THE FERRYMAN Ending (Spoilers)

[LimelightMike]

Posted: 11/20/18 at 12:58am

Hey, gang!

To anton we who has seen THE FERRYMAN, could you PM me or use the spoiler function for the ending - specifically the final, let's say, ten minutes when Tom Kettle enters the house?

Updated On: 11/20/18 at 12:58 AM

[VotePeron]

Posted: 11/20/18 at 9:28am

Spoilers. Spoilers. SPOILERS.

 

Click Here To Toggle Spoiler Content

Mr. Muldoon has entered the house and has proposed that Caitlin can move into a new house under his direct supervision. It is very tense, and Quinn is insisting she should not agree. But she does. Then, Tom Kettle screams/heaves a bit and storms in, holding Oisin in his arms. Oisin has clear red marks all around his neck. 

Tom lays him down center stage, and we see that Oisin is unconscious. Caitlin freaks out and tends to him, while Tom explains that Oisin had snuck into his house, stood over his bed with a gun, and exclaimed that he intended to kill Tom. Tom then admits to stop him, he rung Oisin's neck. Caitlin screams.

The family starts pouring down the stairs, and Caitlin, sobbing, pick herself up and starts rambling/crying "It's ok it's ok it's ok..." while she makes her way to the stage right shelf, where the shaving razor is stored. She grabs it, and makes a run for Mr. Muldoon on the opposite side of the stage. Quinn stops her right before she gets to him, and holds her.

Quinn then takes the razor from her, and in a split second, turns around and slashes Muldoon's throat. Blood spurts out of his neck. He then takes the gun that Tom had confiscated from Oisin and shoots one of Muldoon's henchmen, with a big splat of blood going against the wall. He points the gun to the second henchman, and tells him to run to the city and tell everyone that Quinn Carney has exacted revenge on Seamus Carney, ending the Muldoon run. 

Aunt Pat starts freaking out (the whole family is, but she especially) screaming, "What have you done to this family?!" The eldest son asks what they do next. 

Maggie Far Away walks in and starts repeating the story she began earlier in the third act, walking toward the window murmuring, "They're coming, they're coming, they're coming" until finally it builds to "they're here, they're here," and then she turns to Quinn and more or less screeches, "THEY'RE HERE." 

Blackout.

A lot of tense underscoring is used and the tension is thick. It all happens so fast, but is just so satisfying. 

 

[GeorgeandDot]

Posted: 11/20/18 at 9:35am

Genuinely, I think it might be the most ridiculous ending to a play that I've ever seen. It's completely unearned. Sure, it shocks you, but after three hours of snappy dialogue without much substance, it kind of comes out of nowhere. Almost like Butterworth realized that he had already written a three and a half hour play and had better wrap it up quickly. The ending becomes borderline melodramatic camp and doesn't really work for me.

[WayTooBroadway]

Posted: 11/20/18 at 9:39am

It’s the most delectable 11 o’clock number I’ve seen for a play. And tops other musicals, too.

[CT2NYC]

Posted: 11/20/18 at 9:50am

11 o'clock number? Not sure how that applies, since it all happens within 2 minutes of the show's end. I think you mean that it's the most delectable conclusion that you've ever seen in a play.

Updated On: 11/20/18 at 09:50 AM

[macnyc]

Posted: 11/20/18 at 10:38am

I did like the ending to Ferryman, and I am very happy to see the spoilers. It all happens so fast that it's easy to miss a few things. VotePeron, thanks a lot!

I don't feel the ending was unearned. Yes, most of the rest of the play feels like kitchen-sink drama, although more heightened and quirky. But I think the ending shows how the tension building up over the course of the three hours finally erupts.

I wanted to add two thoughts to VotePeron's great summary:

 

Click Here To Toggle Spoiler Content

When Muldoon was proposing (really, ordering) that Caitlin and her son move into a house Muldoon owns, and she would get free rent for a year, I got the feeling there was a sexual component in what he was setting up. He said something like, "Caitlin will be under my personal protection." I could see Quinn starting to burn up. I think the thought of losing Caitlin to Muldoon informs what happens next.

Also, I think Maggie Far Away's last words are open to interpretation. When she says, "They're here," she's talking about banshees, right? I didn't realize at the time that banshees mourn the deaths of people and also foretell death. So, are the banshees arriving to mourn the people already killed, or does it mean the whole Carney family is going to be killed?
 

Updated On: 11/20/18 at 10:38 AM

[JayElle]

Posted: 11/25/18 at 10:27pm

The play reminded me of Hitchcock movies: multiple subplots with an unexpected ending that pulls them all together. I thought it was brilliant and better than any play currently on Broadway, and that includes Mockingbird, Network, American Son.  The complexity of pulling all the pieces and people together was an accomplishment in itself.  

Now whether it will earn Best Play Tony, well that's another thing. I couldn't believe they gave Band's Visit the same number of Tonys as Hamilton. Apparently quality doesn't mean alot after last year's choice.

[JayElle]

Posted: 11/25/18 at 10:49pm

The ending also reminded me of Rod Serling's Twilight Show episodes.  Even tho the TV series was on 25 mins or so, Rod always had a gut puncher of an ending.  Classic example?  "To Serve Man."  No one saw that ending coming. For me, such was the case for the ending to The Ferryman.

[JayElle]

Posted: 11/25/18 at 10:50pm

The ending also reminded me of Rod Serling's Twilight Show episodes.  Even tho the TV series was on 25 mins or so, Rod always had a gut puncher of an ending.  Classic example?  "To Serve Man."  No one saw that ending coming. For me, such was the case for the ending to The Ferryman.

[Dancingthrulife2]

Posted: 11/26/18 at 1:28am

Well, to be honest I saw the ending coming miles away. It was just that I didn’t see it coming the specific way it did, and that was not a satisfying way to wrap it all up. I ended up laughing during the curtain, instead of welling up or being shocked as the author might have intended.

[Dancingthrulife2]

Posted: 11/26/18 at 1:28am

Well, to be honest I saw the ending coming miles away. It was just that I didn’t see it coming the specific way it did, and that was not a satisfying way to wrap it all up. I ended up laughing during the curtain, instead of welling up or being shocked as the author might have intended.

[MadsonMelo]

Posted: 11/26/18 at 6:46am

It's freaking' amazing.

 

[Scott19]

Posted: 11/26/18 at 7:58am

@madsonmelo - Exactly!!

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 11/26/18 at 8:08am

GeorgeandDot said: "Genuinely, I think it might be the most ridiculous ending to a play that I've ever seen. It's completely unearned. Sure, it shocks you, but after three hours of snappy dialogue without much substance, it kind of comes out of nowhere. Almost like Butterworth realized that he had already written a three and a half hour play and had better wrap it up quickly. The ending becomes borderline melodramatic camp and doesn't really work for me."

Respectfully disgree, GeorgeandDot, it's a brilliant ending to a masterpiece of a play, quite possibly the greatest dramatic work of our time.  The ending is tense, poetic and completely integrated with the overall narrative.  It is compelling and makes prefect sense politically, personally and historically. Ingeniously marries a slight twist (not at all a Rod Serling style twist) with catharsis.  And sets off the breathtaking Act I curtain as a profound foreshadowing.  

This is the greatest play of our generation.  It's faults - some moments may appear heavy handed, but aren't because they are truly profound, thoroughly earned.  The long scene with the boys in the second part of Act II may strike many as overwritten.  The kids are all great but putting such a prolonged dramatic scene on such young, albeit supremely talented, shoulders, is a huge risk.  It is, however, a brilliant scene, a one act play all its own, and one of the most striking dramatic treatments of bellicose toxic masculinity ever conceived.  

And then there are the scenes of such exquisite beauty that one is almost in a state of disbelief they are so blistering.  Maggie's scene with the girls that begins Act II.  Tom's proposal to a Caitlyn (a scene that Chekhov might have wished he had penned) is one of the most beautiful scenes I have ever scene in any drama.  And the pivotal and gorgeous scene between Mary and Quinn when they finally confront their marriage, her illness and the future - with only as much transparency as their souls can tolerate.

There is only one word that does this play justice:  GLORIOUS.

***
I did not see the ending coming a mile away.  I thought the ending would be different but also satisfying.  Even just before Tom's entrance, I foresaw something quite different that could have dramatically been satisfying.

COUNTER-SPOILER ALERT:

Oisin kills Tom.  Muldoon kills Shane.  One dead English innocent, one dead hopped up on patriotism Irish kid .

Obviously, Butterworth's ending far surpasses what I foresaw.


 

Updated On: 11/26/18 at 08:08 AM

[C4b2a3b]

Posted: 1/25/19 at 2:36pm

SPOILER QUESTION:

 

Everything happens so fast in that last scene, but I wanted to clarify: Muldoon kills Shane? Or is that more in the sense that Muldoon murders Shane's innocence? I honestly just don't remember. 

[LLW2]

Posted: 1/25/19 at 6:57pm

C4b2a3b said: "SPOILER QUESTION:



Everything happens so fast in that last scene, butI wanted to clarify: Muldoon kills Shane? Or is that more in the sense that Muldoon murders Shane's innocence? I honestly just don't remember."

Neither. That was the ending henrikegerman had thought would happen. (And in henrikegerman's imagined version, Tom is the dead English innocent and Shane is the dead hopped-up-on-patriotism Irish kid.)

Updated On: 1/25/19 at 06:57 PM

[C4b2a3b]

Posted: 1/25/19 at 7:43pm

OHHH! Thanks! I see what happened there.

[Mike Barrett]

Posted: 1/25/19 at 8:49pm

This was the most exhilarating ending I have ever seen on stage. One of my favorite shows of all time and I will never forget just the simple feeling of shock after this show stuck with me for so long, in the best wha possible.

[BenElliott]

Posted: 1/25/19 at 9:06pm

Count me among those that found the ending unintentionally comedic and not particularly earned. I agree that it fell into the world of melodramatic camp. I don't think this play is as good as its been made out to be. It's enjoyable, but filled to the brim with cliches. It's also unfocused and even though the play is over three hours long, none of the characters are explored to their full potential and often feel like tropes. Instead of balancing flavors, Butterworth has emptied the entire spice rack into this play. If something worked in another play, it must work here then. The ending is bizarre and a good deal of the audience chuckled at it. Also the manipulative music was hysterical.

Irish soap opera.

[Mike66]

Posted: 1/25/19 at 9:18pm

Please consider the wonderful structure of the play:

Oisin lets the goose out, probably hoping it can escape its fate.  Which of course it cant.  Nor can he.  (Nor can any of us...)

What happens to the Goose??  What could possibly happen to a Goose being fattened for the feast? -- only one of two things.....

[Mike66]

Posted: 1/25/19 at 9:25pm

I too would have bet my after show cheesecake that there would be a murder -- and definitely after the proposal scene I was sure I knew who was going to die.

All credit to the writer, the director and the cast to tell such a wonderful tale.

[pathman2]

Posted: 1/26/19 at 8:38am

I loved the ending! Never heard of banshees though but just educated myself. Does Maggie Far Away mention them? I thought her story referred to the ferryman/ferrymen on the river Styx.

SPOILER:








Maybe Im being too literal with the title, but my interpretation was that Maggie Far Away was yelling that the ferrymen were there (and they would need to pay).

[TheQuibbler]

Posted: 1/26/19 at 9:28am

I think I would have been content with the ending if it weren't for

 

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the completely ridiculous Of Mice and Men rip-off of a plot development. Oisin's entire arc regarding Lenny-I-mean-Tom felt half-baked anyway and this turn of events felt unnecessarily cruel (and, frankly, comical). The mentally-challenged-gentle-giant-who-turns-violent-and-doesn't-understand-it is a tired trope and perhaps a little offensive (do the mentally challenged always have to be victims or perpetrators? can't they just be?).

It's a real shame because it releases all the tension the show has been working so hard to build in the previous three hours. I don't think I've ever seen a play where the last three minutes nearly collapse the entire production. 

[JBroadway]

Posted: 1/26/19 at 10:38am

pathman2 said: "I loved the ending! Never heard of banshees though but just educated myself. Does Maggie Far Away mention them? I thought her story referred to the ferryman/ferrymen on the river Styx.

SPOILER


Maybe Im being too literal with the title, but my interpretation was that Maggie Far Away was yelling that the ferrymen were there (and they would need to pay)."

 

 

Maggie does indeed mention the Banshees earlier in the play during her story. And she continues referring to them throughout act 3, though not by name. The poster above is correct that they forecast death, 

 

Maggie's story in act 2, taken from the script:

"A month after the Rising I came home from school and I found the back door of the house wide open. And I went out, and out there behind our house was my big sister. Standing out in the field, holding Michael's pistol. All alone. 

(pause)

Except she wasn't alone. There were others in the field with her. They were the Banshees. Ten thousand........And they were all screaming. Screaming in unison. Screaming and pointing at the sky"

 

Then, earlier in act 3, Maggie says:

"There's something there. What's out there?....There's something. Can you not hear the sound?.....Far off. But it's coming closer. I know that sound. I heard it long ago. They're coming" 

[Mike66]

Posted: 1/26/19 at 2:08pm

It's Uncle Pat who talks about the Ferryman on the River Styx.  His point being that The Ferryman cannot take a soul to rest (to either heaven or hell) until there is a body.  So Uncle Pat inquires of the priest as to what happens to someone's soul in the time between death and the discovery of the body of the deceased.

The written play states specifically that Aunt Maggie Far Away hears Banshees in the final scene.

Updated On: 1/26/19 at 02:08 PM