Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)/Tear Jerker

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Several moments in the Miniseries.
    • Roslin's reaction to finding out she has breast cancer.
    • The most poignant may be when Adama believes he just lost Lee, his only remaining son. It's too bad EJO hadn't perfected his ship-smashing routine yet.
  • Aforesaid ship-smashing after Starbuck's death, especially as she had just gotten him the perfect figurehead hours earlier.
  • Adama breaking over Boomer's dead body.
  • Adama: "You did it. You brought 'em home, Saul." Tigh: "Not all of them." Gets me everytime.
  • Everything that happens after Starbuck dies.
    • Lee's anguish when he watches Kara's Viper explode, right in front of his eyes after he's begged and pleaded with her to pull her bird out of a tailspin so it won't blow up in-atmosphere and she won't die. No wonder the poor guy's mindfrakked...
    • Anders getting blind drunk, standing on a Viper flipping a coin constantly, and then falling off and bursting into tears. Then there's this line:

Anders: "She's still alive, right?"
Lee: (Looking on helplessly) "She's gone."
Anders: (Bursting into tears) "... I know."

    • The kicker is the aforesaid ship-smashing.
  • Caprica-Six's miscarriage.
  • Many, many, moments in the Grand Finale:
    • Roslin's reaction to her family's death.
    • The Fleet's final voyage straight into the Sun.
    • Laura's death, Adama burying her, and the last shot before the Distant Finale of him sitting next to her grave talking to her.
      • Not even that. The real tear jerker is when he slips his wedding band on her finger after she dies.
    • "Goodbye Kara, you will not be forgotten."
      • Except she was, wasn't she? Because they abandoned all their technology and their history was lost with the ages.
    • The final episode not only shows Gauis Baltar finally growing a spine but also serves to humanize his motivations significantly.

To Caprica-Six on prehistoric earth while planning a new and simpler life:"You know, I know about farming. *breaks down crying*"
Five years earlier just before unknowingly dooming most of humanity to death:"The things men do for love."

      • To explain: Gauis was a poor farm-boy from a backwater colony before changing himself completely to be respected as a scientist and spent the rest of his days trying to forget who he originally was. The only reminder of his humble beginnings was his senile father whom he was ashamed of. Cue a beautiful woman who is not just another bimbo for Gaius to play his erudite playboy shtick on- but a genuine lover. She helps him gain something resembling peace with his father and he admits he loves her with the latter quote before giving her state secrets to help her gain success in her "company." Forward a couple months to the start of the series and his life is shattered and his love dead- but not before revealing she is a Cylon and he inadvertently responsible for the deaths of 50 billion people.
    • Chief Tyrol choosing to live out the rest of his life alone on an abandoned island after finally arriving on our earth. Understandable, considering the half dozen Break the Cutie scenarios he went through.

"I've had enough of people, humans or cylons."

  • At the end of "Scar," Starbuck reciting the names of all of the dead pilots that she can remember, and slowing down the further back she gets, unable to remember everyone's names and looking like she's about to completely collapse in tears as she does so.
  • Baltars heartfelt promise to Gina-Six (who has been constantly tortured, humiliated and raped to the point of catatonia for the last few months) that he will help her escape.
    • He makes good on it but, being Baltar, fucks it up a couple episodes latter by offering her sex (the last thing she needs) instead of emotional support. Her subsequent suicide via atom bomb is another tear-jerker.
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