Then Forrest is like, “Say bye-bye, Jennay. They sending me to Vietnam. It’s this whole other country.” And Jennay is like, awwww, bye!
So Forrest goes to Vietnam. Right away, Gump and Bubba meet Lieutenant Dan “The Toolman” Taylor, an irascible shithead who will literally follow Gump around being awful until death. Lieutenant Dan tells Bubba not to get his lip caught on a trip wire, which is racist. Then he delivers his signature Lieutenant Dan socks lecture. LIEUTENANT DAN LOVES SOCKS. This becomes something of a tragic irony later.
The only thing Lieutenant Dan loves more than socks is getting blown up in a war. “Somebody in his family had fought and died in every single American war. I guess you could say he had a lot to live up to.” (Again, I kind of feel like Forrest’s problem isn’t that he’s stupid, it’s that literally everyone he ever meets is a fucking weirdo who makes no sense.)
One day, everybody blows up, and Forrest finds Bubba dying in the jungle.
Bubba: Forrest. I got one last thing to say.
Forrest: What is it, Bubba?
Bubba: I forgot…shrimp…ceviche.
Forrest: Bubba, please don’t die!
Bubba: Camarones…del…diablo.
Then Forrest goes, “Bubba was going to be a shrimpin’ boat captain, but instead he died right there by that river in Vietnam,” and if you claim you didn’t squeeze out at least ONE TEAR at that moment, then you’re a lying sack of shrimp! Sorry!!!
Gump gets shot in the butt while rescuing all his army friends from the exploding jungle, so he gets to go live in the hospital and eat ice cream 24-7. Turns out, Lieutenant Dan is in the bed next to him! (“FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!”—Lieutenant Dan.) Lieutenant Dan may have lost his legs, but he didn’t lose his horrible attitude! He mostly hangs around and verbally abuses Forrest for being an eternally optimistic font of pure joy.
One day, Jennay sends back all the letters Gump wrote her from Vietnam in one huge bundle. Like, Jennay, you didn’t need to SEND THEM BACK. You could have just thrown them in the garbage. You literally went to extra effort just to be a dickhead. Jennay sucks.
Gump picks up Ping-Pong while trying to kill time in the hospital, and it turns out he is a Ping-Pong wizard. Lieutenant Dan is so proud of Gump’s Pong skills that he throws him out of bed in the middle of the night to scream in his face about how much he wants to die. And it’s all Gump’s fault: “You cheated me! I had a destiny. I was supposed to die in the field, with honor.”
“This movie’s kinda weird.”—my kid.
Gump wins the Medal of Honor, affording him the opportunity to show Lyndon Johnson his ass wound. Because talking to American presidents about his genitals1 is kind of his thing.
Then Gump accidentally wanders into an anti-war rally on the Mall in Washington, and Jennay is at the protest OF COURSE and she’s like, “Forrest! Forrest!” and he’s like, “Jennay!” and they run out into that stank duck pond and hug. Then Jennay takes Gump to a Black Panther meeting, where her boyfriend Wesley (DIFFERENT WESLEY) slaps her in the face for no reason, so Gump is like GUUUUUUMP ATTAAAACK and punches him. Wesley explains that it’s actually Lyndon Johnson’s fault that he is violent toward women, so Jennay forgives him and goes off with him in a bus.
Forrest becomes an incredibly famous international Ping-Pong star (yes, a thing, I’m sure) and goes on Dick Cavett, where he meets John Lennon.
Gump: In the land of China, people hardly got nothing at all.
Lennon: No possessions?
Gump: And in China, they never go to church.
Lennon: No religion too?
Cavett: Wow, hard to imagine.
Lennon: Well, it’s easy if you try, Dick.
This is the most terrible scene ever to appear in any film.
Gump reunites with Lieutenant Dan and vows to use his Ping-Pong endorsement money to fulfill Bubba’s dream of being a shrimp boat captain. Lieutenant Dan, for some reason, is EXTREMELY SKEPTICAL that this dude who’s already met three presidents, won a Congressional Medal of Honor, wrote John Lennon’s “Imagine,” blew the whistle on Watergate, and made tens of thousands of dollars PLAYING PING-PONG could possibly achieve the famously insurmountable dream of buying a medium-size boat in Alabama and riding around on it looking for shrimp. “If you’re ever a shrimp boat captain, that’s the day I’m an astronaut.”
DUDE. HE IS THE MOST SUCCESSFUL MAN IN THE WORLD.
Meanwhile, Jennay is off somewhere having a shitty vibe because of the ’70s.
So, Gump moves back to Alabama to do the shrimp-boat thing, but it turns out that catching shrimp is his only weakness. He fucking sucks at it. He mostly catches garbage. But then, one day, there’s Lieutenant Dan sitting on the dock! He wants to join the shrimpin’ crew! Gump gets so excited that he jumps from the helm into the water, allowing the boat to run rogue and destroy the entire marina. This is never spoken of again.
Lieutenant Dan doesn’t turn out to be much help with catching shrimp, so Gump starts going to church every Sunday while Lieutenant Dan sits in the back glaring at people and drinking whiskey. Then, one day, Gump’s prayers are answered! An ENORMOUS HURRICANE comes and destroys the entire Louisiana shrimping industry!!!!! EXCEPT FOR THEIR BOAT!
YAY! YAY! YAY FOR IMPOVERISHED BLACK PEOPLE WHOSE HOMES, LIVELIHOODS, AND FUTURES HAVE BEEN OBLITERATED BECAUSE NOW THESE TWO RANDOM WHITE DUDES WHO ARE LITERALLY JUST DOING THIS AS A HOBBY CAN BECOME FUCKING MILLIONAIRES! YAAAAAAAYYYYY!!!
Then Lieutenant Dan finally becomes nice and thanks Forrest for saving him from blowing up to death in Vietnam. Then Forrest gets a call that his mom is dying, so he swims home. Then she dies. Then Lieutenant Dan invests the Bubba Gump Shrimp money in Apple Computers, so Forrest is able to buy his church a funky new bass player and Bubba’s mom gets a white slave. Then Jennay comes home to visit, buys him new shoes, does sex with him, and then leaves again. So Forrest runs back and forth across the country a few times.
And then we’re caught up!!! We’re back on the bus bench! Forrest is like, “Yep, I got this letter that I should come visit Jennay, so I’m on my way to her apartment,” and the people on the bench are like, “FUCKING FINALLY, MY FAMILY THINKS I’M DEAD,” and then some old lady gives him directions and it’s denouement o’clock.
He shows up at Jennay’s house and she introduces him to her new kid.
Jennay: His name’s Forrest.
Forrest: Like me!
Jennay: I named him after his daddy.
Forrest: He got a daddy named Forrest too?
Jennay: You’re his daddy, Forrest.
Not the coolest way to deliver that news, but I get it. You’re Jennay.
They get married and she wears the worst wedding dress I’ve ever seen and she tells Forrest she has HIV. But they don’t say HIV. They just say “a virus.”
And then they have this Meaningful Conversation about life’s majesty:
Forrest: And then, in the desert, when the sun comes up, I couldn’t tell where heaven stopped and the earth began. It was so beautiful.
Jennay: I wish I could have been there with you.
Forrest: You were. [But you were really high and you don’t remember.]
Then Jennay dies and turns into a feather and THE WHOLE MOVIE STARTS OVER AGAIN FROM THE BEGINNING.