Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Quiz

Answer: To put pressure on the local police

At first, Red Welby down at the Ebbing Advertising Company thinks that Mildred is crazy for her interest in the billboards, as no one drives down Drinkwater Road anymore since the freeway was installed. But he quickly understands after he reads what Mildred wants printed on the billboards. "I guess you're Angela Hayes' mother," he says as he reads the slips of paper that Mildred hands to him. "That's right," Mildred replies. "I'm Angela Hayes' mother."

After the billboards go up, Mildred appears on the local news to describe her motivation. "My daughter, Angela, was abducted, raped and murdered seven months ago, along this self-same stretch of road here," she explains. "It seems to me the local police department is too busy going around torturing black folks to be bothered doing anything about solving actual crime. I thought these here billboards might concentrate their minds some." Deputy Dixon and Chief Bill Willoughby are watching the broadcast at home, stony-faced. "I don't know what the police are doing, to be honest with you," Mildred continues. "I do know that my daughter's burnt body is lying six feet underground, and all they're doing is eating Krispy Kremes and busting eight-year-olds for skating around parking lots." When the reporter asked her why she decided to single out Chief Willoughby, Mildred replies, "He's the head of them, ain't he? The buck's gotta stop somewhere."

The billboards read: "Raped while dying", "And still no arrests?", and "How come, Chief Willoughby?" Needless to say, the local police are less than thrilled.

Answer: Cancer

The police first pay a visit to Red Welby, but he has a valid contract with Mildred and has no intention of taking down the billboards. Chief Willoughby goes to Mildred to plead his case. "I'd do anything to catch the guy who did it, Mrs Hayes," Willoughby explains patiently, "But when the DNA don't match no one who's ever been arrested, and when the DNA don't match any other crime nationwide, and when there wasn't a single eyewitness from the time she left your house to the time we found her, well, right now there ain't too much more that we can do." Mildred has a few ideas about how they can catch her daughter's rapist and murderer, but Willoughby points out that they would all constitute civil rights violations.

"I'm doing everything I can to track him down. I don't think those billboards is very fair," he finally says. "There's something else, Mildred. I got cancer. I'm dying," he adds, pausing before his big revelation for effect. "I know it," Mildred remarks indifferently. "Most everybody in town knows it." Willoughby can't believe his ears. "And you still put up those billboards?" he asks. "Well, they wouldn't be as effective after you croak, right?" Mildred says matter-of-factly. Realizing that there's no reasoning with Mildred in her current state of mind, Willoughby takes his leave.

Answer: The town dentist

Deputy Dixon receives a couple of complaints about the billboards, from "a lady with a funny eye" and a "fat dentist". It just so happens that Mildred is in need of some dental work, and she pays a visit to Geoffrey, the dentist in town. "I don't know what it is. It feels like it's kinda waggling," she says as she lays back in the dentist's chair. "Well if it's waggling it's gonna have to come out," Geoffrey says. "Ain't you gonna take a look at it first?" Mildred asks, puzzled. Geoffrey performs the most perfunctory of examinations, and confirms his diagnosis. He pulls out a particularly large drill to begin the extraction but he's interrupted by Mildred, who asks for some Novocain. The dentist administers the anesthetic, picks up his drill again, and remarks, "I just wanted to say there's a lotta good friends of Bill Willoughby in this town, Miss Hayes..." Acting quickly, Mildred grabs Geoffrey's hand and directs the drill down onto Geoffrey's own thumbnail.

Geoffrey wants to press charges, so Mildred gets hauled down to the police station by Chief Willoughy. Mildred's strategy is to claim that Geoffrey's hand had slipped and he drilled into his thumb himself, so that it's his word against hers, but Chief Willoughby isn't interested. "You think I care about dentists? I don't care about dentists. Nobody cares about dentists," he says. "What I do care about, or what I'm interested in, is tying you up in court so long that your hours at the gift shop be so shot ... that you ain't gonna have a penny to pay for another month's billboards. That's what I'm interested in." The Chief begins grilling Mildred about where she's getting the money for her billboards, when he suddenly lets out a cough that sends blood spraying all over Mildred's face. Willoughby is mortified, but Mildred brushes the incident aside and fetches help. An ambulance arrives to take Willoughby to the hospital, and as he is wheeled out on a stretcher, he tells Deputy Dixon, "Just let her go."

Answer: He's an ex-cop.

Chief Willoughby uses Charlie's former position in law enforcement to try and rattle Mildred at the police station. "What I heard was you had to sell off your ex-husband's tractor-trailer to even pay for this month's billboards, is that right?" he asks. "What's Charlie think about these here billboards of yours, an ex-cop like Charlie?" Mildred remains unfazed. "Ex-cop, ex-wife-beater. Same difference, I guess, right?" she replies in a deadpan.

The next morning, Charlie pays a visit to Mildred and their son, Robbie, during breakfast and demands to know what's going on with these billboards. "Well, you know, I guess I wanted certain people's minds kept on certain people's jobs, is all," Mildred explains. "The more you keep a case in the public eye, the better your chances are of getting it solved." Charlie isn't convinced, and he blows up when Mildred makes a snide remark about his 19-year-old girlfriend, Penelope, overturning the table and pinning Mildred to the wall by her neck. Robbie immediately produces a knife and holds it against his father's throat, demanding that he let her go. "You don't think I don't wish it had never happened? You don't think I don't wish she was here still?" Charlie asks Mildred in anguish. Mildred commiserates, but can't help taking another stab at Penelope. Charlie turns to go, but gets back at Mildred by revealing that a week before she died, Angela had asked to move in with him, and that if he hadn't convinced her to stay with Mildred she would still be alive. "I don't believe you," Mildred says, fighting back tears, as she turns to her son. "Is that true?" she asks. "I don't know, mom," Robbie replies, looking down at his feet. "Yeah, you do," Mildred says, knowingly.

Answer: The town midget

Willoughby's wife, Anne, is confused about her husband's insistence at taking their daughters out of school and spending the day having a picnic in a meadow, but she goes along with it. They have a perfect, idyllic day, which ends with Anne recuperating from a "Chardonnay migraine" on the couch. Willoughby goes to tend to the horses, smiling at the thought of the joke that Anne had just made, then puts on a black hood and shoots himself in the head. The noise startles Anne, who gets up and finds the letter addressed to her on the kitchen table.

"My darling Anne," the letter reads. "There's a longer letter in the dresser drawer I've been writing for the last week or so. That one covers us, and my memories of us, and how much I've always loved you. This one just covers tonight, and, more importantly, today. Tonight, I have gone out to the horses to end it. I cannot say sorry for the act itself, although I know that for a short time you will be angry at me or even hate me for it. Please don't. This is not a case of 'I came in this world alone, and I'm going out of it alone' or anything dumb like that. I did not come in this world alone; my mom was there, and I am not going out of it alone, 'cause you were there, drunk on the couch." Anne breaks down on the floor in tears upon finding the letter. "No, this is a case, in some senses, of bravery. Not the bravery of facing a bullet down; the next few months of pain would be far harder than that small flash. No, it's the bravery of weighing up the next few months of still being with you, still waking up with you, of playing with the kids, against the next few months of seeing in your eyes how much my pain is killing you; how my weakened body as it ebbs away and you tend to it are your final and lasting memories of me. I won't have that," the letter continues, before going on to describe their last day together. "Dwell on this day, baby, 'cause it was the best day of my life. Kiss the girls for me, and know that I've always 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."

The movie later reveals that Willoughby had also left behind letters for Mildred and Dixon.

Answer: Chief Willoughby

Red explains to Mildred that the first payment she made was really a deposit on the rental, so she was technically already behind on her payments. He gives her until Friday to pay up, but he is interrupted by his co-worker Pamela, who has exciting news. "Oh Red, I know you were real anxious about talking to Mrs. Hayes this morning and all," she says, all flustered. "But that's the thing, there's no need to be, because you won't believe it! A little Mexican delivery boy just dropped in with this." She hands Red an envelope containing a wad of cash and a note. "This here money is to go towards the fund for Mildred Hayes's billboards, 'cause she ain't the only one round here who hates the pigs. Signed, a friend," Red reads in amazement. "I guess you can't be too picky about who your friends are these days, huh?" Mildred remarks, before leaving.

After Mildred learns about Chief Willoughby's suicide, she is visited by his widow, Anne, who delivers the letter that her late husband had left for her. "Dear Mildred, Dead Man Willoughby here," the letter reads. "Firstly I wanted to apologize for dying without catching your daughter's killer. It's a source of great pain to me, and it would break my heart to think you thought I didn't care, 'cause I did care. There are just some cases where you never catch a break, then five years down the line some guy hears some other guy bragging about it in a bar-room or a jail-cell and the whole thing is wrapped up through sheer stupidity. I hope that might be true for Angela, I really do." The letter goes on to compliment Mildred on her brilliant idea for the billboards, and reads, "And although they had absolutely nothing to do with my dying, I'm sure that everyone in town will assume that they did, which is why, for Willoughby's counter-move, I decided to pay the next month's rent on them. I thought it'd be funny, you having to defend 'em a whole 'nother month after they've stuck me in the ground. The joke is on you, Mildred. Ha ha, and I hope they do not kill you. So good luck with all that, and good luck with everything else too. I hope and I pray that you get him."

Answer: Throws him out a window

The news of Chief Willoughby's death reaches the police station, and Dixon does not take it well. After fainting and sobbing into his desk sergeant's shoulder in the station bathroom, he composes himself, straps his nightstick onto his belt, and exits the station. The camera follows Dixon in one continuous tracking shot as he walks to the building across the street, climbs up the stairs to the Ebbing Advertising Company, and smashes Red's face in with the butt of his gun. Red collapses onto the floor, and Dixon calmly breaks the window with his nightstick, then picks Red up and throws him out of it. As Red falls out of the second-storey window onto the street below, we follow Dixon as he walks back down the stairs and out onto the street, where he resumes beating on Red.

All this is witnessed by Abercrombie, the person sent to replace Chief Willoughby and who happens to be standing outside the police station with a perfect view of the carnage across the street. As his first act as Willoughby's replacement, Abercrombie asks Deputy Dixon to turn in his gun and his badge, terminating his employment.

Answer: She sets fire to the police station.

Mildred is driving home one evening when she comes across her billboards all ablaze. She and Robbie make a valiant effort at putting out the fires, but the billboards still end up badly charred. Mildred sneaks into the empty office of the Ebbing Advertising Company in the dead of night, removes four bottles from her backpack and places them onto the table. After ringing the police station to ensure that no one is there, she lights each of the four Molotov cocktails in turn, and lobs them across the street at the police station.

What Mildred doesn't realize is that Dixon is in the police station. He had received a call earlier that day to come in after hours and collect the letter left for him by Chief Willoughby, and is reading it when Mildred sets in motion her revenge. Dixon can't hear Mildred ringing the phones in the station as he has his earphones on and is engrossed in his letter from Willoughby. "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," the letter reads. "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 wanna become - a detective. Because 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. 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." Dixon is so caught up in the letter that he doesn't notice the fire raging outside the station. He finishes the letter just as the last Molotov cocktail comes crashing through the station window, knocking him off his feet and setting his desk alight. He escapes with his life by jumping out of the burning window, getting badly burnt in the process, but he manages to save the case file for Angela Hayes' murder from the flames. Mildred eventually learns that it was her ex-husband, Charlie, who set fire to the billboards, and not anyone from the police station.

Answer: He scratches the guy in the face.

Dixon is sitting by himself in a booth in the bar, when a couple of guys slide into the booth behind him. They begin talking in low voices, but enough of it carries over to Dixon. From what he can make out, one of the guys appears to be describing the events of Angela Hayes' rape and murder to his friend. Realizing the significance of this, Dixon exits the bar on the pretext of having a smoke so that he can take a look at the guys' vehicle, then returns to his booth. Suspicious, the first guy picks up more drinks from the bar so that he can check Dixon out. When Dixon is confronted by the guy after he crosses to the bar for another beer himself, he takes a seat in the booth across from the guy. "What are you doing?" the guys asks. Dixon holds his hands up to show that he's not holding anything and says, "Just trust me, okay? You like magic?" The guy's patience is running thin, but he asks Dixon to proceed with his trick. Dixon smiles, and runs his fingernails across the guy's cheek, leaving behind deep, bloody gashes. The guys beat up Dixon, re-opening his healing burn wounds in the process. Dixon manages to make it back home and collects the skin and blood samples from under his fingernails, storing them in an evidence vial. He seems to have taken Chief Willoughby's words in his letter to heart. The next day, he pays a visit to Mildred.

"I don't wanna get your hopes up, alright, but there's a guy, and I think he might be the guy. I got his DNA. I got a lot of it, actually. They're making the checks as we speak," Dixon informs Mildred. When she asks him why he thinks this is the guy, Dixon explains, "I heard him talking about something that he did to a girl in the middle of last year. I couldn't hear all of it, but it sounded a lot like what happened to Angela. And then he beat the crap out of me. But because of that I got a bunch of his DNA. So I wanted to let you know sooner rather than later. I didn't want you to give up hope, you know?" As he gets up to leave, Mildred calls out to him. "Hey, Dixon," she says. "Thank you."

Answer: Mildred and Dixon

Abercrombie calls Dixon into the station to give him the news about the DNA test. "You did good, Jason," Abercrombie says, "But he wasn't the guy." Abercrombie goes on to explain that the DNA sample collected by Dixon is not a match for the DNA found on Angela Hayes, and that the guy from the bar wasn't even in the country at the time of Angela's attack. Dixon rings Mildred and delivers the bad news. "I'm sorry I got your hopes up," he tells her. "Well, that's alright," she says. "At least I had a day of hoping and that's more than I've had for a while." Dixon stops Mildred from hanging up the phone. "I know he ain't your rapist. He is a rapist, though. I'm sure of that," he says, before adding that he has the guy's license plate and address in Idaho. "That's funny. I'm driving to Idaho in the morning," Mildred replies. "Want some company?" Dixon asks. Mildred thinks about it for a moment. "Sure," she says.

Mildred and Dixon pack up her car the next morning, and head off. "Hey, Dixon. I need to tell you something," Mildred finally says, after they've been on the road for a while. "It was me that burned down the police station," she confesses. Dixon doesn't react. "Well, who the hell else would it have been?" he says casually, causing Mildred to laugh out loud. "Are you sure about this?" she asks finally. "About killing this guy?" Dixon replies. "Not really. You?" Mildred considers it for a moment. "Not really," she admits. "I guess we can decide along the way." They drive on in silence, as the screen fades to black.