Summary
The next morning, Daniel is woken by Bandy. He is surprised and hungover, but he quickly composes himself and brings up the prospect of building the pipeline. Bandy admonishes him for not coming to him sooner. Daniel tries to excuse himself by bringing up H.W.’s ailment, but Bandy is aware that this happened after the initial buying of land. Bandy says that God has told him that Daniel must be baptized before a deal can be made. Daniel says he has already been baptized but Bandy ignores this, saying that he should be baptized at Eli’s church. Daniel offers increasing sums of money but Bandy insists that Daniel be baptized so he may be forgiven for his sin. Daniel asks what sin he has committed, and Bandy produced the gun with which Daniel shot Henry. Daniel is silent and we cut to the church.
Eli proclaims that the doctrine of universal salvation (the idea that all people, regardless of their deeds in life, will be forgiven by God and brought to Heaven) is false. He invites prospective new members to be baptized. Daniel at first does not answer but gets up after the second call. Eli brings him to the front and makes him kneel and yell confessions of sins. Eli continually demands Daniel speak louder. Daniel goes along casually at first, but when Eli demands that he confess to abandoning his child he grows frustrated and reluctant to speak. Eventually, he snaps and screams the confession at great volume. But towards the end of the ceremony, he begins to find the ritual funny, smirking as he is slapped around by Eli and making funny noises as water is poured over him, finally muttering to himself that the pipeline is now assured. He gets up and shakes Eli’s hand, who seems confused by Daniel’s sudden shift in demeanor. Music is played by the churchgoers as Daniel rejoins the congregation and Mary hugs him from behind.
We cut to the pipeline being constructed and a car driving towards it. Daniel approaches the car and H.W. gets out. He hits Daniel, who merely hugs him tightly. Later we see them in a restaurant; Daniel orders some steaks and drinks. Tilford and some other men walk in and sit down at a nearby table. Tilford greets Daniel and H.W. then sits down. Daniel puts a napkin over his face and loudly proclaims (while feigning talking to H.W.) that he successfully completed the deal with Union Oil and built the pipeline after rejecting Tilford’s offer. Tilford looks bemused and does not respond. After a few moments Daniel gets up and confronts Tilford, again telling him not to tell Daniel how to run his family. Tilford remains diplomatic through this and other insults by Daniel. Tilford and his people resume their meal as though nothing happened.
Back in town, we see Eli about to leave on a train to do missionary work. Daniel watches him resentfully from a distance and they exchange a brief look before the train leaves. We cut to H.W. practicing sign language with a tutor. H.W. appears to explain how the oil drill works to the tutor while Mary watches on, mimicking some of the signs. She later sits by him as he snaps his fingers near his ears. The two walk around on a porch before both jumping off of it.
Analysis
Up until this point, Daniel has been mostly successful at fending off the influence of Eli’s religion on the town and his operations. But here, needing Bandy’s permission to build a pipeline and under pressure of accountability for Henry’s murder, he has no choice but to subjugate himself to Eli’s will. The baptism itself is a kind of joint performance between Daniel and Eli. At first, Daniel approaches the ceremony nonchalantly, going through the motions and saying what he is supposed to say without much authority or conviction. He seems more impatient than genuinely disturbed. But his demeanor changes when he is asked to confess to abandoning H.W. He is quieter and more reluctant to speak, before finally exploding into thunderously yelling the confession, his face contorted with rage and self-loathing.
But then something strange happens: as the ceremony reaches its conclusion Daniel’s demeanor rapidly shifts back to an amused mockery of the procedure, smiling and all but laughing aloud as Eli slaps him and pours water over him. This suddenly calls into question the veracity of Daniel’s anguish from just a few moments earlier. Is it an expression of genuine pain and self-confrontation in the midst of an otherwise lackluster performance of penance, or is it merely Daniel faking catharsis to impress the congregation? Eli seems confounded by the same question, appearing very unsettled in the immediate aftermath of the baptism.
H.W.’s return highlights just how frayed their relationship has become. Daniel is no longer actively shunning the boy, but now H.W. seems completely unresponsive to anything Daniel says or does. He is deaf, of course, but unlike before he does nothing to attract Daniel’s attention (aside from punching him when they first reunite) nor express any kind of emotion or action around Daniel. Daniel seems determined to win H.W. back, but it’s too late: his previous actions have severed any meaningful connection between the two of them.
In his interaction with Tilford, Daniel is looking for a final and definitive moment of triumph over his corporate rival. Daniel has finally accomplished the thing he most wanted: to circumvent Standard Oil’s unfair business practices and keep a fair share of profits from a massive oil finding. But this personal accomplishment does not totally satisfy him. His instinct to dominate and humiliate others runs into the wall of Tilford’s apathy. Tilford may have failed to take control of Daniel’s oil in Little Boston, but he and the rest of Standard Oil will simply shift their attention to the countless other oil findings around the United States. No single oil man can make more than a dent in the corporation’s total domination of the marketplace. Daniel seems to realize this, and for the first time in the film, we see him not angry but dejected and depressed.
The sequence ends with a piece of visual storytelling and H.W. and Mary begin their romance. She mimics his sign language, signifying an effort to connect to and understand him that Daniel refuses to make. And finally, just before the cut to their future wedding, we see both of them jump off a porch and offscreen together, signifying the “leap” that a person makes in choosing to share their life with another.
