Hazbin Hotel Just Killed Off a Fan Favorite From Season 1 (& No One Noticed)

Warning! This article contains spoilers for Hazbin Hotel Season 2, Episode 4: “It’s a Deal”

The world of Hazbin Hotel is built on sharp writing and even sharper visual gags, entertaining viewers who pay close enough attention. While the overarching plot of Charlie’s fight to redeem sinners is riveting, it’s the small, throwaway details that give the most fascinating insights into Hell’s society and its colorful residents. Today’s new episode, “It’s a Deal,” is heavy on intrigue and answers, particularly focusing on everyone’s favorite Radio Demon, Alastor. As the episode title suggests, Alastor must navigate the treacherous waters of the deal he made with a hitherto unknown entity in Hell when he was still human: an unbreakable soul contract that has made him someone else’s puppet. His quest for freedom leads him, as is often the case, to the macabre but charmingly tight-knit community of Cannibal Town, ruled by the Overlord, Rosie.

It’s here, amidst the quaint, flesh-eating populace, that a seemingly insignificant piece of background décor offers a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it revelation related to one of Cannibal Town’s loudest citizens.

The Cannibal Town Bench Unveils a Shocking Truth 

Fans will remember Susan, the perpetually unimpressed and uber-critical resident of Cannibal Town, voiced by the talented Kimiko Glenn (who also provides the voice for the Hotel’s stabbing-obsessed maid, Niffty). Susan was never a main character, but the roadblock she created for Charlie while trying to recruit the citizens of Cannibal Town to her cause made Susan a memorable, if cantankerous, fixture. She was the quintessential grumpy old lady of the underworld, seemingly immune to the community’s cheerful, blood-soaked customs. Her prominence and importance as the most influential citizen of Cannibal Town suggested she would continue to serve as the community’s resident obstacle and a source of dry, dark humor. However, a specific frame in “It’s a Deal,” as Alastor plots his freedom on a bench in Cannibal Town, suggests her story is definitively over.

The detail is etched onto a small memorial plaque affixed to the bench where Alastor is sitting and scheming, as Alastor so frequently does. The inscription on the plaque reads: “In loving memory of Susan—I wish she’d die again.”

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This tiny Easter egg changes the whole dynamic of Cannibal Town. First and most obviously, it confirms that Susan is dead, even in the afterlife. Given the timing, she likely met her end during the dramatic climax of the Season 1 finale, where the angelic Exorcists waged war on Hell’s inhabitants. Cannibal Town residents, including Susan, were front and center in the defense effort, having been rallied by Charlie and her genuine optimism. Susan’s death is a reminder that even in a place where residents are already dead, they are not immune to final, violent obliteration. The fact that someone bothered to dedicate a plaque—and then immediately undercut the sentiment with the sarcastic postscript—perfectly captures the dark, cynical humor of the cannibalistic community to which she belonged.

However, the plaque offers a more revolutionary concept than just confirming one side-character’s end.

The Rules of the Underworld Are More Complex Than We Assumed 

The initial premise of the Hazbin Hotel universe, particularly concerning the mechanics of Hell, was relatively straightforward: Sinners are sent to Hell upon their human death, where they reside forever (after all, Adam made it a point to remind Charlie that hell is forever). Sinners are subject to the annual Extermination by the Exorcist Army of angels, which results in “true death” or soul obliteration. This was the only established method for a sinner to be permanently removed from existence. Overlords and powerful demons like Alastor and Rosie can kill lesser sinners, but the prevailing assumption was that these lesser demons would respawn or regenerate, perhaps painfully, if killed without an angelic weapon. The Exorcists’ spear was the definitive tool for permanent soul destruction.

The epitaph on the bench—”In loving memory of Susan—I wish she’d die again”—challenges this simplified view.

The call for Susan to “die again” implies a crucial, unstated piece of Hell’s lore: Susan’s soul is not obliterated. If her soul had been destroyed by an Exorcist, she would be gone forever, and the vengeful wish for her to die again would be nonsensical. Instead, the phrasing suggests that Susan may be in a state of irreversible, non-Exorcist death or, more chillingly, has been sent to an even deeper, worse realm of Hell. This possibility implies that there are internal mechanisms within Hell—perhaps tied to the Overlords’ power, the consequences of a soul deal, or the environment itself—that can permanently erase a sinner’s Hellish form without angelic intervention.

If a sinner can be permanently killed without having their soul annihilated by angels, it opens up a horrifying new dimension of suffering. It suggests that Hell is not just a place of eternal torment, but potentially a place of multiple demises, where a sinner can be permanently removed from society, imprisoned in a deeper layer of the underworld, or simply be incapable of regenerating.

For Alastor, who is desperately seeking a loophole to his own contract, this detail might be at the forefront of his mind and a terrifying glimpse into the ultimate consequences of failing to escape his deal with Rosie, who, as an Overlord, has absolute power over his soul. Susan’s death, initially a morbid joke, then becomes a physical representation of Alastor’s existential dread, confirming that the rules of power and mortality in Hell are far more complex, and far more terrifying, than Charlie and her friends—or the audience—ever realized.

What do you think about Season 2 of Hazbin Hotel so far? What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!