ER/Tear Jerker

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Tear Jerkers in ER include:

  • Admit it, you cried when Mark Greene died on ER.
    • Yes. And when Lucy died, because even that bastard of a doctor Romano refused to give up on her when she was clearly beyond help.
    • Perhaps the worst of Mark Greene's death was Corday's reaction. No screaming or wailing - just quiet, wordless, complete devastation. Bravo, Alex Kingston... bravo.
    • The look on Carter's face after he finishes reading Mark's letter to the staff still gives me chills, as well as his near-breakdown as he reads Corday's
  • "Time of Death", with guest star Ray Liotta as a dying alcoholic ex-con. The whole episode is in real-time, and goes back and forth between his subconscious and scenes in the hospital. He ends up refusing surgery that might save his life, and Pratt (who never knew his father) takes his final request to get in touch with his estranged son.
  • The death of paramedic/firefighter Raul in season 2.
  • "Love's Labors Lost," Season 1. That is all.
  • Sandy's death in season 10 was played for mass quantities of Narm, but largely saved by Laura Innes' performance. Kerry's quiet desperation as she pleads with the surgical team to let her into the OR ("You have to let me see her... that's my wife in there") is devastating, especially for a character who's spent her career being as abrasive and unlikable as possible. Especially at the very end of the OR scene, where blood begins running up Sandy's endotracheal tube(that's it in a surgical situation), Kerry's face freezes in position and she quietly tells Corday and Anspaugh: "You can stop. She's gone."
  • I cried buckets during the episode when Dr. Pratt dies and also during the series finale.
  • The Season 6 arc involving Weaver's beloved mentor Dr. Lawrence, who's developed Alzheimer's - specifically, his discussion with Weaver during his final appearance:

Lawrence: I saw a woman this morning - dementia. She had no idea where she was, who she was. In ten years that'll be me. Bedridden...in diapers. Locked away in some home, nobody coming to see me.
Weaver: I'll come and see you.
Lawrence: But I won't know who you are.

  • The ending of "The Storm, Part 2"
  • Luckily, it's eclipsed by the happy tears when Carol and Doug reunited.

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