The kids are upset about the development. They recall that Maria sings about her “Favourite Things” when she’s upset, so they try it. After just four lines of the song Gretl (the youngest daughter) asks: “Why don’t I feel better?”. Because it’s a shitty song, Gretl. They make another feeble attempt to continue the song, but suddenly, something horrible happens – we hear Maria’s voice! Out of all the streams she could ford she picked the one that flows through the Captain’s manor. Her voice joins the children’s and together they complete the song happily. Everyone’s overjoyed and Maria tells the kids that she has so much to tell them all. Wait, didn’t she just spend an entire week or so in seclusion? What can she possibly have to tell the kids? Nobody wants to hear what the voices have been whispering to you, Maria!

“And then there’s Devil Kitty…her whiskers are my favourite of all!”

Just when everything seems perfect Brigitta punches Maria in the face…figuratively speaking. She announces that the Captain and Baroness Schraeder are getting married. Maria turns around, ready to return to the Abbey, for good this time. Unfortunately, before she can leave the Captain comes out. He confuses the kids by telling them to go get their dinner, which he earlier told them they can’t have. Then Von Trapp accusingly tells Maria that she left without saying goodbye and asks why she did it. She says it doesn’t matter now – she’ll stay here until a new governess is found. During their talk the Baroness comes out as well. She’s happy to see Maria (die in a terrible accident). Maria congratulates the Captain and the Baroness on the upcoming marriage and begins plotting their deaths.

Evening scene. The Captain is standing on the balcony and shamelessly checking out Maria who’s walking by the lake, pretending like she doesn’t know he’s watching. Baroness Schraeder comes out and starts bombarding Von Trapp with her thoughts on the wedding gift she’s thinking of giving him. She says that she could buy him a villa or a yacht and take him around the world for their honeymoon. She obviously hasn’t heard any of the life lessons taught by The Beatles. Oh, right, 1930s.

“Here are 5 gold coins. Exactly how much love does that buy me?”

The Captain finally realises that this sham of a relationship cannot go on and starts to say so. The Baroness, attempting to save face,  interrupts and breaks up with him instead. Amazingly, she does a complete 180 and turns from a jealous wreck to understanding personified. Baroness Schraeder says Von Trapp is not the right man for her since he’s too independent and doesn’t want her or her money desperately enough. She thanks him for the time they’ve spent together and tells him to go get Maria. In any modern movie this would have been followed up with a scene where she hires a hitman to shoot Maria in the kneecaps. Here, however, the Baroness genuinely means every word. She says goodbye and walks off, never to be seen again.

Von Trapp walks down to the lake and joins Maria at a bench. He awkwardly tries to initiate a conversation about their mutual feelings. After minutes filled with “uuhms” and awkward pauses he finally announces that he won’t marry the Baroness. Then he gets up and walks to the gazebo. Aaah yes, the symbolic gazebo – the place where people dance, sing and remain virgins. Well played, good sir! He tells Maria he can’t marry the Baroness when he’s in love with another woman and kisses her. Maria reciprocates by singing loudly into his face. The song goes somewhere along the lines of “you love me now, which means I’ve done something good when I was a kid or a young woman”. This strange logic begs a number of questions: What the fuck does that even mean? If you do a good deed as a kid your future adult love life is secured? At what stage is it too late to do good? And, most importantly – how much alcohol did the song writers have before writing these lyrics?

This much?

Maria pauses so that they can actually speak for a second. The Captain confesses that he fell in love with Maria when she stupidly sat on that pine cone during their first dinner. Maria says she fell in love when he blew that stupid whistle for the first time. Whatever you say, people – I’ve given up trying to understand you. Von Trapp and Maria are now singing together: “Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could”. Right, something comes from something, anything is something, something could mean anything…one can almost pinpoint the exact moment where the song writers have dropped all attempts at making sense. After the song is over the Captain wants to know whether there’s anyone he should ask for permission to marry Maria. How about a certified psychiatrist? Maria and Von Trapp in unison conclude that they should ask the children. Close enough, I guess.

Wedding day scene. Bells are ringing, nuns are singing, Maria is wearing a white wedding dress made of proper fabric. We see that she’s getting married in the now familiar Abbey. So, in a way, she did return to the Abbey, if only to mock the rest of the nuns, who are all already married to God. To add insult to injury, the nuns don’t even get to follow Maria into the interior of the cathedral where the wedding is taking place. Instead, they stay on the cloister side behind an iron gate, like prisoners. They sing the song from the beginning of the movie, where they call Maria a clown. Hardly appropriate on her wedding day, but she did kind of ask for it. Maria walks down the aisle, where the Captain and the kids await. The happy couple kneels before a priest who makes the sign of the cross. Von Trapp and Maria are now husband and wife. Camera pans upwards to reveal the countryside in the distance. THE END…

…is what I would be saying if this was any other movie. However, someone somewhere thought “hey, you know what’s better than a single consistent plot line in a film? Two plot lines!”. And so, instead of wrapping up on this nice wedding scene the movie continues with a disjointed sequence of events and a new plot development.

Seriously, this is a perfectly acceptable ending shot for like nine out of ten movies!

The grand finale of this never-ending movie is right here.

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