Cormac and Scarlet’s theft of clothing is a makeshift escape measure that also changes the emotional temperature between them. Stranded by a failing car and conscious that the FBI or Mickey MacFarland’s men might be looking for them, they enter a crowded supermarket without money, take clothes, and leave wearing them. For Scarlet, the risk is not abstract: the act produces more anxiety than her past encounters with armed danger, then ends in laughter and an unwelcome recognition that she is growing attached to Cormac.

Causes and Setting

The pair are on the road and expect to reach the highway soon. Scarlet worries that being stopped while improperly dressed could expose them to trouble, particularly if the FBI or Mickey MacFarland’s men have people watching for them. Her concern is practical and tied to the danger of being identified or detained; clothing offers a way to travel without attracting the immediate attention that their existing situation might invite. They also have no money, a constraint that rules out an ordinary purchase.

Their car’s air conditioning is turned down as far as it will go, but the vehicle coughs, splutters, and dies when they are about halfway to town. After they stop, the interior becomes unbearably hot. Cormac opens a window and leans his head out, while the breakdown turns the need to find clothes into an urgent problem. They pull up outside a vast, industrial-scale supermarket, busy enough that Scarlet doubts anyone could notice every customer. Its size makes it seem almost airport-like to her: an impersonal public space whose crowds offer cover, but whose ordinary bustle also makes the plan feel exposed.

The Theft and Disguise

Cormac treats the crowd as an opportunity. He suggests that a little shoplifting would go unnoticed, and invites Scarlet to take part, while she objects that they cannot steal. His teasing makes the plan sound like an adventure, but its immediate purpose remains plain: without money, they need clothes and intend to leave wearing them. The danger of being caught is not eliminated; Cormac simply proposes that, if an alarm sounds, they run.

Inside the clothing section, the two move along the aisles while trying not to look conspicuous. Cormac is still barefoot as they search. In the women’s section, he adopts a joking husbandly manner and suggests that they pretend to try clothes on, change, and walk out. The performance supplies a flimsy appearance of normality for an act that depends on escaping notice. Scarlet asks whether an alarm might go off; Cormac answers with confidence, but his plan offers no real guarantee against discovery.

Scarlet selects a T-shirt, jeans, and boots and takes them to a changing room. The only employee in that section is occupied with a mother and toddler, whose disagreement over the child’s clothing has drawn the staff member’s attention. Scarlet changes quickly, leaving her jacket and heavy pants behind, then walks back through the aisles to find Cormac. He is leaning casually against a wall in a short-sleeved shirt and jeans. Their stolen outfits provide practical cover for continuing their journey, though the scene does not establish whether anyone has noticed them or whether the clothes make them unrecognizable.

Fear, Laughter, and the Return to the Road

The theft unsettles Scarlet more than her experience would seem to predict. She has been on drug busts, arrested murderers, and exchanged gunfire, yet walking through the store in stolen clothes while looking for Cormac makes her heart race more intensely than those dangers did. The contrast gives the scene its particular tension: the act is materially small beside her past work, but it places her in the unfamiliar position of knowingly breaking the law for herself. She expects someone to stop her, and the tension lasts until she finds Cormac and they can leave.

Once they are back in the car, Cormac laughs openly at her anxious expression. Scarlet initially insists that there is nothing funny about what they have done: they have broken the law. But as she starts the engine, she begins laughing too. Their laughter continues as they merge into highway traffic, heading back toward New York City. The change is not a reversal of the facts—the clothes remain stolen, and their exposure to pursuit has not been disproved—but it turns a stressful act into an experience they share.

Significance

On the highway, Scarlet keeps glancing in the rear-view mirror, still alert to the possibility of being followed. Cormac jokes about whether highway patrol would pursue a pair of shoplifters. Scarlet wants her response to be annoyed, but recognizes that it comes across instead as affection. She also realizes that she cannot allow herself to become endeared to him and suspects that the process may already be too far advanced.

The episode therefore joins a concrete survival problem to a shift in their relationship. Their lack of money, the broken air conditioning, the crowded store, and the risk of an alarm all make the disguise an improvised necessity rather than a detached prank. Yet Cormac’s teasing, Scarlet’s reluctant participation, and their shared laughter give the escape its intimacy. The closing glances toward the road preserve the external danger; Scarlet’s altered response to Cormac reveals a quieter change within it. The theft does not settle their flight or remove the threat, but it leaves them moving forward together, with Scarlet more conscious of the attachment that has begun to form.