Criminal Minds/Tear Jerker

Season One
"Sarah Jean: If it's not too much to ask...I'd like your face to be the last one I see."
 * In the episode "The Fox", when Frank Fielding ( a mentally retarded man, who is the brother of one of the first victims ) realises that he saw the killer, and misinterpreted his sister saying 'help me' as 'go away'... his cries of anguish as he beats his hands against his head and has to be restrained by four of the BAU agents is just heart-wrenching.
 * The last ten minutes of "Riding The Lightning".


 * The last half of that episode should be included here. Particularly that one point where  She stood for 15 years in prison and died to protect her son. This may be the most selfless act evident in the series to date.

Season Two
"Doctor: I'm giving her as much painkiller as I can. She asked about her husband and son. She passed out again before I had to answer.
 * "Revelations": Especially for all the Spencer Reid fangirls out there who need to run and purchase a box of tissues whenever this episode comes on.
 * One moment in particular, that verges on Nightmare Fuel: Gideon is talking to Reid over a one-way video feed, telling him he's strong and he can hold out, and Reid just... stares blankly at the screen, almost catatonic, looking like he's already broken.
 * At the end of "Jones", William LaMontagne Jr talks the woman who's been killing the men down by telling her his name and saying that she knew his father. The woman, who's been close to tears, cries when she finds out that William LaMontagne Sr died during Hurrican Katrina.
 * "Ashes and Dust":

Prentiss: She doesn't know?

Doctor: Whatever you tell her, she won't live long enough to know different."

"Mrs. Cutler: Where are they? Are they okay?
 * And not much later...

Hotchner: They're fine. They're just outside in the waiting room.

Mrs. Cutler: I don't want them to see me like this. I'm not ready.

Hotchner: Agent Prentiss will tell them. I can stay with you until you're ready.

Mrs. Cutler: I'd like that."

"Roy Woodridge: It wasn't safe.
 * The ending of "Distress":

Jason Gideon: I know.

Roy Woodridge: Is the boy all right?

Jason Gideon: Yes, sergeant... yes, the boy's all right."


 * The younger Unsub in "Open Season" . Him begging Gideon not to hurt his brother because he is all he has left and  was just heartwrenching.
 * YMMV a lot. Remember he and his brother kidnapped, hunted and killed people in the woods.
 * Nathan Harris sitting in church, thinking the only way to help people in the future is to  in the episode Sex, Birth, and Death.
 * At the end of the episode he picks up a prostitute and and, instead of playing out his fantasy, he  He fails.

Season Three
"Reid: That kids face is really, uh, stuck in my brain. It's really, uh, I can't... and I ... I wanna forget about him, and... I want to escape."
 * "I guess I'm looking for it again. The belief in happy endings." ("I'm holding on... I'm barely breathing...)
 * Bit late to the party, but season three's "Seven Seconds" has a pretty major one when
 * Not to mention the mother pleading over the mall intercom to get Katie back.
 * That one balloon during the speech was truly tearjerking.
 * "True Night's" ending ("Hey, this is Vicky! I can't come to the phone right now because I'm out living my life!")
 * The heartwrenching way the Unsub says "he made me watch". Just... that.
 * Reid's face in "3rd Life" after he watches Jack Vaughn  Like the saddest puppy in the world. It doesn't help by the way he follows it by whimpering, 'I tried... I tried, but I couldn't...'
 * "Elephant's Memory": The audience is led to believe that . And then they start playing Johnny freaking Cash.
 * In the same episode Reid tells Morgan about a particularly cruel prank played on him high school; while in the library a girl told him that another girl, the prettiest in school, wanted to meet him later. Going to the meeting place Reid found the girls, the entire football team and several other students all there. Stripped naked, Reid was tied to the goal post and despite all his begging no one helped him. When he finally got loose around midnight and went home he discovered his mother, who was having one of her episodes, didn't even notice he was missing. Did we mention he was only twelve at the time?
 * And again in the same episode (poor Reid), Reid's speech at the 'Beltway Clean Cops' meeting.


 * Even worse when you realize that the kid he's talking about is the unsub from "3rd Life," in the moment mentioned above.
 * All of "Penelope". Garcia almost dying on the table. Morgan not picking up his phone and his absolute despair at finding out Garcia's been shot. Battle trying again and Morgan pushing a crying Garcia into the corner and giving her his gun. Garcia talking about how everything has to happen for a reason, and if she stops believing that then nothing makes sense.
 * The arrest of the unsub in "Damaged" was difficult to watch. "Daddy!...Daddy!"

Season Four
"Morgan: There's something I really want you to know, Garcia.
 * Morgan and Garcia on the phone in "Mayhem", when :

Garcia: Save it! Just get out!

Morgan: No, no, no, I'm not quite there yet.

Garcia: Morgan!

Morgan: Just listen to me.

Garcia: Morgan, please!

Morgan: You know what you are, Garcia? { }

Garcia: Derek?!

Morgan: Garcia? I'll tell you what you are to me. You're my God-given solace. Woman, you promise me one thing - whatever happens, don't you ever stop talking to me.

Garcia: [crying] I can't right now, cause I'm mad at you.

Morgan: That's all right. I can wait."

"Megan Kane: You're the first man who didn't let me down. Will you stay with me?
 * From the same episode: when Hotch finds Kate Joyner after their car exploded, she's so distressed and babbling about her purse and can't feel her legs.
 * And she doesn't make it. Poor Hotch.
 * "Pleasure Is My Business": The ending unites Alas Poor Villain and Sympathetic Murderer.

Hotch: Yes.

Megan Kane: Promise?

Hotch: I promise."

"Reid: Hi Mom, this is Spencer. I just, um, I just really want you to know that I love you and I, I need you to know that I spend every day of my life proud to be your son."
 * The ending of "Demonology", with Prentiss standing outside the church while the snow falls. It becomes even more poignant with her quote from Joyce's The Dead.
 * The entire last half of "The Big Wheel" is one big tearjerker. Especially when Vincent gives the speech to Stan ,and when Stan finds out that   and how innocent and caring Vincent really is.
 * This becomes especially painful when you realise that Vincent was so traumatised by his mother's death that he was forced to relive it - to take on his father's role - over... and over... and over...
 * "Amplification" has Reid leaving a recorded message for his mother to hear in the event that his being  proves fatal. Understandably, he has trouble keeping it together, as does the audience.

Season Five
"Samantha: "Don't leave me."
 * The part when Hotch had to say goodbye to Jack at the end of "Nameless, Faceless."
 * Hotch watching Jack playing in the playground through a webcam in the beginning of "Reckoner". Oh, Hotch.
 * "100" - the entire thing, but specifically
 * "100" may also cause Ocular Gushers.
 * "The Slave of Duty" takes things to an extreme for
 * "Mosley Lane":
 * Just the way
 * Let's face it, the whole end of that episode. Dry eyes are impossible.
 * Garcia in "Exit Wounds",.
 * The entire ending dialogue in "Uncanny Valley", culminating in one of many Crowning Moments of Awesome for Reid:

Victim: (just recovering from paralysis) "Let us go."

Samantha: "I can't."

Reid: (walking into the room) "Samantha? Hi. My name's Spencer. I'm with the FBI. Listen, I know what your father did to you, and I want you to know that he can never ever hurt you again."

Samantha: (mechanically) "He never touched me, he's a good father, he loves me."

Reid: "I know that he probably forced you to say those things. Punished you if you got it wrong, send you to the 'room with the lightning'?"

Samantha: "Yeah."

Reid: "The dolls that your father gave you, after he hurt you, what would happen to them?"

Samantha: "He...he kept them in his office with the other toys."

Reid: "And that's where he let you play with them?"

Samantha: "When I moved out, I had to take my friends with me, I couldn't...leave them behind."

Reid: "Of course. So you went to get them. What did...what did you find?"


 * Flashback of adult Samantha walking into her father's office, seeing him stroking the hair of a little girl holding her dolls*

Reid: "Yeah. He gave them to another girl, didn't he? (Samantha nods) ...do you want them back?"

Samantha: "He couldn't. He said they were gone for good."

Reid: "He lied. He's been lying to you for a very long time. Do you want to see them?"

Samantha: "...Can I?"

Reid: "Yeah! Yeah, do you want to play with them?"


 * Reid wheels out a child's suitcase and opens it, showing Samantha's dolls. She walks over with such a smile of childish delight as to inspire Manly Tears. She picks one up and starts to cry while cops and paramedics stream in.*

Reid: "Listen, Samantha? You need to go with these men. But your friends can go with you, okay?"

Samantha: "N-No one'll take them away?"

Reid: "I promise, no one will ever take them away again.""

Season Six
"Garcia: Are you okay?
 * Just a little thing, but Morgan shouting at Garcia for not doing well enough in "The Longest Night". Scary and saddening because he'd never done that before, and it showed just what a bad place Morgan was in. He makes up for it later, though, by begging for her forgiveness.
 * The last ten minutes of "JJ." Seriously, show? Did you really have to  *cries*
 * "Into the Woods" One Word: Sad. Sad made even worse by
 * "Coda": for some reason,  was especially heartwrenching.   are pretty common on this show, but this one just made this troper lose it.
 * "Valhalla": Emily's tearful, surreptitious departure from the BAU. Also, she has a few sweet interactions with her teammates, including the following exchange with Garcia:

Emily: Oh...um...yeah. I'm good.

Garcia: I'm not a profiler, but....

Emily: Don't start. (sees Garcia's hurt look) I'm sorry. I'm--I'm gonna be all right.

Garcia: Okay. I'm just really worried about you. The flu is going around...(new thought) Are you pregs?!

Emily: (laughs) No. No, I just...I'm not sleeping. I'm having this nightmare. It's a recurring nightmare. There's a hill and there's a little girl on top of the hill....She's, like, six years old, dark hair...and she's just dancing in the sun. But somehow I know she's waiting for me, so I start to walk up the hill, but the hill gets steeper and steeper, and by the time I climb to the top, the little girl's gone. And I, I look everywhere for her, and when I can't find her, I start to panic, and I panic because I know what's waiting out there for her. I know what the world can do to a girl who only sees beauty in it. Like you. (Garcia is taken aback, touched.) Somehow, you...you always make me smile. And I don't think I've ever thanked you for that."

"Reid: I didn't get to say good-bye. (JJ embraces him; he starts sobbing on her shoulder)"
 * "Lauren." Just..."Lauren." To explain,
 * This troper broke down at the team's reaction, particularly when Reid tried to leave and J.J. stops him.

"Garcia: Come home. Please. God, Emily, what did you think? That we would just let you walk out of our lives? I am so furious with you right now! But then I think about how scared you must be, hiding in a dark place all alone. But you're not alone, okay? You are not alone. We are in that dark place with you, we are waving flashlights and calling your name, so if you can see us, come home. If you can't, then...then you stay alive. Because we're coming."
 * Also, during her one-woman stakeout, Prentiss chokes up to hear the following voicemail message:


 * This is made a million times more touching simply because of how REAL it is. For anyone who's ever had a friend in danger you can't contact, or a missing person... It just hit the nail on the head so devastatingly perfectly. This Troper nearly had a hyperventilating nervous breakdown because of that little bit there. And she's still waving a flashlight.
 * "Hanley Waters". Sad in the parts revolving around the team elaborating grief for . Sadder when the unsub has  . Extremely sad when the unsub finally breaks down when Hotch talks to her about.
 * As well, the title is quite poignant. Everyone remembers the unsub but never the victims.

Season Seven
"Reid: I trusted you. I came to your house ten weeks in a row, crying over losing a friend. And not once did you have the decency to tell me the truth.
 * Morgan's eyes during
 * Reid acting horribly cold towards JJ in "Proof", because he feels like she betrayed his trust. And then we find out how he reacted to

JJ: I couldn't.

Reid: You couldn't, or you wouldn't?

JJ: No, I couldn't.

Reid: What if I had started taking Dilaudid again? Would you have let me?

JJ: But... you didn't.

Reid: Yeah. I thought about it."

""You mourned the loss of a friend. I mourned the loss of six.""
 * And later,

"'I just... don't know why I'm in the FBI.'"
 * The revelation of the Unsub's motive in "Painless". If only the school principal had chosen him to appear on TV. If only the survivors had the balls to tell the truth that it was the Unsub who had saved their lives during the original bombing. If only the bomb had not made the Unsub unable to feel pain. If only the girl had invited him to join the survivors.
 * Those Top 10/9/8? You mean those who hid the truth from BAU on their first chance? You see the way that girl disowns the unsub on the way to restaurant? They are not innocent, otherwise they'd have come clean ten years ago already. The unsub saved their lives, all right; they owe him that much. Would it hurt if they at least thank him? Drop their pretense? Give him the credit he deserves?
 * The last scene in "From Childhood's Hour."
 * Even more poignant and heartbreaking when you remember that
 * The third mother in "From Childhood's Hour", saying truly awful things to her teenage daughter to provoke the girl into killing her, because she believes it's the only way the unsub won't kill them both. She's in tears even as she does it.
 * The end of "Epilogue", where
 * The heartwrenching continues when Caroline asks Dave "will he be there?" Dave tells her yes, but it's not until the final scene  that it's revealed that the "he" she's speaking of is.
 * JJ telling her son a bedtime story over the phone, because she's trapped in Kansas overnight as a result of the weather.
 * And she's got it entirely memorized. Not just the gist, but word for word.
 * In "Hope", the episode begins with Garcia talking about her parents' death.  It is interesting to know that the happy character has such guilt weighing on them.
 * "The Bittersweet Science": Hotch is in the room while the Unsub . Hotch's eyes water, and then he sheds a single tear. It's especially tearjerking when you realize that
 * "True Genius". Reid's self-doubt throughout the episode is utterly heartbreaking.


 * Morgan and Angel, the escaped victim in "Foundation". Angel has been mute, after the trauma of being abducted and held captive by a sadistic killer, and attempted suicide. Morgan tells Angel the story of fighter pilots in World War II, how they knew each other when taken captive by the coins they carried, and the first words Angel speaks are to ask what happened to them. It takes a turn for the heartbreaking when Morgan tells Angel about Carl Buford (from "Profiler, Profiled"), the man who raped and abused him. He confesses that he thought about suicide himself, and that while he wished the shame could go away, he and Angel are the only ones who can punish men like Buford and the man who took Angel.
 * The ending of "Heathridge Manor" is a truly heartbreaking Hope Spot. After the Unsub is defeated, we see his sister Lara in their home. She is putting away all of her mothers old costumes, she's wearing white pastels, the sun is shining outside, and the mood is fairly calm and relaxed. Then the doorbell rings...  Also doubles as Major Nightmare Fuel material.
 * In "Profiling 101", after making a deal with the unsub to get the names of all his victims, Rossi personally goes to each family to report the tragic news. It is a rough scene to watch.