Summary
In the guest room during a house party, Winston Wolfe talks to Jules on the phone, asking his whereabouts. Wolfe says that although they are thirty minutes away, he will be there in ten. Subtitles reveal that Wolfe arrives precisely nine minutes and thirty-seven seconds later. Wolfe introduces himself to Jimmie, and in the kitchen, the men surmise that they have forty minutes to clean everything up, which Wolfe says is doable as long as the men listen to him.
Wolfe tells Jimmie to make him coffee, and instructs Jules and Vincent to wipe down the interior of the car, over which they will put dark-colored blankets. Wolfe's curt manner irritates Vincent, and while he and Jules clean the car, Wolfe calls a man named Joe, who can dispose of the car for them. Jimmie explains that the blankets Wolfe wants to use are family heirlooms from his aunt and uncle, but Wolfe tells him that Marsellus is a millionaire, and gives him a hefty cash bribe.
Jules and Vincent bicker as they clean the car upholstery, and are later impressed when they see the replacement car that Wolfe has arranged to be dropped off. In the backyard, Wolfe orders Jules and Vincent to strip completely out of their blood-spattered clothes, and sprays them with a garden hose as they scrub their naked bodies with soap. Jimmie gives the men tee-shirts to wear—the same shirts that they are seen wearing earlier in the film at Marsellus's bar. Jimmie jokingly observes they look like "dorks."
After they're done, Wolfe tells Jules to ride with him in the tainted car, and for Vincent to follow behind them in Wolfe's personal car. They go to a place called Monster Joe's Auto Shop, and Wolfe emerges with a woman named Raquel, telling Jules and Vincent that the car has been destroyed. After he leaves with Raquel, Jules and Vincent contemplate sharing a cab back to their respective hometowns of Redondo and Inglewood, before deciding to get breakfast first.
At a nearby diner, Jules and Vincent sit in a booth, and Vincent notes that he thought Wolfe would be European. Jules comments that he doesn't eat pork products because pigs are "filthy," and Vincent argues with him. Eventually, the men return to the subject of the "miracle" that Jules maintains was bestowed upon them. Jules asks Vincent how he defines a miracle, and Vincent says "when God makes the impossible possible." When Jules insists that he is going to quit all criminal activity after returning the briefcase to Marsellus, Vincent derisively replies that he will turn into a "bum."
Across the restaurant, Pumpkin orders coffee, revealing that the diner is the same one Honey Bunny and Pumpkin are about to rob in the first scene of the film. Frustrated by his argument with Jules about God and fate, Vincent gets up and goes to the bathroom. After he does, Pumpkin and Honey Bunny leap up and take the entire restaurant hostage. Pumpkin holds the manager of the restaurant at gunpoint against the counter, ordering him to tell the other customers to remain calm, and begins collecting everyone's wallets. Jules draws his gun with one hand, keeping it concealed underneath the table of the booth, while holding up his wallet with the other.
Pumpkin approaches Jules and orders him to open the briefcase after taking his wallet. Jules refuses, and Honey Bunny tells Pumpkin to execute him. Pumpkin tells Jules he will give him until the count of three to open the briefcase before killing him. Jules relents and opens the briefcase, and its unseen contents glow mysteriously against Pumpkin's face, who calls it "beautiful." While Pumpkin is distracted, Jules disarms him, and forces him to tell Honey Bunny, whose real name is Yolanda, to stay calm. Vincent returns from the restroom and aims his gun at Yolanda. Jules explains to Pumpkin that he is in a "transitional period," and would prefer not to kill anyone. Jules tells Pumpkin he can keep the cash in his wallet, and will spare him, reciting Ezekiel 25:17 one more time, claiming only now to realize its true meaning. Pumpkin relents, and Jules and Vincent stash their guns in their shorts and leave the restaurant together.
Analysis
Timing is crucial to Pulp Fiction's plot. Throughout the film, Tarantino deliberately confuses the order of the events of the plot for a number of reasons: first, so that he can tell each chapter of the story in discrete sections (e.g. "The Gold Watch" and "The Bonnie Situation"); second, so that the audience is left wondering how exactly various tangents will wind up tying into the main story (or not); and third, so that he can emphasize the significance of fleeting encounters and surprising coincidences, such as Vincent and Butch sharing a charged exchange early in the film, or the fact that Vincent and Jules wind up at the same diner as Pumpkin and Honey Bunny.
Timing is especially crucial when Jimmie (played by Quentin Tarantino himself) informs Jules and Vincent that they have only 90 minutes to dispose of Marvin's body. Wolfe is a well-known fixer for career criminals, whose consummate professionalism is humorously rendered by a subtitle that reveals he arrives at Jimmie's house exactly twenty-three seconds before he claims he will. Tonally, "The Bonnie Situation" is perhaps the most comic chapter of the film, focusing on the testy exchanges between Jules and Vincent as they must scrub the car upholstery, and Wolfe's surprisingly expert and organized methodologies.
The sequence reaches its climax with Wolfe hosing a naked Jules and Vincent down, and Jimmie giving them old tee shirts to wear. The sight of Vincent and Jules, who the film has previously shown to be hardened killers, in Jimmie's "dork[y]" old shirts provides a comic image that explains why they show up wearing them to Marsellus's bar early in the film. The Monster Joe's Auto Shop scene introduces a character named Raquel, never seen in the film before or again, who resembles a younger Raquel Welch—a famous actress, model, and sex symbol in the 1960s and 1970s. The reference is yet another self-aware nod to cinematic history, blurring the line between real life and the fictional world of the film.
In keeping with the film's rigorous balancing of fortune and misfortune, Jules and Vincent successfully dispose of Marvin's body, and then choose to have breakfast at the same diner that Pumpkin and Honey Bunny are preparing to rob. The coincidence is another manifestation of what Jules has come to recognize as "divine intervention," which he and Vincent are discussing yet again just before Pumpkin and Honey Bunny launch their siege on the restaurant. Vincent going to the bathroom before the hostage situation unfolds echoes the fact that he will later go to the bathroom before Butch enters his apartment.
Jules's final invocation of Ezekiel 25:17, which he claims he previously thought was just "some cold-blooded shit to say to a motherfucker," symbolizes the larger fact that the film has been primarily interested in style and surface-level pleasure. Jules's attempts to understand and interpret the words on a deeper level raises a host of possible interpretations, all of which Jules rejects. Jules's statement that "I'm the tyranny of evil men, but I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd," is an interpretation that suggests that the sordid violence of pulp fiction (and Pulp Fiction) caters to the sensationalistic and pornographic desires of humanity, despite our best intentions to lead moral lives.
