's really just trying to live with Valentino's abuse by pretending to enjoy all the sex he's forced to have.Oh
Any way you want me, Baby, that's the way you got me, I'll be
Yours
My story's gonna end with me dead from your poison - Bait-and-Switch: "Loser, Baby" starts off like your typical Pep-Talk Song, with Husk counting all the ways Angel's life sucks right now in a manner that implies he's going to say it's not as bad as Angel thinks... only for Husk to end the verse by telling Angel that he's right, his life really does suck ass. Subverted in that the song is in the end meant to cheer Angel up, but does so in a much more realistic way and without trying to downplay how horrible Angel's circumstances are.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: The opening of "Loser, Baby" has Husk singing about how Angel might feel he's at his lowest point. Husk then caps that off with "Well, let me just say, you're... correct!" Angel is understandably thrown by that twist.Angel: Wait, What?
- Beautiful Dreamer: Husk reveals that Sir Pentious likes watching people in their sleep to cope with his loneliness.
- Berserk Button: Angel Dust hates his outward persona being called "fake", because he believes it's who he has to be in order to escape Valentino's abuse and as such it is very real to him. The first time Husk calls him as such he tries to brush it off and turn it into a joke, but the second time he says it later in the episode Angel is at the end of his rope after having worked for Valentino all night, and is not in a laughing mood. Husk continuing to push his buttons leads to him getting extremely fed up with Husk's indignance and storming out of the Hotel to go get wasted.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Charlie spends much of the episode being a bit of a pushover, due to worrying that using her power as the Princess of Hell to try and sway people to her side is "too mean". The moment she sees just how Valentino treats Angel, just from manhandling him and likely not knowing about the worse stuff behind closed doors? She's pissed, and would probably have taken things further if Angel hadn't interrupted.Charlie: (going full demon) What makes you think you can TREAT HIM LIKE THAT!?
- Be Yourself: Husk tells Angel to drop the persona he puts up in front of others because the people at the hotel care for Angel as a person, because opening up to other people can only alleviate his suffering while closing himself off will worsen it. He also works it into the lyrics of "Loser, Baby":Husk: We're both losers, baby, we're losers, it's okay to be a...!
Angel: ...coked-up dick-suckin' ho?
Husk: Baby, that's fine by me!
Angel: I'm a loser, honey, a schmoozer and a dummy
but at least I know I'm not alone!
Both: You're a loser, just like me! - Bow Chicka Wow Wow: All of the porn Angel stars in has music like this as a backing track.
- Blatant Lies: At the beginning of the episode, Angel claims to Husk that he "[doesn't] care what some drunk-ass bartender thinks of [him]". It's pretty readily apparent from his behavior even in this opening scene that Husk seeing right through his outwardly hedonistic persona that everyone else more or less buys unquestioningly very much bothers him, which is why he's so aggressively flirtatious towards him.
- Break Her Heart to Save Her: In order to protect Charlie from Valentino, Angel lashes out at her just before she could go all out at his boss from seeing what the Overlord did to him. Framing what happened as entirely her fault, Angel deeply hurts Charlie with his words and a seemingly cruel look of disapproval enough that she breaks down and leaves running from the porn studio in tears. The moment she's immediately out though, it's made abundantly clear that Angel regrets putting up such an act.
- Brick Joke: As Husk is being sent after Angel, Charlie says she’s off to write one hundred apology letters and a lesson plan about boundaries. When Angel and Husk get back the letters she wrote are in a heap on the coffee table next to her.
- Call-Back: The demon with two vertically arranged eyes Charlie talks to at Val's porn studio worked at the TV Station in the pilot episode.
- Commonality Connection: Husk manages to connect with Angel by revealing that he also lost everything when he got desperate enough to sell his soul to an Overlord, and now they both try to forget about their bad choices and how much their lives suck by being self-destructive. They even sing an entire song about it, "Loser, Baby".You're a loser, Baby
A loser, but just maybe if we
Eat shit together, things will end up differently. - Content Warning: This is the only episode of season 1 to have a warning at the beginning explaining that it contains scenes of sexual assault.
- Country Matters: Because it apparently wasn't made clear enough how morally repugnant Valentino is, he refers to Charlie as a "fucking cunt" while threatening Angel into kicking her out of his studio.
- A Day in the Limelight: Unlike every other episode of Season 1 which primarily follow Charlie and her ambitions, this episode is focused entirely on Angel's problems, and anyone not relevant to them doesn't appear. Notably, Alastor doesn't appear whatsoever except in a non-speaking flashback.
- Deal with the Devil: Husk reveals he used to be an Overlord, until a run of bad luck in gambling forced him to sell his soul to Alastor.
- Death Dealer: Husk can throw cards with lethal accuracy, and they can slice through gun barrels.
- Death Glare:
- When Charlie explains to Valentino that she's paying him a visit to get Angel some time off work, he very briefly looks over his shoulder and scowls at Angel, complete with a "bone cracking" sound effect.
- When Charlie sets Valentino's studio on fire, Angel spots Valentino glaring at him whilst silhouetted amongst the conflagration. Angel's irises shrink in fear as he knows what's coming next.
- As Angel tells Charlie to Get Out!, she initially tries to desperately apologize to him, but one final stinkeye from him sends her running on her way.
- Dirty Coward: Valentino knows that he stands no chance against Lucifer’s daughter, so he's polite (Lecherous Licking aside) and conciliatory when she gets in the way. He unloads his rage on Angel in private, since he literally owns him. Then he basically uses him as a shield and silently gloats about it when Charlie objects to his abuse.
- Disney Acid Sequence: A very dark invocation of this trope — it's subtly implied that Angel's sexually-charged dance break in "Poison" is meant to represent him dissociating while being raped.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The lyrics of "Poison" can obviously be read simply as Angel singing about Valentino forcing him to perform all sorts of depraved acts for him unwillingly, along with all the drugs he’s given and the general toxic nature of their dynamic. But their heavily sexually charged innuendo can also very intentionally be read as Angel being forced to fellate Valentino, with the "poison" in question being Valentino's seminal fluid. Even some of the visuals play into this.So far beyond difficultto resist another gulpYeah, I know it's poisonYou're feeding me poisonI'm choking from the taste and I can't help but swallow
- Double Entendre: A bit of antanaclasis
is used during the porn shoot. "Do" is used first in its usual sense, and then in the sense of "have sex with".Angel: Oh, no. So many burglars... And only one me! Whatever shall I do? I guess I'll have to do... all of you! - Doublethink: When Husk criticizes the porn Angel stars in for being cheaply made schlock, Angel acts offended and argues that they're of genuine artistic merit and have brought him awards and recognition. However, when Husk further calls him out, Angel dismisses Husk as a "porn critic", implicitly attaching an It's Not Supposed to Win Oscars mentality to his work. This is because Angel is deliberately trying to avoid addressing the deeper implications that he is being indefinitely forced to churn out this pornography by Valentino against his will.
- Drowning My Sorrows:
- After his long night with Val, Angel comes back to the hotel and asks Husk for his strongest drink. Husk lampshades it as a "drinking to forget kind of night."
- More broadly, Husk and Angel turn to alcohol (and other vices in Angel's case) as an escape from their terrible circumstances.
- Turns out most people at the hotel tend to unload at the bar, so Husk knows what everyone's issues are.
- Evil Virtues: In Husk’s case, sincerity. While he may take things too far, he’s not afraid to speak what his mind is thinking, and in this episode, he calls out Angel several times for putting his bravado, seemingly successful persona to hide the ugliness of the lifestyle that Valentino put him through, urging him to let this mask drop, since at the hotel nobody cares about his status, but they care for him as a person.
- Fake Action Prologue: The episode opens with Angel Dust strapped to a chair and being interrogated, but the viewer will quickly notice something is amiss when Angel's interrogator says he's going to fuck the information out of him and Angel responds with "Do your worst...~daddy.~" It's then immediately revealed that this is a scene in one of Angel's porno films that he's showing off to the rest of the Hotel residents.
- Fan Disservice: During "Poison", the sexual scenes of Angel enjoying himself (or pretending to enjoy himself) are undercut with the reality of how terrifying and unsafe his working life is under Valentino as well as very brief glimpses of Valentino having violent sex with him. The overall message and atmosphere of the scene removes any and all titillation one could get out of it.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: In the opening scene, the hellhound "interrogating" Angel has a gold tooth, a pretty good indication that he also works for Valentino and this is one of his movies.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Husk calls out Angel for his self-destructing, his eyes very briefly dart away to the ground after doing so. This is a subtle hint that Husk is fully aware that he's a pot calling the kettle black in regards to self-destructive behavior, and also doubles as Five-Second Foreshadowing since he's about to find out that he and Angel really do have more in common than he thinks.
- Get Out!: Played for Drama. After a severe browbeating from Valentino, Angel authoritatively tells Charlie to leave Val's studio so he can work in peace and so that Val doesn't hurt her as much as he's capable of hurting Angel.Angel: I didn't want you to come here! I already asked you to leave and you didn't listen! You made things worse!Charlie: I-I just wanted to help you...Angel: WELL YOU AIN'T! You actually wanna help me? GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE! Right now, and lemme finish my work!
- Hard Truth Aesop:
- Sometimes people are trapped in awful situations with no easy, straightforward solutions, and the only thing they can do is confide in others sharing similar experiences as a means of coping.
- No matter how miserable your life may be, there's no point in making other people miserable alongside you. The only thing which lies down that path is greater loneliness and sadness.
- Helping other people can sometimes unintentionally make the situation much worse, so it's important to make sure the help is wanted and appreciated before doing anything drastic lest you wind up hurting the people you're trying to help.
- Hates Being Touched: Husk finally loses it with Angel constantly overly physically flirting with him and violating his personal space, pointing out just how pathetic it makes Angel look.Angel: [wrapping himself in one of Husk's wings] ~Oh come on, I bet I can make those wings flap...~Husk: STOP! [throws Angel off himself] Fuckin' christ! You can cut the act already! It's never gonna work on me, so all you're doing is making an ass outta yourself with this fake bullshit!
- Hookers and Blow: Husk finds Angel after he stormed out of the Hotel in a club downtown, doing lines of cocaine with a bunch of shark demons he's picked up. Angel does this very frequently as a way to relieve himself of the trauma Valentino inflicts on him daily, to the point where he doesn't even care if the guys he picks up drug him and have their way with him, as a sawfish demon in the group is seen attempting to do before Husk intervenes.
- Imagined Innuendo: When Angel is trying to usher out Charlie, his calling out to Valentino that he's "coming" (meant literally) gets responded to as if it were meant in the sexual slang sense:Valentino: Angel! What is the fucking holdup?
Angel Dust: I'm... coming!
Valentino: Not off-camera, you're not! - I Need a Freaking Drink: After Angel's long night with Valentino, he staggers back to the Hotel and collapses in front of Husk at the bar, demanding he make him the strongest drink possible.
- Inelegant Blubbering: After Angel Dust returns with Husk at the hotel and forgives Charlie for her involvement with the whole Valentino’s studio incident, the latter is reduced into a weeping mess, such that Vaggie has to escort her to her room.
- I Resemble That Remark!: Angel accuses Husk of playing the part of the 'wise old bartender who's seen it all'. Husk immediately responds with an answer that sounds just like the typical 'wise old bartender' line, about how Angel won't find solutions to his problems at the bottom of a bottle.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Parodied as part of the porn film that Angel brings for show and tell's Excuse Plot. Angel's interrogator threatens to violently have sex with Angel's character to extract information from him, when Angel's character is more than a little into the idea, defeating the whole point of using it as an interrogation tactic.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Charlie and Vaggie find Husk's blunt call outs about Angel's behavior to be too harsh, but he's right about how Angel doesn't respect anyone's boundaries and is acting out to hide his problems. His no-nonsense manner later proves to be the tough love Angel needs to finally start opening up.
- Karma Houdini: Valentino faces no consequences for his abuse and threats towards Angel. He exits the episode after making Angel work all night to make up for the damages Charlie accidentally caused and Angel spending most of the remaining episode in a breakdown over the stress, with him still under contract with Valentino when all is said and done.
- Lecherous Licking: Valentino licks up Charlie's entire forearm when greeting her.
- Lie Back and Think of England: Referenced among the lyrics of "Poison" is Angel's numbness at being subjected to constant sexual exploitation day in and day out to the point where he simply falls into his rakish persona in order to get through hours upon hours of grueling, abusive sex work.I got so good at bein' untrue
I got so good at tellin' you what you wanna hear
I disassociate, disappear (yeah, yeah, yeah) - Ludicrous Gibs: Angel shoots the tiny shark gangster until there's nothing left of him but a pile of unidentifiable bones and guts.
- Mama Bear: A friendship variant — Charlie does not hesitate to call out Valentino for the way he treats Angel once she finally sees just how bad he is, and might have done worse if not for Angel stopping her.
- Meaningful Background Event:
- When Angel returns to the Hotel after his long night with Valentino, Charlie can be seen in the foyer behind him curled in a fetal position and moving to say something to him but pulling back at the last second.
- A few seconds later when Angel demands Husk make him a drink, as Husk goes to make it you can physically watch Angel code-switch from the physically and mentally exhausted wreck he really is back into his charming and carefree persona with an adjustment of his hair tuft.
- Meaningful Echo: Angel Dust complaining about memorizing the whole script and being told to improv just like Husk in the first episode foreshadows their "Not So Different" Remark moment.
- Modesty Bedsheet: Angel has a bedsheet to cover himself when shooting Valentino's porno, and his character drops it suggestively when the "robbers" arrive, but the audience only sees a Between My Legs shot.
- Musicalis Interruptus: The music number "Loser, Baby" comes to an abrupt end when the loan sharks come back for revenge after Husk beat them up at the bar. Comically, they're in disbelief to find Angel and Husk singing.
- Mythology Gag:
- Angel is wearing the gloves from his pilot design in the opening scene. He can also be heard shrieking "~WHOO, HARDER, DADDY!~" in an obvious parallel to one of his most famous pilot lines.
- According to Angel, Valentino once took 30 minutes to count three bills. This is a reference to a scene in "ADDICT" where Valentino is looking through three bills in his hand.note
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- Charlie heads to Valentino's studio to convince him to give Angel more hours off. However, this only makes things worse, as Valentino thinks Angel is using Charlie to get out of his contract, causing him to physically assault Angel.
- To a lesser extent, Vaggie convincing Charlie to start taking advantage of her position to help her clients was born out of the best of intentions, but this wasn't the best situation for the inexperienced Charlie to start putting that into practice.
- Noodle Incident: Angel mentions that the porn film he shows off at the beginning of the episode won him an award over "that bitch Tiffany Titfucker", implying he doesn't like her for some reason.
- "No. Just… No" Reaction: Charlie's reaction to Valentino offering her a role in one of his porn films is an exasperated "Fuck no!" before she realizes how rude that sounded and moderates her tone.
- No OSHA Compliance: While Charlie may have technically started the studio fire by tripping over the cord, it probably would have happened eventually given how over-capacity the power strips were even before that. A quick visual gag demonstrates that they're Vox products and even have a "No fire" label on them.
- No Sense of Personal Space: In a massive red-flag move from Valentino, upon meeting the Princess of Hell for the the first time he does not merely shake her hand, nor even kiss it (a little strange, but she is a princess); he rolls up the entire sleeve of her suit and licks the length of her forearm, leaving a bucket's worth of red spittle behind. Charlie is visibly very disgusted and creeped out by this.Charlie: [hushed] Ooooh no thank you...
- "Not So Different" Remark: While Husk dislikes Angel for being a phony and constantly harassing him with lewd remarks, Husk admits they are both losers who sold their souls to psychopaths and can relate to each other.
- Oh, Crap!: Angel has a string of panicked reactions when Charlie shows up at the studio.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: While working inside Valentino's porn studio, Angel exhibits almost none of the brash, aloof and confident character he exudes outside it. He is even visibly terrified when Charlie tries to confront Valentino. It's one of the first signs that beneath his hyper-exaggerated persona of himself, Angel is a scared and sad victim of horrific abuse kept on a short leash.
- Pep-Talk Song: "Loser, Baby" is a song Husk sings to cheer up Angel after learning they've both lost everything in deals with Overlords.
- Porn Without Plot: It's established pretty quickly that the majority of the porn Angel stars in has wafer-thin Excuse Plots and corny, wooden acting, with Valentino even admitting that no one cares about the script and that Angel should just ad lib his lines. Despite this, Angel still acts like he's proud of them and the accolades they've brought him as a coping mechanism for avoiding thinking about his indefinite contract with Valentino.
- P.O.V. Cam: The camera takes Charlie's perspective when she starts storming toward Valentino, up until Angel steps in between them.
- Promoted Fanboy: In-universe: Travis, once a client of Angel's in the pilot, is now part of Valentino's stage crew.
- Rage Breaking Point: When she sees Valentino being abusive towards Angel, Charlie—who'd made a point of barely putting up with the pimp's snide, lecherous attitude in an attempt to be polite—flies into a rage and starts transforming into her full demon form. She only manages a Partial Transformation before Angel intervenes and gets her to leave in tears by blaming her for Val's outburst.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Even genocidal angels are given silly quirks to make them entertaining. Alastor is a serial killer creating conflict for fun but is polite enough to lend a hand, and Vox is a manipulative tyrant whose charismatic larger-than-life persona makes him very entertaining. But Val? Valentino is a callous, thuggish pimp and rapist whose horrible abuse of Angel is shown to be the worst in the entire show. After abusing Angel into performing in his porn videos the entire night, it is shown Valentino repeatedly rapes Angel at his leisure in absolutely harrowing detail.
- Reality Has No Soundtrack: The music is mainly absent in the scene where Valentino horrifically beats Angel up to underscore the realistic terror of the scene at hand.
- Record Needle Scratch: A record halt noise can be heard when the loan sharks interrupt Angel and Husk singing "Loser, Baby".
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Husk calls out Angel Dust for being a "phony" with self-destructive behaviors who's always crossing his boundaries.
- The Reveal: Husk reveals in his heart-to-heart with Angel that he was an Overlord who lost everything and made a deal with Alastor out of desperation, which is how he came to be indentured to the Radio Demon.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Valentino browbeats and gaslights Angel into kicking Charlie out of his studio, but Charlie really was being somewhat of a nuisance by barging in said studio and bothering the employees in the middle of a film shooting and accidentally starting an electrical fire that nearly burned the whole place down (though the poor power set-up did not help matters). It doesn't make Angel feel any less guilty over telling her off, though. Nor does it justify Valentino making Angel be the one to do it, rather than tell her to her face.
- Rule of Symbolism:
- During "Poison", after hours upon hours of filming porn, rape, and bondage scenes, Angel returns to his dressing room and collapses in front of a balcony. Its railing fills up the screen, looking like jail bars.
- During "Loser, Baby", Angel and Husk are tied in ropes that reflect their binds to the "psychopathic freak" they sold their souls to. These ropes reflect their relationship with their contractors in several ways:
- For one, it reflects Valentino and Alastor's respective personalities. Valentino is a serial abuser and Psychopathic Manchild known for easily giving into his temper and desires. Thus, Angel's rope is tied in a wild and haphazard manner. By contrast, Alastor is a level-headed schemer who keeps his cool to ensure his plans go smoothly and is generally affable as long as you don't piss him off. As such, Husk's rope is bound tightly and neatly.
- It's also an indicator of how difficult it would be for either of them to escape their contracts. For all of Angel's fear of Valentino, he does have friends such as Cherri and Charlie who are willing to stand up for him if Angel only lets them, with the latter likely being able to crush Val with ease if she really tried. By contrast, Husk has fewer friends and none of them, even Charlie, are likely to stand up to Alastor, if only because he is currently serving as the hotel's (mostly sincere) benefactor and has yet to anger Charlie with depravity of Valentino's level.
- During both songs, Valentino and Husk dance with Angel separately, but Valentino yanks Angel around with chains attached to his wrists while Husk takes his hands and gently guides him through it.
- Self-Harm: Angel reveals to Husk during their confrontation that he purposely gets himself high, because if he becomes too broken from his self-destructive tendencies, Valentino wouldn’t see him as his favorite sex toy anymore, and thus he might eventually free him from his contract.
- Ship Tease: At the end of "Loser, Baby" (Itself fundamentally a Let's Duet number), Angel and Husk are pressed up very intimately against each other before the moment is very quickly cut short by the gangsters from inside the bar emerging.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: Sir Pentious and Niffty only appear in the first few minutes of the episode and don't have any lines. Given that this is one of the darker episodes of the show, it's expected that the Hotel's most actively comedic residents spend most of it pushed into the background.
- Show-and-Tell Antics: The episode starts with one of these at the hotel. Unfortunately, Angel’s idea of “Show and Tell” is to “show” them his best porn movie he starred in, and “tell” them how he won the award for it. Everyone, except Niffty (who is enjoying it) and Husk (who is unimpressed), are left understandably grossed out.
- Sinister Surveillance: Vox has a silent but ominous presence at the studio. When Valentino is assaulting Angel in his dressing room we can see one of Vox’s cameras in each corner of the room. Then at the end of "Poison," Vox is briefly seen talking with Val while another one of his cameras is focused on Angel having a breakdown on his balcony.
- Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: This episode makes a point of showing how reprehensible Valentino is for essentially using Angel as a living sex doll which he can do anything he pleases to since he literally owns Angel. Contrast this with Husk's binding to Alastor, which, while obviously not great, still has Husk more or less allowed to go about his business freely as long as he tends the bar at the Hazbin Hotel, making his situation more akin to indentured servitude rather than the outright cruel and abusive slavery Valentino is shown to inflict on Angel.
- Slipping a Mickey: One of the gangsters slips some kind of drug into Angel's drink. Husk intervenes and drags Angel out, only for him to reveal he knew perfectly well it was drugged, as it's his only escape from the nightmare Valentino puts him through every day.
- Smug Snake: Valentino is a two-bit thug and jumped-up pimp, only remotely a threat because of his alliance with Vox and Velvette. His only skill is in breaking people so thoroughly that they can't see vulnerabilities to him. He doesn't even seem to realize how close he comes to Charlie actually doing him real harm when she sees the abuse he puts Angel through.
- Somebody Doesn't Love Raymond: As revealed by the episode, the reason Angel comes on so strongly to Husk is because he can't understand why his looks and charm don't work on the bartender like everyone else he tries to sleep with, which eventually comes to a head when Angel calls him out for acting like he's better than him. Of course, as Husk explains later, it's not that he's stuck-up or believes himself to be superior to Angel, it's that he literally doesn't care about how famous or hot Angel is, and points out nobody in the Hotel cares either.Angel: You know what? You would be fuckin' lucky to get a chance to fuck me! You know how much I'm worth? You know how many people would kill to have Angel Dust cum onta them?! Fuck you! Have fun bein' a lonely piece of shit.
- Soprano and Gravel: Angel and Husk's duet "Loser, Baby" has the bright, high-pitched tenor Angel (the soprano) contrasting the rough and deep voice of Husk (the gravel).
- Suppressed Rage: Unlike his business partner/friend with benefits/boyfriend Vox, Valentino demonstrates himself to have far poorer of a grasp on his composure when it comes to pragmatically reining in his emotions in front of an audience, but he can just barely squeeze through such a situation with some effort. It does mean that he'll find someone else to release his anger on, though.Valentino: CUT! what the fuck is going on with this!?
Charlie: Ooh, I'm sorry, were we too loud? I was just telling [the boom mic guy] about the Hazbin Hotel!
Valentino: [through gritted teeth] Not at all, Princess! It doesn't bother me one bit! - Stylistic Suck: While the acting ability of everyone involved in the porno being film at Valentino's studio leaves a lot to be desired, the low production value and negligible amount of integrity involved indicates that the film probably wasn't of very high quality to begin with, since it includes things like the actors blatantly reading the already groanworthy dialogue off an off-camera script.Angel: Oh, wow, Mr. robbers! I sure hope you don't hurt me with those...[visibly strains his head to look over at the script] big guns of yours!
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Husk rescues Angel from being drugged and raped by some demon shark gangsters, entangling them in a net whilst he drags Angel outside to go back to the hotel. A short way down the street, Angel breaks free and reveals that he knew full well what was happening, having done several such events before as a messed-up "relief" from his abuse from Valentino. This leads to both eventually having a heart-to-heart talk that segues into the musical number "Loser, Baby"... only for the song ending to get cut off by the sharks bursting out of the club. Husk and Angel were singing in plain sight barely one building over, rather than actually fleeing them, a pursuit that wasn't over despite them getting caught up in the moment.
- Take Our Word for It: As Husk is explaining everyone's Drowning My Sorrows, he stops at Niffty, who is smiling devilishly and blows the camera a kiss, and decides no one needs to know what her deal is.
- The Tease: Angel's promiscuity is put under more careful scrutiny and explored in this episode, showing how his outwardly flirtatious and overly sexual persona is a way for him to cover up just how much pain he feels inside being abused by Valentino, as demonstrated by the lyrics and imagery of "Poison". It also causes him to brush off anyone else's attempts to reach out to him and try to help him work through his issues, which rears its ugly head when Husk tries to offer him some genuine advice and Angel just uses it as an excuse to hit on him again.Angel: Oh, I forgot, you're the "wise old bartender who's seeeen it aaall"! Get the fuck over yourself and pour me a real drink.
Husk: Look, if you've got a problem, you're not gonna find the solution at the bottom of a bottle. I should know, I've been lookin' there a long time.
Angel: Oh, sure, then where should I look, hm? ~In your bedroom, maybe? Under the covers? Maybe we can go look together...~
Husk: Don't. Even. Start. - Three Minutes of Writhing: During the second chorus of "Poison", Angel is seemingly whisked away into some kind of pocket dimension where he starts performing an extremely provocative dance while wearing a Stripperific leather outfit with a Navel-Deep Neckline. However, it's still intercut with very brief flashes of Valentino implicilty raping Angel, suggesting that this is some kind of mental illusion where Angel feels liberated and empowered he's conjured for himself to help get through the experience, made all the more obvious when Valentino drags him out of it at the end of the chorus.
- Toplessness from the Back: When Charlie comes to Valentino's studio, the first person she stumbles into is a wolf-demoness taking off her bra. While Charlie sees her front, the audience only sees her bare back. The male actor being oiled up, on the other hand, is shown from the front.
- Unexpectedly Dark Episode: Up to this point, the series has been a slightly twisted but still lighthearted Black Comedy with over-the-top violence and spooky imagery. This episode, however, thrusts the viewer into uncomfortably realistic abuse of every kind. We finally see the extent of the abuse that Valentino is putting Angel through in gruesome detail, and it is not Played for Laughs in the slightest. Notably, this was the first episode to be rated 18+ instead of 16+ on Prime Video. The controversy over the episode was so bad that they eventually added a warning to the beginning of the episode and upped the rating for the whole series.
- Unwanted Rescue: Even after Husk saves him from being drugged and gang-raped in a bar, Angel tells him that he knew what was about to happen, since it was not the first time he let it happen, and that he doesn’t need his help, nor Charlie’s, claiming he can take care of himself. Husk has none of it, and bluntly states that what he saw in that bar was a pitiful man trapped in a self-destructive path, who needs to open up with someone about his predicament.
- Voice of the Legion: When Charlie flies into a rage at Valentino, her voice gains a reverb effect.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: During "Loser, Baby", Husk grabs an umbrella to shield Angel from a bar patron who projectile vomits in his direction.
- Wall Slump: Charlie slumps down to the floor against the hotel doors after she fails to convince Angel not to go to Valentino.
- Wind from Beneath My Wings: Valentino uses his wings to create a huge gust to put out the studio fire.
- Wrong-Name Outburst: Angel is in the middle of filming a scene when he notices that Charlie has come to his place of work, causing him to flub the take by exclaiming her name.Angel: ~Oh, no!~ So many burglars, and only one me! Whatever shall I do? I guess I'll have to do... all of you! So, what are you gonna do to me, —CHARLIE!?
Porn actor demon: Uh, my name's "Rocky"...
Angel: No one gives a shit! [Tosses him away] - You Are Better Than You Think You Are: In a roundabout way, "Loser, Baby" is a song about this — that both Angel and Husk are losers and it's okay for them to be.
- You Are Not Alone: Essentially the message of "Loser, Baby". The song is Husk telling Angel that, yes, he's a loser in every sense of the word but so is Husk himself and pretty much everyone in Hell with them. And that Angel isolating himself because he thinks no one can understand what he's been through isn't going to make things better, bonding and opening up to fellow losers is.Husk: We're all living in the same shit sandwich.
Angel: I sold my soul to a psychopathic freak!
Husk: And you think that makes you unique? Get outta here, man! - You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: It's not commented on in the episode, but Angel refers to Charlie by name as soon as he sees her at the studio, the first time he's done so in the series. He continues to do so throughout the episode.
- You Don't Want to Know: During his spilling out every people in the hotel’s “darkest secrets”, Husk advises that everyone is better off not knowing what Niffty's deal is.
- Your Head A-Splode: Husk chucks a handful of exploding dice into a shark gangster's mouth, causing his head to explode.
