After busting up Elaine's wedding, Ben and Elaine escape on a Santa Barbara city bus. Yet, as they drive away, their happy and exhilarated expressions fade to neutral. What are they thinking? Clearly, they're not going to be able to have a quintessentially "normal" life. Elaine's running away with the very guy who had an affair with her mother and provoked her parents' divorce. Pleasant Thanksgivings with the in-laws don't exactly appear to be in the cards.

The enormity of what they've done and of the risks they've just taken seems to be setting in. They're not necessarily regretting it, but they're realizing that the future is something they're going to need to reckon with. The stares of the riders on the bus and the uncertain expressions of Ben and Elaine tell us all we need to know about life's uncertainties and their unknowable future.