Murder Family

"You do everything right in life. Play by all the rules and still get sent down here with all the Hitlers and Epsteins of the world."

- Mrs. Mayberry to Blitzo

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 elementary school class, talking about how one can lead a good life but still be sent to Hell for one sin, before showing the day that she committed said sin. 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, Jarold Mayberry is in bed having sex 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 kills her husband and attacks the woman with a gun and chainsaw, before she takes her own life upon realizing what she had done 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 is 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, Moxxie 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. Just as Moxxie is steeling himself to take the shot, Blitzo suddenly 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, so Blitzo eats it himself, disgusting her. After drawing the symbol needed to pass into the living world on the side of the building, Blitzo, Millie, and Moxxie head through to kill their latest 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, Ralphie what that was, and Ralphie 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 murderous maniacs.

Outside, Blitzo chastises Moxxie for ruining his shot. Moxxie apologizes as the family seemed so innocent and that it caused him to panic, but Blitzo argues that no-one is truly innocent and that all humans are evil from the day they were born. As they argued, a gunshot suddenly blows a hole in the wall and wounds Blitzo's arm. Blitzo commands everyone to scatter and retreat, which he and Millie did while Moxxie hid in the bushes as another gunshot blew out the window through which Martha and Ralphie pursued his co-workers. Moxxie then attempts to run away, but is caught by the tail and captured. Ralphie chases after Millie, who runs to the jetty and hides in the water of the lake. Ralphie looks for her holding a bottle as a weapon, then Millie surprises him by jumping through the jetty itself. After a brief fight, he manages to hit her out with the bottle, knocking her unconscious.

Meanwhile, Moxxie wakes up tied to a chair to the sight of the kids. He attempts to make peace with them, but then they creepily tell him "it's nice to have a new critter to play with" at the same time, disturbing him. Moxxie then looks around the room, seeing several taxidermized human heads and pieces of tanned human skin mounted on the walls, and a roast human on the table in front of him, making him very worried.

In the forest, Blitzo continues to run as Martha shoots at him and cackles. As she goads Blitzo, he manages to find refuge behind a tree. But as soon as he was able to find refuge behind a tree, he gets a call from Stolas. After fuddling with the phone a bit, he answers the call and states to Stolas that is was a really bad time at the moment, to which Stolas questions that if there is ever a bad time. Blitzo then demands what he wanted, and Stolas answers that it was about the grimoire that Blitzo borrowed from him, which he needs to perform his own duties. Just then, Martha blasts a hole in the tree Blitzo was hiding behind after hearing Blitzo talking on the phone, forcing him on the run again. Stolas then offers to let Blitzo continue using the book in exchange for "favors". Blitzo demands that he'd keep the language of the deal simple, so Stolas does so: Once a month on the full moon, Blitzo will return the book to him, as well as have extreme sex with him like before, and in exchange, Stolas will let Blitzo keep the book for the rest of the time. Wanting to end the call quickly, Blitzo agrees to this bargain, and an elated Stolas goes off on a expletive laden rant about his sexual fantasies with Blitzo, which distracts him long enough for Martha to knock the phone out his hand and restrain him at the neck with the but of her shotgun. Though interested at seeing an actual demon, Martha wasn't going to let him or his fellow demons harm her family and vows to send them back to Hell (meanwhile Stolas continues on with his fantasy rant).

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

 * Employees of I.M.P
 * Blitzo
 * Moxxie
 * Millie
 * Loona
 * Stolas
 * Mayberry family (debut)
 * Mrs. Mayberry
 * Jarold Mayberry (voice only)
 * Martha’s family (debut)
 * Martha
 * Ralphie
 * Martha and Ralphie's children
 * Fizzarolli (drawing only)
 * Sir Pentious (drawing only)
 * Satan (mentioned)

Locations

 * Hell
 * Pride Ring
 * Imp City
 * I.M.P Headquarters
 * Stolas's mansion
 * Stolas’s bathroom (debut)
 * Earth
 * Puppies Junior School (debut)
 * Martha's cabin house (debut)

Objects

 * Stolas's Grimoire

Songs

 * "Teacher's Song"

Instrumentals

 * "Stolas Speaks"

Transcript
View the episode's transcript here.

Trivia

 * The flashback at the beginning of the episode takes place on January 8, although the decade and year is never written. The approximate year this episode takes place is hinted at in one of Mayberry's lines wherein she describes the denizens of Hell as the "Epsteins and Hitlers of the world", referencing Jeffrey Epstein and Adolf Hitler, respectively, with Jeffrey Epstein dying in August 2019.
 * 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, in this case, 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. - SPEECH TO TEXT - - Blitzo
 * 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.
 * One of Vivziepop's nicknames (and recurring inside joke amongst the crew), the Cashier, originated from her voicing the cashier in this episode.
 * The scene wherein Blitzo reprimands Moxxie for accidentally setting his office on fire is shown as a preview during the BLM Helluva Charity Stream hosted on Ashley Nichols's YouTube channel on June 10, 2020.
 * This episode marks the first time that an episode has a bad ending.

Cultural References

 * When describing a mob family, the way Moxxie quoted "That's understandable" sounds similar to character Vito Corleone from the 1972 film .
 * 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.
 * Martha and her family's portrayal as psychotic, cannibalistic murderers and how they terrorized the I.M.P crew are a throwback to , where the story also involved the protagonist trying to survive and take down a family of deranged murderers.
 * It is also worth noting that when Moxxie is captured, he is tied up in a chair made out of a corpse, in a room full of furniture made out of human body parts, similar to the 1974 film .
 * The small potted lemon tree that can be seen in Blitzo's office that has a sign that says "No whores" on it is a reference to the popular pornographic film, Lemon-Stealing Whores.
 * One of the pictures hung in I.M.P.'s office is a reference to The.

Continuity

 * The paper taped to the office door that says "Meeting in Progress:)" seen in the pilot episode is shown again.
 * The billboard Moxxie tells Blitzo they could not afford back in the pilot episode can be seen in the background during the scene wherein Blitzo talks to Loona regarding the grimoire.

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 explaining to Mrs. Mayberry that her target might already be in Hell, the gold part of her shirt is purple.
 * 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.
 * In some of the shots of Moxxie holding his crossbow in the office, he has five fingers on his right hand instead of four.
 * When Loona was holding up a picture of a human family for Moxxie to shoot, her thumb was seen in front of the family. However in the next shot, it was behind the photo.
 * When Blitzo is spying on the family, his right eyelid is miscolored red.
 * When escaping through the broken window and running out into the woods, Moxxie can be seen holding a pump-action shotgun, apparently the same one the daughter of the family was seen taking out at the dinner table. But when he shoots Martha, he is seen holding the sniper rifle Blitzo used at the house. When he runs back to the house, he is once again wielding the girl's shotgun.
 * During her brief prayer to Satan before attempting to burn the imps, Martha has five fingers on each hand instead of four.
 * The daughter’s eye color changes from bright red to brown after Moxxie accidentally turns the TV on.
 * During the hospital scene wherein Ralphie has his arm around Martha, his hand disappears from her back when the townsfolk awards her with a two million dollar check.
 * Martha supposedly survived being "shot" by Mrs. Mayberry, but during the video call scene, the sound effects used were for both a gunshot alongside the sounds of an active chainsaw.
 * Ralphie can be seen firing regular bullets out of his double-barrel shotgun.
 * Additionally, the bullets that miss Millie and instead hit the grass, dirt and the dock had no visible holes in them.
 * The sound of a gun being reloaded can be heard during the scene wherein Ralphie takes out an empty bottle.
 * Ralphie's gun also disappears in the following scene.
 * When Moxxie unties Millie his teeth turn yellow instead of white for a short second.
 * Moxxie can be seen reacting to the supposed flames of the fire being used to kill off Blitzo and Millie even though the next shot shows Ralphie just putting in the gasoline to fuel the fire.
 * Additionally, during the scene wherein Moxxie goes to confront what's left of Martha's family, a chair with broken rope can be seen in the foreground, implying this is the same chair Moxxie was tied to in the previous scene. Though, this can not be the case since the chair Moxxie was previously tied up in was made of a beheaded human carcass, while this one was just a regular chair, and alongside the fact that the human carcass chair was thrown out the window by Moxxie just after he escapes.
 * The chair is also not in the same room as the one Moxxie was kept in.
 * Despite Martha and or Ralphie having shot a big hole through their window and wall earlier in the episode, The house is shown to be unaffected during the scene where the authorities arrive.
 * However, the broken glass in the window Moxxie escapes out of is still there.

Gallery

 * Murder Family/Gallery