Katie Holmes' Final Moments Of Freedom: A Brief Photo Essay
We allowed ourselves to become so consumed with the trivial matter of Michael Richards' repeated, angry deployment of a certain racial epithet in the hopes of silencing some hecklers expressing their dissatisfaction with his comedy act that we've neglected our solemn duty to join the world in celebrating the glorious union of two individuals who've played a significant role in all of our lives over the past 18 or so months. By now we assume you've already had your fill of stories of hackneyed serenades, inventories of the various outifts Giorgio Armani provided for the ceremony, and the petty complaints of turncoat townsfolk who once built shrines to the visiting couple, so instead of rehashing more of the same, we instead bring you this exclusive photo essay that we personally—personally! assembled from images provided by wire service photographers our network of spies to tell the story of Katie Holmes' final moments of pre-nuptial freedom.
Instead of using the time that Tom Cruise's handlers had allotted for his war bride to practice graciously accepting the "clothes and food and tender happiness and frills, a pan, a comb, perhaps a cat" to be proffered in their vows, an anxious Katie Holmes clutched her Italian Wedding Suri Unit to her chest and sat in the window of her bridal cell, quietly hoping for a rescue she knew would probably never come.
From her vantage point, Holmes was able to watch her already distant hopes slip still further away as a sniper team arrived at the gates of Castle Odescalchi and promptly took their places atop the fortress's turrets. After months of her husband's bragging about how much he'd spent on them, Holmes knew that the accomplished marksmen could quickly halt the progress of any intruders with rifle fire so precisely targeted it could knock a tiny plastic bride from the top of a wedding cake at 300 meters without so much as disturbing the matching groom. Escape on her own would be impossible.
Then, unexpectedly from the western sky, renewed, dizzy hope in the form of a rapidly approaching helicopter: Had ex-boyfriends Chris Klein, Joshua Jackson, and the sweet kid from fifth grade who's now a claims adjuster in Toledo finally decoded the secret messages she'd be sending them through bland, repetitive quotes in People features about the wedding preparations, and were now staging a daring airborne extraction?
Just as Holmes allowed herself to imagine throwing one end of her veil to Jackson's outstretched arm and being reeled into the safety of the helicopter by her former love, the sharp report of rifle fire interrupted her flight of fancy. The snipers were trying to take down the copter, but after several unsuccessful attempts, more extreme countermeasures proved necessary. Security ordered the discharge of the castle's anti-aircraft defenses, which completely incinerated the potential rescue vehicle and darkened the skies over the imposing structure. When Holmes asked a handler who had been on the helicopter, she was told "just some paparazzi," but the bride-to-be had a sick feeling that any future Dawson's Creek and American Pie reunions would be short two crucial members. She had already forgotten about the sweet kid from fifth grade, whom she had never allowed to second base. She, after all, was a good Catholic girl. Before this.
Finally, acceptance: With all of her escape routes closed, Holmes gave herself over to that never-ending kiss and the commitment it sealed (well, reaffirmed, as the billion-year contract she's signed months earlier is binding throughout "all galaxies, both known and unknown). For now she was his, but secretly, however, she promised herself that somewhere down the road, when Tom seemed momentarily distracted with teaching their new septuplets the dangers of Ritalin, she'd make a break for the freedom that lies beyond the front gate of their compound, sniper fire and hungry packs of Dobermans be damned.
[Photos: Getty Images/ABC News/GMA]
