Summary
Armed police follow Plato through the shrubbery near the mansion, with Plato firing back at them as he runs desperately away. Jim follows through the bushes as well, against the protestations of Judy, who is alarmed that Plato was so unstable that he tried shooting at Jim. Jim tells her that he didn't mean it, and that he needs them. Judy responds by telling Jim she needs him too. Judy admits to Jim that Plato spoke of him like his father, and Jim recognizes too late that Plato was trying to make them his family.
Plato runs up to the planetarium entrance and shatters the glass with the butt of his pistol, unlocking the door and boarding himself up inside. When a policeman tries to enter behind him, Plato fires at the front door. More patrol cars show up, as well as Ray (the cop who was friendly to Jim in the beginning of the movie) who asks for a megaphone. Plato's caregiver and Jim's parents also arrive, anxious about the whereabouts of their children. Jim and Judy stay concealed in the bushes as Ray, speaking into the megaphone, commands that Plato drop his weapon, raise his hands, and surrender.
Jim's father recognizes Jim emerging from the bushes, and alerts the police to his presence just as Jim and Judy rush into the planetarium. Over the megaphone, a policeman instructs the squad to hold their fire, as the two teenagers have intruded on the scene. Judy keeps watch as Jim talks through the planetarium door to Plato, stressing that they are his friends. Jim slowly opens the door and advances into the darkened room, at which point Plato reminds Jim he has a gun. Plato asks Jim whether he thinks the end of the world will come at night-time, and Jim replies, "At dawn."
Jim asks Plato to stand up and show himself, and that he can't talk to him if he can't see him. He repeats that he is not going to hurt him. Finally, Plato emerges from behind Jim, and asks Jim why he ran out on him. Jim tells Plato they were coming right back, and tries to assuage Plato's feelings of abandonment. He tells Plato Judy is with him too, and attempts to persuade Plato into leaving the planetarium, but Plato refuses.
Plato clutches his upper arms with both hands, shivering, and Jim once again offers him his jacket. This time, Plato accepts it, and asks Jim if he can keep it, cradling the jacket in his arm like an infant. Jim asks Plato to hand over his gun, but Plato resists, saying that needs it. Jim asks for the gun again, "just for a second," and Plato reluctantly hands it over. Jim surreptitiously removes the cartridge and puts it in his jacket, and then hands the gun back to Plato.
Plato puts Jim's jacket on, and Jim tells him that everybody outside wants him to be safe, and wants him to come out because they're his friends and they like him. Although Plato looks skeptical, he is soothed by Jim's words, and is happy to see Judy. Upon seeing the lights of the patrol cars outside, Plato tells them it's "too bright." From inside, Jim shouts to Ray, telling him to instruct the policemen to turn off their lights, and Ray gives the order. Seeing the policemen gathered around, Plato becomes nervous once more that they are not his friends, and asks Jim to make them go away. Jim walks outside with his hands up and asks the policemen to back up their perimeter, but they see that Plato is still armed, and begin flashing their lights once more.
Terrified, Plato rushes forward and is shot. His caregiver cries out his name, and Jim shouts too late that he has the bullets in his hand. Jim's father confesses he thought Jim had been shot, given that Plato was wearing his jacket. Hunched over Plato's lifeless body, Jim asks, "What'd you do that for?" He notices Plato's mismatched socks again, and his laughter gives way to tears, as he clutches his father's legs, and pleads, "Help me." Jim's father assures him that whatever problems come, they'll face them together. He tells Jim to stand up, and that he'll stand up with him, and be as strong as Jim needs him to be. Plato's caregiver cries over his lifeless body, as Jim leans over and zips up the red windbreaker, saying Plato was always cold. Jim introduces Judy to his parents, who at first move to argue, but catch themselves. Plato's caregiver looks on mournfully as the remaining patrol cars pull away from the observatory.
Analysis
The irony of the film's final sequence consists in the fact that, in a story primarily about how the main characters have been failed by their fathers and father figures, Jim himself fails to live up to Plato as one. Judy tells Jim too late that Plato spoke of him as a father, leaving Jim feeling guilty and responsible for Plato's fate. Rather than reproduce the ineffectual or dismissive approaches of his own father, Jim decides to be understanding, brave, and proactive, fearlessly following an armed Plato into the darkened planetarium.
The return to the planetarium as the setting for the film's finale is significant in a number of ways. The first planetarium scene, in which a lecturer discussed the apocalypse and the fate of "man alone," hangs heavily over this second scene, in which Plato hides alone in the darkened space, implicated in a matter of life and death. The script echoes this connection further by having Plato fearfully ask Jim whether the world will end at night-time; Jim's response, "At dawn," lends a degree of hopefulness and optimism to the conversation: whereas Plato sees only darkness and despair, Jim's answer suggests that new beginnings are always possible.
In a highly symbolic exchange, Jim gives Plato his jacket, and receives his gun in return. Plato's acceptance of Jim's jacket recalls the first scene of the film, in which Plato pointedly refused Jim's offer. The moment suggests that Plato has developed his ability to receive affection from others, and that Jim has successfully assumed the role of protector and nurturer. Jim literally "disarms" Plato by giving up his jacket, taking out the bullets before handing the gun back to Plato. For one happy moment, Jim and Plato arrive at a harmonious understanding that is similar to that between father and son.
The brutality and impatience of the police, which winds up getting Plato killed, reinforces the film's critique of adults and especially male authority figures as being uncomprehending and ignorant of the emotional world of adolescents. Jim's attempt to negotiate Plato's desires with the policemen's demands is a metaphor for the way in which he (and all male adolescents) are torn between the worlds of fathers and sons, adults and children, the predatory and the vulnerable. Whereas the police view Plato only as a dangerous armed delinquent, Jim sees him as he is: a terrified young boy.
Jim zipping up his red windbreaker on Plato's lifeless body is the film's last symbolically-charged gesture, resembling the image of Jim arranging the piece of trash over the toy monkey in the film's opening credit sequence. Drained of energy and overcome with guilt, Jim clutches his father's legs like a small child, overcome with the need for fatherly attention. Jim's father's statement that he will "stand up" with Jim suggests that he has finally recognized his own failures and shortcomings as a paternal figure. The fact that Jim's parents seem to begin to squabble, before relenting, indicates that the marital conflict destabilizing the Stark household has been eased. Nevertheless, the tearful face of Plato's caregiver receives the last closeup of the film, suggesting that this story is ultimately a senseless tragedy.
