Thoughts & Prayers – Review | HBO

THOUGHTS & PRAYERS on HBO Max is a new HBO Documentary that is as thought-provoking as it is relevant. This is true-crime in the sense that it deals with the prevention of school shootings. Or rather, it deals with preparing for them, due to abandoning all hope of stopping them. Read our Thoughts & Prayers documentary review here!

THOUGHTS & PRAYERS is a new HBO Documentary coming to HBO Max. To me, this kind of documentary dealing with real crime is scarier than any fiction. And it is obviously terrifying to the kids in this documentary as well.

I want to say that it’s about preventing more tragedies, but it isn’t. It’s about the huge industry that is evolving in the aftermath of the many U.S. school shootings. Instead of trying to stop them via gun control, the goal is to prepare. I can’t claim to understand this because it makes no sense.

Continue reading our Thoughts & Prayers documentary review below. Find it on HBO Max from November 18, 2025.

Safety rituals instead of prevention

Thoughts & Prayers is a dark look at how schools and communities are actively engaged in training sessions to prepare for the next mass shooting. Whether that next shooting happens in a daycare center, yet another high school, or somewhere else in the local community.

This is all about preparing and learning safety rituals. Never about prevention.

We see how caregivers are getting lessons in how to block doors with cribs. High school educators are sent out to practice shooting at armed intruders – including in elaborate mock battles and VR simulations. And finally, the kids themselves have to get involved and learn how to fight back against attackers.

Whether by using everyday school objects or hiding behind the latest in bulletproof equipment. Particularly, the latter is part of a huge and growing industry. Kids are being taught to defend themselves and their friends, including first-aid skills, as if they were preparing to go to war. Not simply attending school.

In Thoughts & Prayers, we experience this crazy industry (because that’s what it has turned into) through students, staff members, and administrators from school districts in Utah, Oregon, and New York. All alongside expert personnel in weapons, military, and video simulation training, who are working to train everyone else in preparing for the next disaster.

Though there is no talk of preventing it.

Prevention is possible… if you want it!

Whether talking about seatbelts in cars, masks during an outbreak, or protection from STDs, we know that we are capable of preventing things. If we want to!

And therein lies the main issue: No one dares try to prevent it, because to stop shootings, you need to regulate those who shoot guns better. Working on this issue is a financial ruin for any (or certainly most) politicians, so instead it’s treated like a terrible tragedy that just cannot be helped.

We even hear kids saying that school shootings are treated like a tornado or a hurricane. A natural disaster that could and might happen, and which is entirely out of our human hands.

This is not true!

Prevention is obviously entirely in our hands. Just like any other crime prevention.

Sadly, rather than working with prevention, all hope of stopping school shootings has been abandoned. Instead, it’s about preparing. The rest of the world doesn’t have this same issue, and yet it’s treated like an impossible task.

It isn’t.

Watch Thoughts & Prayers on HBO Max… and take it all in!

The HBO Original Documentary THOUGHTS & PRAYERS was directed by Zackary Canepari and Jessica Dimmock. This is perhaps the most important documentary I’ve watched in a long while. The documentary filmmakers try their hardest to shine a spotlight on the huge issue of school shootings and how they’re dealt with.

Or rather, how they are not dealt with, but prepared for.

It’s been a few days since I watched it, as I needed to let it sink in before writing about this documentary. As a result, certain moments have clearly stuck with me more especially.

During one interview with someone in the “preparation” industry, a man speaks about the lack of “tribes” in modern society and people being narcissistic, as a reason for school shootings. Next, we see two kids saying that it’s obvious to them that adults value gun ownership over the safety of kids.

And there you have it; Yes, it is about narcissistic and selfish adults. Just not in any “tribal” setting, but in the simple individual wanting to have what they want, and then kids will just have to pay the price.

The kids training to prepare for a school shooting can see this. Why can’t their parents?

Thoughts & Prayers debuts on November 18, 2025, on HBO (9:00-10:25 p.m. ET/PT) and streams on HBO Max.