money dealing drugs without his father knowing. With his income he buys expensive video and audio equipment, spending a lot of time filming subjects ranging from plastic bags to the often-bizarre actions inside the Burnham house. When Ricky delivers drugs to Lester, his father watches through a window and thinks he sees Lester and Ricky engaging in homosexual sex-a case of classic Freudian projection. Fitts charges over to what we mistakenly think is to be an attack on Lester for corrupting his son. Fitts' expressed homophobia masks repressed homoeroticism, which Freud believed to be the origin of the male fear and hatred of homosexuals. As the movie progresses towards the end, there are a few people that could be the one to kill Lester. Carolyn, whom Lester has just caught cheating, Ricky, who promised Jane that he would kill her father as she asked, or Fitts, who has divulged to Lester his lust for men. We quickly rule out Ricky, with whom Jane has taken off to live a "better" life, thanks to Ricky's drug connections that he assures her will net them a comfortable income. The end result is that Col. Fitts kills Lester because he feels so ashamed of himself for sending his son away because of his own problems with homosexuality.In the end, Lester assures the audience that if we can't yet relate to the tragedy that befell his family, someday we will. Freud believes that the clashes of our Id, Ego, and Superego destine us to mid-life crisis and self-doubting that can cause problems for our families and us. This movie was so powerful because it brought to light the problems that so many families face in the privacy of the home. On the outside it would appear that the families on Robin Hood Trail were typical. Upon closer inspection though, we saw families whose inner conflicts created a situation that was terrible for all in the end....
