Up, Up, and Away!
- Two nurses from Shady Oaks show up bright and early the next morning. Carl tells them he needs a moment—you know, to say one last goodbye to the ol’ homestead—and goes back in the house.
- As the nurses walk back to their van, joking that Carl probably has to pee for the 80th time—hilarious, right?—thousands of balloons burst into the air from behind Carl’s house. Their force tears the house out of the ground at its roots, and then the house takes off. It lifts up into the air and sails away. It’s super-awesome.
- Carl’s set up a command center in an upstairs room, mirroring Ellie’s pilot roost in the abandoned house where he first met her. He hangs some bed sheets and blankets out windows on each side of the house like sails, and sets his compass on top of a map of South America. Guess we know where he’s going.
- Carl looks at the photo of Young Ellie once more and sighs contentedly. Seems like a good time to take a nap. But what’s this? There’s a knock at the door. Of a house that’s soaring through the sky.
- It’s Russell! The poor kid’s clinging to the front porch for dear life. He found “the snipe,” and followed it under Carl’s porch.
- After initially resisting, Carl lets his stowaway inside.
- Russell surveys the scene inside the house. He touches Carl’s things, which pleases Carl not, and fiddles with the house’s steering.
- Carl imagines hanging Russell out the window with a bed sheet. Russell’s unfazed; he’s on an adventure, man! Then Carl imagines dropping Russell and decides against the whole hanging-a-small-child-out-a-window plan. Good call, Carl.
- They hit a nasty thunderstorm that throws everything into chaos, pitching the house back and forth. Russell almost roly-polys right out the front door.
- Cut to Carl waking up, tied to all of his stuff. Russell proudly says that, after Carl conked out, Russell steered them to South America with his trusty GPS. Then he accidentally drops the GPS unit out the window. Oops.
- Carl’s not buying the whole, “I steered us to South America” thing and cuts a few balloons loose so he can land the house and ditch Russell at a bus stop.
- Just then, they crash into something. Carl thinks it’s a building. It’s so not a building. They’re on a rocky cliff.
- Carl and Russell head out onto the front porch to investigate, and as the house skims along the cliff, they’re thrown off the porch. Carl grabs onto a rope hanging off of the house, and Russell grabs onto Carl. They skid to a stop just short of careening over the cliff.
- Russell pulls Carl—and the house—back from the edge. That’s one seriously strong kid.
- Carl and Russell have no idea where they are. It doesn’t look like the city or the jungle.
- The clouds part, and Carl spots a massive waterfall. It’s Paradise Falls. Nice work, Russell.
- Carl gazes at the beautiful terrain below in awe. “We made it,” he says to Ellie.
- There’s just one problem. They’re still holding on to the house from the ground like it’s an enormous parade balloon, and neither is strong enough to climb back up into Casa de Carl.
- Russell suggests walking the house over to the falls. That’s how he’ll get his Assisting the Elderly badge. This kid’s a real thinker.
- Carl and Russell start walking the house over to the falls. The way Carl sees it, they’ve got three days before the balloons lose all of their helium and everything goes kaput. He promises Ellie they’ll make it. Russell’s not really listening. He found sand! Keep your head in the game, Russell.