Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell Season 3 Spoiler-Free Review

This Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell review is based on the first two eleven-minute episodes of  Season 3.

“They come down to Hell and we’re going to bore them? We need something new. Something fresh,” is a line that’s uttered by Gary (Henry Zebrowski) in Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell’s season premiere regarding a new orientation video for Hell, but it also almost seems like a mantra for this latest season of the show. All bets (or deals with the devil) are off this year and it couldn’t be more exciting.

Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell has become a bit of a sleeper hit on Adult Swim. The show seems to come and go before you know it and in spite of the series being in production for a number of years now, the intensive live-action program is only now heading into their third season. As a result, new episodes of this show always feel like a bit of a special event. Zebrowski’s surge in popularity between seasons has also certainly been keeping him busy and contributing to the lengthy gap between seasons, too. But it’s nice to finally see Zebrowski back in this role, channeling Gary expertly, and seeming like a Hell Pig in Hell Slop getting to play this role for another year. It’s beautiful to see the new ways in which he makes Hell a living Hell for his fellow demons.

The series, and the universe that it’s been building for two seasons, finally feels fully defined with this year already starting things off in a comfortable, confident groove. The series still delivers A+ satire in regards to Hell being dressed up as a bureaucratic slog while images of extreme brutality are synergized with workplace boilerplate. It’s kind of crazy that the show has managed to acclimate and desensitize you to Hell of all places, almost just as much as Gary is at this point. With the series efficiently making its points and nailing its Hell checklist through its first two years, all of this is really just pus at this point (pus is what demons use for gravy in Hell). With less of an agenda and more of the walls coming down in this universe, it’s easy to see how season three could be Pretty Face’s most successful year yet.

Not only are we more accommodated to the show’s premise at this point, the same can also be said with its characters. Additionally, due to our understanding of Gary at this point, the show is able to go in a number of exciting directions. At the same time, just watching Gary sputter off as Zebrowski expertly rambles away aimlessly in the face of Servitto’s stone-faced Satan is a delight. He is a treasure and their repartee is a delight, while being full of highlights like Gary explaining to Satan who Batman’s Bane is, not to mention the villain’s bisexual proclivities.

Gary gets a lot of the focus here, but this season also seems to not be afraid to share the spotlight with the rest of Hell. Matt Servitto’s Satan is given plenty to do. Learning of his apparent love for parody and musical spoofs is a welcome dimension to his character, as is seeing the unusual things that he ends up agreeing with Gary on. There’s arguably the most love in their dynamic this season as there has ever been. Benji and Dana Snyder’s Lucas also get much appreciated upgrades this year, as the offices of Hell continue to see development.

In the third season’s first two episodes, “Straight Outta Hades” and “Three Demons and a Demon Baby,” the show explores situations like Gary getting staffed with having to make a new orientation video for Hell (and don’t try to reason with the Hellfolk over how a disorientation video would be more up Hell’s alley…) and how Hell would be an awful place to raise a child. There’s an obvious degree of fun being had with these concepts, like Satan’s eventual need to have a child (“Revelations says I’ve gotta have a kid in 2140…” and the season somehow even getting into the topic of abortion and the right to choose. I think it’s also even a little funnier that Straight Outta Compton is tenuously relevant at the moment and not even close to being a recent release, regardless of when this episode was made. It’s a tiny detail that only makes things better and highlights how clueless Gary is.

On top of all of this, the show has never looked slicker with top-notch production quality accompanying this new year. Glimpses of images like a giant demonic Hell cheese grater being used on demon’s faces, lava vat funneling, Satan’s procreating snake form, or even the spectacle of demon birth are all bewildering, unique sight gags that you could only find on this show.

It’s still early on in the season, but it also looks like the year will continue to play with and subvert the many tropes and interpretations of the mythos of Hell. Glimpses of this expansion are seen in the early episodes and will presumably be dealt with more thoroughly as the year continues.

Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell gently leans into “tradition” while still being highly unpredictable. Of all of the live-action fare on Adult Swim, it’s certainly one of their more entertaining programs, not to mention the most distinct looking. These factors only become stronger this season with the training wheels of previous years now being free. Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell is just a marvel to watch and it’s a thrill to spend time in this insane world that Casper Kelly and David Willis have created. This year, the two have never felt more at home.

Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell’s third season premieres on Adult Swim this Sunday, October 23, at 11:30pm