An Exhausted Look At Millie

Overview

The video begins with the narrator reflecting on how she once admired Neil Gaiman, even though his writing often treated women as symbols or supporting figures rather than fully developed characters. She then discusses the sexual-abuse allegations against Gaiman, describing how 2024 reporting and a subsequent Vulture investigation changed her understanding of him—and made her take her earlier unease about his writing more seriously.

That reflection leads to the video’s central question: Why does Millie, from Helluva Boss, receive such intense scrutiny?

After a joking aside about escaping noisy home renovations to record at her uncle’s house—and losing half an hour of footage—the narrator takes a closer look at Millie. She argues that Millie has a distinct personality: she is passionate, emotionally expressive, confident, kind, smart, and enthusiastic about both her work and her interests. Millie can be joyful and feminine while also being a gleefully brutal close-combat fighter; the show does not treat those qualities as contradictory. Her anger is also usually justified, and in Unhappy Campers, it is Moxxie—not Millie—who has something to learn.

Millie’s Character Development

Millie’s strength is also tied to her biggest weakness as a character: she is so capable that the story rarely gives her room to change. Meanwhile, Moxxie’s major developments often depend on Millie, while she receives little comparable development through their “M&M” partnership.

The narrator points to X’s and O’s as a particularly striking example. The episode initially seems poised to explore Millie’s ex, but then shifts into a much fuller Moxxie backstory when the ex turns out to be connected to him, too. Millie remains important to the episode, but the spotlight has moved elsewhere.

The Pregnancy Reveal

The video also addresses the reaction to Millie’s pregnancy reveal at the end of Sinsmas. The narrator argues that a pregnancy plot fits the show’s recurring focus on family and could give Millie and Moxxie meaningful development, rather than automatically reducing Millie to motherhood.

She considers several possible directions—including continuing the pregnancy, an abortion storyline, or a breakup—and asks what each would contribute beyond delivering a shock. Her preferred possibility is that Millie and Moxxie choose to become parents, while the show also treats abortion as a valid option. She imagines the couple navigating their different upbringings and possibly bringing Stolas into the story through his own complicated feelings about fatherhood.

A playful aside about the writers’ experience with children leads to a joke about how “you have to work” even when you have kids.

Fandom, Gender, and Character Interpretation

In the latter half, the narrator broadens the discussion to fandom and gender. She compares the elaborate fan characterization of Husk with the attention given to Millie, and contrasts the harsher treatment of Stella with that of her male counterpart, Andrealphus.

Her broader argument is that audiences often assume male characters have hidden depth, while female characters are expected to prove theirs. Fans may eagerly fill in gaps for male characters while dismissing women as poorly written. The narrator also compares how fans respond to Blitzø’s flaws and emotional struggles with how they criticize Charlie, and discusses how expectations around race and gender can shape which characters audiences invest in.

Conclusion

The video ends by returning to its opening question: Why do people scrutinize the women of Helluva Boss so relentlessly while overlooking similar or worse problems elsewhere? The narrator promises a second part focused on Vivienne Medrano, noting that the follow-up is still being written.

People Discussed

Millie, Moxxie, Blitzø, Loona, Stolas, Husk, Angel Dust, Stella, Andrealphus, Charlie, Neil Gaiman, Vivian Nixon, Vivienne Medrano, Brandon Rogers, Rachel Johnson, Scarlett Pavlovich, and George R. R. Martin.