"We Blew It"
"After George's murder, the film becomes increasingly dark in mood, developing a bitter tone of disenchantment. It is as though the oppressive conventions of stable society are ultimately inescapable, contaminating their easy riding on a variety of levels." (Laderman 76)
"It is the end of the road; it is the end of being on the road; and it is the end of wanting to be on the road." (Laderman 77)
Despite Billy’s idealistic insistence otherwise—and against our better hopes (somehow, we want these two scrappy deadbeats to come out swinging)—Wyatt’s claim that the duo “blew it� rings true. Their physical and psychological plight was, ultimately, a quest for identity; an adventure away from a hyper-contextualized, ultra-conservative America and meant to answer the age-old “Where do I belong?� They were searching for a society (or anti-society), built around the purest forms of freedom and self-expression, that would never be. It is because of their differences that America cannot meet them halfway. The film’s landscape makes this era-specific inevitability more obvious after George’s murder, showing our heroes on roads that suddenly don’t look so beautifully, perfectly vast. While they swerve away from and behind each other and, finally, back together again, they are met with the industry and ignorant population that will eventually kill them. The “We blew it� statement and final scene (while Billy lies bleeding beside the road, Wyatt wraps him in his American flag jacket) help establish that the road has ended and the dream is indeed dead.