The grandmother urges Bailey to vacation in Tennessee instead of Florida, warning that The Misfit has escaped prison.

The grandmother secretly hides her cat Pitty Sing in a basket and smuggles him into the family car.

The family stops at The Tower, a roadside barbecue restaurant, and orders lunch from Red Sammy and his wife.

Red Sammy tells the family that a good man is hard to find and that times have changed for the worse.

The grandmother recognizes an area near a plantation she once visited and convinces the family to take a detour.

Bailey turns the car down a dirt road toward the old plantation after the children demand to see it.

The grandmother realizes with horror that the plantation she wanted to visit is actually in Tennessee, not Georgia.

The grandmother's startled reaction knocks over the cat basket, and Pitty Sing leaps onto Bailey's shoulder while he drives.

Bailey loses control of the car, and it crashes off the road, rolling into a ditch.

A large black hearse-like car slowly rolls to a stop on the road above the stranded family.

The grandmother recognizes the driver as The Misfit and blurts out his name, sealing the family's fate.

The Misfit orders Bailey and John Wesley to walk into the woods with his companions Hiram and Bobby Lee.

Two gunshots ring out from the woods, signaling that Bailey and John Wesley have been killed.

The Misfit instructs the children's mother to take June Star and the baby into the woods with his companions.

The grandmother reaches out and touches The Misfit on the shoulder, and he shoots her three times in the chest.

A Southern grandmother tries and fails to reroute the family vacation to Tennessee, warning about the escaped criminal known as The Misfit. The family stops for lunch and presses on toward Florida, with the grandmother eventually manipulating everyone into a detour toward a plantation house she once visited. Her mortifying realization that the house is in the wrong state triggers an accident that leaves the family stranded in a roadside ditch. The Misfit and his companions arrive, and the grandmother's recognition of him seals the family's fate. One by one, the family members are led into the woods and killed, leaving the grandmother alone with The Misfit. Her final act of reaching out to touch him ends in her death, completing the family's tragic journey from home to destruction.

The central events driving a family's fatal road trip.

John Wesley rudely tells the grandmother she can simply stay home if she doesn't want to go to Florida.

June Star correctly predicts the grandmother would never stay behind because she always goes everywhere the family goes.

The grandmother dresses in her Sunday best with hat and gloves so she would be recognized as a lady if found dead.

The grandmother spots a poor Black boy by the roadside and immediately makes a racist remark about him.

The family drives past a plantation graveyard and the grandmother notes that the plantation houses themselves are long gone.

The grandmother entertains the children with a story about a suitor who carved his initials into watermelons as gifts.

Red Sammy explains he was recently swindled by customers he trusted, and the grandmother praises him as a good man.

Red Sammy and the grandmother reminisce about more trusting times and blame Europe for the current state of the country.

The children go outside to play near the service station and encounter a chained monkey sitting in a chinaberry tree.

John Wesley excitedly plans how the family will break into the plantation house to discover the rumored secret panel.

Three men step out of the hearse-like car and climb down into the ditch where the family is stranded.

June Star defiantly challenges The Misfit, asking why he thinks he can give orders to the family.

John Wesley notices one of the men has a gun and asks him directly what he plans to do with it.

The Misfit pauses to apologize to the grandmother and the mother for appearing before them without a shirt.

Hiram and Bobby Lee return from the woods carrying Bailey's shirt, which they hand over to The Misfit.

These events capture the texture of the family's road trip — the rude exchanges between the grandmother and her grandchildren, her casual racism, and her deep nostalgia for a vanished Southern past. The Tower stop with Red Sammy and his wife provides dark comic relief while establishing the story's central theme of disappearing goodness. Small details — the chained monkey, John Wesley's eager plans for the plantation house, and the arrival of The Misfit's stone-faced companions — fill in the gaps around the main story beats. The grandmother's eagerness to label strangers as good people contrasts sharply with the cold indifference of the men who eventually surround the family. Together, these moments reveal how the family's blind spots and petty squabbles leave them entirely unprepared for the fate closing in on them.

The supporting moments that build character and foreshadow disaster.

John Wesley calls Georgia a hillbilly dumping ground, offending the grandmother who defends her home state and the past.

The family stops for lunch and plays a cloud-watching game to pass the time during the long drive.

The grandmother wakes from a nap in the car and suddenly recognizes the familiar landscape outside the window.

The grandmother lies to the children about the plantation having a hidden secret panel to spark their excitement.

Bailey complains about how far they have driven on the hilly, washed-out dirt road toward the plantation house.

The family settles into the ditch after the crash, and the grandmother quietly decides not to mention her mistake.

Bailey steps forward and tells the armed strangers that the family is in a predicament, trying to reason with them.

Hiram forces Bailey toward the woods, but Bailey turns back to call out to his mother one last time.

The grandmother asks The Misfit whether he ever prays, and he says no.

The Misfit lists his former occupations, including gospel singer, and insists he was never truly a bad person.

The Misfit explains he was sent to prison, felt buried alive, and has no memory of the crime he committed.

The Misfit tells the grandmother that punishment comes regardless of what a person actually did or remembered doing.

Left alone with The Misfit, the grandmother repeats the name of Jesus in a tone that sounds like cursing.

The Misfit explains he gave himself his name because his punishment never matched his crime.

After all the killings, The Misfit tells his companions to be quiet because life holds no real pleasure.

This pool focuses on the moments of internal shift and moral reckoning that shape the story's dark conclusion. The grandmother's manipulation of the children with false stories about a plantation house sets the family on a fatal course, and her silence after the crash compounds the damage already done. Once The Misfit arrives, the real confrontation begins — not merely physical but deeply philosophical, as The Misfit reveals his history of arbitrary punishment and his nihilistic view of morality. Their exchange strips away the grandmother's comfortable beliefs, exposing the shallow foundations of her self-declared goodness. The grandmother's final moment — calling The Misfit one of her own children — represents either genuine grace or desperate survival instinct, and the story refuses to fully resolve which. The pool closes with The Misfit's chilling remark after the killings, suggesting that even the capacity for cruelty brings him no real satisfaction.