Summary
Chapter Two: Another Door. Hec and Ricky drive home from the funeral, and Hec stops the car to cry. At home, Hec sharpens his axe, when Ricky comes out to the shed with a piece of toast for his dinner. Hec hands him a letter from the Child Welfare people saying that they will be taking Ricky back into their custody given Bella's death. The letter says they will pick Ricky up next week, and Ricky is upset.
As Hec chops wood, Ricky tells him that he wants to stay there, but Hec says that he can't, "Not without a woman to run the show." Ricky strategizes about what to do; he thinks they ought to get Hec a new wife on the internet, or have a shootout with the authorities. Hec tells Ricky he has to submit to the authorities, before telling him he's going to disappear and "go bush" for a little while. Ricky wants to come along, but Hec refuses.
Later, Ricky sees that Hec has put Bella's remains in a box, which he is packing up, and protests that Bella wanted to go to the sky place. "That's life," Hec says, before telling Ricky that he never wanted to have him there anyway. Ricky goes to his bed, where there is no more hot water bottle. He takes the hot water bottle into the living room and looks at Bella's ashes. Once Hec is asleep, he leaves a note on a door that reads, "Goodbye cruel world. Burned myself to death in this barn. As you can see if you look inside this barn." Ricky then lights a dummy on fire, which causes a fire in the whole barn. Scared of the fire he started, Ricky runs into the hills with the gun and Tupac.
Chapter Three: Goodbye Ricky Baker. In the forest, Ricky tries to stick to a sandwich ration while wandering aimlessly. He tries to heat water in the hot water bottle over a fire, but it only destroys the water bottle. He tries to eat bark, but decides that he wants to go home. As he tries to make his way back to Hec's, Ricky gets lost and begins hallucinating that Tupac is a cake.
Suddenly, he encounters Hec, who comments on the fact that Ricky got himself very lost. "I've got my own thing going on here," Ricky protests, before agreeing to go back to the town. That afternoon it rains as Ricky and Hec make their way back to the town. Ricky complains relentlessly, and in the course of their conversation learns that Hec is not able to read. "You're like one of those people who are, like, raised by, like wolves or something, eh?" he says, and makes fun of him. Hec becomes angry and charges at Ricky, but trips on a rock and fractures his foot. Ricky tries to help, but only makes his foot worse in the process.
Hec thinks it will take weeks for his foot to heal, and Ricky suggests that he write a haiku to express his feelings. Ricky asks if he should go get help, before realizing he does not have what it takes to get back to civilization. They decide they'll have to camp there for a few weeks. The scene shifts to Hec's burned down farm, where Paula examines the wreckage, before calling the police to help her find Ricky and Hec.
Chapter Four: Broken Foot Camp. In the bush, Ricky dances to a song on his Walkman while wearing a leaf crown, as Hec stares at him skeptically. Hec draws Bella in a notebook, while Ricky goes off to hunt for food. He stalks through the woods, shooting his gun at a large bird, but missing. When he returns to the camp with just a handful of greens, Hec pulls out an eel that he caught at the creek.
They cook the eel on the fire that night, as Hec tells him he caught the eel using something he calls "the knack," "a way of figuring things out without having to think too hard, or talk, more importantly." Hec tells Ricky that most people who die in the bush are found naked, because they panic thinking their clothes are bogging them down and then die of cold. He tells Ricky that the key is to use "the knack" to stay alive, staying calm, finding water, and following it to higher ground.
Ricky asks Hec if he misses Bella, but he shushes him. Ricky tells him that his friend Amber died, and he had to process it awhile. His story implies that Amber was abused by her foster father, and was killed as a result. The next day, they continue through the forest and find a small structure, which Hec says they will stay at for the night.
Chapter Five: Famous. Inside the structure, Ricky finds beds, books, and toilet paper. On the wall, Hec finds a "Wanted" poster that has pictures of him and Ricky. In the poster, it says that there are concerns about Hec's mental health after Bella's death, and that the authorities "are not ruling out kidnapping." Ricky reads a book about wildebeest migrations, when a group of hunters come into the cabin. They recognize Ricky and Hec and say that a lot of people are looking for them.
Hec tells the men they're going home, as the men ask Ricky if Hec abused him. Hec tries to diffuse the situation, but from the way that Ricky talks about their time together, it begins to sound like Hec sexually abused him, and the men grow suspicious. They call Hec a pervert, and Ricky tries to defend him. Suddenly, Hec begins attacking the men and a brawl breaks out. Ricky fires the rifle to interrupt the chaos. Ricky and Hec steal the men's guns and they escape.
Analysis
Director Taika Waititi is a master of creating tonally complex scenes, in which tragedy and comedy are superimposed on one another. For instance, the abrupt and shocking death of Bella is followed up by a humorous funeral scene, in which the priest (played by Waititi himself) fumbles through a mixed metaphor about Jesus that even the most devout Christians would struggle to follow. As Ricky and Hec drive home in the aftermath, the slightly flat tones of the church organ continue to play, a humorous accompaniment for the tragic scene, a widower and his foster child returning to a motherless home.
After Bella's death, Ricky is not only left without a mother, but is also at risk of being taken back into the custody of Child Welfare. Hec hands him a letter one night that says that they will be picking him up the following week, and Ricky is crestfallen, having grown used to living with Bella and Hec. He tries to devise any reason to stay with Hec, coming up with a bunch of different ideas for what they could do, before finally begging to go along with Hec on a journey into the wilderness. He desperately wants to stay with Hec, and fears having to go back to Child Services.
Ricky can see no other option other than to run away into the forest. This leads to a humorous montage in which the boy accidentally burns down Hec's barn and then wanders aimlessly through the forest eating white bread. After getting lost, he begins hallucinating food, until Hec finds him and scolds him for making him have to worry about him. Ricky's complete incompetence and clumsiness are part of his magnetic charm, even in moments when he is messing things up entirely. The viewer is always on his side because of his naive ignorance.
The stakes are raised considerably when Hec accidentally fractures his foot in the woods and has to camp out there for a few weeks. Any plans to return to the town and give Ricky back to the authorities are derailed. Instead, Ricky and Hec, who both hate each other, must stay put alone in the woods. Hec is incapacitated by his injury, and Ricky is ill-suited for the rugged necessities of the bush. They make a motley pair, forced to have to survive together in difficult circumstances, which neither of them is very happy about.
Hec and Ricky's time at the camp brings them closer together, the longer they spend trying to survive. Ricky is a verbal and intelligent boy, but lacks any of the intuition required for survivalism, while Hec is illiterate, but has much to teach Ricky about "the knack," and staying alive in the wilderness. It does not take long for each of them to realize that the other has something to teach them. Slowly but surely, they begin to share insights with one another, and feel more attached. Their incompatibilities turn out to be key to their bonding while in the bush.
