When I got to the ranch in the hills north of Malibu, he was zooming about on an ATV, doing wild circles around the photographer and creating a cloud of dust. I had seen Efron’s biceps earlier, while on set for his photo shoot. I spot a vein so protuberant that it looks like it’s about to exit his skin. After Zac Efron removes his jacket and drapes it over the chair beside him, my eyes immediately zoop to his biceps peeking out from beneath his T-shirt. He chose the right path and escaped the grass forever.WELL, THERE THEY ARE. They were not redeemed.īut the man who willingly stayed behind to save his unborn child atoned for his sins was, and as he closed his eyes for the final time he looked skyward, to a beautiful blue and infinite bliss. The ground opens, and it’s revealed those damned souls were absorbed into its roots where they were made to suffer for eternity. We see the fate of those who succumbed to the rock’s evil when Becky gives birth in front of it. Travis is also saved, even though he dies. This time she chooses to turn around and go home to raise her baby with her family. The non-linear nature of time in the grass makes it so everything is happening at once, and since those trapped in it are reborn again and again, it gives Becky a chance to take a different path entirely. He stops them from ever entering the grass by showing Becky the charm Travis gave him, after Travis took it from a dead Becky earlier. There, Tobin is able to warn Becky and Cal to ignore a past Tobin’s cries from the grass. Whatever “wisdom” the rock gave Travis allows him to send Tobin out, back to the church on the side of the road. “I’m not leaving, but you… you don’t belong here, and neither does Becky,” Travis says, “Don’t let them in.” He knows Tobin was right, he could never leave the grass after touching the rock, but the others still have a chance to escape its clutches. Did Travis believe Ross when he told him the rock would redeem him? Was it a desperate attempt to discover a path out? Was he tempted by it after taking another person’s life? Whatever the reason, when he did place his hand on the rock, it connected him with the underworld that gave the grass its dark power, as red light–resembling the blood that had been spilled on its soil for so long–emanated out.īut unlike Ross, who continued to feed the evil–murdering again and again and even feeding Becky her newborn baby–Travis uses his powers for good. Tobin, Ross’s young son, warns Travis–who wanders into the grass after stumbling on Becky and her brother’s car in a nearby parking lot–of that same fate after he kills Ross, but Travis touches it anyway.
“Eating” the rock’s knowledge trapped Ross there forever without his humanity, in a place he calls “The Garden of Forking Paths.” In the Biblical Paradise, eating the tree’s fruit gave Adam and Eve wisdom but led to their banishment forever.