Release the Demons!

**Release the Demons!** is the eighth episode of season 2 of *The Cuphead Show!* and is the twentieth overall.

## Synopsis

Steaming mad and seeking revenge for his prior humiliations, the Devil summons his finest demons and sends them above ground on a mission to capture Cuphead's soul.

## Plot

The episode opens with the Devil sitting by the fireplace trying to control his anger by reading a book, but failed because he still hasn't gotten a hold of Cuphead's soul, proceeding to straight up rip the book's pages one by one. Henchman enters with a food trolley attempting to lighten up his mood by complimenting him and calming him down with some tea, but to no avail as the Devil blasts it with his pitchfork after hallucinating a cup to being Cuphead where he mocks him for not getting his soul. So he prepares for his serious vengeance as he orders Henchman to bring him his finest demons.

Meanwhile in the Cottage, Cuphead was doing some chores while Mugman attempts to scare him to confirm the fact that Cuphead is also afraid just like Mugman. He failed to scare him with his own horse mask and confesses that he got frozen in fear by a horse puppet in "The Hay-Mazing Hay Maze" back when they were younger, so Cuphead goes out to the Hay Maze with Mugman to prove he didn't get scared in there. The demons have been finally summoned, where the Devil amazed them by their frightening characteristics, the Devil then describes their assigned tasks, however, as he does so, he eventually starts expressing his vengeance about Cuphead, causing him to fly into rage and accidentally killing his demons, as well as his second finest demons while Cuphead and Mugman have arrived to the Maze wearing while wearing jackets.

The third finest demons were summoned and unfortunately for the Devil, their characteristics are terrible. However, he sends them out to collect Cuphead's soul and finally did what he got to do, "Release the Demons". And then King Dice was also sent out to do the same thing. The Cups are exploring the maze while Cuphead was getting bored of the maze while the demons go around the maze searching for the brothers, Dice arrives only to hilariously sabotage the demons so that he will capture Cuphead all by himself to gain back the Devil's respect for him. Back in Inkwell Hell, the Devil arrives to see that all the demons got killed by King Dice, so the Devil made one final recourse, so he will release the "The Four Horsemen" the most scariest of his demons, a group of flaming skeleton zombie horse riders that can easily freeze people in terror by their presence.

The Cups are almost out of the maze as Cuphead thinks he proved Mugman for not being afraid while King Dice is going to pounce on them, Cuphead is finally scared and became frozen as Mugman finally confirmed that Cuphead is also afraid, only to realize The Four Horsemen are behind him and froze King Dice. However, the zombie horses got scared off by the horse puppet and flew the skeleton riders off their saddles causing them to fall into a pool full of apples where their flaming heads are put off and had a change of mind as the skeletons go get some pumpkin pie. King Dice is still frozen in fear as a couple of kids call him lame.

The Cups arrived back home as Cuphead finally admits he is afraid while the Devil failed yet again in getting a hold of that Cup's soul so he goes out to take Cuphead's soul by force as long as he's not wearing the invisible sweater but gets interrupted by Stickler and informs him that he can no longer take his soul because he missed the deadline, so he attempts to obliterate Stickler to be able to collect his soul but failed as he is wearing the invisible sweater. The Devil finally gave up that Cup's soul as he returned to Inkwell Hell through riding the elevator while being devastated, but unfortunately, the elevator broke and they ended up getting stuck as they wait for rescue while trying to overcome getting tormented by Stickler's annoying behavior.

## Cast of Characters

* Cuphead
* Mugman
* The Devil
* Henchman
* King Dice
* First Finest Demons
* Second Finest Demons
* Hay Maze Attenders
	+ Hay Maze Ticket Booth Manager
* Third Finest/Dummy Demons
	+ Snake Demon
	+ Burpy
	+ Cyclops Demon
	+ Spider Demon
	+ Scorpion Demons
	+ Eyeball Demon
	+ Turkey Demon
	+ Giant Bloated Shark Demon
	+ Turtle Demon
* Fourth Finest Demons (mentioned)
* The Four Undead Horsemen
* Stickler

## Trivia

* The theme for the Mausoleums can be heard when Cuphead and Mugman arrive at the corn farm.
* The episode was originally called "Hay's for Horses of the Apocalypse".
* This episode reveals that, unlike the game, the Devil's contracts have expiration dates, meaning that he has to collect a soul before the deadline or forfeit the deal.

* If we look closely, we can read the book the Devil is reading. Aside from mentioning the events of "Sweater Off Dead" from the previous season, it also perfectly describes the Devil's rage and foreshadows the following scene (the Devil destroying the cup when Henchman pours in the tea). It could also imply that the Devil has been reading this book for a while (also given the fact he tears the page of the book's third chapter).

* The classical piece played throughout the episode is the Requiem of Dies Irae by Italian classical composer Giuseppe Verdi.
* The song that plays when the demons are searching for Cuphead in the maze is a remix of "The Mausoleum" from the original game. Much like the Spectre Syndicate, none of them are actually capable of harming Cuphead himself.
* The scenes where the Devil gets angry and burns all his best demons are oddly similar to the scene of the season 1 finale from the anime, Demon Slayer, where the main antagonist, Kibutsuji Muzan (ironically a demon too), kills his demons for not killing enough people. What makes the two scenes more similar is that the two demonic entities use a graded system based on the strength of the demons, with the result that they both have demons ranked in grades, from worst (third row of demons for the Devil and Kagen (six lower ranks) for Muzan) to best (first two ranks of demons for the Devil and Jogen (six major ranks) for Muzan).
* It is hinted that the Devil may be queer in some shape or form, first shown when he is impressed with one of his first finest, a very muscular demon, and feels up the demon's arm and later shown he's wearing two pink towels (one wrapped around his head, and the other wrapped around his body) after a shower in a manner of a woman.
* Though the Devil deems King Dice to be his right-hand man no longer and gives the position to Henchman, as shown near the end of "Roll the Dice", he still refers to himself as "number one". This could mean that he has either regained his position or is in denial about having been fired as the Devil doesn't deign to refer to him as such. Even so, he was still among the fiercest demons the Devil originally summoned to claim Cuphead's soul.
	+ That said, head writer Deeki Deke, in response to a question regarding King Dice's presence, implied that he may have invited himself rather than having been summoned directly.
* The Devil mentions the events of the previous season as he explains to the demons why he wants Cuphead's soul, starting with Cuphead losing a game of Soul Ball, Mugman stuffing Cuphead's soul back into his body, and destroying the Carnival in the first episode, "Carn-Evil", then how Cuphead lost on "Roll the Dice" by failing to identify "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" (the Devil, however, didn't mention that Cuphead got a loss after breaking the dice by rolling them too hard) in the episode, "Roll the Dice", then how Cuphead kept the Devil from stealing his soul by wearing an invisible sweater in "Sweater Off Dead" and "Sweater Luck Next Time". The sweater from those last two episodes is revealed to have been given to Stickler.
* This is the first episode to feature some death scenes (unless they count Carn-Evil or Roll the Dice, however, those episodes don't really count because the victims weren't dead, they're just hollow and tired, or maybe they could count Piano Lesson too, though it isn't confirmed if Ludwig is dead or not).
* The Four Horsemen may be a reference to the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
* Deeki Deke was asked "How long did the Devil have to spend in the elevator with Stickler? 😂", and answered "Right up until the night before the Pitchfork episode! That's why he has to blow off steam and torture people."
* The demon cyclops is a reference to Miss Cyclops from Jail-Broken. However, the demon cyclops is blinded, and is rather a demon then a normal cyclops.
* Mugman is the only one not to freeze in fear upon seeing the Four Horsemen.
	+ The only reason Mugman wasn't affected by the Four Horsemen was because he had his back to them and he had just made a joke with Cuphead using a toy horse head. Mugman turned around to see what had horrified Cuphead so much and he accidentally scares the horses away, unwittingly defeating the Four Horsemen by knocking them into a pool of water and because the Horsemen were too lazy to get their horses back.
* The Devil getting extremely furious about Cuphead not knowing about the name of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in "Roll the Dice" is rather ironic, when considering one of the many names for the Devil (Helel/Lucifer) is based on the Latin name for the Morning Star.
* The Eyeball Demon bears a resemblance to the Hecteye, a recurring enemy in the Final Fantasy video game series.