Summary
We cut to an older Mary in a wedding dress translating a priest’s words for an older H.W.; they are being married. A title card tells us it is 1927. At Daniel’s mansion, Daniel amuses himself by shooting targets in the hallways. He signs checks on some unspecified business venture. He is drunk and the house is in disrepair. H.W. arrives with a sign language translator and meets Daniel in his office. He speaks in signs and the translator relays his words to Daniel and vice versa. H.W. asks if they can speak alone, referring to another man in the room. Daniel says he is a close business associate who is always present around Daniel. Daniel then cracks a joke at the expense of H.W.’s sign language.
H.W. explains that he is going to Mexico to start his own company separate from Daniel’s. Daniel says this makes H.W. a competitor, but H.W. tries to argue that is not the case. He says that he wants to break their business connections but keep their familial bond intact. Daniel demands that H.W. say this to him in spoken word. After a pause, H.W. does, though his voice sounds strange from lack of use. Even so, Daniel asserts that this move will ruin their relationship, frustrating H.W. Daniel reveals that H.W. is not really his biological child and that he used him to manufacture a wholesome family image, reveling in the pain he is causing H.W. Daniel speculates that their lack of blood relation is why H.W. is of such different character than him. H.W. finally says that he is glad that he has none of Daniel in him. He and the translator walk away while Daniel taunts him with the chant “Bastard from a basket!” but of course H.W. cannot hear him. The film flashes back to a moment in Little Boston where Daniel, H.W., and Mary play around a campfire.
An even drunker Daniel stumbles downstairs to a private bowling alley and falls asleep next to some plates of unfinished food. His butler attempts to wake him, telling him there is a guest. It is Eli, who asks the butler to leave and then rouses Daniel by screaming in his ear. Eli butters up Daniel, reminiscing about their supposed friendship, before saying that William Bandy has died and that his grandson has a desire to go to Hollywood to act in films. Eli intimates that the young Bandy would be willing to sell the tract of land he inherited to Daniel (the previous deal was only a lease, specifically for building the pipeline) for more drilling.
Daniel is open to the deal, but as a condition forces Eli to say that he is a false prophet and that God is not real. Eli is reluctant at first but is eventually coaxed by the promise of a 100,000 dollar fee and the five thousand he was owed with interest. He renounces his faith, eventually screaming as Daniel goads him. Only after he is done does Daniel explain that the oil from Bandy’s tract is already extracted because the drills on neighboring land all reached into the same underlying deposit, draining it all.
Eli is crestfallen, revealing that he has fallen on difficult economic times and that he has given in to unspecified earthly temptations. Daniel taunts Eli, telling him how Paul informed him about the oil and built his own company from the finder’s fee, asserting that Paul was the better of the two brothers. Eli pleads Daniel to take the lease, forcing Daniel to explain the situation again with a metaphor about milkshakes and straws. Daniel throws Eli into the bowling alley and lobs balls at him, ranting about how he has outsmarted and beaten him. Eli begs for his life as Daniel continues attacking. Finally, Daniel strikes Eli with a bowling pin and beats him over the head, killing him. Daniel sits down, panting. The butler comes back down to check on the commotion. Daniel looks over at him and simply says, “I’m finished,” and we cut to the end credits.
Analysis
This epilogue revolves around climactic encounters between Daniel and the two most important people remaining in his life: H.W. and Eli. Daniel has now finally built the house of his dreams with the vast fortune he has acquired, but in it he is rudderless. He is constantly drunk and only amuses himself with trivial and destructive activities. His company is apparently still active, but Daniel’s only involvement seems to be signing checks. As he no doubt feared, without the motive of fighting to acquire wealth and defeat competitors, Daniel has no drive to do much of anything.
His meeting with H.W. begins surprisingly cordially, given the status of their relationship when we last saw them. H.W. apparently still works for Daniel’s company and addresses him with respect and love. However, Daniel can only respond to this goodwill with scorn and venom, especially once H.W. informs him of his intentions to start his own company in Mexico. Daniel’s response—instantly treating him as a competitor—reveals much about the way he has thought of and used H.W. all his life: H.W. was useful to him, creating the image of a wholesome family business. Perhaps Daniel loved H.W. in some way, but now he is ready to move on completely. He mocks H.W.’s disability, refusing the accept H.W.’s statement unless he says it aloud. He finally sees fit to cut all ties, telling H.W. the truth about his birth, implicitly delegitimizing him. But H.W. also takes a form of strength from this, understanding the stock Daniel puts in the idea of hereditary character traits, because he has none of Daniel’s blood in him. When he leaves, Daniel taunts him with the chant of “Bastard from a basket!” but H.W. cannot hear him. In the same way that H.W.’s deafness cut Daniel off from him, it has now symbolically freed H.W. from Daniel’s toxic influence.
When Eli arrives, he at first appears to be in a position of power. He is dressed well, and he seems energetic and confident. But he is also trying to kiss up to Daniel, alluding to their relationship as some great friendship despite all evidence to the contrary. But it soon becomes clear that this is an attempt to woo Daniel into a business proposition: drilling on the Bandy tract.
Daniel smells blood, instinctively realizing that Eli is actually in a far worse position than he is letting on, and pouncing. It has no doubt been many years since Daniel has had the chance to dominate a person in this fashion, and he takes full advantage. He resolves the ideological conflict between them by forcing Eli to renounce his faith before telling him that drilling on the property would be fruitless. This is the kind of absolute victory that Daniel has been craving, the one he wanted over Tilford and Standard Oil but could not achieve. Moreover, Eli is forced to admit his failings in both the economy and in his personal religious practice, implying that he has indulged in sex or drink or some other kind of vice. As we have seen in previous episodes, Daniel becomes so excited by his “victory” over Eli that he descends into raving lunacy, finally turning violent. He goes from strange milkshake metaphors into incoherent screeching about how he is going to “eat” Eli, and that it is he, Daniel, that is the Third Revelation, not Eli. This time, Daniel holds nothing back, and viciously murders Eli. He completely lets loose his most primal impulses. For all the failures and disappointments in his life, this euphoric release is all he ever wanted. Whatever happens after the events of the film, Daniel is satisfied. As he puts it, he is “finished.”
