Murder Family

Murder Family is the first episode of the first season of Helluva Boss. It premiered on October 31, 2020 on Vivziepop's YouTube channel.

Synopsis
When the I.M.P get hired to take out a heroic homicide survivor, things sure do happen.

Plot
The episode opens with Mrs. Mayberry teaching an a elementary school class, talking about how one can lead a good life but still be sent to Hell for one bad act, before showing the day that she committed that act. As class begins she and her students are singing about learning and the day to come, when one of her students reminds her it's her husband's birthday. Mrs. Mayberry panics, as she forgot and hadn't gotten him a present, when one of her students asks if they can call him as a happy birthday surprise, which Mrs. Mayberry agrees to, using the classroom computer to video call her husband.

However, much to her and the class' shock and horror, Mr. Mayberry is in bed with another woman, which causes Mrs. Mayberry to snap and storm out of the classroom, throwing a student who tries to calm her down into the ceiling on her way out. Driving home, her students watch the video call in horror as Mrs. Mayberry violently attacks her husband and the woman with a chainsaw, before she takes her own life upon realizing what she had done, especially in front of her students.

It then cuts to Blitzo's office at I.M.P Headquarters, where Mrs. Mayberry, now a demon, has been telling him the story as background for why she wants to hire the company's services. Blitzo mocks her, telling her that I.M.P. only kills targets in the living world, and from the sound of it, everyone involved in her tale is probably down in Hell with them. Mrs. Mayberry then reveals that while she successfully killed her unfaithful husband, the woman he had been in bed with, Martha, not only survived, but also treated as a hero because of it, appearing on talk shows, receiving two million dollars in donations and complimented by everyone around her, which infuriates Mayberry.

In the office lobby, Loona and Millie watch as Moxxie uses a crossbow to shoot pictures held up by Loona for target practice, until he goes to shoot the last photo and sees it is of a human family. When Millie tells him to stop shaking, otherwise he'll hit Loona, Moxie tells her he can't bring himself to shoot the picture, as he doesn't want to kill an innocent family. Millie reminds him if that's what the client wants, he'll have to do it, while Loona berates him, saying appearances can be deceiving, and invents reasons why the family in the picture could be horrible people. Millie then tells him morality isn't their business, killing is.

Blitzo then slams open the door to introduce Mrs. Mayberry to the rest of the staff, startling Moxxie who fires the crossbow. The crossbow bolt ricochets around the room bouncing off the walls and ceiling, hitting a computer monitor, the picture, and the leg of a fish tank before Blitzo catches it in time to stop it hitting Mrs Mayberry in the eye. The fish tank then collapses, spilling water and the electric eels within it across the floor, before the eels set fire to the office, much to Blitzo's anger.

Outside the office, a fire crew packs up after extinguishing the blaze, and Blitzo walks Mrs. Mayberry to a taxi, telling her they'll kill the target within 24 hours or else it's free. Moxxie asks him since when have they made that offer, and Blitzo angrily tells him it was when he just set fire to the office in front of a client, before asking if the grimoire they use to access the living world survived the blaze. Loona confirms she grabbed the book, and Blitzo offers her a treat, which she declines, and Blitzo eats it himself, much to her disgust.

Drawing the symbol needed to pass into the living world on the side of the building, Blitzo, Millie, and Moxxie head through to kill the target. Arriving at the lakeside home she is living in, Blitzo and Moxxie approach the house to find Martha, her husband Ralphie, and their two children sitting down for dinner. Blitzo offers to let Moxxie kill the target, but upon seeing her family he hesitates. Blitzo, telling Moxxie he took to long to decide, goes to shoot Martha himself with a sniper rifle, but Moxxie asks him if they're killing a family. Blitzo tells him they're not killing a family; they're ruining a family by killing the mother. Moxxie attempts to make him to think about what they're doing, before he knocks the rifle causing Blitzo to miss.

Inside the house, having heard the gunshot, Martha asks her husband what that was, and the husband responds that whatever it was is going to be turned into tomorrow nights dinner while bringing out his shotgun from under the table and taking a more sinister appearance. Martha, who then drinks a whole glass of wine, grabs her own shotgun and becomes insidious herself, orders her children to bring out their own guns, which they do, revealing that the whole family is a pack of blood-thirsty maniacs.

Outside, Blitzo and Moxxie argue about what Moxxie had done, when Blitzo is shot through the wall and in the arm by the family, causing Blitzo to flee into the surrounding woods, pursued by Martha, while Moxxie is captured by their children. Ralphie chases after Millie, confronting her at a jetty. After a brief fight, he knocks her out with a bottle. Moxxie wakes up tied to a chair, and after the children tell him it's nice to have a new critter to play, he looks around the room, seeing several taxidermied human heads and pieces of tanned human skin mounted on the walls, and a roast human on the table in front of him.

In the forest, Blitzo is running away from Martha when Stolas phones him to talk about the book the company uses to access the living world, and how he needs it back. Panicking and attempting to end the call quickly, he agrees to give Stolas the book once a month and have sex with him on that day. Elated at Blitzo agreeing to the offer, Stolas goes off on a expletive laden rant about his sexual fantasies with Blitzo, which distracts him long enough for Martha to catch him.

Back in the house, Moxxie sees a fire through the windows. Realizing that Millie and Blitzo were in trouble, he rocks the chair backwards and onto the daughter, freeing himself with the knife she had and runs towards the fire. There, Martha and Ralphie have Blitzo and Millie tied to a stake, and are preparing to burn them alive to return them to Hell. As Martha ignites the wood and expects them to burn, Blitzo and Millie just sit there immune to the flames, as Blitzo mocks their efforts and offers to fake it to make them feel better. Martha then decides to shoot Blitzo in the mouth after her brief disappointment, but before she can, she is shot in the head by Moxxie, who retrieved the sniper rifle that he and Blitzo had lost back at the house.

As Ralphie runs back to the house in panic, Moxxie frees the pair from the still burning stake, and while Millie is happy to see Moxxie and hugs him, Blitzo tells him he's not getting paid for the job before collapsing to the ground clutching his gunshot wound. Moxxie apologizes to his boss for interfering with the assassination as he helps Blitzo to his feet. Blitzo accepts the apology and pulls him into a hug, but strictly warns him if he pulls a stunt such as that ever again, he'll hurt both him and Millie. Blitzo calls Loona to open a portal back to Hell, but Moxxie tells him he left some things back at the house.

Heading there through the woods, Moxxie passes Blitzo's phone, where Stolas is still raving about what he wants to do in bed with Blitzo, and reaches the house. There he confronts the family, and tells them that while they're monsters, he's not going to kill them and instead is going to report them to the human authorities. After mistakenly trying to call them with a universal remote Ralphie got for his kids, Moxxie calls them with the kitchen phone before leaving the house.

Rejoining the others at the portal on a hill overlooking the house Moxxie pauses as the others return to Hell while he watches the police arrive at the house. Instead of the husband and his kids being apprehended, the house is obliterated with the family still inside by a missile fired from a police helicopter. Moxxie looks at the demolished house in shock before Blitzo grabs him by the neck and pulls him into the portal. Back in Hell, Mrs. Mayberry and the rest of the I.M.P. staff congratulate him for killing Martha at a party celebrating the job with cake, ignoring the distressed expression on his face as the episode ends.

Characters

 * Blitzo
 * Moxxie
 * Millie
 * Loona
 * Stolas
 * Martha
 * Mrs. Mayberry
 * Ralphie
 * Jarold
 * Robo Fizz (pictured)
 * Sir Pentious (pictured)

Locations

 * Hell
 * Imp City
 * I.M.P Headquarters
 * Stolas's estate
 * Earth

Songs

 * Teacher's Song

Instrumentals

 * Stolas Speaks

Transcript
View the episode's transcript here.

Trivia
- SPEECH TO TEXT - - Blitzo''
 * This episode marks the debut of new voice actors for Millie and Stolas after being recast since the pilot.
 * The license plates on the other two cars parked in the school parking lot read as "PB4UGO" & "PEN15".
 * This episode marks the first time any denizen of Hell (Mrs. Mayberry) was officially shown in both their living human form and the demon form they took after their death.
 * After Mrs. Mayberry expresses her outrage in Blitzo's office, it is shown that he has multiple security buttons under his desk as he frantically presses one to try and alert the others in reception. As listed on the lights on Loona's desk, the scenarios for each button include:
 * More Coffee
 * Soiled my Pants
 * Horny Client
 * Deranged Client
 * Client Giving Birth
 * Ghost
 * Stolas
 * When Loona was discussing the grimoire with Blitzo, there is a billboard in the background, advertising the company that has an arrow pointing away from the office and reads:
 * ''Goat an asshole in the Living worlds!? Come to I am pee!!!??! Make sure you put this sign on the rite side. Don't fuck this up. Also payment may take a couple weeks because it cums in the Mail.
 * After Blitzo is shot, his wound shows that he has black blood.
 * This episode reveals that imps are immune to fire in the living world.

Cultural References

 * Moxxie's quote, "That's understandable" when describing a mob family is a reference to .
 * The Universal Remote that Moxxie mistakes for a phone bears a striking resemblance to the remote featured in the movie, "".
 * The cartoon that was shown on the living room TV is "Hot Spot" a 1945 short film.

Errors

 * There are five children watching Mrs. Mayberry break down in the video call, but in the next shot, when they faint upon her suicide, the boy with the orange hair disappears.
 * When Blitzo is spying on the family, his right eyelid is miscolored red.
 * After being freed by Moxxie from the burning stake he was tied to, Blitzo uses his phone to call Loona to open a portal back to Hell, despite dropping his phone while being chased by Martha, which Moxxie later passes on his way back to the house. It is possible that these phones are separate, as the former is red whereas the one used to call Stolas was yellow.
 * When Martha and Ralphie were having sex, not only were her head bandages missing but the color of her hand that's touching Ralphie's back became the same color as Ralphie.

Gallery

 * Murder Family/Gallery