Cameron Crowe

Meet David Crosby in this portrait of a man with everything but an easy retirement on his mind.

David Aames (Tom Cruise) drives to work, he finds the streets of New York strangely deserted at rush hour. With growing unease he drives to Times Square and finds the entire city abandoned. He then awakens in his bedroom once again to realize he's only been having a vivid dream. Cut to: David in a jail cell describing a dream to Dr. Curtis McCabe (Kurt Russell), a psychologist who has been assigned to him. David has been charged with a murder he cannot remember, and he wears a mysterious pale mask. He and Dr. McCabe discuss the events that led to his eventual incarceration. Following the death of David's father, he was given 51% ownership of his father's publishing company. The rest of the company is owned by a board of directors that David disparagingly calls the "Seven Dwarfs." Each of them believed that he was next in line to take over the company after David's father died. David can have anything his heart desires, and nothing is beyond him. On the night of his birthday party which also includes a conversation with a drunken Thomas Tipp (Timothy Spall), the company attorney and an old friend of David's father, David considered firing Thomas for what he believes is his incompetence as an attorney, but he has a change of heart when Thomas makes a sad confession. David's best friend, Brian Shelby (Jason Lee), brings with him a girl named Sofia Serrano (Penelope Cruz) whom he just met at the library. Almost instantly, David and Sofia flirt with each other, almost completely ignoring Brian. However, Julianna Gianni (Cameron Diaz), a regular bed partner for whom David has no deep feelings, crashes his party. She stays distant but keeps a close eye on him the entire night. Once David realizes Julianna is there, he asks Sofia to pretend to engage in a deep conversation with him so that Julianna won't come near him. David and Sofia end up hitting it off. David walks Sofia back to her place, where they stay up all night talking. The next morning as David is getting ready to drive to work, Julianna drives up beside him asking how his night with Sofia was. Julianna makes David feel guilty about ignoring her and convinces him to get into her car. It quickly becomes apparent that she is obsessed with David. She starts driving recklessly, speeding through busy city streets, all the while insisting that she's deeply in love with him and berating him for treating her so casually. Fearing for their safety, he tries to get her to stop the car by telling her that he loves her. She drives the car off a bridge in an attempt to kill them both. Julianna did not survive the crash. David did, however, although his face and right arm are mangled, and he suffers blinding headaches due to the metal pieces holding his skull together. He spends a long time in isolation before deciding to take back control of his company and see Sofia again. She appears hesitant to be around him, and when they go on a date she brings Brian along. The date is a disaster as David drinks too much and makes Sofia increasingly uneasy around him. The three part ways at the end of the night, and David ends up passing out on a sidewalk. It is morning when Sofia wakes him up at that same exact spot and tells him that she will stay with him if he can get his act together. From that moment on, David's life is turned around. His team of plastic surgeons is able to restore his face and he finds his soul mate in Sofia. David's new-found happiness is short-lived, however, when he begins hallucinating. He looks in the mirror to see his face once again disfigured. A mysterious man (Noah Taylor) turns up wherever he goes and tells David that he has the power to control the world. And one night he goes to bed with Sofia and wakes up to find himself with Julianna, who insists she really is Sofia. He grows violent, convinced that Julianna is alive and playing games with him. He is arrested and told by Tipp that he severely beat Sofia, but Tipp will have the case thrown out. Tipp shows David photos of Julianna with a bruised face, but everybody, including his best friend Brian, tells him that it was Sofia he attacked. David breaks into Sofia's apartment and finds that every photo he'd seen of Sofia is now of Julianna. Julianna attacks him thinking he's an intruder but then apologizes while still insisting she is Sofia. She leaves the room and the actual Sofia returns in her place as if nothing unusual had happened. They begin to make love but while they are in the middle of the act he finds that he is making love to Julianna. In a fit of panic he suffocates her and then discovers he has just killed Sofia. When David is finished telling Dr. McCabe his story he still can't bring himself to believe that he killed anybody. Dr. McCabe, frustrated by David's failure to tell him anything meaningful that might help his case, tells him that he can no longer help David and will try to argue for "temporary derangement". This odd turn of legalistic phrase is just one of many clues that in this version of David's world all is not what it seems. As Dr. McCabe leaves, David sees an infomercial for a cryonics company called "Life Extension." This infomercial involving a dog that has been frozen and brought back to life has appeared at several points throughout the film. David is entranced by the commercial, and McCabe sees that there may be a connection between Life Extension and David's amnesia. Escorted by Dr. McCabe and the police, David visits Life Extension and realizes that he had signed on as a client. He had opted for an extra feature called the Lucid Dream. This allows cryogenically-frozen, clinically dead clients to experience an unending custom-made dream life with no memory of their physical death. David realizes that he is now living in the Lucid Dream and that the mysterious man is his "Technical Support." The Support Technician explains that the Lucid Dream was "spliced" into his memories at the point where he passed out on the sidewalk after his night out with Sofia and Brian. But the dream went awry and turned into a nightmare. Since nothing he experienced after the splice was real David realizes that he never murdered anybody. Dr. McCabe tells him that the guilt he felt for the way he treated Julianna may have caused his subconscious to merge Julianna and Sofia. But it turns out that Dr. McCabe isn't real either; he's just a character David created in his dream to be the father figure he always wanted. Most curious is the fact that Dr. McCabe seems to believe that he himself is real and only reluctantly comes to accept the truth (he had previously mentioned that he was going out with his two daughters for dinner after a session with David, but when The Support Technician asks him "What are their [your daughters'] names, Dr. McCabe has no response). Tech Support tells David that in reality, he never saw Sofia again, and that Thomas Tipp, the attorney that David considered firing in the beginning, had saved the company for David and helped him regain control from the board of directors. But David, suffering constant pain and depression following his disfigurement, committed suicide. In the end, technical support reveals an upgrade to the software which allows David to either be reinserted into the lucid dream with no memory of the nightmare portion or to be awakened in the present time (which is 150 years after he was frozen) and live in the real world with a restored body. David chooses to be awakened in this future present realizing that everyone he ever knew will be long dead and his wealth will be worth far less. After one last lucid-dream rooftop exchange with Sofia in which she vows to "find you again" he leaps off the skyscraper. Multiple memory-images cascade frenetically through his mind as he falls. The final shot is of a brief whiteout (rather than the blackout) accompanied by the sound of a woman's voice telling him to "open your eyes" and an extreme closeup of a single human eye opening and staring into the camera.

In 1969, young William Miller (Michael Angarano) lives with his widowed mother Elaine (Frances McDormand) and older sister Anita (Zooey Deschanel) in San Diego, California. While William gets along well with his family, his academic-minded mother and rebellious sister are at odds with each other about a number of things. William also receives a startling revelation when Anita has Elaine confess that William is actually 11, and not 13 as he has been led to believe. Once she turns 18, Anita leaves home to become a stewardess. In the wake of her absence, she leaves her record collection to William. Four years later, the albums have led William (Patrick Fugit) to write a number of freelance articles about rock and roll. When famed rock journalist Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman) visits San Diego, William takes the opportunity to meet him. Impressed by William's drive, Lester gives him an assignment to interview Black Sabbath at the San Diego Sports Arena. While the arena's door person refuses to let him in, William manages to enter with some help from the band Stillwater, who are the opening band for Black Sabbath. William also meets a group of young women calling themselves Band-Aids. Led by Penny Lane (Kate Hudson), they claim they are there to support and inspire the bands. After the concert, Stillwater's lead guitarist Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) invites William and Penny to meet up with the band in Los Angeles. The two make the trip, where it becomes apparent to William that there is something going on between Russell and Penny. William next receives a phone call from Rolling Stone editor Ben Fong-Torres (Terry Chen), who requests William write an article for the magazine. William suggests interviewing Stillwater, and is soon touring with the band (and the Band-Aids!) for a few days to interview them (much to the horror of his mother). On the road, William is privy to a number of notable events. In Tempe Arizona, Russell gets electrocuted, leading to the band leaving before finishing their set, much to the ire of the show's promoter. In Topeka Kansas, the band's first t-shirt design focuses more on Russell, leading to an argument with lead singer Jeff Bebe (Jason Lee). Following this, William and Russell go to a local party where Russell drops acid and proclaims himself to be "a golden god." In Greenville Tennessee, William is "deflowered" by the Band Aids (not including Penny Lane), and has to contend with a phone call from Ben Fong-Torres about the story. William manages to buy himself some more time to finish it, but is informed that Rolling Stone is considering putting the band on the next issue's cover. Still not having gotten an interview with Russell, William is forced to accompany the band to Cleveland, Ohio. He gives his Mom a call to try and make amends that he is staying longer than intended, but the call is intercepted by Russell, only for the lead guitarist to be freaked out by Elaine's well-educated "directness." Following the Cleveland concert, a manager named Dennis Hope (Jimmy Fallon) meets with the band at the behest of the record label. While the band does not want to lose Dick Roswell (Noah Taylor) and claims they play for the fans, they soon buy into Dennis' vision of making more money by adding more tour dates. The next day, the band ditches their tour bus "Doris," and hop aboard a private airplane to Boston, Massachusetts. It is here that William is privy to a poker game wherein the Band-Aids and Penny Lane are "sold" to Humble Pie before Stillwater reaches New York, where Russell's girlfriend Leslie (Liz Stauber) is to meet up with the band. William tries to keep quiet about this, but hearing how Penny believes that Russell really does love her, he lets slip what he heard. In New York, William receives a call from Ben Fong-Torres, claiming the magazine has approved the band for their next cover, and requesting he send what he has for the fact-checker to start reviewing. The band celebrates the cover news at a restaurant, but Leslie soon sees Penny Lane eyeing the band from a corner. Dick gets her to leave and she rushes off with William giving chase out of concern. He follows her to the Plaza Hotel, where he finds she has overdosed on Quaaludes. He manages to call a doctor and saves her life. In the aftermath, Penny confesses to William that her real name is Lady Goodman, and he makes sure she gets back to San Diego via airplane. William rejoins the band afterwards, but as their plane flies over Mississippi, they are buffeted by extreme turbulence and it seems possible that the plane may crash. Fearing that they may die, people begin to confess secrets: Dennis tells how he was a hit-and-run driver Dick tells how he took more than his salary from the group Jeff confesses to sleeping with Leslie, and also tells about Russell and Penny William confesses what happened to Penny, and that he loves her Silent Ed Vallencourt (John Fedevich) finally speaks up, and confesses that he's gay The plane makes it through the weather, and once the plane lands, William separates from the band, with Russell telling him to "write whatever you want." William eventually makes it to Rolling Stones' main office with plenty of notes, but no interview with Russell. He begs for the evening to get everything put together. Seeking advice, William calls up Lester, who tells him to be as honest and truthful as possible about what he saw. This results in an article about the band revealing everything from their infighting, to the confessions on the plane. In the end, Russell denies the story to the magazine's fact-checker, and William is sent home. At the airport, his sister Anita sees him, and offers to go on an adventure with him. In the end, she helps William get back to San Diego, and she and her mother make up. As Stillwater's tour ends, the band members go their separate ways. During a meal, a Band-Aid named Sapphire (Fairuza Balk) chastises Russell for causing Penny to almost kill herself, let alone killing William's story. Russell then calls Penny, claiming he wants to meet with her and make up. She gives him an address, but when Russell arrives, he realizes he is at William's house! Talking to William, Russell mentions that he did contact Rolling Stone and retracted his previous statement. William also takes the time to get what he never could while on the tour: an interview with Russell. Following these events, Stillwater goes on tour the following year, touring on their bus "Doris." Anita returns home to live with William and Elaine. William's article is published by Rolling Stone magazine. Penny Lane fulfills a dream, and heads off to live in Morocco for one year.

The story concerns a small group of 20-somethings who live and work in Seattle. Some of them are friends, even close friends, while others are acquaintances who inhabit the periphery of the plot. Linda Powell works for an organization that deals with environmental concerns. She meets a young U-Dub (Univ of Washington) student, Luiz, who is a foreigner. She's flattered by the attention and the two begin dating. Linda is quite happy, telling a friend that the relationship feels new and exciting and that she and Luiz don't seem to be hindered by the usual problems that couples faced or that she faced in the past. She goes so far as to give him the remote control for her garage parking space, saying he's always welcome. At a later point, Luiz tells her he's having problems with his student visa and has to leave the country for a few days to straighten it out. Linda goes out to a rock club with her friend and spots Luiz at the bar with another woman. Linda leaves upset, being consoled outside by her friend. We're introduced to Steve Dunne while he talks to the audience in his kitchen. Steve lives in an east side apartment building where several of the story's other characters live. Steve laments a recent breakup with a girlfriend and relates a few anecdotes about his own life like the time a doctor tried to explain how couples have children or how his father told him "Have fun, stay single", when Steve was only eight years old. Steve works for a firm that does city planning and hopes that one day his ambitious personal product of building a luxurious commuter train for the city's workforce may be a way to solve the problems of pollution and traffic problems created by drivers. By chance, Steve sees Linda in a rock club and approaches her. Over the din of the live band, Alice in Chains, he tries to convince her he's not a sleazy guy looking only for sex by saying that he doesn't have an "act". She counters, saying that "not having an act *is* [his] act." Steve walks away rejected. A few days later, while at a magazine rack with his friend Dave, Steve bumps into Linda again and the two have a conversation. They go on a date and seem to enjoy each other's company, however, Steve, feeling somewhat doubtful and insecure, doesn't call her back for four days. He still convinces her to give him one more chance and while talking at Steve's apartment, Steve tries to give her the remote to his garage parking space. Linda is immediately defensive, saying she has to leave, reminded of how she gave her remote to Luiz. She goes home and as she's settling in, Steve rings her doorbell. Overwhelmed, Linda jumps into his arms and kisses him, taking him upstairs to her place. The two have sex and become more serious about each other. After a few weeks, Linda drops a bomb: her period is late. Steve buys several home pregnancy tests and the results come back positive. Steve asks her to marry him. Linda has her doubts and leaves her answer ambiguous. While driving, Linda runs a red light and is violently broadsided by a pickup truck. She goes into shock after a few moments and wakes up in a hospital room with minor injuries, however she has lost the baby. Depressed, she decides to tell Steve she's going to Alaska for a few weeks for her job. The two don't acknowledge it right away, but they're breaking up. Steve becomes very depressed but still soldiers on with work. One of the mayor's aides gets him lunch with the mayor where Steve can pitch his commuter train. The mayor coldly rejects the proposal outright, saying he's seen such ideas before and that Seattlelites love their cars too much. Steve becomes more depressed than ever, quits his job and holes up in his apartment which soon becomes a nightmare of strewn trash and unopened mail. Janet, one of his neighbors and a good friend, visits him and tells him that he needs to snap out of his depression before it consumes him. She gives him a secret knock to let him know she'll be checking up on him in the future. Steve begins to clean up his place and look for another job. While waiting for a response to one of his applications, Janet's secret knock sounds at the door. He opens it to find Linda standing there. She's willing to give their relationship another try. Janet Livermore is a 23-yr-old who works in a downtown coffee shop. She has a boyfriend, Cliff Poncier, the lead singer of a local rock/punk band called Citizen Dick. Cliff works three jobs between gigs, is very dedicated to getting his band a recording contract (even though they're not very popular in the Seattle music scene and often receive negative reviews both for live performances & a recently recorded album) and isn't very attentive to Janet, who's crazy about him. Janet becomes somewhat obsessed with her breast size, especially since Cliff decorates the walls of his apartment with posters of big-breasted women. She asks Cliff if her breasts are too small & he gives her an honest "Sometimes." She makes an appointment with a plastic surgeon and the two work out a computer model of what size she'd like to be. When she goes for the procedure, Steve takes her and she tells him what she's looking for in a man; someone who has their own place, a steady job, is responsible and appreciates her and who'll say "God bless you" when she sneezes. Steve tells her it's a "tall order" and she says she's narrowed the list down considerably to someone who will say "God bless you" when she sneezes. She later puts Cliff to that test, issuing a fake sneeze while sitting next to him and he coldly hands her a box of tissues asking her not to get him sick before his next gig. The doctor surprises her with what he calls a first of his career: he tells her he thinks she doesn't need the surgery and that if Cliff can't appreciate her for who she is then he doesn't deserve her. He also tells her he's attracted to her but she very kindly turns him down, saying he's a doctor and handsome and should be able to attract lots of beautiful women. Janet decides to break up with Cliff and makes the best of her single life, regrouping and enjoying her solitude. Cliff tries to win her back by placing rose petals arranged in her name in her kitchen and putting a new stereo in her car. (When Cliff demonstrates how the remote works, he turns the volume up so loud that it shatters all the windows in the car.) Another of Steve's neighbors, Debbie, is also looking for love and romance and uses a gift certificate she'd gotten from her friends for a video dating service -- they originally got it for her as a gag gift. A budding socialite, Debbie has the video made (the director is played by Tim Burton in a cameo) and receives videos from several candidates, some of whom are desperate, others who are pretentious. She narrows the field to one guy, Jamie, who is a bike riding enthusiast and seems genuine. Debbie goes a overboard, buying an expensive bike, a gaudy riding outfit and makes a date with Jamie at a posh waterfront restaurant. On the big day, however, Debbie goes to the wrong location of the restaurant and misses Jamie entirely. She rides home to see if Jamie left any messages and finds him there talking happily with her roommate Pam, whom he knew from college. Debbie is immediately jealous and accuses Pam of stealing her date. Since Pam has never been very fond of Debbie, the two start a loud argument that Jamie overhears. Debbie demands that Pam pay her money equivalent to the cost of the video. Jamie decides to retreat from them both. Spurned, Debbie takes a vacation she'd been planning in Cabo San Lucas. On the flight down she sits next to a precocious pre-teen boy who hits on her. When the flight lands, she meets the boy's single father who compliments her gaudy earrings and Debbie is immediately floored. The two hit it off and begin a long distance relationship that seems promising. Cliff helps Debbie move out when she and Stu decide to move in together. Cliff eventually realizes that he can only win Janet back if he treats her better. He leaves a message on her answering machine, singing a new song he'd written for her. He meets her in the elevator of the building when they're both going out for the evening. He compliments her, sounding very sincere. When she suddenly sneezes, he says "Bless you". The two of them embrace passionately. The film ends with an overhead shot of the apartment building that zooms out to show the Seattle skyline with dozens of young voices chattering about love, relationships and complaints.

Stacy Hamilton (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is a 15-year-old high school sophomore who works in the Ridgemont Mall at Perry's pizza parlor with the seemingly more sexually experienced Linda Barrett (Phoebe Cates). Mark "Rat" Ratner (Brian Backer) also a sophomore, works in the mall as "assistant to the assistant manager" at the movie theater. His friend Mike Damone (Robert Romanus), who also hangs out at the mall scalping rock concert tickets, believes himself to be both worldly and wise in the ways of women. Stacy's brother Brad (Judge Reinhold) is a semi-dorky senior but is relatively popular because he has his own car and is a low-grade supervisor at All-American Burger, a favorite after-school hang-out and a place that treats teen employees well. Brad is spending his final year in high school basking in the joy of becoming the unfettered owner of his blue 1960 Buick LeSabre ("the cruising vessel"), which has only six payments left, and obsessing over the best way to ease out of the long-time relationship with his girlfriend, Lisa (Amanda Wyss), who also works at All-American Burger. Surfer-type Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn) is the resident stoner who begins the new school year tumbling out of a Volkswagen Microbus after hot-boxing in the parking lot as the final attendance bell rings. Spicoli tries to come into the stern Mr. Hand's (Ray Walston) history class after the final bell, but Mr. Hand has locked the door. Spicoli knocks on the door but when Mr Hand sends him to principal's office, Spicoli calls him a "dick," thus beginning a vendetta between Mr. Hand and Spicoli that lasts throughout the movie. The sexually curious Stacy initially hooks up with a much older home stereo salesman, Ron Johnson of Pacific Stereo in the mall. He provides her first sexual experiences. He dumps her a few months later, causing Stacy to wonder what was wrong with herself and seek other relationships. In addition to his brief encounters with Stacy at the pizza parlor during his breaks at the movie theater, nerdy Mark Ratner ends up with Stacy as his lab partner in biology class. Ratner receives pointers from his friend Damone, the scalper. With prodding from Damone, "Rat" goes over to the pizza parlor one evening and asks for Stacy's phone number, saying he'll call her to ask her out on a date. Embarassed, but flattered, Stacy accepts Mark's offer of a date. The date goes well despite Mark forgetting his wallet at home and the tape deck being stolen from his sister's car during their dinner at a local German restaurant. They go back to her house, where she comes on to him. Inexperienced with sex, he chickens out, leaving her there with nothing but a robe on. This leads Stacy to confide in Linda that she believes (mistakenly) that Mark does not love her. Back at school, Spicoli continues to annoy Mr. Hand, including one episode in which Spicoli arranges for a pizza delivery in the middle of class by a less-than-thrilled "Pizza Guy" delivery man (Taylor Negron) only to have Mr. Hand take the pizza away and distribute it to his favored students. Meanwhile, Brad loses his cherished job at All American Burger one day in a dispute with an unsatisfied and rude customer (Sonny Carl Davis) who demands his money back (clearly a yuppie con artist), where after the rude customer insults Brad and Brad insults the rude customer back, the stern boss, Dennis, approaches and instantly fires Brad for it and falls for the con artist's ploy and refunds his money. Brad feels betrayed when all of his co-worker friends don't have the courage to stand up for him to their dictator of a boss out of fear of losing their jobs too. As a result, Brad never speaks to any of his friends ever again. Brad is forced to take a new job at "Captain Hook Fish and Chips," a Long John Silvers-styled fish restaurant. Employees are forced to wear pirate uniforms, and after being laughed at by a beautiful woman (Nancy Wilson) while on a delivery, Brad quits in disgust while tossing all the "Catch of the Day" boxes out into the street. At a pep rally before the football game with Lincoln High, Brad meets up with his girlfriend Lisa. In a complete turnabout from his plans to go solo during the summer, Brad bares his troubled soul to Lisa, telling her that he needs her now more than ever. But Lisa dumps him, saying she wants to see other people before she heads to college, the perfect culmination to Brad's personal annihilation. As Brad's life crumbles as he now has no friends or job, Stacy and Linda are sitting by the pool discussing men. Meanwhile, Damone convinces Mark to give it another shot with Stacy. Damone leads Mark to Stacy's house, where Damone crashes the girl chat. Brad comes home, dejected, and goes into the house. The teens all comment on how Brad is so depressed after losing his job at All America Burger. Brad heads for the bathroom and starts to masturbate as he fantasizes about Linda approaching him in her bikini and undoing her top (in a now near-legendary scene set to The Cars' song "Moving in Stereo"). Linda jumps into the pool and gets water in her ear. She makes her way to the bathroom for a Q-tip and is shocked as she catches Brad masturbating, which ruins the pool party. Later that evening, Spicoli is seen drinking beer, smoking marijuana, and lost in his own world as he joyrides in a 1979 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 owned by Charles Jefferson (Forest Whitaker), an ill-tempered, hulking jock who is the star of the Ridgemont football team. The car is a gift from a grateful alumnus, and Jefferson's little brother, along for the ride, freaks out as an unconcerned Spicoli drives like a maniac through the crowded city streets. Spicoli eventually wrecks the car when he swerves to avoid an oncoming car, and crashes into a concrete wall. Spicoli promises to Jefferson's brother that he can fix it. The next day at school, a large crowd gathers around the front entrance--where Jefferson's totaled car is covered in anti-Ridgemont graffiti. Spicoli has apparently made it look as if the rival high school, Lincoln High, destroyed it as a prank. Jefferson takes out his anger on the Lincoln football team that night, winning the game single handily and sending Lincoln's quarterback out of the game on a stretcher. Over the next several weeks, Stacy grows attracted to Mark's friend, Damone. Stacy meets Damone after school and Damone drives her home. Damone asks if Stacy has any iced tea and then he wants to go for a swim. She brings him into the changing booth near the pool. Instead of swimming, the two have clumsy, unsatisfying sex in the changing booth. Later, Stacy tells Linda that she is pregnant. Stacy tells Damone and they decide that an abortion is the only solution. She asks Damone to pay for half the abortion ($150) and give her a ride to the clinic. Damone agrees. A little later, Damone and Ratner get into an argument over Stacy in the locker room after Ratner hears that Damone has been with Stacy. After Damone and Ratner almost get into a fistfight, they cut ties with each other. Damone has a hard time coming up with his half of the money to pay for the abortion. Damone desperately and unsuccessfully attempts to collect from past "clients" who owe him money. It is only then that Damone finally discovers how little power and popularity he has with the other teens. Ashamed, Damone does not show up to drive Stacy to the clinic and avoids her phone calls. Stacy catches a ride with Brad to a nearby bowling alley under the pretense that she is meeting some friends there. Brad sees Stacy leave the bowling alley and enter the clinic. After the procedure is finished, Brad is waiting for Stacy outside and talks to her about what happened, though Stacy will not tell him the identity of the father. Stacy's sibling bond grows with Brad when he shows a brotherly act of kindness by not pressing the issue. Linda, however, is not so charitable. After Stacy tells her of Damone's deception, Linda goes after Damone by scrawling "Prick" in spray paint on his car door and "Little Prick" in marker on his school locker. Another month or two later, Stacy and Mark are fated to be together again when they go on a biology class field trip to observe an autopsy performed by their flaky biology teacher Mr. Vargas (Vincent Schiavelli). Spicoli tags along with the class (despite that he does not take biology) just for the excursion. When Mr. Vargas starts to rip organs from the corpse, Stacy feels sick and Mark helps her out of the procedure room. Stacy is grateful to Mark for staying with her and says he's "a nice guy." School is coming to an end. Mr. Hand takes some revenge on Spicoli by visiting him at his home on the night of the graduation dance and administering an impromptu American History lesson long enough to delay Spicoli until well after the prom has started. Surprisingly, Spicoli does well with Mr. Hand's questioning and the two are actually amiable by the end of the session. Still, the teacher relents on the question of whether or not he will flunk Spicoli, telling the stoned surfer he'll probably "squeak by." Mike Damone and Mark Ratner speak to each other at the prom. A tenuous bond is reformed, but Damone knows he no longer has power over "Rat." In the closing scenes, Stacy, still working at the pizza joint, sees Mark at his station across the mall at the theater. She waves him over and gives him a demure photo of herself. She makes it clear she'd like to begin seeing him again. Mark is at first tentative, but Stacy playfully nudges Mark and eggs him on. He looks at Stacy for a moment, smiles and then says he'll call her. Meanwhile, Brad is working at his new job, the bottom rung on the high school scale of after-school employment: a convenience store called Mi-T-Mart. Spicoli walks in and tries to make a purchase while fumbling with pocket change. He then asks to use the bathroom. As soon as Spicoli walks away to the restroom, a car pulls up to the front of the store, a robber exits the car, walks in the door, sprays the security camera, pulls out a pistol and tells Brad to give him all the money in the wall safe. Brad gets very nervous, and cannot open the safe. But when the armed robber threatens to shoot and kill Brad for stalling, Brad's fear suddenly turns into anger as he mouths off to the armed robber, wishing that he would just die.... as Brad sees this as just another rotten episode in his further disintegrating life. Just then Spicoli walks out of the bathroom complaining that there are no paper towels and he inadvertently distracts the thief for a few seconds, just long enough for a furious Brad to grab and throw a pot of hot coffee in the robber's face, jump over the counter, take his gun away and captures the would-be thief as the criminal's getaway car peels out the parking lot, making Brad a local hero... at least in Spicoli's eyes. Before the end credits roll, the characters' futures are shown: Brad Hamilton: Made manager of Mi-T-Mart, June 12. Mike Damone: Busted for scalping Ozzy Osbourne tickets. Now working at 7-Eleven. Mr. Vargas: Switched back to coffee. Linda Barrett: Attending college in Riverside. Now living with her Abnormal Psych professor. Rat & Stacy: Having a passionate love affair. But still haven't gone all the way. Mr. Hand: Convinced EVERYONE is on dope. Jeff Spicoli: Saved Brooke Shields from drowning. Blows reward money hiring Van Halen to play at his birthday party.