The CUPHEAD Show Relationships: ❤️ Healthy to Toxic ☣️

The Cuphead Show is getting a new 
season very soon, sometime this year,   likely the Summer from what we’ve 
heard. This led us to rewatch Season   One so we could discuss the myriad of 
relationships throughout the show. Now,   for this video, we will be discussing all kinds 
of relationships and not just romantic ones,   which of these relationships are healthy 
and which of them are heavily toxic? I’m Caleb with WickedBinge and this is The 
Cuphead Show! Relationships: Healthy to Toxic. Small spoiler warning, as we will 
be going over some major plot beats,   go watch the first season on Netflix 
and then come back to this list. With our obligatory spoiler 
warning out of the way,   we can now move into the first of our 
sections, The Healthy Relationships. Earning our gold medal of healthiness is that 
of Cuphead and Mugman. Cuphead and Mugman are   brothers and lifelong friends since they seem 
pretty close in age, maybe even being twins.   The two are shown to respect each other quite 
enough and will always stand up for each other.   They share meals when needed, Mugman makes 
a life-saving sweater for his brother,   and while the two bicker it’s nothing out of 
the ordinary for brothers.

Cuphead and Mugman’s   relationship is a focal point of the show, and it 
makes them all the better at the end of the day. The silver medal of healthiness belongs 
to Cuphead, Mugman, and Ms. Chalice. The   three of them are considered fast friends 
at best and partners in crime at worst,   as Chalice teaches the boys about 
how to effectively utilize charm   to get what they want. They go throughout town 
doing a song about charm and doing all kinds of   criminal acts. Now, yes, Chalice does 
accidentally get the Cup brothers arrested   but she does try to wake them and get them 
away before escaping so she didn’t have to   deal with being arrested as well. But the three 
of them have a very certain camaraderie that we   think marks them as a healthy relationship 
for the most part we hope is explored more.

Grabbing the bronze medal of healthiness is the 
relationship between Cuphead, Mugman, and Elder   Kettle. The Cup Brothers and The Elder Kettle are 
family, with Kettle either being their biological   grandfather or father or possibly being an adopted 
father figure for the boys. The boys seem to have   grown up under Elder Kettle’s care and he seems to 
care about them greatly. They all get along quite   well, although Kettle does get quite strict at 
times and the boys do like to slack off at times.   However, the main reason they fall this 
low on the list is because of Episode 11   “Dirt Nap” where Elder Kettle does try to kill 
Cuphead and Mugman in a variety of ways. Now,   he thought that this was in self-defense 
so we can’t get too angry at him here,   although it’s still more toxic 
than the previous because of this. The next relationship we wanted to talk about 
was Henchman and King Dice. These two don’t   interact for very long during Episode 5 but they 
are considered Coworkers as they both work for The   Devil.

Henchman is a big fan of King Dice and 
his show “Roll The Dice”, so much so he wishes   for King Dice’s autograph. Sure, he asks at a 
bad time, and Henchman does end up taking over   on “Roll The Dice” but the two seem to be on good 
terms. They aren’t nearly as close as the family   from the last entry but at least they’re not 
trying to actively harm each other which is nice. Rounding out our healthy section is a 
very tentatively ranked Cuphead, Mugman,   and Porkrind. Now, this relationship is 
probably the most strained on this list,   as they aren’t friends and are really closer 
to something like business partners as Cuphead   and Mugman are just customers at Porkrind’s shop. 
Porkrind as a person is manipulative and kind of a   douchebag at times, but he seems to treat his 
customers like Jerry quite well.

He tolerates   Cuphead and Mugman for the most part, however, 
he does imagine killing them when they annoy   him. However, he has the common sense not to 
send the two of them on a suicide mission even   if they do it on their own. Cuphead and Mugman do 
respect Porkrind quite enough and love his shop,   even if they do cause it to 
get destroyed by accident. With the healthiest relationships out of 
the way we now move on to The Gray Area The first relationship in the Gray Area 
is Dorris and Sherman which spoiler alert,   is the only romantic relationship 
on this list. Dorris and Sherman   are minor characters during Episode 3 who 
have been dating or married for quite some   time considering Dorris makes mention of their 
anniversary.

Sherman gets quite angry at Dorris   for mispronouncing “anniversary” but doesn’t 
seem abusive, and at worst just yells at her.   Even after being yelled out Dorris still 
reveals that Cuphead and Mugman ran away   showing they do care about each other even if 
Sherman is too busy with work most of the time. Up next on our list is the group of Duke, Emma, 
and Jasper. Now it’s unknown exactly what their   relationship is but they are at the very least 
colleagues or friends who work together in the   cemetery to scare people. The three of them are 
ghosts and generally like each other. However,   Duke is immensely abusive towards Jasper and Emma 
does very little to stop this although she is the   most peacekeeping of the three of them. Duke’s 
abuse of Jasper’s stupidity is toxic but at least   the three seem to like each other, and maybe Duke 
is trying to help Jasper in his toxic evil way. In a similar vein is The Root Pack which is next 
on our list.

This is another group of friends who   go around and scam people such as Cuphead 
and Mugman. The three of them are grifters   who take over people’s yards to throw parties 
and have fun at the other person’s expense.   Now, much like the previous relationship, 
Sal is pretty abusive towards Ollie,   but not because of idiocy, rather for crying, 
knowing that Ollie is rather emotional which   leads to a vicious cycle where his bullying leads 
to Ollie crying which leads to Sal bullying him   and so on.

Now, Chauncey doesn’t pretend 
to be a peacekeeper like Emma and really   just lets Sal do what he wants rather than even 
pretend to care, which shows how toxic she is. Rounding out the Gray Area of our list is The 
Devil and Henchman. The Devil employs plenty   of demons throughout his time, but one of the 
biggest employees we see a lot of during the show   is Henchman. Henchman is kind of obvious as to 
his role, where he serves as one of The Devil’s   high-ranking assistants, helping him with 
the burns from the sweater or informing him   about important events on Inkwell Isle if The 
Devil doesn’t already know.

Out of all of his   employees, The Devil treats Henchman the best, 
never really being abusive towards him outside   of being angry when his song was interrupted by 
Henchman. That’s why it ranks in the Gray Area,   he’s still treating Henchman badly, and 
it’s not a relationship to aspire to,   but between this and The Devil’s many 
other relationships within the show,   this is by far his best, and Henchman definitely 
deserves The Devil’s niceties in this show. We now reach the bottom of our spectrum, 
none other than the many Toxic Relationships. Starting off our Toxic section is the brotherly 
duo Ribby and Croaks. Ribby and Croaks are the   main antagonists of the self-titled episode 
during the first half of the season and can   be kind of seen as a dark reflection of Cuphead 
and Mugman. Not only are both pairs brothers but   they were raised by a single relative, with Ribby 
and Croaks being raised by their darling mother,   who they even sing songs about.

The two were pro 
boxers who often fought with each other but quit   thanks to their aforementioned mother. 
Nowadays they tend to fight each other anyway,   over the pettiest smallest arguments, and we 
mean fully physical fights with very little   beyond basic insults thrown between the two. They 
also get so focused on fighting each other that   they show very little regard for the environment 
around them when they do so. It’s no surprise   the two of them are toxic but they’re still not 
the most toxic relationship we see in the show. Earring our bronze medal of toxicity is 
the relationship we see between The Devil   and Stickler. Much like Henchman, Stickler is 
employed by The Devil and therefore is at the   whims of The Devil throughout the show, however, 
Stickler only appears in one episode. But,   in this one episode, we learn everything we need 
to learn about the relationship between these two   characters.

Stickler, as his name employs is a 
stickler who prefers that work be completed before   anyone could relax, which is very 
annoying to everyone around him,   especially when it’s said that the Devil rarely 
gives out vacations or breaks to his workers.   The Devil also finds Stickler quite annoying, but 
for some reason doesn’t destroy him in any way,   which is probably the nicest thing he’s done 
for the small demon. However, while Stickler   doesn’t seem to mind The Devil and may even look 
up to his boss, The Devil finds Stickler annoying   beyond belief, going as far as to destroy 
Hell’s records just to make Stickler go away.   However, The Devil also somewhat fears that 
Stickler will find out about his deception   which is interesting as well.

When it comes 
down to it, The Devil hates Stickler and the   only reason they don’t rank lower is that 
Stickler doesn’t hate the Devil in return. The silver medal of toxicity very neatly belongs 
to The Devil and King Dice. The final employee   of the Devil is his supposed right-hand man, 
which makes sense as to why it’s the second   most toxic relationship in the show. King Dice 
runs a soul-stealing operation disguised as a   game show called “Roll the Dice” which is 
supposed to be easy enough for the dumbest   people to win and therefore lose their souls 
to.

However, it is quickly revealed that it’s   too smart for the main character Cuphead which 
leads to King Dice having his first loss EVER.   This, understandably makes The Devil upset, not 
just demoting the King to a lower position than   Henchman, but maybe even killing him based on how 
he reacted. He was willing to harm Dice beyond   belief for this failure, which shows a severe lack 
of care for his servants, and the only reason he   didn’t outright slay King Dice is that he was good 
enough to be the Devil’s right hand at one point.   Hopefully, we see more of not just this 
relationship but King Dice in general   as we’ve mentioned on this channel a 
hundred or more times at this point.   Maybe this will lead to the relationship 
being less toxic or possibly even more so. But our most toxic relationship and earning 
our coveted gold medal of toxicity is the   relationship between Cuphead, Mugman, and The 
Devil. Now, this should be a no-brainer as to why,   but the simplest explanation is as follows. 
Cuphead and Mugman are at odds with The Devil   since the VERY FIRST EPISODE and then on 
and off throughout the rest of the series,   they are bitter rivals until Episode 9 where The 
Devil makes his final appearance for Season One.   They fight with words and trickery throughout the 
series and they only have one fleeting moment of   friendship while in the line for the rollercoaster 
but even that started off with false pretenses.   It’s no surprise that this relationship being as 
strained and hateful as it is takes the bottom   spot, and it wouldn’t surprise us if more of 
this relationship is explored in Season Two   and it somehow gets worse, but at the moment 
it unequivocally takes the gold on our list.  But let us know in the comment section if you 
agree with our ranking.

And tell us what we should   cover next. Remember to hit that notification 
bell and binge our Good to Evil playlist.   Where we break down the morality of the 
characters in your favorite cartoons,   shows, and movies. But most 
importantly, stay wicked.