Heroes should get what's coming to them as well. Too many movie heroes get rewards they haven't really earned. The reward should be proportionate to the sacrifice they have offered. You don't get immortality for being nice. Also if heroes have failed to learn a lesson, they may be penalized for it in the Return.
Of course, if your dramatic point of view is that life isn't fair and you feel justice is a rare thing in this world, then by all means reflect this in the way rewards and punishments are dealt out in the Return.
THE ELIXIR
The real key to the final stage of the Hero's Journey is the Elixir. What does the hero bring back with her from the Special World to share upon her Return? Whether it's shared within the community or with the audience, bringing back the Elixir is the hero's final test. It proves she's been there, it serves as an example for others, and it shows above all that death can be overcome. The Elixir may even have the power to restore life in the Ordinary World.
Like everything else in the Hero's Journey, returning with the Elixir can be literal or metaphoric. The Elixir may be an actual substance or medicine brought back to save an endangered community (a feature of several "Star Trek" TV plots and the object of the quest in Medicine Man). It may be literal treasure wrested from the Special World and shared within a group of adventurers. More figuratively, it may be any of the things that drive people to undertake adventure: money, fame, power, love, peace, happiness, success, health, knowledge, or having a good story to tell. The best Elixirs are those that bring hero and audience greater awareness. In The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the physical treasure of gold is revealed to be worthless dust, and the real Elixir is the wisdom to live a long and peaceful life.
In the tales of King Arthur, the Grail is the Elixir that, once shared, heals the wounded land. The Fisher King can rest easy again. If Percival and the knights had kept the Grail for themselves, there would have been no healing.
If a traveler doesn't bring back something to share, he's not a hero, he's a heel, selfish and unenlightened. He hasn't learned his lesson. He hasn't grown. Returning with the Elixir is the last test of the hero, which shows if he's mature enough to share the fruits of his quest.
THE ELIXIR OF LOVE
Love is, of course, one of the most powerful and popular Elixirs. It can be a reward the hero doesn't win until after a final sacrifice. In Romancing the Stone Joan Wilder has surrendered her old fantasies about men and said goodbye to her old, uncertain personality. The payoff for her is that unexpectedly, Jack Colton comes for her after all, miraculously transporting a romantic sailboat to her New York neighborhood to sweep her away. He has transmuted the Elixir he was after — the precious emerald — into another form, love. Joan gets her reward of romance, but she has earned it by learning that she could live without it.
THE WORLD IS CHANGED
Another aspect of the Elixir is that the wisdom which heroes bring back with them may be so powerful that it forces change not only in them, but also those around them. The whole world is altered and the consequences spread far. There is a beautiful image for this in Excalihur. When Percival brings the Grail back to the ailing Arthur, the King revives and rides out with his knights again. They are so filled with new life that flowers burst into bloom at their passing. They are a living Elixir, whose mere presence renews nature.
THE ELIXIR OF RESPONSIBILITY
A common and powerful Elixir is for heroes to take wider responsibility at the Return, giving up their loner status for a place of leadership or service within a group. Families and relationships get started, cities are founded. The hero's center has moved from the ego to the Self, and sometimes expands to include the group. Mad Max, the loner hero of George Miller's Road Warrior and Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome, forsakes his solitude to become Mentor and foster-father to a race of orphaned children. The Elixir is his skill at survival and his recollection of the old world before the apocalypse, which he passes on to the orphans.
THE ELIXIR OF TRAGEDY
In the tragic mode, heroes die or are defeated, brought down by their tragic flaws. Yet there is learning and an Elixir brought back from the experience. Who learns? The audience, for they see the errors of the tragic hero and the consequences of error. They learn, if they are wise, what mistakes to avoid, and this is the Elixir that they bring away from the experience.
SADDER BUT WISER
Sometimes the Elixir is heroes taking a rueful look back at their wrong turns on the path. A feeling of closure is created by a hero acknowledging that he is sadder but wiser for having gone through the experience. The Elixir he bears away is bitter medicine, but it may keep him from making the same error again, and his pain serves as fair warning to the audience not to choose that path. The heroes of Risky Business and White Men Can't Jump have been down a road of learning that mixed pain and pleasure. They ultimately lose the prize of love, must Return without the woman of their dreams, and have to console themselves with the Elixir of experience. These stories create a feeling that the account is closed and the heroes are being presented with the final balance.
SADDER BUT NO WISER
A "sadder but wiser" hero is acknowledging that he's been a fool, which is the first step to recovery. The worse kind of fool is the one who doesn't get it. Either he never sees the error or he goes through the motions but has not really learned his lesson. Even after enduring terrible ordeals, he slides back to the same behavior that got him in trouble in the first place. He is sadder but no wiser. This is another kind of circular closure.
In this style of Return, a roguish or foolish character seems to have grown and changed. Perhaps he is a clown or Trickster, like Bob Hope in the Crosby-Hope pictures or Eddie Murphy in 48 Hours or Trading Places, who swears he has learned his lesson. However, in the end he fumbles the Elixir and returns to an original error. He may fall back to his original, irrepressible attitude, closing the circle and dooming himself to repeat the adventure.
For this is the penalty of failing to return with the Elixir: The hero, or someone else, is doomed to repeat the Ordeals until the lesson is learned or the Elixir is brought home to share.
EPILOGUE
Just as some stories may have a prologue that precedes the main action, there may also be a need for an epilogue that follows the bulk of the story. An epilogue or postscript on rare occasions can serve to complete the story, by projecting ahead to some future time to show how the characters turned out. Terms of Endearment has an epilogue that shows the characters a year after the main story has ended. The feeling communicated is that even though there is sadness and death, life goes on. Look Who's Talking has an epilogue that shows the birth of the baby hero's little sister nine months after the main plot has been resolved. Stories that show a group of characters at a formative or critical period, like American Graffiti or war movies such as Glory or The Dirty Dozen, may end with a short segment that tells how the characters died, progressed in life, or were remembered. A League of Their Own has an extensive epilogue in which an aging woman ballplayer, having remembered her career in flashback for the main body of the film, visits the Baseball Hall of Fame and sees many of her teammates. The fates of the players are revealed and the surviving women, now in their sixties, stage a game to show that they still know how to play ball. Their spirit is the Elixir that revives the hero and the audience.