#run out of time to do image descriptions I'm sorry I'll add them later

[cometcon]

I know this is generally supposed to be a Transformers focused blog, but I've been a little obsessed with Helluva Boss characters lately, and pre-'Western Energy' Striker in particular. (Ed Bosco did a great job picking up the role after they couldn't get Norman Reedus again, but I still much prefer sinister seductive Striker with Reedus' awesome performance voicing him. And while I'm sure the writers had their reasons for where they want to take the character, I'm much more of a slut for the competent, non-undermined villains lol).

I recently saw someone (in a YouTube comment somewhere I think) mention offhand how it seemed like Striker was trying to frame Moxxie rather than outright kill him in Harvest Moon and I think that person was right in their general point of 'strangling is an odd way to go about it when he could have just stabbed him to death or snapped his neck and been done with it.' I agree that was definitely interesting but there's actually more to support this argument and speculate further, I reckon.

(It's a long waffle so I've put it below a read more line.)

Hopefully they'll be added soon but atm there aren't proper subtitles* for the episode so I can't easily screengrab the lines, but basically Moxxie has this adorable nerd-out about angelic weapons, so Millie's family knows from that point on that he knows a lot about them.

Blitz takes an instant shine to Striker (I went brrrr on that during the conversation too but I'll save that for another time lol) and it can be assumed during all of that juicy but unfortunately offscreen interaction when he was inviting Striker to I.M.P that Blitz would have told him more about his current employees, with or without prompting, since he thought Striker was going to join and Blitz would be thinking to show off his employees as a positive draw because he doesn't know at this point that Striker is a supremacist asshole. ie: He probably would have said Millie is a vicious badass and Moxxie the weapons specialist and it isn't much of a stretch to assume he probably would have mentioned the little angelic weapons nerd-out Moxxie had before Striker got there as part of talking about how much Moxxie knows about his job. And then it doesn't take much observation to see Millie's parents love, trust and respect their daughter and think very lowly of Moxxie (I'm going somewhere with this, I promise lol).

The biggest factor for me though is exactly how the scene where Moxxie finds the gun is set up.

First of all, the gun case is in full view on Striker's bed, open, and glowing magenta light so bright it easily leaks out beneath the door. And while again, the auto-gen subtitles take a second to cover the line properly, Moxxie says "Well that's troubling" before he even touches the knob, indicating he already strongly suspects what that glow is being made by before he even opens the door, which is what draws him to open it in the first place.

And while I know there's clearly a whole dramatic appearance timing thing going on because animation, there still has to be some level of believability for Striker to suddenly be there, meaning he literally had to be lying in wait nearby to appear that damn quickly from the moment Moxxie starts entering his room to the rapid pan 'empty door space/boom Striker's there now' shot we get.

And he's not at all fazed by Moxxie's discovery. Unlike when Blitz barges in unexpectedly and catches him off-guard later (I'll explain my reasoning for that in a second) he's completely ready for this. He's not bothered in the slightest. Almost like he planned it.

How perfect would it be to frame Moxxie, an imp already looked down on by the townsfolk here as essentially an annoying city kid who annoyed Millie's parents further by showing off his angelic weapon knowledge, for the murder of a Goetian Prince via blessing-tipped rifle?

And then of course there's that original point the YouTube commenter made that it would have been even easier for Striker to off Moxxie in pretty much any other way besides strangling if he needed to silence him quickly, and the second time he catches him makes it look even more like he might be trying to make him lose consciousness rather than kill him (fun fact: it's actually a lot harder to knock people out with a whack on the head than they make it look in the movies and Striker is also clearly intending this as a power trip for himself as well. Getting to overpower Moxxie helps feed his whole 'stronger superior imp' bullshit that is essential to his character and which he's been lording over Moxxie the whole episode with Millie's family at his back. You could argue that's also a reason to use it as his killing method but there's still that little thing of Moxxie having shown off his angelic weapons knowledge and not being popular with the Wrath crowd and using the gun to trap him in the first place.)

Unfortunately, Moxxie manages to do something unplanned in smashing the vase, alerting Millie to the situation. But Millie was not in Striker's game plan. Easy to take out? Apparently. Easy to frame? FUCK. NO. XD

Millie is her family's darling daughter, and while Striker has clearly developed a decent rapport already with the family (presumably to get the lay of the land and establish some support from the family for himself beforehand to help cover his ass during an inevitable investigation, before Moxxie turns up and gives him even better cover options), there's no way they would choose to believe him over their own very much beloved family member, no matter how good a rapport he's established over however many days or possibly even weeks he's been there.

So now he has a problem. He's not only lost the option of framing Moxxie, he has to somehow keep Millie - someone her family will instantly believe - from dobbing him in. Sure, he could kill them both and just go back to Plan A, but as he points out himself, he would have to deal with cleaning up after it well enough to avoid shit for it and cover himself for Stolas' murder. Also he has multiple stab wounds to potentially have to hide or explain. That's a lot of shit to deal with without help... Which is where the line "there's more leverage with your Rodeo clown of a boss if I don't" becomes relevant.

He's switched tactics. Plan A was replaced with a better Plan B, which got destroyed by Millie turning up. Plan C now involves using Blitz by threatening to kill the M&Ms if Blitz doesn't cooperate in helping him cover up Stolas' murder. But he also has one more card in his back pocket which he's created over the time he's observed how Stolas treats Blitz plus his own interactions with Blitz where Blitz clearly is already at least somewhat into Striker (I'll analyse that another time. I've run out of Tumblr pic limit unfortunately).

So now I'm up to how Blitz definitely wasn't expected during the assassination attempt. We can tell by the expressions we see but Blitz can't:

And then Striker clearly changes tack again.

He's actually caught off-guard here and is thinking on the fly, though with how quickly he does switch into confidence and calm again I don't think the card he plays was entirely improvised; it's a back pocket card he had ready in case.

Time for 'Plan D: Operation Seduce Blitz/Point Out How Much Your Life And Transactional Relationship With A Royal Sucks And Wouldn't It Be So Much Better If You Just Teemed Up With Me, The Guy You Like Who Is Oh So Relatable, Hot And Really Cool Actually Don't You Think?'

He clearly believes he can get through to Blitz after their time bonding over however long they've all been there (I'm assuming it was also at least overnight since they were taking the hog for dinner and the Pain Games look to be like an all-day kind of event that started the next day but that's definitely an assumption idk how time works in Hell XD ). And with that lighting and frame change

it definitely looks like he might have been at least for a few seconds, before Moxxie comes in and Blitz apparently regains his senses and remembers they're trying to stop Striker (Now it's Blitz's turn to seem like he was expecting Moxxie. I'm assuming Moxxie found him first and they went to stop Striker together with Blitz as bait, considering it would be really fucking stupid for Moxxie to try to take on Striker alone after what happened last time, and it would be really weird for Blitz to randomly go into the house and into what I'm assuming is Millie's parents' bedroom in order to just coincidentally find him.) So unfortunately for Striker, while he might have once been able to manipulate Blitz at some point prior to the whole M&M problem and Moxxie telling Blitz what was really happening, Blitz already knowing what he did to the M&Ms and his plan to use them against Blitz pretty much ruined that card's potency, which is why the small sway didn't last long even with all of Striker's time spent getting Blitz to bond with him and trust him. Again, older pre-established ties will always win out no matter how good a manipulator the antag is.

So yeah, that's why I think the whole thing was planned pretty early on, Moxxie finding the gun on the bed was a carefully laid trap to frame him all along, and my thoughts on what was likely going on in all the off-screen things we didn't get to see and have to put together ourselves.

(I don't watch the livestreams and haven't seen this covered anywhere else outside of the short offfhand knocking Moxxie out to frame him comment, so if this isn't remotely new, well it is to me and I had so much fun nutting it out. XD )

*Thankfully the auto-generated subtitles are better in this episode than the previous ones, but there are still many lines completely missing my friend had to help me decipher, and the previous episodes are pretty much impossible for me to watch properly because way too much shit is missing or mistranslated to the point it's an incredible drag even with help. Always put proper subtitles on your videos please, especially if your videos are animations/complex stories with necessary dialogue. The auto-generated ones are not always as helpful as you think they are and even the better ones still don't always pop up for lines and are far more exhausting to keep up with than proper ones even if they are mostly accurate. Please try watching your videos with the sound off and the auto-gen on a few times to get some idea of what it actually feels like - remembering also that you know what's happening as the creator while we don't - before you decide that's good enough for people who need them. It really isn't and I need my friend's help to understand what's going on in many parts of the first season before they put proper subtitles on the very last ep and then Season 2. It's exhausting. On the plus side I got to fully appreciate the second season entirely on my own without help and it was fucking EPIC getting to just watch and enjoy without having to do mental gymnastics keeping up with and guessing or having to ask my friend what was said because the fucking auto-gen flaked out for the umpteenth time.