Tommy

Heal Me

The movie and the rock opera reaches a climax as Tommy's parents take him to an esteemed doctor, who confirms that Tommy's senses are fully functional, but he still is unresponsive socially. He recommends putting Tommy in the mirror to look at his reflection. 

He seems to be completely unreceptive
The tests I gave him show no sense at all
His eyes react to light the dials detect it
He hears but cannot answer to your callSee me, feel me, touch me, heal me
See me, feel me, touch me, heal me

However, after a period when Tommy stares at the mirror for several hours, his mother smashed the mirror out of frustration. (In the movie, she literally throws Tommy into the mirror) This snaps Tommy out of his catatonic state and his mental disability is seemingly cured. 

I'm free
I'm free
And freedom tastes of reality
I'm free
I'm free
An' I'm waiting for you to follow meIf I told you what it takes
To reach the highest high
You'd laugh and say 'nothing's that simple'
But you've been told many times before
Messiahs pointed to the door
And no...

Tommy expresses that he feels spiritually enlightened after his 'awakening'. Tommy goes on lecture tours which resemble glam rock gospel shows and spreads a message of enlightenment by hang glider, gaining friends and followers everywhere he goes . Tommy and a more enlightened and elated Nora and Frank welcome converts to their house, which quickly becomes too crowded to accommodate everyone. Tommy opens an extension for his religious campus, which is called 'Tommy's Holiday Camp', a twist from the camp he attended in his youth.

Outside the house Mr. Simpson announced
That Sally couldn't go to the meeting
He went on cleaning his blue Rolls Royce
And she ran inside weeping
She got to her room, and tears splashed the picture
Of the new Messiah
She picked up the book of her father's life
And threw it on the fire

The converts, confused about Tommy's odd practices and his family's commercial exploitation of the compound, wrathfully demand Tommy teach them something useful. Tommy does so, deliberately deafening, muting, and blinding everyone, only to inadvertently invoke a riot. The followers kill Nora and Frank and destroy the camp in a fire. Tommy finds his parents in the debris and mourns before escaping into the mountains from the beginning of the film. He ascends the same peak where his parents celebrated their honeymoon, celebrating the rising sun. 

However, the rock opera of the album ends differently. His parents are not killed, yet the followers turn against Tommy in the same manner they do in the movie. Tommy retreats inward again into the catatonic state that he was in before. 

So overall, you can say that the album ends on a darker note than the film. Yet the film has a more or less similar plot to the rock opera. The only major difference is who is killed - Tommy's step father or father? Or, as I mentioned before, was anyone killed? The scene in which Tommy enters his catatonic state can have several interpretations - a child traumatized by either sex, murder, or a graphic dream. And later in his life, traumatized by his extended family, and ultimately, by the rejection of his followers.