Ernesto de la Cruz: [to Mamá Imelda] Don't I know you?
Mamá Imelda: [Smacks Ernesto with her shoe] That's for murdering the love of my life!
Ernesto de la Cruz: [Confused] Who the...?
Héctor: She's talking about me!
[Touched]
Héctor: I am the love of your life?
Mamá Imelda: I don't know, I am still angry at you!
[Mamá Imelda has just taken Héctor's protrait from De La Cruz and is about to give Miguel her blessing to send him back home]
Mamá Imelda: Miguel, I give you my blessing, to go home and...
Miguel: [questioningly] ... to forget about music?
[Mamá Imelda looks at Héctor and smiles]
Mamá Imelda: ...And never forget
how much your family cares for you.
Mamá Imelda: Mijo, I was so worried.
[Hugs Miguel, then looks to Héctor resentfully]
Mamá Imelda: And you, how many times must I turn you away?
Héctor: Imelda...
Mamá Imelda: I want nothing to do with you! Not in life, not in death! I spent decades protecting my family from *your* mistakes. He
spends five minutes with you, and I have to fish him out of a sinkhole!
Miguel: I wasn't in there because of Héctor. He was in there because of me. He was just trying to get me home! I didn't want to listen, but he was right! Nothing is more important than family. I'm ready to accept your blessing. And your conditions. But first, I need to find de la Cruz. To get Héctor's
photo!
Mamá Imelda: What?
Miguel: So, he can see Coco again. Héctor should be on our ofrenda. He's part of our family.
Mamá Imelda: He *left* this family!
Miguel: He tried to go home to you and Coco. But de la Cruz murdered him!
Héctor: [sorrowfully] It's true, Imelda.
Miguel: And so what if it's true? You leave me alone with a child to raise, and I'm just supposed to forgive you?
Héctor: Imelda, I...
[Suddenly shudders and collapses to his knees, Imelda gasps]
Héctor: I'm running out of time. It's Coco.
Mamá Imelda: She's forgetting you.
Miguel: You don't have to forgive him. But you shouldn't forget him.
Mamá Imelda: I wanted to forget you. I wanted Coco to forget you, too, but...
Héctor: This is my fault, not yours. I'm sorry, Imelda.
Mamá Imelda: Miguel, if we help you get his photo, you will return home? No more music?
Miguel: Family comes first.
Mamá Imelda: I... I can't forgive you. But I will help you. So how do we get to de la Cruz?
Miguel: I... might know a way.
Miguel: [after watching Chicharrón disappear] Wait... what happened?
Héctor: [sadly] He's been forgotten. When there's no one left in the living world who remembers you, you disappear from this world. We call it the Final Death.
Miguel: Where did he go?
Héctor: No one knows.
Miguel:
But I've met him! I could remember him when I go back.
Héctor: No. It doesn't work like that, chamaco. Our memories, they have to be passed down by those who knew us in life - in the stories they tell about us. But there's no one left alive to pass down Cheech's stories.
[shrugs]
Héctor: Hey, it happens to everyone eventually.
Mamá Imelda: [to Héctor; after Miguel reveals that Héctor didn't abandoned her, but was killed while trying to come back to her and that Ernesto took Héctor's portrait] I will never forgive you...
[suddenly smiles]
Mamá Imelda: But I will help you.
Héctor: [singing for Chicharrón] Well everyone knows Juanita / Her eyes each a different color / Her teeth stick out / and her chin goes in / and her...
[he hesitates]
Héctor: ... knuckles, they drag on the floor.
Chicharrón: Those aren't the words!
Héctor: There are children present.
[singing]
Héctor: Her hair is like a briar / She stands in a bow-legged stance / And if I weren't so ugly / She'd possibly give me a chance.
Chicharrón: [chuckles] Brings back memories. Gracias.
[exhales deeply as he vanishes]
Miguel: This isn't a dream, then - you're all really out there.
Tía Victoria: You thought we weren't?
Miguel: Well, I don't know - I thought it might have been one of those made-up things adults tell kids! Like vitamins.
Tía Victoria: Miguel, vitamins are a real thing!
Miguel: Well,
now I'm thinking maybe they could be.
Frida Kahlo: [explaining her new performance piece to Miguel] Darkness - and from the darkness... a giant papaya! Dancers emerge from the papaya, and the dancers are all me! And they go to drink from the milk of their mother, who is a cactus, but, who is also me! And her milk is not milk, but tears!
[pause]
Frida Kahlo: Is it too obvious?
Miguel: [unsure] I think it's... just the right amount of obvious.
Ernesto de la Cruz: [after Héctor is taken away by security for attacking Ernesto after learning the truth about his death] I apologize, where were we?
Miguel: You were going to give me your blessing.
Ernesto de la Cruz: Yes, uh, si. Miguel, my reputation it is, ah, very important to me. I would hate to have you think...
Miguel: That you murdered Héctor, for his songs?
Ernesto de la Cruz: Ha ha. You don't think that, do you?
Miguel: I... no. Everyone knows you're, the... the good guy.
Ernesto de la Cruz: [Ernesto looks at Héctor's photo, and then puts it in his pocket]
Miguel: Papa Ernesto, my
blessing?
Ernesto de la Cruz: [Ernesto looks at Miguel's marigold petal, and then crushes it into powder] Security, take care of Miguel. He'll be... extending his stay.
Miguel: [as he is taken away by security] WHAT? BUT I'M YOUR FAMILY!
Ernesto de la Cruz: And Héctor was my best friend. Success doesn't come for free, Miguel.
You have to be willing to, do whatever it takes to... seize your moment. I know you understand.
Miguel: No, NO!
Héctor: [Ernesto takes Miguel at the edge of the stadium] Ernesto, STOP!
[shudders and collapses to the floor]
Héctor: Leave the boy alone.
Ernesto de la Cruz: I've worked too hard, Hector. Too hard to let him destroy everything.
Héctor: He's a living child, Ernesto.
[the other family members
turn the camera towards Ernesto and sets it to show through the big screens in front of the audience]
Ernesto de la Cruz: HE'S A THREAT!
[the audience gasps]
Ernesto de la Cruz: You think I'd let him go back to the land of the living WITH YOUR PHOTO? TO KEEP YOUR MEMORY ALIVE? No.
Miguel: YOU'RE A COWARD!
Ernesto de la Cruz: I am Ernesto de la Cruz, the greatest musician of all time!
Miguel: Hector's the REAL musician, you're just the guy who murdered him and stole his songs!
[the audience gasps]
Guy in audience: Murdered?
Ernesto de la Cruz: [grabs Miguel by the shirt collar] I am the one who is willing to do what it
takes to seize my moment, whatever it takes.
[Throws Miguel off the stadium]
[after Ernesto is disgraced, and flung from the amphitheater, a guy returns from the concession stand]
Guy in audience: [to his wife, excitedly] What did I miss?