Rihanna’s video for “B*tch Better Have My Money” appears to have taken over the Internet, which, given the circumstances, is pretty understandable. It’s a seven-minute music video from one of the world’s most popular artists that features guns and drugs and kidnapping and torture and nudity. So very much nudity. It’s kind of like the video for “November Rain” if “November Rain” had been a torture porn revenge epic directed by a horny Eli Roth, and if Axl Rose had been a beautiful tattooed woman from Barbados. Basically the same thing, really.
The plot, if I’m interpreting the video correctly, and I believe I am, is as follows: Rihanna takes a wealthy blond woman hostage to try to get money out of Mads Mikkelsen (who is presumably the “b*tch” here), and when that doesn’t work out the way she hopes, she shows up at his palatial oceanfront estate and slices him up with her extensive knife collection until he pays up. Sure, fine, wonderful. But amid all the discussion about cameos and naked hostages and naked blood-covered pop stars sprawled over top of huge wooden chests filled with cash, I feel like maybe we’re missing something important from the video: What happened to the dog? Is… is he okay?
Let’s back up. At the beginning of the video, the wealthy blond woman is carrying around her fluffy little doggy, and takes him into the elevator where Rihanna is waiting for her. The next thing we see is the elevator doors open back up with Rihanna holding the dog, and the woman stuffed into a trunk, followed by the dog scurrying away.
And that is the last we see of him. Just trotting off into the lobby of the fancy hotel. So I repeat: Is he okay?
I suppose he could be okay. An expensive hotel like that seems like the kind of place that would have an attentive staff. A staff that might notice, say, a dog running around the lobby, and remember that the attractive couple in the penthouse suite had a dog that looked just like it. So maybe the dog wasn’t just left to fend for himself in the big city, possibly joining up with a bunch of musically gifted streetwise dogs, like a live-action version of Oliver & Company. (Would watch.) Maybe the concierge just ran the dog back up to Mads right away, and Mads brought it to his mansion once he figured out his wife had been kidnapped.
But even then, that just puts the dog in the middle of all the blood-spilling at the end. That doesn’t seem ideal. We don’t know exactly what happened between the knife displaying and the shot of the Rihanna with the cash. The possibilities ping pong around the brain. Did she just torture him until he gave up the money? Did she torture him while naked? What would you do if you walked in on Rihanna torturing someone while naked? Did she kill him? Did she kill them both? Did… did she kill the dog? DID SHE KILL THE DOG? No, she couldn’t have killed the dog. I mean, she’s not a monster, right?
Here’s the point I’m meandering toward: If we assume Rihanna killed both Mads and his wife, either out of anger or to eliminate them as witnesses (although lying naked on their money, in their yard, covered in their blood, in broad daylight would seem to imply she’s not too concerned with covering her tracks here), but she let the dog live, that means we could be looking at a reverse John Wick situation where a fluffy lap dog lays waste to half a city to get to the woman who killed his owners.
Rihanna, if you are reading this, please — pleasepleaseplease — make this your next video. Thank you.
