Frankenstein’s monster must always turn on his creator, and with one punch directed at Wade Garrett’s face, Dalton renders himself monstrous. Look: You can see his fear of what he’s becoming all over his face. It’s not just that he tried to strike his mentor down, though one can only imagine what he would have felt and done had he succeeded. It’s that the violence within himself, the violence he has kept at bay for years by obeying the Three Simple Rules and walking the Dalton Path, the violence he lets out only when it’s time to not be nice, the violence that has haunted him since Memphis—that violence is besting him, growing beyond his control. The dam sprang a leak and it is only through good fortune and Wade Garrett’s own skill that he was able to plug it back up before drowning. Will others be so lucky?
Dalton thinks—Dalton knows, I suspect—that the answer is no. This is why, when he gainsays Frank Tilghman’s assertion that Brad Wesley is afraid of him, he’s only telling half the story. Dalton is afraid of Brad Wesley because Brad Wesley is not afraid of him—because without that fear Wesley is free to act in such a way as to bring out the side of Dalton that Dalton is afraid of. It’s that side of him that scares him worse than anything.
Perhaps he can see himself mirrored in Wade Garrett’s eyes in this moment. Perhaps he sees what is happening to him as clearly as we do. The horror, the horror of knowing what you’re capable of, and feeling powerless to stop it.
Tags: dalton, road house, wade garrett