The Long Walk

When the endless march finally narrows to two, Peter McVries and Ray Garraty become each other’s only lifeline. McVries, who has repeatedly pulled Garraty back from collapse, finally decides to give up, dropping to the ground and letting the soldiers fire. Instead of letting his friend die, Garraty drags McVries to his feet and, in a heartbreaking reversal, chooses to end his own walk. At that moment the gunfire stops and only McVries remains standing.

With the last step taken, McVries inherits the prize that the competition promises—a single wish from the authoritarian Major. The loss of Garraty shatters the fragile moral compass that had guided McVries throughout the ordeal, and in a flash of rage he uses the wish not to escape but to exact vengeance, demanding a weapon and killing the Major who embodies the ruthless regime.

The film’s conclusion diverges sharply from Stephen King’s original novel, where Garraty survives, driven onward by a mysterious dark figure, and the story ends on a more existential, if still bleak, note. The cinematic version replaces that ambiguous triumph with a stark, revenge‑filled finale, placing the “winner” in a far darker place than the writer intended.

Ultimately, the ending underscores the story’s core question: can a person retain their humanity after being forced to watch friends fall one by one? McVries’s survival comes not with redemption but with a broken spirit and a thirst for retribution, suggesting that the true cost of the walk is the loss of the self‑same kindness that kept the contestants moving at all.

Last Updated: December 28, 2025 at 10:52