Overture (Hazbin Hotel)

"Overture" is the first episode of the first season of Hazbin Hotel. It premiered on Amazon Prime Video on January 19, 2024, and was written and directed by series creator Vivienne "VivziePop" Medrano.

The episode was well received and with "Radio Killed the Video Star" was the largest global debut for a new animated series on Prime Video. The songs "Happy Day in Hell" and "Hell is Forever" received critical acclaim.

Plot
Taking place one week after the events of the series' pilot, Princess Charlie Morningstar of Hell (voiced by Erika Henningsen) reveals in a backstory that her father Lucifer was originally an angel, who fell in love with Lilith, the first woman. They gave the second woman, Eve, the gift of free will, inadvertently creating Hell, where Lucifer and Lilith were banished to by Heaven. To ensure the sinners of Hell don't rebel, an annual Extermination of the sinners is created by Heaven. As Hell is still recovering from the last Extermination, Charlie mentions that she and her mother have not spoken to each other in seven years.

Later, Charlie receives a call from her father asking her to take his place in his annual meeting with Heaven, and heads over to the Heaven embassy ("Happy Day in Hell"), where Charlie pitches to Adam (voiced by Alex Brightman) – the first man, leader of the angelic legions, and Lilith's ex-husband – and his second-in-command Lute (voiced by Jessica Vosk), her plan to save sinners through redemption in her hotel, the "Hazbin Hotel", to allow them to go to Heaven, as an alternative to being exterminated. Her pitch is ignored and laughed at, and Adam tells her that the next Extermination will happen in six months rather than a year ("Hell Is Forever"). Meanwhile, Vaggie (voiced by Stephanie Beatriz), Charlie's girlfriend, and Alastor (voiced by Amir Talai), her business manager, enlist the staff of the hotel to make a commercial to promote the hotel, but the final product is cut short by a news broadcast announcing the Extermination date being moved. As Angel Dust (voiced by Blake Roman), a patron at the hotel, wonders why it is being moved forward, Lute shows the corpse of an exterminator killed in Hell the week before to Adam. The two plan to kill every sinner in Hell during the next Extermination.

Production and release
The animation was produced by SpindleHorse Toons, with Bento Box Entertainment. A teaser for "Overture" was released on December 21, 2021, with the episode's first song, "Happy Day in Hell", being released as a further teaser on October 14, 2023. Following the episode's release on January 19, 2024, Henningsen expressed interest in the song being used in a future stage adaptation of the series, saying:

"'That [song] was thrilling because as I heard the song, I thought, ‘Oh, I know who this character is now. Our composer[s] and lyricist[s] Sam Haft and Andrew Underberg did such an incredible job. They nailed it while still staying true to Charlie's character and what she would sound like when she breaks into song. I remember the first time singing it in the booth — my body got hot with excitement and joy. Hopefully people will feel a fraction of that when they see it. Throughout the season, they switch genres so beautifully depending on who they're writing for. Their skills [as music producers] are limitless.”"

Released to Amazon Prime Video simultaneously with "Radio Killed the Video Star", the episode marked the largest global debut for a new animated series on the streaming service, also being released on YouTube a day earlier for a limited release. A sing-along version of the episode's second song, "Hell is Forever", was released to YouTube by Amazon Prime Video to promote the series on January 20, 2024.

Reception
The Geeky Waffle called “Overture” "a beautiful opening salvo for Hazbin Hotel", complimenting the "well-written, unlikable characters" in Adam and Lute, "Brandon Rogers as Katie Killjoy [as] the best casting in the history of ever", and the songwriting of Sam Haft and Andrew Underberg as "stunning". That Shelf criticized Medrano's "lack of professional experience" in directing the episode, comparing it to "Tumblr fan fiction [with] simultaneously too much forced background exposition establishing a deep lore, and not enough basic explanation of who the characters are and why they’re there". MovieWeb conversely complimented her writing as "obviously heretical to fundamentalist Christians [but] weird to the max". The Review Geek called the episode "crude, funny, and endlessly creative", complimenting the music as "a delight", although criticizing the lack of "heart" as compared to the pilot episode, and Medrano's other animated series, Helluva Boss. Medium called the episode "solid, enjoyable, and efficient" with "light, breezy" writing and "exquisite" comedy and characterization, lauding the vocal performances of the cast of characters before concluding to call the premiere "an entertaining, well put-together first episode [that] keeps the audience engaged and packs in some great musical numbers". Seriangelo praised the "captivating guise of arrogant warmongers" in Adam and Lute, whose song "rewards the characterization of the characters and the setting". Reviewing the episode's songs, Screen Rant called out "Happy Day in Hell" as being "a bit perky [but] too shot", but "Hell Is Forever" as "a villain song that works well for the show", ranking it as the series' third-best song.