Everyone’s out here speculating about Act III, but honestly…I’m not ready for Act II to end. Cowboy Carter has felt like a spiritual, ancestral experience—one that reached across time and memory and found me exactly where I was.
Y’all. I need Beyoncé to drop a Cowboy Carter movie or documentary because I was OBSESSED with the video interludes. The visuals were stunning. The storytelling was cinematic. I only made it to the last show and avoided every livestream like my life depended on it, so most of the show felt brand new to me.
I had been looking forward to hearing “Daughter” live since my very first listen, and she did not disappoint. I was not ready. And that “This is theater” interlude with the dress that literally transforms mid-performance—I had seen the pics, but I didn’t realize the dress actually changes like that. Icon behavior.
Now here's where it gets wild. My niece put me on to this Houston restaurant called Spaghetti Western, and it became our go-to family meal spot. That spiraled me into a full spaghetti western rabbit hole, so when Beyoncé started giving us cowboy grit and cinema realness, I was locked in. The way she worked Caro mio ben into the western vibe felt like a haunting little hymn floating across the desert. And honestly, adding an Italian opera to a spaghetti western aesthetic just makes sense—those films are Italian at their core, dramatic by design, and full of long stares, emotional tension, and soaring scores.
Westerns had become a weekly thing in our lives thanks to my uncle—so Cowboy Carter felt like it landed right in the middle of our real life. He was living with my mom, who could no longer care for him and needed care herself, so we were going over more frequently. Those cozy watch nights became a kind of unspoken ritual during a season when a lot was shifting at home.
Later that year, I pre-ordered the art book thinking I’d just flip through it on the couch in peace. I didn’t know how much I was going to need that book. I didn’t have any Christmas plans last year, but a bunch of my extended family also ended up going to the Beyoncé Bowl, so we tailgated together and turned it into this beautiful, joyful surprise celebration.
The art book got delayed, and it didn’t arrive until the week of my mom’s memorial service. People were mad that the “exclusive” shirt we got for waiting was eventually made available to everyone, but it said “100,000 watts of healing power”—and I needed every single watt.
This whole era has meant so much to me. It’s been personal. It's been healing. And it’s been peak Beyoncé. I could go on forever.
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