At the funeral of Mitch Baylor, Drew stands cradling the cremation urn in his arms. Mourners look on as the casket is closed on Mitch's remaining effects, including a rose, some letters, a framed photo of himself, and one silly blue suit. As the casket is lowered into the ground, it suddenly drops with a great plunge, followed by another. Nervous laughter is stifled.

Back in his car for the journey home, Drew waves goodbye to Elizabethtown and is noticed only by Samson. Drew turns to the passenger seat, where Mitch's urn is belted in, and opens Claire's map. The map is an enormous scrapbook charting a 42-hour road trip, accompanied by mix CDs to listen to along the way.

Drew exits the city limits of Elizabethtown and explains in voiceover that Claire had burned CDs containing classic mix tape songs about such topics as herself and "the rich flurry of our almost romance." Finally, Drew passes exit 60B.

Drew stops briefly at a magazine rack to pick up the new issue of Global Business Today, featuring a cover article entitled "FIASCO! Inside the Meltdown at Mercury Shoes." Flipping to the article, Drew indulges in the five minutes of self-pity allowed by Claire's itinerary, before continuing on to scatter a handful of Mitch's ashes in the Mississippi River.

For the residents of Elizabethtown, though they are no longer able to bury his actual body, Mitch's funeral is a symbolic laying to rest of a beloved friend whose generosity and good spirit has touched their lives. For the viewers of Elizabethtown, this burial may symbolize even more, such as a tragic farewell to the last 100 minutes of their lives. For Hollie Baylor, of course, decked out in a white suit and bright flower corsage, it represents yet another chance to mine comedy from her husband's demise.

And so, the prodigal son finally takes his leave of Elizabethtown. But rather than the flamboyant welcome he was afforded upon his arrival a scant four days ago, Drew's departure is met with passive disinterest from all but young Samson, perhaps the only sympathetic character introduced in the entire film. Indeed, it is Samson's uncommon perspective on the mental illness of his fellow townspeople that allows him to recognize Drew as the lesser of two evils.

Nevertheless, it cannot be said that Drew failed to make his mark on Elizabethtown; although his initial fears about fitting in with relatives and family friends appear to have gone unaddressed by the film, in fact we can see from their absent send-off that Drew's wax-like passivity has infected the population like a disease. This is especially impressive considering the overwhelming majority of Elizabethtownies, and the probability of their quirky derangement having more of an influence on him -- such is the potency of Drew's dullness.

When Drew opens Claire's map, we learn what Claire has been doing in the few days since she made Drew promise he would drive part of the way back home, lest any of us suspected that she ever went back to work. While it may seem like a stretch to suggest that Claire applied and trained for employment as a flight attendant for the sole purpose of meeting Drew and starring in this movie, the disquieting intricacy of this "unique" map reminds us that Claire's time budgeting holds many surprises for the ordinary human mind.

Claire's map is so detailed, in fact, that in addition to frightening Polaroids of Claire brandishing a sharp-looking pair of scissors, she has included such instructions as "turn on the ignition" and "begin your journey." Drew's voiceover, "She had laid out the entire road trip and timed it to music she herself had put on CDs," is intended to clarify but only confuses the matter of how Claire might have predicted every time he would hit traffic, stop at a red light, need a bathroom break, or have to stop the car and stand in one place to use his cell phone (a habit he may have picked up from Ellen).

None of this is to neglect the issue of why anyone would enjoy an entire road trip set to "classic mix tape songs." Indeed, just as Claire instructs Drew to hit "play" on his car stereo, Cameron Crowe all but challenges the audience to press "stop" on their DVD players. The narrative thrust -- such as it was -- is now officially behind us, replaced with literal POV shots of freeway travel set to whatever music was on Crowe's iPod while editing Elizabethtown.