The 10 Best Quotes From The Fallout

HBO Max’s The Fallout is a heartbreaking look into the trauma that teens suffer after living through a school shooting. The star-studded cast does an impressive job capturing the audience’s attention and horrifying them with the characters’ very realistic trauma responses.

While some of the best moments in the film came in silence, some quotes strike home. These lines either perfectly summarize the moment, how characters feel, or the message of the film as a whole. Either way, this atmospheric film ensures to stay in the minds of audiences long after the credits roll.

The First Texts

“How R U?” “Just Kind Of Numb Tbh”

The film centers around the growing friendship between Vada and Mia, which begins with a series of texts the night after the shooting. The two begin to grow closer as they try to cope with what has happened to them, finding different coping mechanisms along the way.

This quote is particularly important because numbness is so central to Vada’s arc in the film. She repeatedly ignores the people trying to get her to feel her emotions, and uses music and videos to keep from having to think about and feel what happened. Because of this, she keeps herself in a self-induced numbness through the majority of the film.

Coping Through Advocacy

“So Last Night I Was Like, Okay, Why Did I Survive? Like Out Of Everyone, Why Me?”

Vada’s best friend Nick processes the school shooting and his survivor’s guilt through advocacy, deciding that he must have survived the shooting so that he could do something to stop them from happening again. After this moment, audiences see clips of Nick giving speeches and interviews where he talks about the need for gun control and better protection in schools.

This is a sharp contrast to Vada and Mia, who are trying to avoid their fear and anger about the shooting. Despite their lives being virtually defined by the shooting, they use alcohol, drugs, and sex to avoid having to think about the problem. While Nick is doing everything he can to stop another shooting from happening through advocacy, the girls try to ignore the possibility of it happening again, which makes the film’s ending so heartbreaking.

Quentin’s Brother

“A Lot Of People Don’t Ask Me About Him. They Think I’m Gonna Like Cry Or Something… Thank You.”

Despite the majority of the film being about the survivors, Quentin is a character who showcases the grief of the shooting, having seen his brother shot in front of him. The loss helps bring Vada and Quentin together but is not talked about for the vast majority of the film.

When Vada finally asks Quentin about his brother, he shares his favorite parts of his brother before telling Vada that he can still feel him there. He’s then grateful that she asked, mentioning how most people avoid the topic, either for his sake or theirs, which doesn’t let him talk about someone he dearly loved. This scene makes The Fallout one of the best on-screen portrayals of grief.

The Danger of Casual Comments

“Wow. Where Would We Be Without You?”

Around halfway through the film, Vada and her mother are having a casual conversation about her sister’s Internet use when her mom says this weighted comment. It’s just a casual, rhetorical question at the moment, but the heavy pause afterward shows how much the question hits home.

In another world, Vada easily could have been killed in the shooting, making this a movie about her family’s loss. This is one of many times when a casual comment hits a little too close to home, leaving characters and audiences tense.

Trauma Bonding

“This Might Sound Weird Cause I Haven’t Known You That Long, But I Feel So Comfortable With You, Like We’re Bonded Or Something.”

One of the central parts of the film is Vada and Mia’s growing relationship, which helps both girls deal with the trauma of what has happened to them together. This baffles Vada’s best friend Nick who expects them to heal together, but Vada and Mia (and Quentin, to some extent) are the only ones who know their specific experience of the shooting.

This quote makes their bond explicit, openly discussing the way the two girls have found comfort in each other after everything they’ve gone through.

A Lesson From Therapy

“It Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Someone’s Being Dramatic Just Because They’re Emotional… It’s Actually Really Healthy To Show Your Emotions.”

An important part of this film is showing how different characters cope with their trauma and survivor’s guilt. This quote from Vada’s therapist shows pushback against Vada’s idea that getting emotional is “dramatic” and “unproductive.”

Her therapist suggests the importance of showing and dealing with Vada’s emotions, which helps lead Vada to the cathartic scene with her father a little later on in the film.

Another Way Of Coping

“I Think For Me, You Know, When It Hurts Too Much, I Think About How This Can’t Be For Nothing. We Won’t Let It Be For Nothing.”

Quentin has a very specific kind of survivor’s guilt, having seen the shooting and been there as his brother was dying. He expresses the same philosophical need to explain his survival as Nick, claiming similarly that he won’t let this shooting be for nothing.

The difference between Quentin and Nick is that Nick doesn’t feel the need to throw himself into advocacy. Instead, he reaches out and connects with the people around him, trying to live life to its fullest at the moment. Quentin tries to live a life his brother would’ve been proud of, as a way of managing his grief and guilt.

Catharsis

“Life’s F**king Hard.”

Vada and her dad have a heart-to-heart where she finally starts really examining her feelings, telling him the quote above. This leads to her dad welcoming her sharing how she feels, regardless of the swearing, shouting the things that make her upset.

These things include not feeling anything, being scared to go to sleep, and being scared to go to school, showing that Vada needed the freedom to say uncomfortable truths to start openly acknowledging how she feels.

Feeling Her Feelings

“I Feel… Mad. I Feel Mad Because I Had No Idea One Guy With A Gun Could F**k Up My Life So Hard In Six Minutes. F**k Up So Many Lives.”

When Vada returns to therapy for the second time, she is pushed to acknowledge what she’s feeling in the moment, giving her the chance to embrace her anger. This is one quote that captures the pain and grief Vada feels best, looking at the anger that she and everyone around her feel that one person with a gun can cause so much damage.

There’s the anger at the shooter, but also anger at herself, for not realizing how significant one person with a gun could be. Vada seems to have guilt, not just at surviving, but at the incident as a whole, feeling like she should have been able to predict or stop the shooting somehow. This ties into her guilt in comparing herself to Nick’s advocacy, seeing herself as bad because she’s not using the experience to save the world.

The Moral Of The Story

“But Then You Realize, No. There Isn’t A Reason. None Of Us Should Have Died.”

Throughout the film, characters try to rationalize why they survived when others didn’t, and how they should live because of those rationalizations. In her final therapy session, Vada explains that she’s tried to figure out why she deserved to live when others didn’t, before coming to the conclusion that seems to be the moral of the film.

There’s no good reason that one person survived and another didn’t. Nothing innate about a person made them survive, which is why she felt so purposeless in the aftermath of the shooting. Where others took purpose from the incident, she just feels overwhelming pain. Without a reason for one person surviving and another dying, the incident is that much worse and that much more horrifying.