When the movie’s not making you laugh at its Black Comedy, it’s making you spill out your tears.
Moments pages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.
- After spending much of the movie being an unlikeable, bumbling, and violent thug of a cop, Dixon reads Willoughby's letter for him in the police station. Willoughby's letter says that he thinks Dixon would make a great detective, but he needs to let go of his own rage and replace it with love, as that will give him the calmness and understanding needed to solve cases.Willoughby (on the letter): Jason, Willoughby here. I’m dead now, sorry about that. There’s something I wanted to say to you that I never really said when I was alive. I think you’ve got the makings of being a really good cop, Jason, and you know why? Because, deep down, you’re a decent man. I know you don’t think I think that, but I do, dipshit. I do think you’re too angry though, and I know it’s all since your dad died and you had to go look after your mom and all, but as long as you hold on to so much hate, then I don’t think you’re ever going to become, what I know you want to become — a detective. ’Cause you know what you need to become a detective? And I know you’re gonna wince when I say this, but what you need to become a detective is love. Because through love comes calm, and through calm comes thought. And you need thought to detect stuff sometimes, Jason. It’s kinda all you need. You don’t even need a gun. And you definitely don’t need hate. Hate never solved nothing, but calm did. And thought did. Try it. Try it just for a change. No one’ll think you’re gay. And if they do, arrest ’em for homophobia! Won’t they be surprised! Good luck to you, Jason. You’re a decent man, and yeah you’ve had a run of bad luck, but things are gonna change for you. I can feel it.
- Once Mildred starts firebombing the police station, he turns around to see his desk in flames; seeing Angela's case file about to be consumed, he saves it and tucks it under his shirt. Mildred, not expecting anybody to be in the station, watches as Dixon, a man she held so much contempt for previously, not only dives out of the window, suffering horrible burns, but pulls out her daughter's case file and throws it away from him, ensuring its safety and making certain that, if anything, they can bring justice to Angela.
- While Dixon's mother is shown to be generally horrible, her crying for him outside of the bathroom when she sees he's been assaulted can be hard to hear.
- Mildred's flashback to her last conversation with her daughter, with the regret she feels over her final words to her not even needing to be stated.Angela: Are you gonna let me borrow the car or what?
Mildred: Why don't you just walk, Angela? [explodes] Why don't you just WALK!?
Angela: You know what? I will walk. [storms out] I will walk! And you know what else!? I hope I get RAPED on the way!
Mildred: Yeah?! Well, I hope you get raped on the way, too!!!- Right before this flashback, while Mildred's driving Robbie home from school, they pass by the billboards, and he proceeds to chew her out over three gigantic billboards within eyeshot of their house constantly reminding him of his sister's death, something he desperately tried to avoid thinking about. Mildred's quiet response speaks volumes about how she never stopped to think about how this whole ordeal might have affected her other child.Robbie: Great. The good ol' "Raped While Dying" route home. Cause if there was two seconds in a day when I didn't think about her, and wasn't thinking about how she died... "There ya go, Robbie. Think about it some more, why don’t ya?" It’s good, too. That as much as a person might've tried to avoid the details of what happened, cause he didn’t think it'd do any good, and he didn't think he could bear it, it’s also good to be informed, in twenty-foot-high lettering and a real nice font, the precise details of her last moments, y’know? That it wasn’t enough that she was RAPED. And it wasn’t enough that she DIED. No. "Raped WHILE Dying". Thank you, Mom.
Mildred: ...I gave you the police reports...
Robbie: I didn’t read them. I'm depressed enough as it fucking is... - A Fridge example: the simple fact that Mildred is so consumed with her own anger and hate that she'd think her son should or would even want to read the police reports detailing the brutal way his sister died.
- After the exchange above, Mildred reaches toward Robbie to comfort him, only for him to slap her hand away in anger.
- Right before this flashback, while Mildred's driving Robbie home from school, they pass by the billboards, and he proceeds to chew her out over three gigantic billboards within eyeshot of their house constantly reminding him of his sister's death, something he desperately tried to avoid thinking about. Mildred's quiet response speaks volumes about how she never stopped to think about how this whole ordeal might have affected her other child.
- Charlie's entire exchange with Mildred when he finds out about the billboards. We have here two grieving parents and ex-spouses who, even after their daughter is dead, still keep taking the piss out of each other. But as much of an asshole as he is, Charlie visibly tearing up during this argument is upsetting to watch. They may have grown to hate each other, but they miss their daughter more.Charlie: You think I don’t wish it had never happened? You think I don’t wish she was here still?
Mildred: I know you do... I know you do.
Charlie: ...Billboards ain't gonna bring her back, Mildred.
Mildred: Neither is fucking nineteen-year-olds, Charlie.
Charlie: Yeah. But I know that.
Mildred: Just go.
Charlie: Yeah. Alright. I’m such a shitty dad and you’re such a great mom. Alright. So how come, a week before she died, she comes around asking if she can move in with me at my place? Cause she couldn’t stand the two of you bitching at each other no more and fighting with each other no more?
Mildred: I don't believe you...
Charlie: And I said “No. Stay at home. Your mom loves you.” And now I wish I hadn’t. Cause if I hadn't, she'd still fucking be here!
Mildred: I DON'T BELIEVE YOU!
Charlie: Then don't believe me! Ask Fruit Loop Boy.
Mildred: Is it true?
Robbie: I don't know, Mom...
Mildred: Yeah, you do. - Mildred discovering the billboards burning. At first she's a Determinator, firmly working to put the first couple of fires out, but when it's clear she won't save the third, she nearly breaks down as she wrestles the second fire extinguisher from her son.
- Chief Willoughby's suicide, and his wife's reaction to it. Especially his letters to her, Mildred and Dixon. Not to mention that thanks to his cancer, even if he hadn’t committed suicide, his wife would still have been left a widow anyway.Willoughby (at the end of the letter): Kiss the girls for me, and know that I've loved you, and maybe I'll see you again if there's another place and if there ain't, well, it's been Heaven knowing you. Your boy, Bill.
- James date with Mildred goes sour, with Mildred acting hostile towards James (after another encounter with her ex-husband), James giving "The Reason You Suck" Speech in response to her anger, and him just getting up and leaving. Thankfully this causes her to have a Heel Realization about her anger and how it’s corrupted her.James (in tears): You know, I didn't ''have'' to come and hold your ladder.
- Tragically, the three billboards are just down the street from the Hayes' household. This means that Angela was raped, killed and torched less than 500 feet from her own home, and it was probably the last thing she saw before she died.
