As we continue our Alex Brightman celebration, we come upon something a bit different. Today, I am not looking at a whole musical but rather a musical TV show that my close friend, Marianne got me hooked on. As she joked with me, she corrupted me with it as it is out of the norm of what I typically watch but I enjoyed it all the same. As did many other people, we are looking at the main villain of the Prime Video hit series, Hazbin Hotel.
Hazbin is a fantastic show with great songs and a wonderful message of redemption. That even if you wronged in the past, that shouldn’t define you as who you are now. It is a tightrope to walk asking who is truly worthy of redemption and can they change. This is where Alex’s character comes in as he plays Adam as in Adam and Eve. Aka the First Man. Adam is such an interesting villain as he shows that even angels can be flawed. And also downright nasty, as Adam believes he gets leeway to be a dick as the First Man. That’s basically how he got into Heaven in the first place. He serves as the polar opposite to the show’s bubbly main protagonist, Charlie Morningstar who believes the sinners of Hell can be redeemed. Adam views them as hopeless cases and would rather continue with the extermination of the sinners they’ve carried out for years.
First Appearance
We see Adam in the opening of the first episode of Charlie recounts the story of how her parents, Lucifer and Lilith fell in love. The latter of whom was Adam’s first wife. Yeah, man is a twice divorcee. As we also see how Lucifer and Lilith offered Eve the fruit of forbidden knowledge and that is how cruelty was brought about to our world. Okay, I am not a very religious person due to losing my faith a bit after all the seizures I had in my Senior year but as I’ve gotten older it has always bugged me how Eve was the one that was painted as in the wrong. Something I’ve noticed with my generation and works such as Hazbin is pointing out that Adam was just as much in the wrong. We see this more with the type of person Adam is as the season progresses.
That is just his backstory appearance, we actually see him in person or rather we don’t. I’ll explain as I go on, Lucifer had set up a meeting between him and Charlie after the latest extermination. I say we don’t as he is joining the meeting via hologram and in a great visual joke, he is snacking on ribs.
Typically, I like to keep the songs to a separate category but in the case of Adam, I’ll be putting the songs where I think they best fit. His Villain Song, Hell is Forever could either go here or in the Personality section but I decided to put it here.
This song truly gives you an idea of Adam’s views. He doesn’t believe redemption is possible for sinners, they’ve sinned and are doomed to spend eternity stuck in Hell. As we see throughout the series, this isa widely held belief as no one has ever challenged the conception that Heaven and Hell have had for years.
The way Adam goes about it however takes things to another level though as he is again a giant dick quickly shutting Charlie down and unwilling to listen to her plans of how she hopes to redeem sinners. Ironically, another Alex Brightman character that Adam kills in the season finale would prove redemption is possible for sinners. This song truly puts his ego on display and shows what a giant jerk he is, unwilling to listen to any idea that doesn’t align with his beliefs. You can even get a sense of his beliefs just by looking at the title of his song.
Personality
To use a recurring word that even Adam uses, he’s a dick. Heck, he refers to himself as the dick master when Charlie meets him. Yeah, for an Angel, he’s quite vulgar. I think this is meant as a contrast between what we expect of angels and who Adam truly is. In most media, angels are presented as good and helpful. They care for the wellbeing of others but that couldn’t be further from the truth for Adam. Adam has power and loves it even though Adam is the type of person one shouldn’t trust power as he’s essentially a giant frat bro that never grew out of that mentality. He’s sexist, I mean he literally named of the soldiers in his angel army, Vaggie. You do the math there. We also see display traits of gluttony all throughout the season as well as envy at the very end of the season before he is finally killed.
So yeah, Adam sucks but he is meant to suck as a way of challenging the notion of who’s good and who’s bad. Adam believes himself to be on the righteous side being an angel and serving Heaven but his actions are anything but divine. This can also be seen when Charlie questions what gets one to Heaven and Adam’s list is quite curious. On his list, we see
- Act Selfless
- Don’t Steal
- Stick it to the Man
Number two is a bit harder to pinpoint but numbers one and three are quite obvious in how Adam doesn’t follow them, he is a big narcissist and is willing to take from others. Number three is one that is rather funny as Adam wants to stick it to man failing to realize he is the man. He is the one that holds the power when it comes to the exterminations. After all, they were his idea and while he still has to answer to Seraphim, he is a high ranking angel. Even though he said “stick it to the man”, he doesn’t like it when people stand up to him.
Grand Desire
Adam has power and he wants to hold onto his power. To an extent, he wants even more power as observed by what he says after he loses in battle to Lucifer.
“No… You don’t get to end this! I’m f*cking Adam! I’m the f*cking man, and you’re just some f*cking clown or something! I started everything on Earth! All of mankind came from these f*cking nuts! You all should be worshiping me, you ungrateful, disgusting, f*cking LOSERS!”
He can’t accept loss even when it is so clear it’s over for him. He has fallen so hard but does not know how to graciously accept defeat. He doesn’t believe he gets to be defeated and this goes back to how much he craves power. In his mind, power is what makes him the man but as has been seen all throughout, he is just a giant loser. Even in loss, he tries to hold onto power but it has been relinquished from his control.
Lackey
Lute
In many ways, Lute is the real brains of this relationship. It’s very much a Dr. Drakken/Shego relationship. Lute is the more bloodthirsty of the two and we see this in how badly she wants revenge against Vaggie. And even in her loss against Vaggie, she has a hard time accepting defeat and would rather ask for death but she doesn’t get that. She has to live with knowing that she failed and in many ways, failure is worse than death for Lute.
Most Evil Deed
There are so many moment I could choose such as him killing Sir Pentious and it shows his disregard for others. There’s also him leaving Vaggie in Hell by herself to rot just because she spared a life. Still, that doesn’t seem bad enough imo. I think the moment I want to go with is him revealing Vaggie’s past as an exterminator that worked for him. Vaggie had not told Charlie when he revealed this big secret. I look to this moment for two reasons, it’s a form of manipulation as earlier in this episode, he tried to blackmail Vaggie into working for him again and to get Charlie to give up on her dreams of redemption.
The other big reason I wanted to focus on this moment is that Adam is outing Vaggie. Being outed hurts and while she is not being outed for her gender of sexuality, she is still being outed by having part of her life revealed to the woman she loves the most before she was ready to reveal this information. This once again goes back to power and how important is to Adam. A person should be able to have the power to reveal something to someone they love when they are ready but Adam took that power away from Vaggie in this moment. Yes, Vaggie had been keeping this part of her past a secret from Charlie. And yes, she should’ve been the one to tell her but on her terms. It was not Adam’s secret to share but that didn’t matter to him. He just wanted to undermine Charlie and the best way for him to do that was to hurt Vaggie.
Again returning to placing songs were I believe they best fit, this brings up part of my favorite song, “You Didn’t Know” as not only does it feature a small reprise of “Hell is Forever”, this is where we see the reveal take place.
Demise
Adam’s demise is so cathartic to watch. At first as he fights Alastor, it seems as though we are entering the “all is lost” moment but once Lucifer shows up and we get a real battle, it so much fun to watch as Adam constantly loses his cool whereas Lucifer remains calm and even jokes at Adam’s expense in a Spider-Man quippy sort of way.
This is also where we get a look at Adam’s face behind his mask and his likeness is based on Alex Brightman himself. I know at the time that some people were disappointed with this reveal but I think it’s kinda neat. Adam is almost shown mercy until the most unhinged member of the Hotel, Niffty stabs Adam. To be fair, she was doing as she was told and it got Adam killed.
I know some people have hoped to see a sinner Adam in season two but those hopes were quickly dashed. I’m not so sure I’d want that as I’d rather explore other villains as the show goes on. Adam served as a good first season villain. Though I can see why others would want to see Adam as a sinner. They’re into the idea of seeing someone of Adam’s status now having to work to get back into Heaven. Also, the dynamic switch of him having to listen to Vaggie is appealing but personally, I’m ready to move on.
Is Adam a Good Villain?
Yes, i absolutely think Adam is a great villain. He’s a fun character to hate as I did when the show first aired. Beyond that however, he also serves as a great contrast to the beliefs of our heroes.
Well, next time we close out our Alex Brightman celebration as I look at the musical adaption of…
Beetlejuice
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