 The series finale of Netflix’s Stranger Things has been a little action and a lot of Emmy money shots in which characters resolve issues we didn’t even remember they had and use super original metaphors like, “you don’t get to write the ending…not this time.” As usual, we bring you deep analysis and insights you won’t find anywhere else.
On Season Five, episode seven, demon stick person Vecna captures Will while he’s sleeping (?) and uses him to locate his friend Max who is in a coma, so he can kill her. In addition to using him as a tracking device, Will reveals to his mother, friends, and brother that Vecna also showed him other “horrible things” including that his loved ones would not be cool with his coming out as gay. After what seems like an hour, Will finally spits it out and says he’s homosexual, and we are forced to remember a time when this was actually a big deal and people spent an inordinate amount of time prepping everyone for the news. In case you don’t follow the series, Vecna was once Henry Creel, a test subject for evil government experiments who somehow turned into an all-powerful creature made of vines and squirmy tentacles and changed his name to Vecna because that was way cooler than Henry Creel. His powers allow him to command demon servants who capture townspeople, put them in trances, and place them in a netherworld in which they all live in Henry’s childhood home with him. Instead of capturing all the hot chicks from Hawkins and having them live in a mansion with him as the only man in their universe who provides for their needs and desires, Henry chooses to snatch children who he must entertain, feed, and constantly assuage. Interesting choice considering he could have had a bunch of strippers and cheerleaders competing for his affections, but he thought it was better to be a babysitter. But before you start thinking he’s an obvious child molester, remember that the reason he chooses children is because, unlike strippers, their minds are more malleable, and they are easy to manipulate. O.K. He does sound like a child molester. Anyway, Vecna threatens Will with the possibility that his gayness will repel everyone, but instead of hiding in the closet, he bravely tells everyone and it takes like an hour (see above). We assumed the “horrible” things Vecna showed him were mutant spider kittens and the world ending. But it was more about perceived social embarrassment and humiliation. Brilliant. Because those are the really scary things, right? In a profound discovery that will change the trajectory of the Stranger Things world, we tell you the other horrible things Vecna showed Will that weren’t revealed on the show. Six other “horrible” things Vecna showed Will. 1. Will calls Hopper “dad” by accident and it’s super embarrassing for him. Hopper acts like it’s no big deal, but he’s not a great actor so they both just kind of stare at each other awkwardly for a few seconds, hoping Will’s mom will come in and break up the mortifying silence. But she’s out shopping or something. So it just continues. 2. Will is hanging out with Mike, Lucas, and Dustin and Mike leaves to get snacks at the grocery store. Will suddenly has a craving for Cool Ranch Doritos but since there are no cell phones unless you’re super rich, he can’t just call him and say, “Hey Mike. Make sure you pick up some Cool Ranch Doritos!” Instead, Will has to just hope Mike gets some, but he doesn’t, so Will is stuck eating a bunch of crap he doesn’t even want, like fucking regular Ruffles and something called Chicken in a Biscuit. 3. Will calls Joe but can’t remember why. Joe isn’t there, so it goes to his answering machine, but since Will can’t remember why he called, he has nothing to say and just breathes and then it becomes a thing where if he does say anything it’ll be weird and if he doesn't it's weirder. 4. Vecna’s on Spring Break with Will and since this is a vision of something that could happen Will freaks out because he would NEVER choose to go on Spring Break with him. So it sucks. But Vecna pays for everything and the place they stay is super cool and there are a lot of chicks, but that also sucks because they’re not into that (see above). 5. Will flat out pees his pants. At work. At a job he doesn’t have yet, but it’s a vision of that. And everyone’s staring at him and he tries to explain that he hasn’t peed his pants since he was a kid, but nobody believes him because there he is, pissing his pants, right in front of them. 6. Will shows up to a Christmas party with what he thinks is an awesome outfit. Turns out, Dustin is wearing the same one, and while they try not to be “girls” about it, one of them has to change, because they are kind of girls about it. Dustin refuses to be the one to go home and pick a new outfit. So Will just decides to ride it out, but it’s unbearable because every time he starts relaxing and feeling a buzz, he looks across the room and there’s fucking Dustin, wearing the same fucking sweater, pants, and socks.  I’m going to open this column with the grace and dignity this holiday season deserves—by denouncing you and the institutional consumer slavery that pushes you through December like the guy who whips the rowers in fake-historical movies about the Roman Empire. (Don’t even get me started.)
Every year, you toil to pathetically build “Christmas” moments with your “families” by killing trees and displaying them like serial killer trophies in your houses. Oh, and you try to buy your way out of child neglect by giving “your” kids (as if they belong to you) gifts made by child labor in China (and yes, I do think Xi Jinping is hot). In case you don’t get it, the concept of biological families is a political construct invented to make daddy strong and everyone else weak and having children is child abuse. This is where you start calling me names and saying the womyn writing this article (me) is insane. But if insanity is believing in a different reality where there are no consequences for your actions but only if you’re in class/gender/race/stereotype I approve of, then I’m fucking bananas. Quick thought: Capitalism made Karl Marx into Richard Marx and then into TJMaxx. Anyway, as you drink from the spigot of commercialism and it tastes like it’s flowing through somebody’s butt crack, don’t blame me. You made your choice. I made mine. And that’s to become the most annoying human being on the planet by simply not participating in the lie of holiday cheer and polar bears drinking Coca Cola. Did you know in real life that would kill them? Do you know that right now, they’re falling off a melting ice drift that probably has old coke cans and other garbage in it because you don’t care if the world dies as long as you can stuff more Chik-fil-A into your fat bloated stomach? Note: St. Nick was a communist drag queen. Still wanna open his presents? Didn’t think so. Another note: Sex workers are “Christian” too. Also, God is a drunk Mexican truck driver who just drove through your living room window. Yo quiero Taco Bell? Didn’t think so. It’s time to announce I’m supporting legislation to legally poison the U.S. food supply with the same rat poison used to exterminate rodent Americans for centuries. After all we humans die, may our furry successors crawl over our dead bodies and show us how this planet should be really cared for. I know that has nothing to do with Christmas or Holidays but neither does being the next Hitler and you celebrate that. But don’t worry, I’m going to keep on track by giving you some things you should consider this December as you mindlessly worship the god of consumerism. Here they are: Things to consider this December as you mindlessly worship the god of consumerism. Rudolph is a minority and his nose is Ebonics. Think about it. “A Charlie Brown Christmas” was originally “A Jim Crow Christmas” and Pigpen has AIDS. Kris Kringle is a child molester who gives kids toys to sit on his lap. I’m going to spend Christmas Eve at a Soul Food Restaurant and ask the waitress if she’ll shoot me as her tip. Lesbians are great unless they work on an organic farm and don’t shave their armpits, right white bros? Here’s a funny Christmas joke. Why did the white people hang stockings? Because they thought they were black people. Get it? I signed my neighbors up for the wine of the month club, except the wine is a different homeless man I find to live with them every 30 days. Ho Chi Minh can rock my egg roll. Pol Pot was like Santa Claus to Cambodia. Only they had no chimneys. And instead of giving people presents he killed them. But the message of peace and unity is pretty much the same. The next time you cuddle up around a fire and listen to Christmas music and sip eggnog, picture me having unprotected sex with a transexual Guatemalan polar bear. Come get me ICE. Seriously, will someone please call them and get this thing off me? Didn’t think so. Radna Shurebeets is a political activist whose views are often considered a “little much” by people who hear her views. But herstory is never made by womyn who are “just right.” If you’d like to contact Radna, or comment, you can reach her at [email protected].  Why are kids forced to spend time with a gross old man? Trust fund baby Haley Debaron reflects on Christmas, her childhood, and Santa Claus.
Before you get your hate mail ready, I just want to say I love Christmas, and this article is not in any way saying I don’t. There. Oh, and if you’re some goober who dresses up like Santa Claus at malls, yes, you’re a perv. I could end this right here and I think everyone would understand but my editor* is telling me I need to explain more because apparently, you’re too fucking stupid to get it. Sorry. I apologize because that was a lot and you don’t deserve it. I hardly know you and I’m dumping my trauma on you, which isn’t fair. I’m trauma dumping probably because when my dad bought me this column at the Intergalactic Business Report, he warned me that writing this crap was the closest thing to therapy he was going to pay for anymore. Weird, right? Because in actuality, the closest thing to therapy that he paid for was for me to hook up with my therapist during our therapy sessions. Oh, I guess that’s why he added “anymore” on that. Anyway… When I was a little girl, I had a horrific experience meeting Santa. It was probably the same thing many poor people like you (just guessing but not really) go through as children when someone takes you to the mall and you sit in line and then they throw you on the lap of some old creep who’s stinky and acts like he’s your grandfather or something. I should probably note here that my own grandfather is rich and doesn’t cosplay in malls. He does do a thing where he hunts humans in Indonesia or somewhere so maybe that is cosplay because he dresses up in this whole “hunter” outfit when he does it. (I’ve seen pictures, but there’s no way I’d go in a jungle or whatever and live in a tent for three days). Back to my story. Annabelle (not her real name because when you’re rich and you get a nanny and you don’t like or can’t pronounce her name you can just pick one for her) took me to the mall by accident. She didn’t understand that if people like me really wanted to do the whole Santa Claus thing there were other ways, like where he keeps his distance and it’s more like he’s a security guard at Hermes who lets you in. Dumb dumb Annabelle (I say that with love, like a nickname I would always call her) brought me to this horrible Santa station and I waited there with the other kids like I rode the bus or something. I waited. And I waited. It was one of the hardest things I ever did in my life. For a minute I was like, what am I doing? I didn’t know what it felt like to be bored and not catered to and not brought to the front of the line. What was happening? I finally stood up for myself by screaming at Annabelle and demanding she have a good explanation for what we were doing there and why I was waiting. This is so funny when I remember it because the few times Annabelle defied me, I would always just go off on her till she either cried or got really really mad and said something in her language that sounded like they would be swear words. Sad news: she got fired eventually because an old man who could understand her told me: “Do you know that woman wants you dead?” Scary. But that didn’t happen on mall day, so dumb dumb Annabelle kept on working. When I got to the front and it was my “turn” (I still don’t understand this concept, but whatever), the gross old man beckoned me to, yuck, sit on his lap. I don’t need to explain how he smelled because you can probably smell it now if there’s a mall within a hundred miles of you. I guess people really liked this Santa because he had a real beard, and no, this story is not going to end where “he’s the actual Santa” or that maybe he was, or that it was ambiguous or whatever, because he farted like he had a French horn in his pants. Would the real Santa do that? Would someone’s old nasty ex-husband do that? Yes. Because that’s who he was, for sure. Fart. And it was so loud, everyone could hear it. At least they said so when I pointed at him and told them he just farted on me. In all fairness, it’s really possible he didn’t, but I was a little girl and this man just looked like a human fart and maybe that’s why I smelled and felt it. Sometimes, when a cute child starts yelling that an old man did something, people believe her. Other times, when a cute child starts yelling that her nanny stole silverware they believe her too. And, just to really make my point, when a cute little girl says to her parents that the chauffeur’s mustache smells like Uncle Dominique’s “brown” drink, they fire his ass. Oh, and all this stuff works when you’re older too. It’s like you never have to stop using it just because you’re in your twenties or whatever. I can’t even remember what the purpose of writing this was. Something about the holidays I think. But thanks to dad, none of that matters. The editors here don’t even read the stuff they publish and they’re all pervs anyway so who cares what they think? In conclusion, there should be a politician or someone fighting against everything I just wrote about. But they all get spooked that people will say they hate Christmas if they do. So lie down, cowards, and don’t fight back. Keep taking kids to the malls and have them freak out when they’re told the old man over there is going to decide whether you get what you want for Christmas. Great message, right? They told me when I’m done writing to just write “I’m done writing now. Goodbye.” I guess that’s a way to just be done with it. So, I’m done writing now. Goodbye. Haley Debaron. *Some drunk guy yelling at me over Zoom. Haley Debaron has a trust fund. It makes her rich. Probably richer than you and we don’t even know you. There’s nothing more to say really, than that. You can contact Haley at [email protected].  Admittedly, we started watching Netflix’s “The Beast in Me” believing it would be a porno version of “Beauty and the Beast,” but after our disappointment we stuck around to see what happens when a neurotic writer (Claire Danes) becomes friends with a serial killer (Mathew Rhys) and (spoiler alert) they don’t have sex.
As a new feature, the Intergalactic Business Report explores the business acumen of fictional characters because we feel that makes sense in some way. As we dig into “The Beast in Me” we examine and rate the money-makers and hustlers who make up the series. Below we offer character profiles, their business strategies, and ratings (on our proprietary 1-100 system). Business Acumen Ratings: The Beast in Me. Aggie Wiggs (Claire Danes): PROFILE: Pulitzer Prize winning author whose lips quiver when she cries (constantly). BUSINESS STRATEGY: Takes so many advances from her publisher that she’s run out of credit. RATING: 18. Nile Jarvis (Matthew Rhys): PROFILE: Billionaire scion who kills people for fun and just because. Oh, and also out of anger. BUSINESS STRATEGY: Killing people. Covering up killing people. Kidnapping people. Also does a little business here and there in which he’s really concerned about his “legacy.” But then he just keeps on killing people. On the plus side, he’s rich. RATING: 36. Nina Jarvis (Brittany Snow): PROFILE: New wife of killionaire Nile Jarvis. BUSINESS STRATEGY: Befriends Nile’s old, dead wife and then marries him and ends up with all his money after he’s imprisoned for killing people (see above). Good job. RATING: 98. Shelley (Natalie Morales): PROFILE: Ex wife of Aggie and artist who lives in a realistically huge loft in NYC. BUSINESS STRATEGY: If she were to rent out 10% of her loft, she could easily make more than a million dollars a year for that. But she doesn’t. RATING: 53. Martin Jarvis (Jonathan Banks): PROFILE: Patriarch of the Jarvis family. BUSINESS STRATEGY: Works on building a huge development in NYC by bribing public officials and covering up for his serial killer son. Also, he has a stroke and is euthanized by his creepy brother. Overall, if he doesn’t have the stroke and nobody finds out about his killer son, Martin’s doing really well. RATING: 87. Brian Abbot (David Lyons): PROFILE: FBI agent obsessed with taking down Nile Jarvis. BUSINESS STRATEGY: Lives in a ratty apartment and gets drunk. Also has depressing sex with his supervisor. If he did some freelance work, like security at concerts, he could probably up his income, but he spends his time humping his boss, drinking, and working on cases he’s not getting paid to work on. RATING: 3. Erika Breton (Hettienne Park): PROFILE: Compromised FBI agent. BUSINESS STRATEGY: Becomes a pawn for the Jarvis family in order to save her husband from ruin. But she doesn’t even ask them for any money and settles for just saving her husband from ruin. Then they get divorced and she’s the breadwinner, so some payoff money would have come in handy. RATING: 15. Olivia Benitez (Aleyse Shannon): PROFILE: Political figure who wants low-income housing. BUSINESS STRATEGY: Stays true to her principles until the Jarvis family sabotages her and she relents. Doesn’t even ask for any payoff money (see above). Will probably end up living in low income housing herself. RATING: 16. Carol McGiddish (Deirdre O’Connell): PROFILE: Aggie’s editor who keeps getting her advances. BUSINESS STRATEGY: Figured out a way to have a huge office with a view for doing whatever publishers do. Seriously, what do publishers even do? RATING: 91. Rick Jarvis (Tim Guinee): PROFILE: Martin Jarvis’s brother and family enforcer. BUSINESS STRATEGY: Gets a place to stay and is hired for dog training/sitting. Oh, and he also covers up murders, intimidates people, and offers bribes. Says he has “enough.” RATING: 100. Madison Ingram Jarvis (Leila George): PROFILE: Dead ex-wife of Nile Jarvis. Dead because he definitely killed her. BUSINESS STRATEGY: Pisses off serial killer husband instead of just dealing with it and being rich. RATING: 27. Simone (April Matthis): PROFILE: Hacker who helps de-encrypt agent Abbot’s flash drive. BUSINESS STRATEGY: Doesn’t accept cash or crypto and instead works for favors. When Abbot dies, she collects nothing. Idea: at least charge in back rubs or blowjobs and demand payment up front. RATING: 21. |
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