Night Always Comes’ ending was about Lynette securing the $25,000 that she needed to pay to David as a down payment in order to secure the home loan. Lynette lived with her brother, Kenny, and their mother, Doreen, in a house that was in terrible condition. The main reason why she needed to make it her permanent residence was because, as per the law of the land, that was the only way to prove that she was capable of taking care of an individual like Kenny, who had Down syndrome. Lynette had taken a loan from Cash Express Loans, probably to pay off her tuition fees, rent, and other bills, and since she had failed to settle that amount, Investigator Officer Sharon was threatening to send over her repossession officers. That led to the central issue: Lynette didn’t own the house that she and her family lived in. I guess Lynette’s parents had leased it from David’s dad, but due to inflation, David was jacking up the rent. David already had someone on speed dial who was ready to pay the amount that he was quoting, and since Lynette wasn’t that rich, she was struggling. After a lot of negotiation, David settled on a down payment of $25,000, following which he’d give away the papers of the house to Lynette, and she’d be able to apply for the home loan. That $25,000 was supposed to come from Doreen, who splurged on a brand-new Mazda car, thereby adding another pickle to the sea of pickles that Lynette was already drowning in. David gave her around 24 hours to give him the aforementioned sum of money, which prompted Lynette to go on a night-long adventure through Portland to secure the house and keep Kenny from being taken away. Did Lynette succeed at this endeavor? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Lynette Got The Money
In her mission to get $25,000, Lynette first went to Scott. She had a transactional relationship with him, where he would pay her for sex. Scott didn’t want to help Lynette out in her time of distress. He gave her $1000 and told her to never contact him again. So, she stole his car with the aim of selling it, or maybe to just get back at Scott for demeaning her so brutally, but she quickly realized that it’d be difficult to sell a stolen car on such short notice, that too in the dead of night. So, she went to her old friend, Gloria, next and asked her to cough up the cash—all $3000—she owed to Lynette because that was the amount she had spent bailing Gloria out of jail. That’d bring the total up to $4000, which wasn’t a lot, but at least it’d be something. Gloria said that she didn’t have that kind of money lying around, and gave her only $500 from the safe in her sugar daddy’s house. Lynette knew that there was more in that safe. So, she roped in Cody, a guy from the bar she worked at who fancied her, to help her steal that safe. She even promised to give him $400 for his troubles. Cody took Lynette and the safe to a guy called Drew, who did help open the safe, but got very hostile when he found cash, cocaine, and Rolexes in there. Getting out of Drew’s clutches with all that stuff was a painful ordeal, which was why Cody hiked up his price. Initially, Lynette tried to dupe him, but when she sensed his escalating hostility, she told him to take Scott’s car and let her have the money because she needed to give it to David.
Left with no other options, Lynette ran over Cody and took off into the night with the money, the drugs, and the watches. At that point, the total amount of money she had was around $20,500, so she needed $4000 more to seal the deal. She picked up Kenny and then went to Tommy, her former pimp, to sell him the cocaine. Tommy pointed her in Blake’s direction, who was ready to give her the $4000 she needed. But since Blake knew about her history as a sex worker, he thought it was okay to force himself upon her. Lynette lashed out, took the cash that she needed, and went back home with Kenny. Despite seeing what her daughter had been through, Doreen refused to sign the papers for the house and get the loan. In fact, Doreen wanted to move in with Mona, her friend, and take Kenny with her because she was afraid that Lynette would do irreparable harm to both of them while spiraling out of control herself.
Lynette Didn’t Get The House Loan
In Night Always Comes’ ending, Lynette got a call from David, where he told her that he was going ahead with the deal that he had made with the other party, thereby essentially rendering her mad dash through Portland useless. But instead of accepting David’s rejection as a sign of defeat, she chose to pave a new path for herself. Out of the $24,500 that she had accumulated over the course of one night, she left some for Gloria—so that she’d have something to help her restart her life after she’d be kicked out of that house by Robert for allowing a robbery to take place there—and some for Doreen so that she could look after Kenny and herself. She kept the rest—in order to pay off the loans she had taken from Cash Express and to build the foundation of the next chapter of her life—and drove off towards the rising sun, which symbolized a new beginning for Lynette. Before analyzing the themes and metaphors of the film, I have to address the fact that that ending was a bit too simplistic with that inspirational music and narration. I mean, regardless of how Lynette feels, she has transformed due to the rollercoaster ride of a journey that she went on; she is still a criminal. Yes, she is banking on the fact that Scott will never accuse her of stealing his car because then he’ll need to tell his wife who stole it and then explain his relation with the thief. But the thing about the fear of shame is that, after a point, it ebbs away. If Scott is cheating on his wife, I don’t think his life is going swimmingly. One day or the other, he is going to hit rock bottom. Who will he target then to vent his frustration? That’s right, Lynette.
Then there’s Drew. During her altercation with Drew, I think she killed Carl, or at least dealt him some life-threatening injury. Drew is a thug. Am I really supposed to think that Drew is just going to let that slide? Lynette has betrayed Cody too. What’s stopping Cody from going to Drew, convincing him that they should band together, and teaching Lynette a lesson? The keys to the stolen Mercedes? Come on! Cody literally went off on an elaborate rant on why he won’t be able to sell it without risking going to jail. If he finds a way, I think Lynette is safe from Cody’s wrath. She still has to deal with Scott and Drew. The only individual who definitely won’t come after Lynette is Blake. He had every opportunity to hurt her in his house, but he allowed her to leave. So, yeah, I think he’ll try his best to forget that episode. Also, I have a feeling that Gloria won’t be giving Lynette a pass. Robert was a steady source of income. He probably loved her too. But the thing about upper-class people is that the moment there’s a robbery, or something accidentally goes missing, they instantly blame the poor person in their circle, which in this case is Gloria. The money that Lynette left for Gloria is a temporary fix; Robert was her golden goose. All in all, while Night Always Comes wants to convince viewers that everything’s going to be alright in Lynette’s life, I think her downhill slide is about to accelerate rapidly.
Lynette’s Real Problem
Let’s talk about what the entire point of this movie was. Well, for starters, that ending begged the question of whether Lynette’s self-appointed mission was basically an exercise in futility. If living with Mona was the solution to the problem of Social Services taking away Kenny, then maybe Lynette was tackling the situation from the wrong direction. After Doreen splurged on that Mazda, Lynette basically had two choices: letting Doreen take Kenny with her to Mona’s, which’d allow her to meet him occasionally, or going through literal hell to get that $25,000 to save the house in the hopes that she’ll be able to hold on to that house and her brother. Sure, Doreen wasn’t a great communicator and didn’t really tell Lynette that she had a choice. At the same time, Lynette wasn’t a great listener, and she was too focused on getting the money before the deadline set by David.
That said, can I say that Lynette’s ordeal was a complete waste just because David refused to make a deal with her right after she had secured the money? Not really. I think that, over the course of that night-long journey, Lynette learned a bunch of things about herself. She was ready to go to any lengths for her brother, and for herself as well. She needed to let go of that need to settle down in that specific house and be the only person responsible for Kenny because, on some level, she was using them to stop herself from realizing her true potential. She had overcomplicated her life to such a dizzying extent that she refused to see the easy solution that was right in front of her. Maybe she was trying too hard to make amends for her shortcomings and the mistakes she had made in the past. She needed to learn how she could channel her energy in a positive, non-destructive way, and that won’t be possible as long as she keeps herself tethered to that house, Doreen, and Kenny. However, was her overcomplicated life completely her fault or a result of capitalism?
Capitalism Is The True Enemy
If you analyze any problem, especially in this day and age, its root cause is usually capitalism. Sure, you can blame Lynette’s fractured psyche on bad parenting, daddy issues, resorting to prostitution at the age of 16 (Tommy should definitely be in jail), and more. But do you really think that if Lynette’s parents were financially stable, and hence emotionally stable, she still would have chosen that same path into darkness? I don’t think so, because she is a good person in horrible circumstances. Despite making the worst choices for herself, that too at a formative stage, Lynette managed to come out of that dark phase without anybody’s help. I think Scott was the only lasting hangover from that part of her life; other than that, she had mostly healed herself. And the thing that exacerbated that partially healed wound was the toxic cycle of loans, tuition fees, and bills. Access to basic education shouldn’t be this expensive. Access to a normal house shouldn’t be an uphill battle. Access to a decent job shouldn’t be impossible. The fact that most of the things that we need to live properly have become inaccessible is inhumane. And for what? For whom? Just so that a bunch of rich people can get even richer, we, as a society, are treating our working class like gladiators in a colosseum, fighting with each other to live another day. Anybody would look at the $25,000 and say that Lynette should have shared it with Cody, and maybe she would have if the situation she was in, where she had to deliver that money to David, wasn’t so unavoidable.
Heck, even Cody would have understood Lynette’s desperation if he wasn’t so desperate himself. Even though he had been wronged by a woman, he chose to help another woman, and he got backstabbed again. Are we supposed to say that women are the real problem here, or is it capitalism? It’s always capitalism. Look at Blake. He had everything that a person could possibly dream of. Looking at his lavish house, he could have given Lynette more than just $4000. He could have solved all the problems in her life, and that wouldn’t have made a dent in his bank account. However, capitalism teaches people to treat anyone that’s poorer than them like subhumans who don’t deserve basic rights. Capitalism compels people to assert dominance just because they have the privilege to do so, especially if they have inherited that privilege instead of earning it. Therefore, Blake chose to exploit Lynette over giving her a helping hand. What capitalists don’t understand, though, is that humans are very resilient. The night is darkest just before dawn. The pendulum, on a personal or a societal level, will always swing the other way. And when it does, the rich will pray that a guillotine with their name on it isn’t waiting for them. Anyway, those are just my thoughts on Night Always Comes’s ending. If you have any opinions on the same, feel free to share them in the comments section below.
