2017 ends when Beyoncé says it does, and that is not until after she puts us all in cardiac arrest with a surprise appearance in Jay-Z’s new music video for their lone 4:44 collaboration, “Family Feud.†In it, basically everyone cool shows up for a cameo in the five-minute Shakespearean preamble that includes: a) your fantasy of being Thandie Newton when Michael B. Jordan bursts into your room and Trevante Rhodes is already in your bed; b) Jessica Chastain as maybe a lawyer or a journalist confronting President Omari Hardwick about a constitutional crisis; c) a table filled with the Founding Mothers of America — among them Mindy Kaling, Constance Wu, Janet Mock, Niecy Nash, Rosario Dawson, Rashida Jones, and Brie Larson — who reorganized the Constitution to make it more just. And honestly that’s not even everything in this Ava DuVernay–directed short film that’s now your favorite miniseries you’ll never get to see.
Then once the song actually starts, Bey takes us all to church where Jay-Z can further confess his sins of infidelity to his wife, his daughter Blue Ivy, and his god (who is also Beyoncé, though she swears otherwise). Nobody wins when this family feuds, but Beyoncé dressed for a lavish funeral certainly feels like a winning metaphor to close the year.
