A happy ending, right?? Yeah, for like ONE MILLISECOND.
Sean goes back to work where everyone claps for him because they are nice and he just fulfilled his singular all-consuming quest to avenge his son, and he, a dick, yells at them for it. In his office, he opens up his son’s murder file to stare at it meaningfully (the file is under “carousel sniper victim”—what filing system is that??), when, uh-oh, Special Ops want a word! And it’s not “keep your face on”!
The Special Ops agents, CCH Pounder and Tito, show Sean a zip drive containing a horny cartoon who’s like, “My name is Sinclaire, and I am going to blow you……….…AWAY!!!!!!!” because in the ’90s we were really worried that bad guys were going to use computers to do scary stuff to us like send sarcastic e-cards about bombs. We didn’t realize they’d just trick us into using our own computers to voluntarily destroy ourselves! Sinclaire is the name of that big bomb I mentioned earlier—“enough [bomb] to flatten a square mile and unleash a biblical plague on LA”—and Pollux is refusing to tell the FBI anything about the bomb unless they let him see Castor.
So, okay, let him. Problem solved, right?
No? You guys have a different idea? I assume it won’t interfere with my 2:00 p.m. lovemaking appointment with my angry wife, haha, right, guys?
Guys?
CCH Pounder and Tito take Sean to a top-secret underground medical facility. Castor Troy is there, asleep in a hospital bed, and apparently Sean thought he had died? He screams, “Oh, god, you’re keeping him alive!” And instead of saying, “Yes, Sean, even incarcerated criminals have a right to lifesaving medical intervention,” they’re like, “Relax, Archer, he’s a turnip.”
Now the secret lab doctor explains the plan. Pollux Troy will only talk to his brother, right? So what we’re gonna do is take this turnip’s face off, and take your face off, and then put his face on your face. Then you’re the turnip and you can talk to the brother! It’s the only way to save Los Angeles, sorry.
Sean Archer is like, “Exqueese me?” And the doctor is like, “A sphincter says, ‘No, thank you, I do not want to have my face taken off,’” and Sean is like, “Touché,” because nobody wants to be a sphincter! So now he has to do it because in the ’90s this qualified as a binding contract. Only the highest court in the land can overrule a sphincter clause!
Sean Archer has to take his face…off.
It’s the only way. It’s literally the only way. No one in the entire FBI can possibly think of any other way. There’s obviously no other way! And Sean is definitely the only one who can do it. They can take someone’s face…off, but it would be absolutely impossible for anyone else in the FBI to memorize some stuff about Castor Troy’s life! Come on, Sean! “If you don’t, the bomb will blow, and Castor Troy will win.” Love 2 be emotionally abused by my job into taking my face…off!
“You’re asking me to break the law, risk my neck, and you’re asking me to put in the dark all the people that love me and trust me…I’ll do it.” You dick.
He heads home to break the news to his wife that, sorry, he’s just going to disappear for an undisclosed period of time and almost definitely die on one last secret mission that he can’t tell her anything about, but before he can get to all that, she jumps in: “I’m glad it’s you that woke me, and not a phone call telling me you won’t be coming home. But that’s a fear I can finally let go of.”
He looks at her like a golden retriever that just ate a whole beef Wellington. “Well………”
DUDE.
GO DIE.
MA’AM, THERE ARE OTHER SEANS WITH BAD PERSONALITIES OUT THERE. PLEASE UNCHAIN YOURSELF FROM THIS FUNGUS.
It’s time for the procedure. Archer shows the doc the hole from the bullet that killed his son and asks if he can “put his scar back on” after he’s done being Castor Troy. I don’t even know why they’re bothering to take it off (or how?), but doc says no prob. Sean takes his wedding ring off and gives it to Tito.
Then they take his face…off.
And they take Nicolas Cage’s face…off.
They cut around the face and then they use the face vacuum to slurp up the face.
Now Travolta’s face is in a tub.
Now they give John Travolta the horrible baby bangs of Cage.
Now Cage face go on Travolta.
They put a chip in his throat so now he has the voice of Nicolas Cage.
Are you following this?
Then Sean Archer wakes up and he just is Castor Troy! And he loves it! And he hates it! He screams in agony and he smashes the mirror. “Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you! When this is over, I want you to take this face and burn it!”
There is no other movie where they do less to explain the science.
It doesn’t seem possible, but the next phase of the plan is even stupider and worse. Now, I’m not in the Lady FBI, I didn’t graduate from QUEENtico, so what do I know, but it SEEMS LIKE if you need to get information from Pollux Troy, you could just have him in a room, like maybe the room where you interviewed him before, and then put Sean-Archer-as-Castor in the room also, and have them talk to each other? Are you actually worried that Pollux is going to see right through this insane fucking plan? I know that whenever my brother’s acting a little weird, my first assumption is that the FBI has taken his face…off
