Tuesday, January 06, 2026 |
|
|
While the rest of the world stares agape at the Trump administration's foreign adventures—its continuing and evidence-free attacks on suspected drug boats, its violent and legally dubious nabbing of Nicolas Maduro, and its lip-flapping about invading Greenland—columnist Mitchell S. Jackson has been thinking about what they might lead to within our own borders. Long before he was a distinguished professor, Pulitzer Prize-winner, and Esquire contributor, Jackson made money selling drugs. Not a lot, but enough to buy him a stay in a federal prison. Today, in a sharp and alarming essay, he wonders whether the same messed-up logic the administration uses to justify blowing up boats might one day be employed to firebomb cars on the I-70 freeway, or an apartment in your town, or some young version of him. —Ryan D'Agostino, editorial director of projects Plus: |
|
|
Bombing suspected drug traffickers without proof or accountability is not the start of a good trend. |
The maxim "All money ain't good money" ain't just words to me. And here's prime proof: During my dunderheaded age of copping several ounces (we called them zips) of crack cocaine at a time, my then plug offered that instead of my regular re-up, I could pool cash with his homeboys who drove to L.A. and bought several kilos (we called them birds) at a time. While the prospective profits of turning interstate trafficker—I lived in Portland, Oregon—were an enticement, I declined on account of loathing to deepen my ties from a part-time pedestrian D-boy—an aspiring kingpin I've never been—to dude fated with hustlers committed to gettin' it how they lived. The average drug dealer is not an enemy combatant of the state. Drug dealers are fathers and brothers and uncles and cousins and husbands and mothers and sisters and aunts and cousins and wives. They are students and caretakers and regular nine-to-fivers. For fact drug dealers too—drug dealers aren't born, they're forged—dreamed of becoming doctors or lawyers or scientists or teachers or pro athletes or maybe even writers. The average drug dealer is not a drug dealer for life. And please know that nothing I wrote is an excuse for dealing drugs, but it is a reminder that drug dealers are human beings with backstories and mitigating circumstances, people who deserve, at the very least, the justice of defending themselves in court. What they don't deserve is an extralegal execution. |
|
|
Razor refills are crazy expensive. And they're made out of cheap plastic that, ultimately, will sit in a landfill for the next 1,000 years. Wet shaving, done the old-school way with safety razors or straight razors, drastically cuts down on the amount of plastic in your grooming routine. And for guys with thick, coarse beard hair, like myself, multi-blade razors are bound to give you ingrown hairs.
Sure, you can get an electric foil shaver, but I've never enjoyed shaving with those. Instead of a upkeep chore you dread, it becomes a ritual. Something you cherish so much that you might go over to Reddit and post your setup for other dudes to see. If you're new to single blade shaving, fear not. We've done the work to bring you the best single blade razors any rookie or lifelong wet shaver should buy. Check them out here. |
| |
It has been five years since a violent insurrection successfully overthrew the American Republic. The events of January 6, 2021 injected slow acting poison into the political immune system. And when its time came in November 2025, the poison was able to core out every institution of Republican government. Now, we have fallen into a state of corporate thugocracy. The events have become so perverted and twisted in the public mind that it seems entirely possible that the president may have accidentally pardoned the person arrested for leaving pipe bombs in front of the two national party headquarters in the early hours of January 6 five years ago. There's no better symbolic example of how the perpetrators of the insurrection have managed to alter history into something unrecognizable than the tale of the memorial plaque dedicated to the Capitol's defenders, a memorial mandated by a 2022 law. |
|
|
 "One last fight, and this whole nightmare, it'll be over," Hopper (David Harbour) promises to Eleven (Millie Bobbie Brown) in the beginning of Stranger Things's long-awaited series finale. "It'll finally be over." All due respect to the detective, but I had my doubts. All throughout the promotion of the fifth and final season of Stranger Things, series co-creators Matt and Ross Duffer promised that they fully intended for this story to end. That means no post-credits scenes, no hints that the Upside Down and its resident demons are still kicking around, and no final shot of Dusty Bun suddenly discovering that he had Vecna-esque powers. This seemed highly improbable for the streaming service that threw Cate Blanchett into a random alley at the end of Squid Game, just to keep stoking the flames of the franchise and give those green jumpsuits a place at the Netflix House. So, let's cue a well-deserved encore of David Bowie's "Heroes" for the Duffer brothers. Despite an uneven final season, the sibling creators closed the book on the series in the finale, which hit Netflix on New Year's Eve. Not only that, but they delivered a final hour that feels like some of this show's best work—especially that final scene. |
"No one can prepare anyone for it," Wolfhard, now twenty-three, tells me about becoming a child star in the streaming age. "It was incredibly exciting, and it still is, but there was a period in my teenage years where it was just hard. I wanted the people in my life to just be chill." When we meet in early December, Wolfhard is wrapping up a photo shoot at the Esquire office in New York City, where he donned a knight's helmet—a nod to Mike Wheeler's Dungeons & Dragons class in Stranger Things. It's been a crazy day. He's in his seventh time zone in under a month as he promotes the fifth and final season of Stranger Things across the globe. It's dizzying just to think about, but he's traveled from London to Italy to Los Angeles, back to London, Berlin, Japan, and now New York in roughly thirty days. The night before we talk, he performed his song "Trailers after dark" live on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and tried his best not to spoil anything that happens in the Stranger Things finale, which debuted on Netflix just before the Times Square Ball dropped Wednesday evening. The culminating episode of the Netflix series had a lot of ground to cover, as the kids of Hawkins, Indiana, underwent the final fight against the powerful villain, Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower). There was little for Wolfhard to say about the end until everyone had seen it, but rest assured: he gives one of the finale's best performances, bringing Mike Wheeler's story full circle. He's even the final face we see on screen, and it feels right. "There's a lot of sadness that comes along with it, because it was our lives for so long—it's like our school, our childhood," Wolfhard tells me. "It's terrifying. But I think it's all going to go the way that it should." |
|
|
The end of the world was near. Everyone realized it was coming, so the only question was: How? Preparations had to be made. People needed to know. And time was running short. Stranger Things, the Netflix series about supernatural terrors that overtake a quiet midwestern community in the 1980s, was drawing to a close. It had become a pop-culture juggernaut of unspeakable scale, adding all the more weight to its looming fifth and final season. Hawkins, Indiana, the setting of the story, does not actually exist, but the people who have spent the past decade bringing it to life onscreen formed something akin to their own tight-knit small town. Their world, in a sense, was ending too—and they were the ones responsible for making sure it went out with appropriate bangs, whimpers, and all-around spectacle. Apart from scores of actors and camera operators, there are countless behind-the-scenes workers like builders, painters, electricians, and greenskeepers in a holding pattern.
The whole world was waiting to see how Stranger Things was going to end, but this caravan of workers, centered in and around Atlanta, needed to find out first. For that, they all looked to the identical twin brothers whose imaginations had given birth to Stranger Things: Matt and Ross Duffer. But the twins had difficulty providing all the answers.
|
|
|
Stories may be fictional, but you can't deny there's real magic in them. In Stranger Things season 5, the heroes of Hawkins close off the Duffer Brothers' series with one last game of Dungeons & Dragons. But as the adventurers prepare to say farewell, they're given one last parting gift: The gift of knowing Eleven's (Millie Bobbie Brown) potential whereabouts. As Mike spins an explanation, we learn that Eleven couldn't actually cast spells (her powers) because of the military's satellites. This means that Eleven couldn't have used her own powers to disguise her escape back to the Upside Down's front gate. Instead, Mike alludes that Eleven and her sister, Kali, hatched a secret scheme. But is what Mike tells them the truth? Or is it just more fiction from their Dungeon Master? Listen closely, and you might figure it out yourself. And if that's not enough, hearing from the Duffer Brothers themselves might change everything. |
Vecna, Demogorgons, and alternate universes. It's not Dungeons & Dragons we're talking about here, but the end of Stranger Things. With its finale now streaming on Netflix, the story of Stranger Things and the weirdness that grips Hawkins, Indiana is now complete. But that doesn't mean Stranger Things is over. The question on everyone's minds (flayer) right now is: Will Stranger Things continue? For starters, it's safe to squash the possibility of a sixth season. The Duffer Brothers said back in 2022 that season 5 is the conclusion of the main story. But there was never any ruling out of spin-offs or other stories set in the same universe.
Here are all the different ways Stranger Things can—and will—continue after the series finale.
|
So, did the Duffer Brothers pull off the finale? The consensus among fans so far is… mixed. "The final season was not perfect, but the final episode was just amazing," one fan commented on Esquire's Instagram. Our senior entertainment editor, Brady Langmann, had a similar opinion, writing that "In the final hour of the Netflix series, the Duffer brothers reminded us why we fell in love with the show in the first place."
What did you think of the finale, and how do you think Netflix should (or shouldn't!) continue the story in their planned spin-offs? Let me know all your thoughts about the end of Stranger Things by writing to me at josh.rosenberg@hearst.com.
Did someone forward you this email? Sign up here. |
|
|
The Cliff-Hanger's Winners and Losers of the Week (Stranger Things Edition!) |
Winner: Going to NYU to Study Film Much like Ladybird and To All the Boys, the classic "and then they went to NYU to study film" ending strikes another victim in Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton). Given the fact that Heaton put Rocky, Walk Hard, The Dark Knight, and Kes—which is also one of Finn Wolfhard's favorites—in his Letterboxd Top 4, I think the older Byers sibling is going to be A-OK. Loser: Fans with Absolutely Insane Theories About the Finale Leading up to the finale, Stranger Things fans thought up one silly theory after another, as if the Duffer Brothers were planning on ending the Netflix sci-fi series like it was Shutter Island. Many viewers thought beloved characters like Steve or Will would die, while other theorists were preparing for an ending that would explain that nothing was real. Thankfully, the duo picked something far more sweet and nostalgic. Winner: Prince After Max declared that she didn't even need to hear "Running Up that Hill" to escape Vecna's mind in season 5, part 2, the season finale blasted Prince's "Purple Rain" and "When Doves Cry" as the new anthems. Sorry Kate Bush, there's a new king in town. Loser: Giant Monsters from Another Dimension Villains are constantly centering their evil plans for world domination around killer monsters. But like Vecna and the Mind Flayer from Dimension X, it never works! Seems like it's back to the drawing board for the world's most evil minds. Winner: Robin's Weird Uncle At the end of the finale, the older kids—Nancy, Jonathan, Steve, and Robin—agree to meet for a reunion once a month at Robin's "weird uncle's house" in Philly. I don't know how Robin's uncle feels about this agreement, but maybe the Duffers can cast a Philly all-star if there's a spin-off. Bradley Cooper? Kevin Bacon? Rob Mac? M. Night Shyamalan? However it shakes out, I'm here for Steve screaming "Go Birds!" in the spin-off. |
|
|
|
|
|
