Christine

Leigh and Dennis find LeBay’s registration slip for the 1958 Plymouth and realize that his signature matches Arnie’s new one. Dennis talks to Kenny about Arnie’s negative transformation and the romantic moment with Leigh. Dennis thinks his father wanted to be a toymaker; now, Kenny makes toys during the holiday season, donating them to the Salvation Army.

Dennis wants to contact George LeBay, so he calls the secretary of the Libertyville American Legion, Richard McCandless, who views Rollie LeBay as extremely antisocial. McCandless fought in World War II without incurring even a scar; however, when he and his friends tried to play a joke on LeBay by lifting Christine’s back tires, LeBay drove away as if all four tires were on the ground. McCandless got a scar, and another person lost most of a finger. LeBay laughed, but the Legion kicked him out.

Dennis calls Arnie and speaks to Regina, who worries that Arnie is oversleeping and did not apply to college. Dennis then talks to Arnie, who sounds like LeBay. Nevertheless, on New Year’s Eve, Dennis goes to Arnie’s house, where Christine is parked in the driveway. They drink, and Arnie smokes a cigar. Arnie plans to go to California with Christine after graduation. He wants Leigh to come, but Dennis tells Arnie about Leigh’s college aspirations. Arnie wonders if Dennis is “moving in” on Leigh.

Arnie speculates that the “Colombians” killed Darnell. When he gets in Christine to take Dennis home, he makes a LeBay-like sexist comment. Dennis thinks the door handle feels like skin and sees LeBay driving and LeBay’s wife and daughter in the car. The outside scene changes and Dennis thinks they’re in the late 1950s. A figure who’s a mix of LeBay and Arnie tells Dennis to stay on their side. At home, Kenny realizes that something’s wrong with his son, but Dennis can’t explain what he just experienced.

Junkins dies in a car crash on a “lonely country road,” and Dennis knows that Christine was involved. McCandless sends George’s number to Dennis, and Dennis calls him and updates him about the situation. George says their mother called LeBay a “changeling.” He was a good baby until Puck came when LeBay was around six months old.

George suspects that his brother, at age 12, burned down a bully’s house, killing him and most of his family, and that, a year later, he somehow killed another boy by drowning him under thin ice. In addition, George suggests that LeBay let Rita die: He and Veronica had the same stories about her death. George speculates that LeBay was involved in Veronica’s death too.

In the Kentucky Fried Chicken parking lot, Leigh and Dennis kiss and brainstorm how to destroy Christine. Leigh and Dennis conceal their relationship partly out of safety and partly because they like the feeling of “sneaking around.” Dennis learns that Arnie is applying to the same colleges as Leigh.

Arnie enters the parking lot and sees Dennis and Leigh together. Dennis feels like Christine brought him there. Arnie’s face turns into LeBay’s face, and he calls Dennis a “shitter.” As Arnie pulls away, Leigh sees LeBay’s corpse driving the car.

Dennis calls Arnie’s parents, asking Michael to call him if Arnie goes out of town. Michael realizes that the request involves Christine and promises to call. Dennis then calls Jimmy Sykes to request the keys to Darnell’s garage because Arnie left expensive tools there. Next, he calls Brad Jeffries, who puts him in touch with Johnny Pomberton. Pomberton can get Dennis a large vehicle.

Dennis gets the keys from Jimmy after Jimmy’s mother tells him to look for the keys in his pocket. At school, Arnie confronts Dennis about Leigh, and Dennis reminds Arnie that he chose Christine over Leigh. Dennis also calls Arnie out for harboring LeBay’s malicious spirit. Arnie kicks one of Dennis’s crutches and threatens him. Dennis brings up the ant farms they used to keep, and Arnie admits that he’s helpless.

LeBay takes over Arnie and threatens Dennis. Dennis tells LeBay to come to Darnell’s garage tonight. If he doesn’t, Dennis and Leigh will start to talk. Dennis gets in his car, tells LeBay that Leigh is “great in bed,” and then drives away while flipping LeBay the middle finger.

Pomberton rents Dennis a pink septic tank truck called Petunia. It weighs almost 9,000 pounds and has a manual transmission. The truck is loud, and Pomberton doesn’t check to see if Dennis has a license to operate it. Driving the burdensome truck causes Dennis pain. He goes to Libertyville Lunch for coffee and a pastry. Leigh joins him, bringing him a painkiller. They joke about the truck’s size, look, and purpose.

Michael calls and tells Dennis that Arnie is going out of town. He and Regina will visit Penn State after school. Dennis wants his family and Michael to stay with Leigh’s family. Michael is skeptical but promises to call Dennis’s and Leigh’s fathers.

The door to Darnell’s garage is covered in ice, and when Dennis and Leigh open the door, the ice breaks off, hitting Dennis, and he falls. His pain increases, and he must use a mop to work Petunia’s clutch. Leigh and Dennis joke about the garage’s atmosphere. Leigh spots the remote garage opener and dismantles it.

Dennis tells Leigh his plan: She must leave the truck to open the door and entice Christine. Once Christine enters the garage, Leigh will close the door, and Dennis will use Petunia to crush Christine. Citing Thomas Malory’s knightly stories in Morte D’Arthur (1485), Leigh asks Dennis to be her knight, tying a pink scarf around his forearm.

Christine’s bright headlights and loud engine signal her appearance outside the garage. Leigh presses the button, trapping Christine, but Christine targets Leigh. Leigh lifts herself using the bars of a high shelf. Christine smashes into the wall below her, and Leigh’s head hits the wall, causing her to bleed.

Dennis starts to smash Christine, and Leigh runs into Darnell’s office. Dennis notices that Michael is in Christine’s passenger seat, and his complexion indicates that he died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Dennis hears Christine’s radio, and as Christine tries to attack Leigh, Dennis, in great pain, continues to smash the car. Though Dennis wrecks Christine and causes a fire, the car fixes itself, so Dennis keeps smashing it, even when he sees Veronica and Rita standing in front of it.

Eventually, police and paramedics arrive. Leigh has a concussion and scalp laceration, but she won’t have scars. Dennis is back in the hospital. He didn’t break his leg, so he’ll be able to walk again. Rick Mercer stops by and tells Dennis that his and Leigh’s families are fine. However, Arnie and Regina died on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. A witness claims that three people were in Regina’s Volvo, and a struggle occurred. The police think they picked up a nefarious hitchhiker. Dennis tells Rick the real story, and Rick takes him seriously. Leigh’s father doesn’t believe her, but Dennis’s parents are more understanding.

Dennis and Leigh break up because they sense LeBay’s presence around them. Leigh marries a man who works for IBM, and she has two daughters. Dennis becomes a history teacher and continues to have nightmares about LeBay and Arnie. At the funeral for Arnie and his parents, Mercer tells Dennis that the police crushed Christine into a little cube. However, Dennis reads about a suspicious car accident in Los Angeles involving Sandy Galton. He wonders whether the car will come for him next.