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At long last, Helluva Boss has joined sister show Hazbin Hotel on Prime Video, meaning that the Hellaverse is streaming all in one place. As a result, characters like Blitzo and Loona can finally use the R-rated language they've always wanted to, without fear of being censored by YouTube. But Helluva isn't just bringing bluer language to Amazon's streaming service - they're rewriting the show's origin story.

Released along with Helluva's introduction to Prime was an all-new episode that explored the early days of the Immediate Murder Professionals (that's I.M.P.s, if you don't know) called Mission Zero. And while nobody in the Hellaverse fandom was mad about more story, the choice was a bit of a curious one from the creative team, especially considering there was already an I.M.P. origin story in the original Helluva pilot, released all the way back in 2019.

Popverse was as curious about the origins of the new... er, origins... as you probably are, so we decided to ask one of the folks behind for details. That was the titular Helluva Boss himself, Brandon Rogers, who, along with providing the voice for Blitzo, is also co-writer of the show and one of its primary movers. Popverse recently sat down with Rogers for a one-on-one, in which we learned all there was to know about Mission Zero's beginnings.

"In the back of our minds," Rogers began his explanation, "We've always wanted to redo the pilot. First of all, we consider it not canon, which means that there was an empty void there of an episode where we could have established our characters better. Now, granted, episode one kind of does that, but we really wanted an episode that made sure the audience understood what imps are."

A quick clarification here - Brandon's not talking about the assassination organization at the heart of Helluva - the "imps" here are the actual demonic subspecies that populate Hell. And if that's a bit confusing, well, that's part of why Rogers & Co. wanted to make this prequel.

"You know," he said, "There's a confusion among the fans or the casual viewers that imps are people who went to Hell. But they're just things that were born there. So we really wanted to make that clear up front. There are just things that we wanted to get the facts straight on before the rest of the show, things that the fans would speculate about."

Another one of those things, Rogers told us, was the age of one of the show's central characters, hellhound and I.M.P. receptionist Loona.

"Like Luna, for example," the YouTube comedian clarified, "Is not a minor. She's 22, I think in the new pilot, we wanted to make that very clear. We [also] wanted to make the deal with Solas and Blitzo far more abundantly clear to our audience, you know, exactly what the terms were."

No, faithful reader, I'm not going to explain the "deal with Solad and Blitzo" to you in this article. There's a difference between being thorough and downright spoiling the show, I'm afraid.

In any case, Rogers wrapped by expressing how grateful he (and we presume, the rest of the crew) was to be able to revisit the Helluva beginnings and smooth things out for the show's longtime fans. And maybe even add a few new ones along the way.

"It's not every day that a show gets the luxury to go back and reintroduce itself in the version that it has come to be," wraps Rogers.  "Our animation has vastly improved since season one. The voices, too - we've all found our characters as the years have gone on. So it's nice to go back to the pilot, especially when we're going to a new audience on Amazon Prime. It's nice to have an episode that we feel really represents the full extent of our talents - as actors, writers and animators, and all the other departments that go into this show. They've all improved. So to go back and show this new audience at Prime - it's really a beautiful thing. We're a lucky group to be able to go back and do that."

Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss are streaming now on Prime Video. For more of Brandon Rogers's comedy, head to his YouTube page. 

 Here's how to watch Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel in order.