The Mayday Crew Deserves a Spin-Off
I know this seems a bit silly at the outset. Really? Them? A throwaway group of minor antagonists getting their own series? But honestly, after giving it some thought, I think there’s some merit to this concept.
Out of every group of antagonists introduced thus far, they are the biggest, giving the main cast of this supposed spin-off a lot of inter character relationships for the series to explore. Unlike Striker who is mostly a solo villain and the Cherubs who are more or less foils to IMP, the Mayday Crew has enough members to work really nicely as a big ensemble workplace comedy mixed with a dysfunctional found family. By having more than 3 central characters, it has room to exist as its own thing instead of just feeling like a clone of Helluva Boss.
There’s a lot of potentially compelling drama you could squeeze out of lust demons trying to navigate meaningful and healthy relationships. It’s an interesting dichotomy, and with Candy Apples (Coco x Apple) and Incubi (Josh x Ace) being canon ships, that’s already two relationships that can serve as foils to one another.
Helluva Boss has an irritatingly impressive knack for getting its audience invested in (or just simping for) its side characters, and of all the side characters introduced, I think the Mayday Crew has the most room to turn their group dynamic into something interesting.
There’s a chance to flip the script and show Blitz as an antagonist to Verosika’s crew instead of the other way around. There’s also a chance to create an interesting foil by seeing how say, Verosika and her crew treats Tex versus how Blitz and M&M treat Loona, as well as showing how different life is for higher status demons like Verosika compared to low-status imps.
As higher ranking demons, Verosika and by extention her crew have access to parts of both Hell and Earth that IMP simply lacks. Places like Ozzie’s are an extremely rare night out, whereas for someone of Verosika’s clout, she probably just waltzed past the bouncer like it was any boring old day. So, if the writers wanted an easier way to have characters rubbing elbows with the elites more often without always having to use Stolas, this is another approach they could use.
Because Verosika is famous and the Mayday Crew are her entourage, it’s also a great way to explore celebrity culture, idol worship, paparazzi, advertisements, and other sorts of pressures that someone of Verosika’s status has to deal with that someone like Blitz can avoid.
But while that’s all fine and good, what about the details? What would it be called? Who would be the star? What would be the focus? Well, I think the best candidate for main character would be Ace. It’s only my own personal headcanon, but I’ve always gotten the sense that he’s Verosika’s second-in-command, and we already have a show where the “boss” is the main character. Two actually, since Charlie is the CEO of the Happy Hotel. So, having a show star and primarily focus on the employees might be a nice change of pace. The unsung heroes who break their backs to make the celebrity look good. Her back-up dancers or vocalists, stylists, choreographers, assistants, groupies, or whatever all of their individual job descriptions end up being, someone as big as Verosika needs a full time team to keep her afloat, and that could be an interesting focal point for the Mayday Crew beyond just being an excuse for more dirty jokes and sexual inuendos. So, a show that follows Ace as he works to maintain order and peace in Verosika’s chaotic little clique while also trying to apease his bitch of a boss feels like a good basis for a show, and since he also has a blossoming relationship with Josh (which the fans already are interested in) this gives free reign to develop them as characters and put them through relationship issues, with Apple and Coco serving as the other primary couple. And since we don’t want a repeat of M&M who are meant to be a subversion of standard Hell relationships, this means we’re likely to see and deal with two problematic relationships where the partners are trying, but aren’t as perfect and sweet as Millie and Moxxie. As for what the show would be called... why not just Mayday! Verosika strikes me as a drama queen meltdown sort of boss, so anytime anything goes wrong, it’s time to set off the alarms. It’s a little cheeky, but I think it has room to work. Is it perfect? No. The Mayday Crew is extremely flat. Their only real personalities come through fan headcanons. But they’ve managed to be relatively popular, and there’s enough of them to make an interesting ensemble cast out of them. Whether it becomes its own completely separate entity, or it just becomes a standalone episode of Helluva Boss, I think there’s something there that has the potential to become one Helluva show.
