Willy Loman returns home early from a failed sales trip, struggling to stay focused and confusing past and present.

Linda urges Willy to ask his boss Howard for a New York office position so he can stop traveling.

Biff and Happy reminisce in their old bedroom and Biff considers approaching former employer Bill Oliver for startup money.

Linda tells Biff and Happy that Willy has tried to kill himself multiple times, including with a rubber hose.

Biff decides to ask Bill Oliver for a loan to launch a sporting goods business with Happy.

Howard tells Willy the company has no position for him and effectively fires him after over thirty years.

A memory surfaces of the Loman family cheerfully preparing to attend Biff's championship football game at Ebbets Field.

Willy visits Charley's office and is stunned to find that Bernard has grown into a successful lawyer.

Biff tells Happy that Bill Oliver had no memory of him whatsoever and never recognized him as a salesman.

Willy arrives at the restaurant dinner and announces that Howard fired him from the company.

In a Boston hotel room memory, young Biff discovers Willy's mistress and his faith in his father shatters.

Linda furiously confronts Biff and Happy for leaving Willy alone at the restaurant and orders them out of her house.

Biff tells Willy directly that neither of them is exceptional and that both are ordinary, replaceable people.

Willy sends his family to bed and then speeds away alone in his car.

At Willy's sparsely attended funeral, Linda says the house is finally paid off and cannot understand why he died.

Willy Loman returns home from a failed sales trip, unable to separate past from present, while Linda pushes him to seek a desk job and his sons debate whether to stay. After Linda reveals Willy's suicide attempts, Biff commits to asking former employer Bill Oliver for a business loan, giving Willy fragile hope. The next day, Willy is fired by Howard after thirty years, and at Charley's office he is stunned to find the once-unremarkable Bernard has become a celebrated lawyer. At the restaurant dinner, Willy learns that Oliver didn't remember Biff at all, and the evening spirals into Willy reliving his affair in a Boston hotel room. Biff confronts Willy with the raw truth that neither of them is special or destined for greatness. Willy, moved by Biff's tearful embrace, decides his insurance payout will be his greatest gift to his family, drives away alone, and the sparse crowd at his funeral proves every fantasy he held about being well-liked was an illusion.

The headline events of Willy Loman's final days.

In a memory, Willy surprises young Biff and Happy while they polish the family car and gives them a punching bag.

Young Bernard urgently warns the family that Biff will fail math and be unable to graduate without studying.

Willy inflates his sales figures to Linda before she calculates the real, much smaller earnings from his trip.

A woman appears in Willy's memory, laughing and thanking him for the stockings he brought to their hotel.

Charley comes over to the Loman house and invites Willy to play cards with him.

Happy pitches the idea of a joint sporting goods venture called the Loman Line to Willy and Biff.

Willy gives Biff detailed instructions on how to dress, act, and pitch himself when meeting with Bill Oliver.

Howard dismisses Willy's request and instead proudly demonstrates his new tape recorder with recordings of his children.

Charley tells Willy that success has nothing to do with being well-liked, directly challenging Willy's core belief.

Happy flirts with a call girl named Miss Forsythe at the restaurant before the rest of the family arrives.

Biff tells Happy that he impulsively stole Oliver's fountain pen on his way out of the building.

Willy repeatedly interrupts and talks over Biff as Biff tries to explain what happened in the Oliver meeting.

Happy tells two women at the restaurant that the disoriented old man is not his father and leaves with them.

Biff breaks down weeping in Willy's arms, and a moved Willy takes this as proof of his son's deep love.

Happy declares at Willy's grave that he will carry out his father's dreams and become the successful businessman Willy wanted.

Behind the main plot lies a rich web of secondary moments that define the Loman family's delusions and relationships. Willy's memories of coaching young Biff and dismissing Bernard's math warnings show how he planted the seeds of his son's overconfidence long ago, while his affair with the Woman and his exaggerated sales reports to Linda reveal the private lies holding the family together. Act II's secondary events — Howard's tape recorder dismissal, Charley's blunt lesson about success, and Happy's scheming at the restaurant — chip away at every illusion Willy has built. Biff's stolen fountain pen, Willy's inability to listen, and Happy's cruel denial of his father at the restaurant expose the depth of dysfunction passed down through the family. Biff's tearful embrace moves Willy in a way nothing else can, briefly restoring his delusions even as the night races toward tragedy. The pool closes with Happy's misguided graveside vow, showing how the Loman cycle of self-deception is doomed to continue.

The supporting scenes and secondary moments that shape the Lomans.

In a memory, an irritated Willy orders Linda to stop mending her old stockings and throw them away.

Ben appears as a hallucination while Willy plays cards with Charley, causing Willy to confuse the two conversations entirely.

In a memory, Ben spars physically with Biff and warns him to never fight fair with a stranger, unsettling Linda.

Biff discovers a rubber hose Willy secretly hid behind the gas heater as a means of killing himself.

Willy wakes in good spirits the next morning and Linda mentions their mortgage will finally be paid the following month.

Biff tells Linda that he himself was the one who removed and got rid of Willy's rubber hose.

In a memory, Ben offers Willy a timber job in Alaska, but Linda persuades Willy to stay and keep selling.

Bernard tells Willy that after failing math and visiting Willy in Boston, Biff came home completely changed and bitter.

In a memory that surfaces during dinner, young Bernard rushes to tell Linda that Biff has failed math and will not graduate.

Willy hears a hotel telephone operator's voice from the past and staggers toward a door in the restaurant.

In the Boston hotel memory, Biff calls Willy a liar and a phony, then grabs his suitcase and flees in tears.

Willy digs in the garden at night and talks to an imaginary Ben about whether his suicide will truly help his family.

Biff thrusts the rubber hose at Willy and says he will not pity him if he goes through with suicide.

Ben reappears and tells Willy the jungle is dark but full of diamonds, pushing him toward his final decision.

At the graveside, Biff quietly says that Willy never really knew who he was or what he truly wanted.

Pool 3 traces the emotional pivot points and hidden revelations that drive Willy toward his final decision. Early turning points — the stockings memory, Ben's ghostly arrival during a card game, and Biff's discovery of the hidden rubber hose — establish just how close Willy already is to the edge. A morning of fragile optimism and the mention of the almost-paid mortgage offer a brief illusion of stability, but Ben's Alaska memory and Bernard's revelation about Biff's Boston visit reopen wounds Willy cannot bear to examine. The dinner collapses entirely when Willy slips into the Boston hotel scene and the full betrayal plays out, leaving Biff in tears and Willy kneeling on the restaurant floor. Back home, Willy and Biff's garden confrontation — the rubber hose thrust forward, the tearful embrace, and Ben's diamond-jungle whisper — locks Willy into his fatal choice. The pool ends at the graveside where Biff quietly acknowledges the tragedy at the heart of his father's life: Willy never truly knew himself.