MONDO EXTRAS

Lucky her.

Anyhow, we're back in the present day, and the changed man that is Rob Lowe is back at his mother's grave site, reading that note she wrote him all those years ago. ("Dear son: Please don't be such a raging tool. Or I'll haunt you from beyond the grave. Spookily yours, Mom.") That task having been completed, Rob Lowe turns to leave the cemetery, crossing paths once more with the Red-Sox-cap-wearing stranger from the first scene. Say... Nathan wore a cap like that... you don't suppose he grew up to be... ? Yes, actually. Yes, he did. Because as has already been established in this story, no matter what twists and turns life takes, these two characters will keep crossing paths until the both of them are toothless old men.

So what did we learn from all this, people? Besides the fact that Rob Lowe was kind of a jerk. Or that a garden-variety act of kindness is apparently enough to build a 93-minute movie around these days. Or that if you're going to leave The West Wing because Martin Sheen gets all the good scenes, you better have some good alternative projects lined up. Well, for the answer to that question, I think I'll turn the floor over to my good friend Rob Lowe, to give us one last departing thought via voice-over: "If we're open to it, the smallest of miracles can change our lives. "A laughing child. A pot roast dinner. A car that needs fixing. Even a pair of shoes." Or a cheesy TV movie -- that works pretty well too.

Merry Christmas to all y'all.