Summary
The next day, someone finds the group in a clearing and begins shooting at them. They run to get in the car and start to drive away. Suddenly, they're surrounded by men shooting at the car and yelling at them. All of a sudden, Clyde drives up onto a tree trunk by accident and they all try to run away. The men keep shooting, thinking the gang is still in the car, as Bonnie and Clyde run into the nearby forest. Blanche stays behind, clutching the now dead Buck, until she is captured by the men.
Suddenly, Bonnie gets shot in the shoulder and falls into a river. Moss and Clyde pick her up and carry her out of the river as she screams. While Moss and Bonnie lie in the grass, Clyde runs over and steals a car to come fetch them.
At a small village of homeless people, Moss asks a man for some money. A group of homeless people gather around the car as Moss gives Bonnie and Clyde some water to drink, and some children ask if they are famous. Moss gets in the car and drives away.
Moss drives them to his father's, where he is greeted warmly by "Daddy." When Moss shows him Bonnie and Clyde, his father's eyes widen in alarm. "Are you in trouble son?" he asks, and Moss asks him to help him bring the two criminals inside. As they carry Bonnie inside, his father scolds him for being so stupid.
Meanwhile, at the sheriff's office, Frank Hammer talks to some men as they look at the picture he posed in with Bonnie and Clyde. He tells them he wants to pose for a picture with them one last time.
The scene shifts and Moss reads an article that says Clyde abandoned his dying brother. Clyde, his arm now in a sling, bats the newspaper out of his hand and yells defensively. As Clyde yells about his desire to hold up another bank, Moss' father looks at him skeptically and Bonnie tries to calm him down. When Moss complains that his name isn't mentioned in the article, Clyde tells him to be thankful for it. Then, Clyde thanks Moss' father for helping them, and he tells them they can stay as long as they want. Inside, Moss' father scolds him for getting involved with Bonnie and Clyde, and insults his tattoo.
Back at the sheriff's, a man says he heard Bonnie and Clyde are just outside town, and are planning to come break Blanche out of jail. Frank Hammer goes into a room where Blanche is being held and scares her by creeping up behind her. She is blind and has bandages over her eyes, so when he comes up behind her she screams, startled. "I guess it's been kind of rough on you, hasn't it? Being a daughter of a preacher like you are," he says, patting her shoulder. As he comforts her, Blanche begins to cry that Clyde led Buck so far astray. He eventually gets her to tell him Moss' name by acting like he's being sympathetic. As Blanche continues to confide in Frank, he slips out of the room.
We see Bonnie and Clyde in the car. Bonnie is writing a poem about them in the backseat called "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde," and she reads it to Clyde. Bonnie ends up sending it to the newspaper, and it gets printed. We see the sheriff reading it, and then Bonnie and Clyde reading it once it's printed. When she finishes reading the poem, Clyde looks at her in wonder and says, "You told my story. You told my whole story, right there." He kisses her for making him "somebody they're going to remember," and the couple kisses. As they kiss, the newspaper goes flying into the nearby field.
We see Hammer and another man getting coffee in town.
The scene shifts back to Bonnie and Clyde in the field, having just consummated their love. Clyde stutters and stammers asking her how he did, and she assures him he did "just perfect." That night, Clyde proposes to Bonnie and she laughs as he tells her he wants to make an honest woman out of her. She asks him to fantasize about what they would do if they could completely clear their records and live innocently somewhere. He answers that he would want to live somewhere and have a clean record and then commit crimes in another state. Bonnie is disappointed in Clyde's answer and stays silent.
In the next room, Moss' father asks him if he's expected to go to town with Bonnie and Clyde the next day. When Moss says he's going to go with them, his father urges him to stay in town when Bonnie and Clyde go, yelling at his son to listen to him for once. Moss' father tells his son that he's cooperated with the police to set a trap for the two criminals. Moss is unconvinced that they are going to catch Bonnie and Clyde in town, saying, "Clyde's got a sense. Nobody catches Clyde. Never."
The following day, Bonnie and Clyde go into town, and when they get back in the car after shopping, Bonnie tells Clyde that Moss is buying lightbulbs. Bonnie has bought a little statue of Little Bo Beep and admires it before offering to go get Moss from the store.
Moss watches from the store window as a sheriff pulls up alongside Clyde's car. Clyde quickly moves the car when he sees the sheriff and drives down to fetch Bonnie, motioning that the law is there. She gets in the car and they drive away, as Moss smiles in relief in the window.
On the drive back to Moss' father's house, Bonnie eats an apple, then offers a bite to Clyde. Moss' father stands on the side of the road pumping air into some tires and motions for Bonnie and Clyde to stop. When Clyde gets out of the car to look, Moss' father looks at the bushes in fear then dives under his truck for cover. Suddenly, Bonnie and Clyde are brutally shot by a machine gun in the bushes. Both of them are shot over and over again, until finally the shooting stops.
Hammer and the shooters stare at the bodies.
Analysis
After so much lighthearted fun, the film descends into a violent and disturbing conclusion. While it had seemed that they might be able to outrun the police forever, the group finds that this is not the case after they are apprehended at the cabin they are staying in. Because the Barrow gang has caused so much chaos in the region, the cops are intent on killing them as soon as they find them.
The violent consequences of the gang's actions lead to horrifying images of violence. The latter half of the movie finds the group mostly driving around, running through forests, and screaming, as they are shot at by the authorities. Director Arthur Penn does not spare the viewer from the sight of blood or any of the grisly violent details. At times, the imagery feels like it would belong more naturally in a horror film than in the film the viewer has hitherto been watching.
Even after the horrific violence of the previous scenes, the film maintains a lighthearted tone, and the viewer is meant to marvel at the resilience of the criminal characters. After Bonnie gets shot and Clyde steals yet another car, the familiar banjo music of escape begins to play yet again. Against all odds, the Barrow gang, now battered and beaten and some of them dead, steal yet another car and make another run for it.
The historical backdrop of the Great Depression comes into clearer focus in this final chapter. With nowhere else to go, Bonnie, Clyde, and Moss go to a small village of homeless and destitute people looking for help. After living large off the stolen money of others, Bonnie and Clyde find themselves desperate for charity. The duo has been trying to etch out a life of prosperity in spite of the failing economy of the Great Depression, but their thieving ways catch up to them eventually and they become more destitute than when they began. The glamor of their operation is brought into stark focus when they are unable to run.
At its core, the film is about two ambitious but misguided young people who want their story told and who want to make something of themselves. This thematic crux of the film becomes clearest when Bonnie writes their narrative into a poem, and it is published in the paper. The two of them read it when it comes out, and while it's a deeply tragic and morbid story, its publication moves Clyde, who is pleased to see that Bonnie told his "whole story." Bonnie and Clyde are people who want to be written into the history books, and they don't care if they make it there in infamy. The gift that the couple give one another is an existentially soothing one: the promise of fame and a reputation that will outlive them.
