Live-Action TV/Tear Jerker/Lists that need to be integrated into existing Tear Jerker pages

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


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Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)/Tear Jerker

  • The first episode of the new Battlestar Galactica - "33" - has a tear jerking scene right after the opening credits when ALL of the grief-stricken, sleep-deprived Galactica pilots take a moment to touch the picture of a fellow soldier who was watching the destruction of his home world. If you listen very carefully, you can hear most of the pilots say something along the lines of "Never forget". Later on, President Laura Roslin breaks down after learning that a baby was born during the chaos of the multiple jumps through space, and updates the running survivor count accordingly.
    • The scene in "Maelstrom" where Kara "dies", her ship blows up, Saul frackin' Tigh, of all people, cries over her, and then Bill Adama breaks down in his quarters and smashes his model ship.
    • Doubly so because that was genuine anger on the part of Edward James Olmos, who plays Adama, and who had not been told that Starbuck would return. That model ship he smashed? That was an improvisation - the ship wasn't a prop, it was a museum piece being loaned to the production team...
      • Adama looking through some of his effects. He finds an old birthday card from Kara in which she confesses that she always thought of him as a father, and includes a photo of herself on which she's drawn a moustache like he used to have, asking if he sees the resemblance. A moment both hilarious, and yet shockingly sad.
    • Callie's death scene. The fact that its at the very end of an episode where she's become an emotional wreck and has just discovered her husband Galen is a Cylon and she's broken down and shattered into a million mental pieces just makes it all the worse.
      • Consider the fact that she just trusted Tory, one of the secret Cylons along with Galen and got backhanded for it. It's more than likely that she died thinking her husband was complicit in it.
    • Let's face it, Tear Jerker moments are a Once an Episode deal with Battlestar Galactica. The start of season 2 when Chief Tyrol is shocked at the loss of a life during a short mission he was leading

Callie: Talk to me you mother-frakker!
Chief: Mother-frakker?
(they both laugh and Callie breaks down)

      • The term "frak" has often been a source of Narm in the show. To be able to go from narm, to comic relief to heartbreaking in the space of a few seconds as Callie just gets overwhelmed by the shock of her situation... it makes me well up just thinking about it. It's brilliant writing.
    • Whenever Edward James Olmos sheds tears,. Especially in Resurrection Ship 1, during the "I can't see you as a blonde." conversation. When he turns around after Roslin calls after him, subtly wiping his eyes...
    • Then "Notion", at the start of season 4.5, has has Dualla's sudden, shocking suicide, and the fallout resulting from it.
      • Agreed on this one. From the beginning of the episode it looked like she was in trouble but her date with Lee had the appearance of walking her back from the brink. Made the eventual suicide, especially the matter of fact way she did it,seem much more heartbreaking.
      • And earlier in that episode, when Roslin gets out of the Raptor, looks at the anticipatory faces of the people in the bay, and she's too heartbroken to even speak.
    • Peggy! Nooooo!! Way to go, Lee, you fat moron.
  • For me, it was Gaeta's Lament from "Guess What's Coming to Dinner?" Gaeta had to have his leg amputated and so, whenever he feels pain and can't take it, he starts to sing. Here's the song (sung like an opera)

Alone she sleeps in the shirt of man
With my three wishes clutched in her hand.
The first that she be spared the pain
That comes from a dark and laughing rain.
When she finds love may it always stay true
This I beg for the second wish I made too.
But wish no more
My life you can take
To have her please just one day wake
To have her please just one day wake

    • Part of the reason that song was so damned effective was that it was performed live on the set, as part of the acting. (Apparently it had people trying not to cry on-set.) Alessandro Juliani is really singing it there, as you see him. Also, the version on the Season 4 soundtrack is *gorgeous*, presented first a cappella, then with strings and drums--it's worth a listen by itself.
  • In something usually missed by many fans of the show, in the episode The Oath Laird, the deck chief's death. Let's put this in perspective, Peter Laird was on a tiny freighter with his family when the Cylons destroyed the Twelve Colonies. He survives on the ship until they meet up with Battlestar Pegasus who then conscripts him and kills his entire family, he serves on Pegasus until its destruction at New Caprica, then becomes deck chief on Galactica. When the mutiny begins, he is beaten to death by Tom Zarek so he can escape to Colonial One, nobody even mourning or remembering him afterwards.
  • What about this Tearjerker/Nightmare Fuel: Razor Flashbacks Episode 3, when the Columbia is destroyed. The last dying screams of the crew...
  • In the series finale (Daybreak Part 2), when Bill Adama and Laura Roslin are in a Raptor flying over their new home, talking about their plans, Roslin quietly, peacefully passes away in the passenger seat right next to him, leaving Bill all alone.
      • When Adama is carrying the dying Roslin to a Raptor, and continued during Adama's farewell to his son, Lee and Kara's farewell to Roslin through the Raptor window, Starbuck's disapperance, and finally Roslin's death.
    • In the season finale, Galactica being flown into the sun, while a faint and mournful version of the original series theme tune was playing over the top..
      • The entire series finale is a Tear Jerker, especially the second part from Anders send off to Adama's "it was heavenly, it reminded me of you."
      • Anders' goodbye to Kara: "I'll see you on the other side." accompanied by this Crowning Music of Awesome reprised.
    • Even if you don't much like Baltar, the moment where he and Caprica-Six are going off to start their lives anew together on Earth, he says he saw a field he'd like to cultivate and farm. Baltar was from a farming planet and culture, which he spent most of his life trying to get away from and prove his worth as a scientist. Now, so many years later, he's going to be a farmer. His life has come full circle. He breaks down crying, not really understanding why, and Six comforts him, saying "I know."
  • How about in Exodus: Part 1, where the Adamas say goodbye in Galactica's hangar deck? Sure, the Old Man always comes through, but they don't know that. Seeing them both get choked up is too much for me.
  • Half-way through the episode Scar, Apollo says he's worried he'll forget the faces of their dead pilots. Starbuck's response is a half-humorous: "I don't even remember their names." Then at the end of the episode she proposes a toast, and lists the dead pilots, one by one. By the end she's in tears. She's not alone.
  • And, going back to 33 -- the first sight of the wall.
  • Kat's Heroic Sacrifice in "Passage", especially the scene at the end where she's made honorary CAG then Starbuck adds her photo to the wall.
  • No mention of Unfinished Business? Oh, god. Not even counting the heartbreaking Tigh flashback, this episode is emotionally crippling to any Kara/Lee shippers as well as probably anyone who's ever been in love and rejected for someone else. Let's see, first up you have the boxing tournament framing device that hints at some MAJOR Unresolved Sexual Tension between Apollo and Starbuck. Then the flashbacks start. Apollo's longing stares at Starbuck at the Founders' Day party. Their drunken hooking up. Their shouting their love on the rooftops (or, well, in the middle of the forest). And we're not even at "heartbreaking" yet - that would be Apollo waking up alone and confused, walking back to the village and discovering that Starbuck just got married that very morning. If you watch it in slow-motion, you can see the exact moment where his heart breaks. Then there's Apollo bitterly settling for Dualla, who it turns out has absolutely no illusions about being a silver medal. Meanwhile, back in the present, Apollo and Starbuck go from viciously pounding on each other to collapsing in each other's arms, tearfully admitting that they missed each other. Every single second of this episode is a Tear Jerker, doubly so on repeat viewings when you already know what happened.
  • The conversation between Baltar and Gaeta before Gaeta gets executed.
  • In "Faith", when Roslin starts chatting with a dying cancer patient, you know it's going to end tear-jerkingly. But the dream scene where the patient, Emily, runs across a meadow towards her welcoming, also-dead family... And what makes it all the worse is Roslin watching the scene, in the dream, and just knowing that when she dies too (much later), there will be no crowd waiting for her. That was rough.
  • The last conversation between Lee and Starbuck where she tells him she needs to go but doesn't know where and asks him what he plans to do. He looks away for a second and when he looks back, she's disappeared. Kara has earned her rest with Anders.

Lee: Goodbye Kara, you won't be forgotten.

Being Human (UK)/Tear Jerker

  • The season three finale. Very nearly all of it.
    • McNair's final letter to Tom, written before Herrick killed him. "Don't avenge me." Even sadder because he doesn't listen.
    • George's scream when he thinks Nina is dead. Words cannot describe it.
    • Lia's realization that her revenge on Mitchell will have the same effect on George as her death had on her family.
    • The build-up to George staking Mitchell. First Mitchell's attempts to convince George to do it by telling him that their entire friendship was a sham, and that George is pathetic. The fact that George knows he's lying is a Tear Jerker by itself. Then, when Mitchell doesn't have the heart to keep that up, he breaks down and begs George to do it because he knows he'll kill again. Finally George agrees. Mitchell says he's finally doing the decent thing, and Nina says this is what they'll remember him by. He tells Annie that she's the love his life. When Wyndham interrupts them, we think that this is a reprise (albeit not a particularly good one). Wyndham informs Mitchell he'll have to be an "attack dog" for the Old Ones, or else he'll "crucify" George and Nina. George picks up the stake, apparently to kill Wyndham, then turns around and rams it into Mitchell's heart.

George: I'm dong this because I love you.
Mitchell: I know.

  • Believe it or not, it gets worse in Series 4.
    • Nina was killed by the vampires shortly after giving birth, after George encouraged her to go outside.
    • George is killed in the first episode. His last words are to name the baby Eve. And then he becomes a ghost, standing behind his own dead body, in front of his door.

George: I have to be with my Nina.

      • Oh, and the reason he dies.? He forced his body to begin changing into a werewolf to save his daughter, but was unable to heal himself.
  • Kirby tricking Tom into thinking that he was going to get his very first birthday party, complete with cake. The look on Tom's face when he realises that no one even knows that it's his birthday.
    • Annie falls for Kirby... who then begins to insult her until she fades away.
    • Kirby messes up Hal's bedroom and it looks like he can almost cope with that... Then he drops Hal's photo of Leo on the floor and Hal looks completely devastated.

Bones/Tear Jerker

  • "Aliens in a Spaceship". Finding out that one of the twins killed himself to give his brother the rest of the oxygen was bad enough since they obviously didn't make it, but Zack's inability to understand why he should tell the twins' father made it 50 times worse. The concept is heartbreaking for everyone -- but for many real-life twins, it's downright TERRIFYING.
  • The end of "The Man in the Fallout Shelter", where Bones is able to tell the fiancée of a man murdered in 1959 what really happened to him, and that he'd never abandoned her.
    • Towards the end, with Bones and the present.
    • "Don't you wish someone had told you that your parents were dead--just so you can finally stop wondering?" "Yes."
  • "The Finger in the Nest," in which Brennan decides to adopt Ripley, the fighting dog at the center of the case. However, since the dog has killed a person, the judge in the case orders it put down - which she doesn't find out until after she's already purchased toys, bedding and a personalized collar tag. Brennan's expression at the news, and then her halting attempt to say something over Ripley's grave, is heart-wrenching.
  • The comparing scars scene in "Mayhem on a Cross" where Bones reveals that her foster parents locked her in a car for two days
  • "The Pain in the Heart". Everything involving Zack.
  • The Christmas episode of 2009. The scene near the end where the radio broadcaster gives his final show about how it's really his fault that the man died, because of all the hate he's spreading.

"These will be the final words I broadcast. And I hope they're the words you remember the best. Peace on Earth."

    • Yes! His words were so touching, you'd have to be inhuman to not tear up at that.
    • Bones says she finds the idea of a woman burying her son "heart breaking." Booth tells her “You are the one who always says that the heart can’t break because it’s a muscle. It has to be crushed,” she replies “Well, isn’t it heart crushing?”
  • The Boy in the Shroud. The entire episode, but especially the end when 'Bring on the Wonder' plays.
  • "The Superhero in the Alley." The ending, when Angela completes the final page of the murder victim's semi-autobiographical comic book? Yeah.
  • "The Graft in the Girl". Amy, the teen daughter of Booth's boss, has cancer, which it turns out was caused by a bone graft from a bone with cancer. After further investigation it turns out there are more people with cancer from the same donor (whose bones were illegally harvested). In the end the murder is solved and, but Amy is still going to die.
  • The 100th episode. The Parts in the Sum of the Whole. That final scene when they were SO CLOSE to getting together but Bones couldn't do it and she pushed him away.....
    • Their goodbye in the final episode of season 5 caused some tearing up as well, for sure.
  • "The Doctor in the Photo" in season six. The car scene when Brennan tells Booth about the epiphany she's had (that she "doesn't want to die with regrets" and "made a mistake" in rejecting him), and then breaks down and SOBS at his response. Their subsequent conversation and watching her slowly pull herself back together just made it worse.
  • "The Singing in the Silence" - a deaf mute runaway girl is found covered in blood. It turns out she had to kill a man who tried to kidnap her and take her back to her violently abusive parents, who it turns out in fact kidnapped her from her real parents when she was a toddler. It is an incredible Adult Fear episode for any parent, to imagine their defenceless three-year-old being taken and used so horrifically that she's unable to trust anyone, and her only happy memory is of a stuffed rabbit... sniff...
  • Vincent's death. "Please don't make me leave, I love being here..."

Castle (TV series)/Tear Jerker

  • Given that it deals with murder, for Castle to deal with Tear Jerkers frequently would cause it to descend quickly into Narm, but it can be effective. Season 2, episode 5 involves a baby swap. At the end of the episode, the ex-husband of the deceased meets with the (ex?)wife of the killer. They bond over the living child (his, raised by her) and the dead child (hers, raised by him).
  • After Chet proposes to Martha, she mulls it over for a day, then goes back to say no...only to find that he'd died overnight. Susan Sullivan does a great job bringing out all the emotion, and lets us feel real emotion for a character that was never on screen.
  • Near the end of the episode "Sucker Punch", when Beckett realises that that man who may have killed her mother (or at least knows why she was murdered) has been right under their noses the whole time. Then, she's forced to shoot him dead, knowing that now, she may never know why her mother died.

Community/Tear Jerker

Criminal Minds/Tear Jerker

  • Adam/Amanda in Conflicted. Abused by his step-father until he developed DID. The second personality, Amanda, regards it as her job to protect him and takes over when she realises that, if he can be found competant, he'll go to jail for the crimes she committed. Reid's desperate 'Adam?' and Morgan replying 'He's gone' is heartbreaking.
  • In one of the few episodes of Criminal Minds where the unsub isn't evil, Frankie Muniz (of Malcolm in the Middle) plays a comic book artist who gets caught by a gang and forced to watch as they kill his fiancee, which causes him to have a psychotic break and run around systematically butchering the perps. The final scene has him sitting in a padded cell, calling his dead fiancee's cell phone over and over, just so he could listen to the away message. Hey, this is Vicky! I can't come to the phone right now because I'm out living my life. He thought up the away message for her.
    • There's also the episode "Distress" in which a veteran with PTSD believes himself to be in a war zone. When the cops find him he sees a young boy and, believing that there is shooting going on, he runs toward the child and is shot when his action is misconstrued. As he dies he can only ask if the boy is all right.
      • Considering that this is one of the episodes where Reid really starts to struggle with the aftermath of his own abduction in a pretty classic PTSD way, this blink-and-you'll-miss-it exchange between him and Hotch takes on a whole new light, too:

Reid: He's definitely suffering from PTSD.
Hotch: He's trapped in his own head, reliving the worst moment of his life over and over again. He must be terrified.
Reid: Y-yeah.

    • What about the episode when Reid befriends a young man struggling with his own violent fantasies. At the end the boy attempts suicide and a witness sees Reid's card and calls him. He desperately struggles to keep the boy alive, shouting for paramedics, and when he succeeds can only wonder if he's just condemned the boy's future victims.
    • Two words: "Profiler, Profiled." Oh God. The pair of scenes where Morgan -- big, cool, invulnerable, tough-guy Morgan -- finally breaks down and acknowledges that he was sexually abused as a child by this week's UnSub, and that he's been living with both the shame of that and the guilt of not having stopped him sooner for his entire adult life, with about half his team overhearing the second one, and then his visit to the grave of the unnamed first murder victim... Jesus.
      • The scene where Derek finally confronts his mentor, and after exposing him for what he is, telling him to go to hell while the man can only be dragged away begging for help from his victim. In a way it was sort of cathartic.
    • "Riding the Lightning." The scenes near the end where Gideon's forced to stand by and watch as a woman allows herself to be sent to the electrical chair for the murder of her young son, which she didn't commit... it doesn't hurt either that Mandy Patinkin is a scary genius when it comes to looking utterly crushed by despair.
    • Any time Reid is in pain or distress, which happens way too often. "Revelations" is agonizing to watch.
    • Morgan and Garcia have several excellent tearjerker moments. Most recently in "Mayhem", when we (and Garcia) think he's been killed by the bomb in the ambulance, and definitely in "Penelope" when Morgan tells Garcia he loves her.
    • "P911". The breaking point is the end, when the woman sees her kidnapped son for the first time since he was one year old. He introduces her to his action figure, named Jack, and (badly) holding back tears, she says, "Hello, Jack. My name is Jackie."
    • "Mayhem" covers up some questionable plot elements with sheer emotional trauma, especially Hotch sitting in the middle of the road screaming for help that isn't going to come. And if that doesn't shove you over the edge, there's Morgan quoting Semper Fi at the ex-Marine who's keeping people out of the area. (Yeah, he lets Morgan through.)
      • Morgan stuck in the ambulance with a bomb that's about to go off, Garcia pleading with him over the phone to get out.
    • In "Amplification", Reid, having been infected with a new and thus incurable strain of anthrax, calls Garcia to have her record a message from him so that his mother will be able to hear his voice in the event that he does not survive his ordeal. Both Garcia and Reid tear up, but are then forced to get back to work almost immediately.

Reid: "Hi mom, this is Spencer. I just, uh, really want you to know that I love you and I need you to know that I spend every day of my life proud to be your son."

    • If Hayley and Jack having to be taken into protective custody and allowed no contact with Hotch in "Nameless, Faceless" didn't invoke tears, the scene in "Reckoner" where Hotch is watching his son on the swings through a webcam on a car parked ten feet away will. When Garcia choked back tears as Hotch says "Happy birthday, buddy", to Jack on the camera.
    • The ending of "The Big Wheel" where the killer (who is incapable of controlling his severe OCD and wants to stop killing, but can't) takes his friend, a little blind boy, to a ferris wheel, the boy's greatest desire being to ride one. As he is describing the view the killer slowly dies from a gunshot wound he had sustained earlier, telling the boy that years earlier he had killed the kid's mother and that he is sorry, also telling the kid (who a few scenes ago had admitted to wishing he was dead) to never think like that again and that he's special.
    • The ending of "Damaged" when Rossi says goodbye to the Galen siblings, having finally caught the man who murdered their parents twenty years earlier.
    • "100". All of it. Especially THAT phone call, where Hotch listens to Foyet torturing his ex-wife and son, and as Foyet kills Haley. If you weren't crying then, you sure were when Hotch gets to the house, finds Haley's body, and beats Foyet to death with his own hands, then sobs over Haley's body while Morgan holds him back. The entire episode seems to delight in ripping your heart out through your chest.
    • And continuing the heartbreak, "Slave of Duty", especially the funeral, Hotch's eulogy and quoting from "Pirates of Penzance", the team having to leave the funeral to work a case, and Jack watching the home movies of himself and Haley, so he doesn't forget her.
    • The 2nd half of "Uncanny Valley," where the unsub is a childlike, severely disturbed young woman whose psychiatrist father raped her and subjected her to electroshock treatment as a child; when he took away her treasured doll collection, she started kidnapping real live replacements, dressing them up and keeping them paralyzed with drugs. When Reid comes for her, carrying her original collection and promising that no matter where she goes, no one will ever take them away again, she breaks the fuck down, and so does everyone watching.
      • "Don't leave me."
    • The end "Mosley Lane" when the parents of Steven, -who was abducted as an eight year old, seven years prior to the episode- discover that he had been alive right up until the day before the BAU cracked the case and found the missing children. Stevens parents (understandably) break down. As does the audience.
    • The end of "Normal" is gut-wrenching at least. The unsub was going nuts after his youngest daughter died after being hit by a car and was convinced everyone blamed him. The climax of the episode has him forcing his family to get into his car to run away where his motive is revealed, and he snaps and crashes his car at high speed after his wife screams at him for killing their little girl. He's caught when he gets out of the wreck and tells the police his family are still inside... and he realizes they were Dead All Along, he'd already killed them. He completely breaks down when he remembers and is arrested screaming "I'm sorry, I'm sorry".
  • Exit Wound has not only one of the Woobiest Unsubs ever who kills people who leave town because of SEVERE abandonment issues and has a home life that redefines 'terrible' but some really sad scenes as Garcia staying with a severely wounded victim of said killer as he dies, and then at the end explains that she did it because when she was shot she thought the last face she was ever going to see was her murderer's, and it was such a horrible feeling nobody deserves to feel. Also, when suspect Josh is told that while he had been locked up, the serial killer struck again, which means it's not him. Unfortunately, the victim was his mother, his lone surviving relative. Kudos to Eric Ladin (Josh).
  • "Elephant's Memory". It's bad enough that the killer, a brilliant but severely learning-disabled teenage boy intent on systematically wiping out the people who've made his life a living hell, is going to hit a nerve with anyone who ever had a bad day in high school; the real kicker, though, is the scenes of him and his girlfriend -- the only reason in the world he has to stay alive -- hiding out on a neighbor's property and talking about how one day they're going to have a house just like this...
  • Depending on where the turns of events in the second half of "Open Season" leave you, the episode can be downright agonizing to watch. In particular, a tip of the hat to Gideon, thank you for that, sir.
  • Coakley realising that he was responsible for his wife's death, resulting in him driving off the cliff. As he goes over the edge, he thinks he's holding his wife's hand again.
  • While not the most extreme of tearjerkers, the woman in the beginning of Ashes and Dust has her own depressingly optimistic moment. She has suffered burns so severe across her body that Hotch tells Prentiss that they should lie about the death of her family, because she will not survive to find out otherwise. Prentiss is barely able to keep up the lie without crying, and the woman passes her final few moments of life believing that she and her family will live Happily Ever After.
  • The soldier in "Outfoxed" coming home from the war to discover that his whole family has been murdered while he as away.

Dead Like Me/Tear Jerker

  • Dead Like Me was full of them.
    • Piper Laurie's portrayal of an Alzheimer's patient who didn't realize she was dead in "Forget-Me-Not".
    • Rube meeting with his daughter in "Always".
    • Mason taking the soul of a gay man and helping his partner deal with his grief in "The Bicycle Thief".
    • In the episode "Haunted" when George and Mason go to a house on Halloween to reap a soul (who's going to be killed by a serial killer)to find its a little boy who was too sick to go trick-or-treating and that his father was off getting him medicine. Heartbroken, they reap his soul and Mason starts piling his own trick-or-treat candy into the boy's arms.
    • A few episodes end with the slow, sad song "Que Sera, Sera". That song ended the first episode, where George has to reap a five year old girl on her way to see relatives. She asks the girl if she'd ever been to Disney, and she said she hadn't. When she had to go beyond, she went to an amusement park.
    • The scene in the church with Daisy and the MTF transgender person had me in tears and hugging my pillow.
    • Speaking of Daisy, the scene where they revealed her last thought - "Why did no one ever love me?" - always got to me. It really puts her boasting about all the celebrities she's slept with into a new perspective. Mason's reaction only sealed the deal.
  • The loss of JD. So soon after losing her sister Reggie loses her best friend.
  • Reaper Madness, when George's mom gave her those written notes for her teeth instead of cash. Disappointed by the lack of loot, young George tosses the note saying "You are loved" into the trash. Later, her mom finds the crumpled up note. She just falls apart. And so do I.
  • The loss of Betty and then this is said:

George: Why do I keep losing all the things and people that I care about?
Rube: That's what life is, Peanut.

Deadliest Catch/Tear Jerker

  • One of the earliest was in the first season, with the sinking of the FV Big Valley. Feature vessel Maverick and Cornelia Marie (then not a feature vessel; it was partnered with Maverick and only had cameras as a backup) were part of the rescue effort. Of six on-board, only one was found alive, and only two of the dead were recovered.
  • Season five had a several of these, starting with the sinking of another boat. The episode is punctuated with home videos of the doomed crewmates, with one of them joking that "they oughta be on Deadliest Catch."
  • Later, upstart greenhorn Jake of the Northwestern (who was earlier burned in effigy on another boat for a prank he pulled - it was all in fun, they really just wanted to get rid of the effigy's Northwestern sweatshirt) got the devistating news that the youngest of his four older sisters had died after years of battling painful illnesses. Captain Sig and the cameraman decided not to film Jake getting the news but kept the audio, which is gut-wrenching. The episode ends at night, with Jake on an engineless boat crossing to another boat as the background music contains the lyrics "My sister and I..."
    • In a follow-up episode Jake talked about how close he was with his late sister, who he talked to her every day he was back home, and that he also considers his crewmates the big brothers he never had.
    • Likewise, the seemingly hard-hearted Captain Sig considers Jake to be the son he never had. Aww.
  • Word of Captain Phil's stroke making its way through the crab fleet, and the varied reactions of the other captains as the news makes it down the line. Captain Sig throws the radio handset, then throws away his cigarettes in anger while Captain Keith tearfully pleads to God, "Cut him some slack, Big Guy."
  • The montage at the end of the episode "Redemption Day", alternating between scenes of Josh Harris at the hospital after Captain Phil has a setback and the fleet working and plowing through rough seas with Johnny Cash's "Redemption Day" playing in the background. And at the very end is Josh Harris' phone call to his younger brother Jake to let him know that their father has passed away.
  • The last half of the episode Valhalla when the rest of the crabbing fleet learn of Phil's passing is heartbreaking in itself but watching each ship do a different method of tribute to him will leave you in tears.
    • Time Bandit sets off fireworks in Phil's honor.
    • When they leave harbor after learning of the passing the Northwestern makes a slow pass around the Cornelia Marie as they do one of crew salutes the ship, later Sig talks about the old fisherman's tale of how seagulls are fishermen passed on and how the seagull sitting on his bow at that moment just might be Phil. He also noted that, while Phil was in hospital (almost a month), the sea raged...and then after he died, it went dead calm.
    • On the Wizard Captain Keith rings the bell eight times as his crew throws back a full crab pot, with its shot and buoys (one of which has In Memory of Captain Phil Harris written on it) inside so it stays submerged as a memorial, so he'd "always have some crab to come back to."

Dexter/Tear Jerker

  • For a show where the main character is a Serial Killer and death is often treated flippantly and with very black humor, Dexter can be surprising in its ability to invoke tears. Here's a list.
    • Dexter's flashback to what happened to him as a child, when he is faced with a crime scene that triggers the repressed memory of seeing his mother murdered with a chainsaw in front of him when he was three, and being left in a shipping container with her body for days. The look on his face when he is overwhelmed by the full realization of what happened is heartbreaking. No wonder he's so messed up.
    • Dexter breaking down, sitting in the corner of the room, crying, after killing his biological brother, the Ice Truck Killer in the season one finale.
    • Deb's breakdown in the parking lot after Lundy is shot.
    • Dexter coming home in the season four finale to find his wife, Rita, dead in a bathtub full of her own blood, after she'd been murdered by the Trinity Killer, and his own infant son, Harrison, sitting in the blood crying, echoing Dexter's own childhood trauma.
    • The euthanasia scene in season 3.

E-H

EastEnders/Tear Jerker

  • Eastenders has had its moments too. Zoe calling Kat 'Mum' for the first time when they said their goodbyes just before Zoe caught her train out of the series.
    • The recent storyline of Ronnie Mitchell finding out that Danielle was her daughter that she gave away. The climax of it was utterly tragic beyond belief
    • The episode where Ethel died, especially her final scenes with Dot... a heart-rending story fantastically and sensitively acted. Also Mark Fowler's departure.
    • The episode where Dot was by herself.
  • The Live Episode where Bradley Branning falls from the roof of the Queen Vic when the police are chasing him as he calls for Stacey to run. Stacey cries his name and then silence follows before Max is finally able to reach his son's side and find a small pool of blood coming from his head.

Eureka/Tear Jerker

  • Nathan being erased from time at the end of "I Do Over".
  • The end of the episode "Right as Raynes." After Callister and Zoey skip town, and Callister is leaning against the bus. With tears all around, including Nathan, Callister asks if a machine can have a soul, just before he dies in his creator, and truly his father's, arms. Seeing Nathan, of all people, in tears, somehow makes it worse.
  • Kim 2.0 being melted in "Shower the People". Watching Henry keep himself from breaking down just makes it that much worse.

Fraggle Rock/Tear Jerker

  • On the episode 'Change of Address' when Gobo sang 'Petals of a Rose.'
  • "Marooned": It's episodes like this that make Media Watchdogs forbid children's shows from showing two main characters slowly suffocating to death in the dark, wondering what it will feel like to die...

Frasier/Tear Jerker

  • "I'll miss the coffees."
    • "While it's tempting to play it safe, the more we're willing to risk, the more alive we are. In the end, what we regret most are the chances we never took." Damn you, damn you, damn you and your tear jerking abilities, Kelsey Grammer.
  • Daphne's breakdown while Niles is in surgery.
  • The home movies of Frasier and Niles' mother.
  • "Take it from someone who knows... you don't want to spend half your life thinking about a chance you didn't take."
  • At the end of the 2001-2002 season premier, these words appeared on the screen: "In loving memory of our friends Lynn and David Angell". The executive producer and his wife, killed aboard the first plane to hit the World Trade Center.
    • When Niles & Daphne named their baby David in the series finale.
  • In the 9th Season, when Martin calls Eddie over for a hug after realizing how old he's gotten, and that he won't be around forever.

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air/Tear Jerker

  • Occurred in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air after Will reluctantly admits that the drugs which put Carlton in hospital came from his locker. There's a moment of anger and disbelief before Will all but starts crying and Uncle Phil hugs him. I've never seen a Studio Audience so quiet in my life.
    • The Fresh Prince of Bel Air had a few Tear Jerkers that managed to be effective without being falling into the maligned Very Special Episode territory. The episode where Will reunites as an adult with his absentee father (played by Ben Vereen), only to have the latter abandon him again, gets me every time.
      • Oh God, the last scene, where excited Will realizes his dad ran out on him again and starts angrily saying he doesn't need him, he learned how to shave without him, to play basketball, etc., and he's crying by the end (Will Smith! Crying!), and finally he just breaks down and asks Uncle Phil why his dad doesn't want him, and Uncle Phil holds him, and THAT could be dealt with until the credits, where they show the present Will had bought for his father: a sculpture of a father holding his son. And it was all downhill from there.

Will: How come he don't want me, man?

  • Will's reaction is sad enough, but it's the look on Uncle Phil's face that gets to me the most--he's absolutely furious with Will's father, yet clearly on the verge of tears himself.
  • And re: Phil being Will's father in every real sense, he tells him as much in the last episode.
  • The final part of "Bullets over Bel Air" always got me. At the start of the episode, Will and Carlton are held up at gunpoint when they get some money for a camping trip they've got planned, and Will ends up diving in front of a bullet for Carlton. In the last act, Will, still in hospital and having barely escaped being paralyzed or killed, is confronted by a Carlton so shaken up by events and determined to prevent something like that happening again that he's bought a gun. Will's desperate attempt to keep it together while he orders Carlton to give him the gun, in exchange for having saved his life, is bad enough. But when he finally does and Carlton leaves, Will holds on just long enough to unload it before he finally breaks down, alone, terrified and injured in his hospital bed.
  • The episode where Will and Carlton are driving a Mercedes for a business partner of Uncle Phil's and are pulled over and arrested after driving slowly through a wealthy neighborhood. At the end, Will and Carlton have an argument about whether it was racial profiling or the police just doing their job. Will leaves and Carlton asks Uncle Phil about it and Uncle Phil expresses his anger over it. That's not the tear jerker, though - it's Carlton sitting alone in the living room and saying, "I'd have pulled us over" again and again, trying to make himself believe it and accept the injustice.
  • Trevor's death. At first Hilary just passes it off, but over time, she sees it as a real loss. Even when she tried to move on with another man, she still couldn't get over it since he died so suddenly, she never got to say goodbye. This leads to Will telling her it's never too late to say goodbye and he'll live on in her heart. This cheers her up and she is able to move on, but not before one final goodbye to her late lover.

"Goodbye, Trevor."

Glee/Tear Jerker

  • When Will leaves Glee to go become an accountant and then returns after hearing the Glee kids singing "Don't Stop Believing".
  • When Quinn found out about her pregnancy.
  • The club performing "Keep Holding On" in Throwdown in support of Quinn, particularly when she lets out one sob at the very end just before the credits start up.
  • "Wheels".
  • When Quinn's parents kicked her out of the house in Ballad.
  • Kurt's sad face/crying is enough to induce this.
  • Will finding out about Terri's fake pregnancy.
  • The entire "Smile" montage. The looks on Will and the club members' faces combined with the beautiful, yet sad music make it impossible to keep from crying.
  • Finn finding out he's not the father of Quinn's baby.
  • That scene at the "wedding" in Sectionals.
  • The whole episode, "Home". Especially when Kurt sang "A House is Not a Home", coupled with his broken expression at the end.
  • Kurt singing "Rose's Turn" in Laryngitis.
  • Rachel and her real mom singing "I Dreamed A Dream" in Dream On.
  • Everything involving Artie in the episode Dream On.
  • "To Sir With Love" from Journey. Yeah. If you were not at least choking up you have no heart.
  • When New Directions came in last place at regionals. We've all been there at one point or another.
  • Kurt singing "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" in Grilled Cheesus.
    • The scene where Jean asks Sue if she wanted her to pray for her and she accepts.
    • And the part with Kurt's dad holding his hand after waking up from his heart-attack coma.
      • "I don't believe in God, Dad. But I believe in you, and I believe in us. That's what's sacred to me."
      • "Dad, I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
  • The wedding speeches of Burt and Carole.
  • Kurt announcing his transfer, and giving Mercedes one sorrowful look before he walks out of the room.
  • "You said you'd NEVER breakup with me!" "... I never thought you'd make me feel like this."
  • Finn's speech to Rachel at the Christmas tree lot. Poor guy.
  • How distraught Karofsky looks after he kisses Kurt breaks my heart.
  • Santana finally working up the nerve to tell Brittany that she loved her, only to be turned down in favor of Artie. A case of alas poor Alpha Bitch.
  • Quinn telling Rachel that she is the one that Finn is going to chose. It is the sadest "I am going to win"-speech ever.

Quinn: Do you want to know how this story plays out? I get Finn, you get heart-broken. And then Finn and I stay here and start a family. I'll become a successful real estate agent, and Finn will take over Kurt's dads tire shop. You don't belong here Rachel, and you can't hate me for helping to send you on your way.
Rachel: I am not giving up on Finn. It is not ov...

Quinn: Yes it is! You are so frustrating! And that is why you can't write a good song; because you live in this little school girl fantasy of life. Rachel, if you keep looking for that happy ending, then you are never going to get it right!

    • Especially when you consider her determination to get out of Lima and do something great with her life, even during the pregnancy plot. She went through absolute hell to get her life back, and just when things were looking up, a new wave of drama came up. And now, here she is, Quinn Fabray, finally battered and broken to the point where she has finally given up all her ambitions and is resigned to the fact that she's not going to amount to anything particularly great in life.Quinn has spent quite a bit of time being a bitch this season, but...
  • Will talking to Emma in "Rumors" about how he doesn't want to leave the kids and her behind because they've done so much for him and he needs them as much as they need him, but then saying how badly he wants to go with April. There's something about the idea that Will's dreams and opportunities are passing him by, but he wouldn't even consider going because the glee club means so much to him. It's both heartwarming and heartbreaking.
  • Kurt getting voted Prom Queen with Karofsky as King as a humiliating, sadistic joke. Eventually he refuses to let it get him down and turns it into a Crowning Moment of Awesome, but still--teens are fucking monsters. And the worst part? Prior to this, the fandom absolutely loved the idea of Kurt and Blaine being voted Prom King/Queen as a gesture of acceptance. Ryan Murphy, you bastard.
  • Karofsky's tearful apology and saying 'I can't' softly to Kurt at Prom and walking away.
  • Jean's funeral because of the scene's multitude of similarities to the deaths and funerals of people he cared about just as much as Sue cares about Jean.
  • The performance of Fix You in Asian F is a tearjerker and heartwarming especially the image of Emma as a girl praying.
  • Bieste... just... Bieste. And in "Props," when her douchecanoe husband says "Who's going to love you now?" She says "Me." Crowning Moment of Awesome, indeed.

Gossip Girl/Tear Jerker

  • Blair reading the letter she wrote to Serena.
  • Chuck coming to Blair to break apart in her arms and perhaps get some comfort after the death of his father. Also the scene earlier in the episode when Blair finally tells him she loves him, and he just drives off.
    • In the following episode when Chuck has mocked Blair for her love for him (this after he's left her in the middle of the night and disappeared for a month) and she breaks down crying in front of her mirror.
  • Blair confessing her love for Chuck once again in the season two finale, and him just walking away.
  • The hospital scene in The Debarted when Chuck has to deal with his emotions after his father's death (and Blair has to help him stand).
  • Chuck finally going to see Lily after she's been diagnosed with cancer.
  • Eric telling his father that he doesn't want him in his life.
  • Blair breaking apart crying alone in her room after Chuck traded her to Jack for the Empire hotel.
  • Chuck letting Blair go in the season four finale. Their entire conversation was heartbreaking and the look on his face as she walks away was just too sad for words.
  • After months of not being able to feel anything, neither physical nor emotional, Chuck finds out that Blair is pregnant and that Louis is the father. The episode ends with Chuck crying on his bed, comforted by the dog he got in the same episode. The writers cried, some of the actors cried...
  • Chuck visiting Lily after Dan's book has been released, lamenting his loneliness and saying he doesn't want to end up like Charlie Trout, his character in the book.
  • Everything after the accident in Season 5. Blair losing the baby, praying just for Chuck to be alive, and eventually deciding that she can't be with Chuck if there's any chance he'll be the one punished for it. Chuck's confusion as he desperately searches for a reason why she abandoned him and her constantly-about-to-break-down expression just breaks your heart.

Homicide: Life on the Street/Tear Jerker

  • Giardello's speech at the end of "Partners and Other Strangers".
  • The scene in "Every Mother's Son" when the mothers of a murdered child and the boy who did the killing meet unaware of who the other is.
  • The scene in "Crosetti" when Lewis realizes that his partner and friend committed suicide.
  • "A Doll's Eyes" when the parents have to take their son off life support.

Charles S. Dutton's performance in "Prison Riot" especially his line "I'm in here forever, Detective. Forever."

  • The end of "Betrayal" in which Bayliss reveals why He takes cases with Murdered Children so hard
  • Lewis talking Kellerman out of suicide in "Have A Conscience" with a Heartbreaking invoking of Crosetti
  • "Bop Gun" is one long Tear Jerker with Robin Williams as a man who just saw His wife Murdered.Highlights include Him becoming furious after hearing the Detectives humourously banter about the Murder and the investigation and the final moments in which He says He is now a member of a "Special club where only the initiated can recognize the other members"]]

House (TV series)/Tear Jerker

  • The season 4 finale.
    • When House talks to Amber in the Limbo-bus. " I don't want him (Wilson) to hate me"
      • "Because...because it doesn't hurt here. I don't want to be in pain. I don't want to be miserable. And I don't want him to hate me."
      • It didn't help that the music selection used as the bed for that scene was Iron & Wine's "Passing Afternoon", which is a haunting song.
    • Both "I don't want him to hate me"" and Taub clinging to his wife.
    • Wilson finally going back home to try and sleep and finding Amber's last note.
    • The scene where Amber dies in Wilson's arms, after having him to pull the plug on the machine keeping her alive.
    • And, God, the dialogue from the above scene, especially, Wilson: "Just a little longer." Amber: "We're always going to want just a little longer." and Wilson: "It's not okay. Why is it okay with you? Why aren't you angry?" Amber: "That's not the last feeling I want to experience." - and Wilson kissing her so that it isn't.
      • Just the fact that it was Wilson showing such raw emotion when he's usually cast as the straight man is what did it for me. Wilson's breakdown left me absolutely speechless.
    • House's recovered memory of what happened. The part when he realizes that by taking the pills Amber has sealed her fate is heartbreaking. And having to explain to Wilson that there is nothing to be done...
    • The ending. The bit where all the team comes to say goodbye, the bit where they were clinging to each other and having their last conversation, the bit where Thirteen's Huntington's test shows positive, and the bit where Wilson reads Amber's last note.
    • The look on Cuddy's face when House wakes up in the Season 4 finale.
      • When Wilson looked at House who had just woken up after having possible brain-damage, and just walked away without a word too. And the beginning of the first season when he told House they'd never been friends? Hugh Laurie makes House look like a kicked puppy at times.
  • Because House is usually such a Jerkass, the moments when he's vulnerable/human. Take, for instance, the scene in Skin Deep where he's asking Cuddy for some morphine. He drops his trousers and cane, shows her the ugly scar and says, near tears, "I could swear I remember a thigh muscle being here".
    • The end of Honeymoon.
  • The episode with the idiot savant concert pianist who gets half his brain removed. "Are you happy?"
  • The end of House Training. Foreman has just managed to kill a patient (she died of a fricking bra infection!) and goes home to his mentally ill mother for some reassurance. It's all going along swimmingly as she seems to recognize him but then she says "I had a little boy named Eric." His face crumpled about the same time mine did.
  • The episode "Histories", where a homeless woman sent to the hospital after collapsing. At the end after they find out she has rabies so advanced there's no hope for survival, Foreman and Wilson go to investigate her past using her comics as a guide. They find out this 'James' she kept talking about was her son, who died in a car accident that also killed her husband, and that she felt guilty ever since.
  • The two-parter "Euphoria", especially the second half. For so many reasons.
  • Three Stories... just Three Stories. Especially this piece of heartbreaking conversation in one of the flashbacks:

Stacy: We've got to let him cut the leg off.
House: (in massive amounts of pain) It's my leg. It's my life.
Stacy: Would you give up your leg to save my life?
House: Of course I would.
Stacy: Then why do you think your life is worth less than mine? If this were any other patient, what would you tell them to do?
House: I would say it's their choice.
Stacy: What? not a chance! You'd browbeat them until they made the choice you knew was right. You'd shove it in their face that it's just a damn leg! You don't think you deserve to live? You don't think you deserve to be happy? Not let them cut off your leg? (They're both near tears.)
House: I can't, I can't, I'm sorry.

  • The treadmill scene in Cane and Able. He suffers from chronic pain himself and to see House like that - close to crying because of all the pain he's in but still running anyway - is just too painful to see.
  • Soon after the beginning of the Season Five episode Simple Explanation, Kutner is found dead in his apartment, having committed suicide for no known reason. The biggest Tear Jerker comes at the end of the episode, where a montage depicting Kutner's funeral is shown, including a shot of Taub breaking down as he sits alone in one of the hospital corridors. As if that weren't enough, the montage ends with a black screen showing contact details for mental health organisations and an "If you are thinking of suicide..." message.
    • Using Pete Yorn's Lose You as background music for the funeral adds to the heartbreak. "when I can't stand / up in this cage I'm not regretting // I don't need a better thing / I'd settle for less / it's another thing for me / I just have to wander through this world / alone". Ow.
  • Hugh Laurie, why did you have to make "Under My Skin" so painful? Why?!
  • The last 10 or so minutes of the season five finale, especially the very end, when Wilson drops House off at the psychiatric hospital.
  • The end of "Son of a Coma Guy."
  • The season 2 finale, "No Reason." Four words: "You're miserable for nothing."
  • "Wilson? My dad's dead."
    • House starting to crack when he's speaking at the funeral.
  • The scene in the Wilson episode where Wilson asks House if he'll be there for his liver surgery:

Wilson:The operation is in two hours and I'd like you to be there.
House: No.
Wilson: ...why?
House: Because if you die, I'm alone.

  • The season 1 episode "Babies and Bathwater" features two successive impossible choices for a pregant mother and her husband. The team struggled to save the mother and child...and failed. The baby's cries at the end are the epitome of the tear jerker.
    • It gets even worse in "Forever". The mother's cancer caused her to kill her child and the father is so traumatized as well that he doesn't even try to convince her not to let herself die. If you wanted to slit your wrists at that, then we won't blame you.
  • The episode Maternity, because it featured the first paitient to actually die on the show a NEWBORN BABY. Then there's the scene right afterwards, when Cameron and Wilson go to tell the parents that their baby has died, the sight of them breaking down in each other's arms is only made worse by the lack of audible dialogue.
  • There are a few moments in the episode One Day, One Room but the one that really did me in is at the end when House says, "It was true."
  • "Lockdown" got me when House's would-be patient calls his daughter and leaves his message.
  • "Joy" when after all the stuff Cuddy went through she still doesn't get the baby.
  • In the season 5 episode, "Emancipation," when the poor girl reunites with her parents.

How I Met Your Mother/Tear Jerker

  • HIMYM is usually one of the happiest shows around... but dammit, it can make you cry like a baby:
    • The ending of Come On. Seeing Ted arriving home so happy only to find Marshall sitting on their building's doorsteps, in the rain, holding Lily's engagement ring.
  • Lily telling Ted she's having doubts about marrying Marshall and telling him why she wants to go to San Francisco in Milk. Aly's acting in that scene is perfectly heartbreaking.
  • Near the end of season 3 there was a subplot: Ted decides to "dump" Barney and Neil Patrick Harris decides to break our hearts for the next 3 episodes. Finally resolved with a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, but terrible while it lasts.
  • The ending of Benefits. That is all. Damn you NPH!

Robin: He can't separate the physical from the emotional. He's all like...
Barney: I love you.
Robin: (misunderstands him and thinks he's talking about Ted) ... exactly! He's not like you, you know?

    • Definitely seconded. Just the look on his face while Robin remains oblivious...
  • Ted and Lily's extremely tense screaming match in "The Front Porch" after Ted realizes that Lily broke him and Robin up. Even though everything's forgiven in the end, it was like watching your parents fighting and threatening divorce.
  • Ted's speech to Stella in As Fast As She Can, about how he wants what Stella and Tony and Lily and Marshall have, but is tired of looking and waiting.

Ted: Okay, I'm gonna say something out loud that I've been doing a pretty good job of not saying out loud lately... what you and Tony have... what I thought for a second that you and I had... what I know that Marshall and Lily have... I want that! I do. I keep waiting for it to happen and waiting for it to happen, and... I guess I'm just, uh... I'm tired of waiting. And that's all I'm willing to say on that subject.
Stella: (...) I know that you're tired of waiting and... you may have to wait a little while more, but... she's on her way, Ted! And she's getting here as fast as she can.
Ted: (smiling softly) Goodbye, Stella.
Stella: (near whisper) Goodbye, Ted.

  • The ending of "Bad News" where Marshall learns that his dad had a fatal heart attack. The look on Lilly's face alone was enough to make you cry. Then you notice that Marshell is trying to be strong and failing.

Marshall: (breaking down in Lily's arms) I'm not ready for this.

    • Jason Segel and Alyson Hannigan both REALLY sold this scene. It's very sudden, and it hits hard.
  • Marshall's breakdown outside of his father's funeral in "Last Words." Brings out all the emotions that run through a person in that circumstance.
  • Barney's emotional meltdown at the basketball hoop in the end of 'Legendaddy'. He has very recently had his father (who abandoned him when he was six) come back into his life and try to reconnect with him. Barney was hoping his father, Jerry, would be a hard-partying roadie who wasn't capable of being a father, since this would justify him abandoning Barney. However, Jerry has turned out to be a loving dad with two children, including a boy named 'Jerome Junior'. Barney can't handle this, and it culminates into him trying to yank JJ's basketball hoop off the garage so he could have at least some souvenir of a childhood he never got to have. Particularly heartbreaking is this exchange:

Barney: You're lame, okay? You're just some lame suburban dad.
Jerry: Why does that make you so mad?!
Barney: (finally losing it) Because if you were gonna be some lame suburban dad, why couldn't you have been that for me?!?

  • At the end of 'Change of Heart', when Lily has finally convinced that Barney has actual feelings for Nora, he shows up where she is having brunch with her parents, and the scene goes on to show him going inside, apologizing for telling her he wasn't interested, and being introduced to her parents. Alas, it's just an imagination spot, and the look on his face when it pans back to him standing out there and giving up is just heartcrushing. To top it off, just after he walks away, Nora looks up and has missed him, also with a look as if she wished he were in there.
  • In "The Exploding Meatball Sub", when Lily is about to head off to Spain because supporting Marshall through his oblivious insistence on quitting his job and taking up ridiculous projects while volunteering for the NRDC is driving her crazy. Ted is rightly appalled, furious, and clearly terrified (for although he doesn't mention it, the memory of Lily breaking for San Fransisco is clearly in the forefront of both his and the audience's minds), until in the middle of Lily's rant, she breaks down into tears and confesses that she's afraid that Marshall doesn't want to have a baby with her anymore. Ted's demeanor immediately dissolves into tenderness with a soft "Oh Lil..."
  • At the end of 'Tick, Tick, Tick...'

Future Ted:...for Barney, the second that would never end was this one..."

    • After realising that Robin has chosen Kevin the look on Barney's face is absolutely heartbreaking. Then the icing on the cake? Watching him clean up the bedroom he had decorated with rose petals and candles.
  • In 'Symphony of Illumination' Robin is narrating the episode to her and Barney's future kids. Until she finds out she can't ever have children. "So I can't have kids. Big deal. This way, there's no one to hold me back in life. No one to keep me from travelling where I wanna travel, no one getting in the way of my career. If you wanna know the truth of it, I'm glad you guys aren't real." And the kids fade away.

I-R

Inspector Lynley/Tear Jerker

  • When Barbara Havers is shot in the abdomen, throwing herself in front of a bullet to save someone else. Even though you know they wouldn't really do it, Lynley doesn't know, and his reaction is absolutely heartbreaking.
  • Helen's death, Lynley's face, and Barbara doing her level best to save her. Just... ouch.

Kenan and Kel/Tear Jerker

  • The first half of the episode where Kenan has to move away. It's the slowed down theme music that does it. Also, in the 2nd half of that two-parter, "... Kel loves orange soda."

Leverage/Tear Jerker

  • The flashbacks to the death of Nate's son, slowly parceled out throughout the first season.
  • Parker's fear for the orphans in "The Stork Job":

"You put these kids in the system, and odds are, they're gonna, they're gonna...they're gonna turn out like me."

  • "The Future Job": A fraudulent psychic uncovers a secret Parker has never told anyone: that she witnessed (and blames herself for) the death of her brother when they were children. Made worse by the fact that Parker has No Social Skills -- she can't interpret normal nonverbal cues, and thus has a hard time understanding cold reading.
  • "The Maltese Falcon Job." The season two finale, Nate after spiraling further and further out of control after the loss of Sophie. Finds himself at the mercy of his rival Sterling who wants to exchange a Gun Smuggler his after and Nate's team in exchange for Nate's freedom . Because Nate is not like them. In the end Nate has captured the Gun Smuggler and in a gambit leveraged his way to exchange his capture for his teammates freedom. While the team escapes a FBI mooks asks "Who is this guy?" Nate, bleeding and exhausted. Who for the last two years prided himself for being above his team laughs and says, "I'm a thief."
  • The Star-Crossed Lovers backstory in "The Van Gogh Job".

Misfits (TV series)/Tear Jerker

  • Superhoodie/Simon's death, and him asking Alisha to burn his body because no one can know that it was him who saved them. She loves him so much, and knows that the current Simon isn't him yet. Then she goes to his lair and finds the photo of them in Las Vegas- the city she's always wanted to visit.

Mister Rogers' Neighborhood/Tear Jerker

  • Watching this show after he died of cancer. Just hearing him sing "it's such a good feeling to know that you're alive..." * sniff*
  • True story: Fred Rogers's car was stolen. And then returned the next day, intact, untouched ... with a note on the steering wheel: "We didn't know it was yours."

One Tree Hill/Tear Jerker

  • With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls, We Slept. We already start with Jimmy's monologue ('Every day is one less day I have to come back'), but the whole episode doesn't ever let up; Brooke going outside to cry because she realizes that her behavior could have been the cause of Jimmy's breakdown; Jimmy saying that the happiest day of his life was 'the day he stopped existing' and reveals he tried to kill himself but no one even noticed his absence; most of the scenes in the classroom among the hostages, Jimmy screaming 'It hurts! It hurts SO BAD!' and then killing himself. Also, Lucas' ending voiceover; We send our young into the world like we send young men to war; praying for their safe return... but knowing that some will be lost along the way.

Oz/Tear Jerker

  • Alvarez losing his baby. And later, during an LSD trip, hallucinating that he's holding his son in his arms and babbling about how he loves him and is going to protect him.
  • The execution of Donald Groves.
  • Beecher screaming in his pod after receiving his son's chopped off hand by mail.
  • Peter Schibetta crumbling in despair in a hallway after being intimidated by the warden and taunted by Schillinger again about the several rapes.
  • Cyril O'Reilly being executed.
  • Beecher meeting the mother of the girl He killed
  • Schillinger telling Beecher that He won't seek Revenge for His Son's Death and telling Him how sorry He is for all that happened
  • Alvarez finally losing any hope of ever getting out of Oz,summed up with three Heartbreaking words:"I'm so Tired".
  • The mother of Groves' victim telling Him She loves Him and forgives Him,moving Him to tears
  • Seamus O'Reilly finally accepting responsibility for His abusive behaviour and asking for Ryan's forgiveness

The Office (2005 TV series)/Tear Jerker

  • "Take Your Daughter To Work Day" from the US version of The Office. Michael Scott shows the kids an old tape of himself being interviewed on a kids' show, where he says his dream is to "get married and have a hundred kids, so that no one can say no to being my friend."
  • When Jim confesses to Pam that he loves her in "Casino Night", and she turns him down. Both actors act the beejesus out of the scene, both are in tears, and so am I.
  • There's also something about the way Dwight says "you don't want to use Shrute Bucks?" after he takes over the office in the season 3 finale that makes me well up.
  • In "Boys and Girls", when Pam breaks down into tears upon reflecting how impossible her dream of having a house with a terrace is.
  • In one of the most recent episodes, "Niagara Falls", when Jim and Pam get married.
  • In "Back From Vacation", when Pam is crying in the hall after helping Jim and Karen, and when Dwight finds her, the first words out of his mouth are "Who did this to you? Where is he?" * lump in throat*
  • In Season 4, after Dwight and Angela breaks up and he loses it, both in real life and Second Life. He's crying in the stairwell, and Jim gives him a speech about how lousy it feels to not be with the one you love. Doubles as a CMOF when Dwight moves to hug him and Jim's already gone.
  • The "Goodbye, Michael" episode. The whole damn thing.
    • The moment when Michael, after taking the mic off, says, "that's what she said" inaudibly, and walks away

The Office (UK series)/Tear Jerker

  • The last episode of the second series of the British Office - as if the scene where Dawn shoots Tim down again isn't bad enough, David of all people when he begs for his job.
    • In the second christmas special where Dawn, after saying goodbye to Tim for possibly the last time, opens his present and reads the note. Followed almost immediately by a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.

Primeval/Tear Jerker

  • Nick's death in the third episode of the latest[when?] season.
    • The first few minutes of the following episode managed to be Tear Jerkers without even doing anything at all. Just the whole mood of the characters and the ARC was able to convey how upset and lost everyone was without him.
  • In Season 2, during Abby's Disney Death. The worst part is seeing Plucky Comic Relief Connor absolutely destroyed by it.

Connor: * fighting desperately not to cry* "We can just go out there and we can find her! All we need to do is get back in the boats and do something; why is nobody doing anything!?"

  • In the final scene of the Season 4 premiere, Connor wakes up to find Abby already up. He correctly deduces that she's still used to keeping watch from when they were stuck in the Cretaceous. That fact just hammers home the absolute hell those two went through.

S-Z

Scrubs/Tear Jerker

  • The Scrubs episodes "My Old Lady" and "My Screw Up" are generally the most tear-jerking of the series.
    • Carla finally admitting to herself that Laverne's not going to be coming out of her coma, and finally saying goodbye.
    • Dr. Cox's confession in "My Heavy Meddle." that he's burned out.
    • The final three and a half minutes of "My Lunch." That scene turned "How to Save a Life" from a wangsty pop song into something truly heartbreaking.
      • The exact same thing can be said about "My Long Goodbye" and "A Bad Dream".
      • Jill Tracy. All she ever wanted was to be happy, and it was denied at every turn. Her death was one of the saddest on that show. She was so pathetic, so reviled for being annoying, and no one ever really saw to the poor person underneath.
    • 'My Dumb Luck'. All of Dr. Kelso's scenes at that episode are touching, but the finale, as he resigns from his post, completely content, thanks Ted, with real emotion, for all his help over the years and finally drives off into the sunset with his picture on the back of his car is one of the most beautiful moments I've ever seen, managing to be a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, a Crowning Moment of Awesome and a Tear Jerker. Wonderful.
    • Carla's post-partum depression really got to me.
    • The end of the episode "My Philosophy" where the heart transplant patient dies and, in J.D's mind, goes out with a Broadway style musical, just like she wanted.
    • Also, the end of "My Last Chance", after Dr. Cox rants at the annoying, talkative paramedic he had to work with and asks what could've possibly happened in her life to make her that way only to later find out she talked so much because her son, who she had been talking about through most of the episode, had died in a car accident years ago
    • My Screw Up: "Where do you think we are?"
    • My Finale: the montage scene where all the important people who have been on Scrubs in it's eight year run turn up to wish JD goodbye. It looks like a stereotypical series finale ending until the end when he turns around and we realize it's all in his fantasy .
      • Actually, I was talking about where he's watching that film of events on the banner, culminating in Dr. Cox finally giving J.D. the hug he always wanted. Also, you can add in Dr. Cox's Engineered Public Confession that he actually respects J.D.
      • Not just the hug from Dr. Cox in the film, it's the JD getting as great a life as possible: he marries Elliot, has a child with her, stays close enough to spend Christmas with Turk and Dr. Cox, gets the fatherly hug from Dr. Cox, and JD's son marries Turk's daughter. Then, as JD's walking away he suggests that unlike the other fantasies, there's no reason why this one can't come true. It's an amazing sequence in and of itself, but add to the fact that "The Book of Love" by Peter Gabriel is playing and, well, it got a little dusty.
  • The end of "My ABC's" where JD explains that he's learned everything you need to know about life from Sesame Street and ends it with, "it's okay to cry sometimes" while he sheds a tear watching a mother console her 8-year-old son after his father has died from lung cancer after it had been in remission. A melancholy cover of "The Sesame Street Theme" by Joshua Radin is playing
  • I'm amazed no one has mentioned the episode where J.D. and Turk are going out for Steak Night and they give it up to spend the night with a dying old man. In the end, after all of their banter, they all admit to being afraid to die. The saddest part is his last words, after they smuggled him in a drink; "You know you guys... that beer... was delicious."
    • The saddest part of that was the choice of music: "I Will Follow You Into The Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie.
  • 'My Princess' - Cox is telling Jack a disguised hospital story and ends it happily, but when Jordan (recognizing it for what it was) asks if the patient really got a new liver in time, he slumps down next to her with a sigh and replies with "That's how I'm telling it."
  • The final moments of My Cabbage, where Cabbage accidentally infects Mrs. Wilkes after mishandling medical waste; the infection kills her in the following episode. The Coldplay song ("Fix You") playing in the background doesn't help the teariness.
  • Although surely most anyone can relate to it, there are a good amount of people for who the line, "Because nothing sucks more than feeling all alone, no matter how many people are around," can sting just a little too much.
  • Carla's hysteria while she's in labour in My Best Friend's Baby's Baby and My Baby's Baby is mostly Played for Laughs, which makes it all the more upsetting when they take her to have a C-section and she sobs down the phone to Turk that she's really scared and needs him there.
  • A minor one, but still sad nonetheless. In Season One, episode 15, during a psychology interview the main cast had to do, Doctor Cox winds up talking about his marriage with Jordan. He says that he kept trying to figure out why his friends who were married weren't trying to destroy each other like him and Jordan were. The words "They weren't unhappy. We were." really sold it due to Johnny C Mc Ginley's acting ability.
  • That scene in season 1, episode 22 "My Occurrence" when Jordan's brother Ben visits the hospital and at the end, JD finally admits that he was just hoping that he was wrong about Ben having leukemia.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine/Tear Jerker

  • The ultimate Tear Jerker, the first five minutes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nines opening episode where we see Benjamin Sisko lose his wife and his ship. The cold numb feeling as Sisko is dragged away from his wife's dead body; "Dammit! We can't just leave her!" - "Sir! There's nothing we can do!"
  • Another frequently-cited tear jerker is "The Visitor", a time travel story in which Jake watches his father die and spends the rest of his life trying to bring him back. He succeeds, but at the cost of his own life (in the future)... and Ben has to watch. Fathers and sons alike were hit hard by this one.
  • Duet, when the Cardassian prisoner finally breaks down and tearfully explains why he pretended to be a war-criminal.

"Darhe'el": [fevered] It's Marritza who's dead! Marritza, who was good for nothing but cowering under his bunk and weeping like a woman! Who would, every night, cover his ears, because he couldn't bear to hear the screaming for mercy of the Bajorans...the Bajorans...[he breaks down and slowly starts to weep uncontrollably, before muttering quietly]...I covered my ears every night, because I couldn't bear to hear those horrible screams.

    • The prisoner's confession and eventual murder in "Duet".
    • Oh my god, the end of that episode. One of the more heartwrenching Cruel Twist Endings, ever.
    • Much of "Duet", but one particular moment is Kira's plea that she be allowed to continue the investigation, on behalf of "every Bajoran who moved too slowly, and then never moved again."
  • The finale manages to do it through Mood Whiplash. The happiness of the end of the war quickly turns into the sadness of Odo's departure, Garak returning to a destroyed Cardassia, and Sisko's death/ascension.
    • "To the best crew any Captain ever had. This may be the last time we're all together, but no matter what the future holds, no matter how far we travel, a part of us - a very important part - will always remain here, on Deep Space Nine." When you think about what that crew went through together... Cue sobs.
  • Weyoun... poor, poor Weyoun. Not just his death(s), but his entire existence, really.
  • Damar...poor, poor Damar. Especially his final "Keep..."
  • "The Siege of AR-558" nearly managed to make two men cry.
  • "The Quickening", never a baby has been so beautiful. Never a birth made me cry before...
  • The earliest one of the series after "Emissary" is in "Battle Lines," where Kira - who up until this point has never displayed anything remotely resembling vulnerability - completely shatters at Kai Opaka's death.
  • "Hard Time."
  • Dear GOD, the death of Jadzia. Between her last words, the Klingon death howl, and the chant that Worf starts into, it can still induce tears, even when you know it's coming.
    • And then, on top of that, there's the scene in the first episode after it when Worf listens to Vic singing Jadzia's favorite song, and then destroys the lounge in a heart-broken rage.
  • Your Mileage May Vary, but in "Sacrifice of Angels", I always had a hard time watching Garak and Kira's exchange over Ziyal's body, especially Garak's reaction to her death, and the fact that he betrayed himself by revealing that yes, he did genuinely care for her. Dukat's reaction to Ziyal's death was just as bad.
    • God yes. Poor Ziyal. And the way Dukat reacts... He may be the Big Bad, but that doesn't make this scene any less sad.
  • The end of "Tacking Into the Wind". The fact that Kira is caught in the middle of a full-blown Mexican Standoff and barely even notices because she's so absorbed in caring for Odo is heartbreaking. This story arc is full of these; Kira's conversation with Garak about why she is ignoring Odo's illness in "Tacking Into the Wind" and the first scene of "Extreme Measures".
  • "The Darkness and the Light". Poor Kira. Especially the deaths of Furel and Lupaza.
  • The baby changeling dying in "The Begotten". Oh. My. God.
  • I saw this episode when I was really young, and I know it's not the most popular, but Heart of Stone. Odo recognizes that Kira isn't Kira because "[she] said something [she] would never say... [she] said she loved me." And then at the end, Kira asks him how she knew. "Nothing important."
  • When Benny Russell has a nervous breakdown in "Far Beyond The Stars" because the publisher pulped the issue carrying his story--which was "real"--thanks to racism, you can feel his pain.

Star Trek: The Next Generation/Tear Jerker

  • The episode "The Best of Both Worlds" had a ton:
    • Picard sheds a single tear, as he's powerless to stop the Borg from altering his mind and body. Add in Ron Jones's epically sad music and a Klingon would weep.
    • After failing to save the captain, Riker walks into Picard's office and looks at his empty chair and sadly asks "What would you do?"
      • In that same scene, Guinan walks into the office a few seconds later and tells Riker the hard truth:

Guinan: It would've been easier if he just died, but he didn't. They took him from us a piece at a time. You're gonna have to do something you don't want to do... You have to let go of Picard...
Guinan: Did he ever tell you why we were so close?
Riker: No.
Guinan: Oh... Then let me just say that...our relationship is beyond friendship - beyond family. And I will let him go. And you must do the same. There can only be one captain - and that is now your chair.

    • A short but powerful scene in which the Enterprise witnesses the complete defeat of the fleet at Wolf 359.
      • Including the ship that Riker would've been commanding, if he hadn't turned down the promotion.
  • In the following episode, "Family" Picard suddenly breaks down and cries, admitting to his brother how wretched he feels that he couldn't stop the Borg from taking over his mind. To see Jean-Luc "Bad Mo-fo" Picard cry is hard enough, but when you factor in Patrick Stewart's acting, it just becomes too much.

Jean-Luc: "They took everything I was. They used me to kill and to destroy, and I couldn't stop them! I should have been able to stop them! I tried. I tried so hard. But I wasn't strong enough! I wasn't good enough! I should have been able to stop them. I should, I should."
Robert: "So, my brother is a human being after all."

  • Star Trek: The Next Generation "Skin of Evil". Tasha Yar's final messages do it to me every time. Even 20 years later. Interestingly, today is the 20th anniversary of that episode's first broadcast.
    • Especially "I hope I met death with my eyes open."
    • This line got cut: "Data...It did happen."
  • 'Yesterday's Enterprise' is simply one episode-long Tear Jerker and Crowning Moment of Awesome. Picard's still fighting as flames rise higher and higher around him, the moment that Tasha and the Lieutenant have when she reports to the Enterprise-C (especially 'But I don't want you here...'), 'Tell me about - Tasha Yar...', 'Let's make sure history never forgets the name - 'Enterprise' ..., and my all-time favorite:

Tasha Yar: Guinan told me that I die a senseless death in the other timeline. I didn't like the sound of that. I've always known the dangers that come with a Starfleet uniform. If I am to die in one - I'd like my death to count for something.

  • "The Inner Light" is one long Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, but the end, where Picard plays Kamin's tune on the flute... I dare you not to choke up.
    • "Now we live in you. Tell them of us... my darling."
    • And then the follow up episode where Picard falls in love, and tells the woman what happened in "The Inner Light" because "I want you to know how much my music means to me, and how much it means to me to share it with someone." Then they play the tune together in a maintenance tunnel so that it echoes through the entire ship.
  • The end of the finale, "All Good Things..."- "You were always welcome", followed by Picard beginning the card game with the pull-out to the ship as it enters the nebula- he chokes up just thinking about it for some reason. The perfect finale.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation's episode The Bonding was just one big tearjerker from beginning to end. Even Wesley was tugging on heartstrings in that one.

"On the Starship Enterprise, no one is alone."

  • The death of Data's daughter, Lal, as a result of Cascade Failure in ST:TNG episode The Offspring. Especially her final few words to her father.

Lal: I love you, father.
Data: ...I wish I could feel it with you.
Lal: I will feel it for both of us.

    • Her last words always bring a tear to my eye.

Lal: Thank you for my life.

    • Another tearjerker? Lal's name actually means "beloved".
    • The admiral's description of Data's desperate attempts to save Lal.

Haftel: There was nothing anyone could have done. We'd repolarize one pathway and another would collapse. And then another. And his hands started moving faster than I could see, trying to stay ahead of each breakdown. He refused to give up. He was remarkable.

  • While on the subject of Data, I'm surprised no one mentioned the end of the episode Brothers, and the death of Data's creator/father.
  • Also on the subject of Data—I may be alone here, but I always found Descent to be a little bit sad. Especially Data's simple "Goodbye, Lore," when he finally deactivates Lore for good. Emotionless, my foot.
    • Definitely not alone. But for me, I teared up at Lore's last words as Data deactivated him: "I love you... brother..."
      • Indeed; it was always debatable whether Lore did love Data or not, personally I think he grew from the initial you're my replacement hatred to actually genuinely respecting him. After all, he went to a lot of trouble to convince Data to join him and the rebel Borg.
  • The scene in "Darmok" where Picard tells the story of Gilgamesh to the dying Tamarian captain: "He who was my friend through adventure and hardship is gone forever."
  • Picard gets a truly beautiful monologue in the episode "Where Silence Has Lease", where - with everyone on the ship doomed to die in twenty minutes - he talks to Nagilum disguised as Data.

Data: I have a question, sir.
Picard: Yes, Data. What is it?
Data: What is death?
Picard: Oh, is that all? Well, Data, you're asking probably the most difficult of all questions. Some see it as a changing into an indestructible form, forever unchanging; they believe that the purpose of the entire universe is to then maintain that form in an Earth-like garden which will give delight and pleasure through all eternity. On the other hand, there are those who hold to the idea of our blinking into nothingness, with all our experiences, hopes and dreams merely a delusion.
Data: Which do you believe, sir?
Picard: Considering the marvellous complexity of our universe, its clockwork perfection, its balances of this against that, matter, energy, gravitation, time, dimension... I believe that our existence must be more than either of these philosophies. That what we are goes beyond Euclidian or other practical measuring systems and that our existence is part of a reality beyond what we understand now as reality.

    • This YTMND doesn't help much, either, syncing the final part of his monologue with Barber's Adagio for Strings, showing images of various galaxies and nebulae before finally showing Picard arriving in Heaven.
  • The acting in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Half a Life" was a little on the dry side, but at least part of it. Lwaxana Troi (Deanna's overbearing mother) has fallen in love with a scientist who has just turned sixty, and is heading back to his planet to commit a customary ritual suicide. Lwaxana isn't happy, and Deanna finds her furious mother trying to teleport down to the planet and chewing the authorities' ear off about the custom... before breaking down in tears. The scene that follows is a very emotional moment between mother and daughter that no doubt touches home to many people who have lost a parent (and includes one of the rare moments where Deanna willingly uses telepathic speech with her mother - she usually goes out of her way not to).

Lwaxana: But I'm crying. I don't cry...
Deanna: You cried when Father died. We both cried.

  • The episode Dark Page was worse, when it's finally revealed that Deanna had a sister who drowned while she was a baby; her mother has suppressed the knowledge of Kestra's existence ever since, and now she finally breaks down and hugs the illusion of her daughter, and says goodbye.
    • Earlier in the same episode where Deanna is tormented by the illusion of her father (conjured by Lwaxana in an attempt to make Deanna stop searching for her inside of her own dreamscape), he sings her a familiar childhood song, and wants to talk to her, because "they'll never have that chance again." Watch it, weep. and go call your father.

Deanna: ...Goodbye, Daddy.

      • "Half a Life" and "Dark Page" are especially powerful since Lwaxana is a character usually Played for Laughs. To see such a brassy, sassy Large Ham emotionally stripped raw is pretty shocking.
  • The TNG series premiere "Encounter at Farpoint" has one - DeForest Kelley's last-ever appearance as the immortal Dr. "Bones" McCoy.

McCoy: Well, she's a new ship, but she's got the right name. Now you remember that, y'hear? ...Treat her like a lady, and she'll always bring you home.

  • While on the subject of beloved classic characters, "Relics" should also be mentioned here for what was a wonderful tribute to James Doohan. The Enterprise comes across a Dyson Sphere with a crashed ship on it's surface, after beaming over they discover Scotty alive, over 70 years after the events of Star Trek VI. However he struggles to adapt to the differences in this new time, the Tear Jerker comes when he goes onto a holodeck simulation of the original Enterprise bridge and sadly walks around the empty room, knowing all of his friends are long gone. All he can do is raise a glass and sadly toast:

Scotty: Here's to ye, lads.

  • The episode Sarek is particularly rough going for anyone who's lost a loved one to Alzheimer's. The legendary Ambassador Sarek comes aboard the Enterprise to conclude a peace treaty, but it turns out his mental health is deteriorating at a frightening rate. In order to keep him stable enough to finish the negotiations, Sarek mindmelds with Picard to regain a measure of his self-control. Unfortunately, this leaves Picard a screaming, despairing mess, channeling all of Sarek's repressed emotions and love for his son Spock, falling apart in Beverly Crusher's arms. Patrick Stewart acts the hell out of this scene, but it's not easy going. And while we're on the subject of Sarek, there's also Unification where he dies.
    • There's also a Reality Subtext, as the first episode was written around the time of Gene Roddenberry's decline and the second, where Sarek died, was dedicated to Gene, who had died not long after it was filmed. It's about the decline and death of the father of Star Trek, giving it a more personal Tear Jerking touch.
  • The Naked Now had Tasha indulging with Data under the influence of a virus similar to the TOS episode The Naked Time. Her later That Didn't Happen excuse, to what we find later is one of his most cherished memories, leaves us heartbroken for someone who can't be.
  • It comes up again in Measure of a Man when the Captain is seeking out examples of Data's humanity to show the court how wrong it would be to dismantle him- he shows the only holophoto Data has is of Tasha... and then the looks on the faces of the court, including people who had considered him as nothing more than an elaborate automaton, as Picard makes Data tell them exacly why she's so important.
    • More wrenching still is that Data attempts to avoid answering the question out of respect for Tasha. Picard answers this concern quite calmly and no doubt accurately.

Picard: Under the circumstances, I don't think Tasha would mind.

  • More Data in The Measure of a Man. Riker's guilt for playing devil's advocate, not to mention essentially committing multiple acts of battery, shows that their friendship has evolved from what it was. Data's forgiveness of same, noting that he did what he had to do, shows that not only does he understand humanity more than he thinks, he embodies some of our best traits.
  • K'Ehleyr's death in "Reunion," where she uses her last bit of strength to place Alexander's hand in Worf's. And then Worf lets out the Klingon Death scream, and sounds utterly heartbroken.

Worf: Have you ever witnessed death? Then look, and always remember.

Star Trek: Voyager/Tear Jerker

  • The "Year of Hell" two-parter packed many into a small space by virtue of being, well, a year of hell. Janeway sending most of the crew off for their own good. Poor, blinded Tuvok trying to shave by touch, and Seven becoming his ever-present helper. Janeway's tribute to the ship that's given them everything it had to give. Her farewell to the last few crew, who know they'll never see her again. Voyager crumpling like cardboard into the side of Annorax's ship... Nobody likes a Reset Button, but it's never come as a greater relief than in this wrenching story.
  • "Living Witness", one of the show's best episodes, involves a backup copy of the Doctor activated 700 years in the series' future. He fixes some revisionist history and brings peace to a whole world, but he'll be homesick for the rest of his life—all his crewmates died centuries ago. He sets off on a lonely journey to the Alpha Quadrant, and if he gets there, all he can hope to find are the descendants of his friends.
    • It's sad a lot of fans hate that episode because of the concept of a backup Doctor being ridiculous, although it is a logical idea. But the fact that all of his friends are gone and you can tell he misses them. When you discover he left, you really do hope he made it home. It's why The Doctor was one of the series most touching characters.
  • "Homestead". Laugh if you want, but I'm not ashamed to admit that Neelix's farewell scene is the only thing on TV that's actually made me cry. The first two times I saw it. More than any other Trek crew, Voyager's was a family, and Neelix was its heart.
  • "Equinox" was an odd episode, and had a notable amount of bad writing, But Ransom's last words were enough to make up for it.

Ransom: You've got a fine crew, Captain. Promise me you'll get them home.
Janeway:...I promise.

    • Oh, most definitely. It's bad enough I haven't seen the episode, but Ransom's death scene sounds horrible. The very concept is heartwrenching enough.
  • "Endgame"s ending where after 7 long years, Voyager finally makes it back to earth.
  • The ending of the episode "Blink Of An Eye", in which the lone astronaut (Daniel Dae Kim of Lost) who made it to Voyager and met the crew, watches the ship (considered by his society to be a god) finally warp away while sitting on a rock as an old man, with a look of heartbreak on his face. There's a reason why this is often included in the list of top Voyager episodes.
  • In "Real Life", the death of the Doctor's holographic daughter. Yes, she isn't real, but the effect it has on the Doctor is, and it's such an acute reminder of how painful ordinary life can be. What makes is sadder is that the Doctor could have just terminated the program, but he faced up to her death instead because otherwise he wouldn't have got anything out of the simulation.
  • I may be alone on this, but I found the end of the episode Maneuvers to be a mini-tearjerker; Chakotay does his best to rectify a situation he created, attempts to keep the crew out of danger, and is ultimately captured and tortured for it. And when he returns to Voyager, Janeway and he have this conversation which was the tearjerker For me—because of the emotion in Chakotay's voice, and knowing all the things that had already happened to him in this episode:

Janeway: I'm putting you on report, in case that means anything anymore.
Chakotay: It means something to me, Captain. It means I've let you down, and for that I'm truly sorry.

  • The ending of "The Chute," when Harry feels guilty about trying to kill Paris while they were in the alien prison, and Paris pauses for a moment before saying, "You want to know what I remember? Someone saying, 'This man is my friend. Nobody touches him.' I'll remember that for a long time."
  • "Jetrel" is actually quite similar to Deep Space Nine's "Duet" except this time it is Neelix who is confronting the scientist who created the weapon that destroyed his homeworld. Just before said scientist dies after trying everything to atone and reverse his mistakes, Neelix finally forgives him for his sins.
  • "Heroes and Demons": The scene where Freya dies in the Doctor's arms after sacrificing herself for him. Despite Freya being a hologram, the Doctor (obviously) finds her death no less real, and later he can't even bring himself to adopt the name he'd chosen for himself, as it reminded him of her.
  • "One Small Step". Kelly is an explorer to the last breath, and Seven is moved to tears (so naturally the audience is too).

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles/Tear Jerker

  • In the second season premiere, a rather berserk Cameron is trying to kill John, and John and Sarah have her pinned between two trucks. As John is trying to remove Cameron's processor chip, she begins asking him not to remove it, saying she's "fixed" herself. As John keeps working, she gets more desperate, and starts sobbing and begging more frantically, going so far as to shout she loves him. Even though you know that she's simply trying to escape, it doesn't change the emotion in her words.
    • All of "Allison from Palmdale." The juxtaposition between Allison's suffering in the future and Cameron's suffering as Allison in the present, especially the part where Cameron tries to call her "mother" who doesn't know who she is. Then, at the very end, we have Allison being choked to death by Cameron, while utterly refusing to help her assassinate John Connor. The scene in question is a borderline between a Tear Jerker and a Crowning Moment of Awesome for Allison for her defiance.
      • Especially the part where Allison talks about her birthday right before Judgment Day:

"July 22. I had a party in Griffith Park. My friends were there....I saw a boy ride by on a Solar mountain bike, and I told my dad, 'That's what I want.' And he said, 'Next year.' ....I didn't have a party next year. No one did. (...) ....everyone was dead."

    • In the episode "Self Made Man," Cameron makes a friend in the form of Eric, a wheelchair-bound research assistant at the history building at the university. Toward the end of the episode, Cameron's unwitting "weirdness" while pursuing the Terminator Stark has alienated Eric to the point where he finally demands that she leave. She does, and walks away, giving her only friend a look that is as close to confused pain and hurt as she possibly can get. Its hard to make a killer deathbot sympathetic.
    • Things get even better (or worse) in "Ourselves Alone". After finally making some headway healing her relationship with John, Cameron gives John her kill switch, in the shape of a locket made * just for him* . You'll just want to take that thing out and tell her she'll be all-ok. And don't cry.
    • Toward the end of "Today is the Day Part 1," the scene where John apologizes to Riley's dead body was absolutely heartbreaking. Alas, Poor Scrappy, indeed.
    • A subtle but very upsetting moment comes at the end of "Automatic for the People", where Sarah keeps pressing Cameron for answers about whether she'll get cancer, culminating in Sarah getting frustrated and asking "What do I do, just wait? Like a time bomb, am I just going to go off some day?" Cameron quietly replies: "I don't know...am I?" This is made so much worse by knowing that while Sarah, John and Derek will all do their best to help each other, no one is going to comfort Cameron; she's just a machine, after all. She's scared, of herself, and she's alone. Just thinking about that makes me cry.
    • In the penultimate episode, John is talking to Savannah Weaver, whom they just rescued from another terminator. She remembers him from one of their brief encounters before, at the psychiatrist's office. Savannah says that he's dead, and he was her friend, and she misses him... Which is sad enough, coming from a child, but then asks if Derek was a friend of John's, and then blames herself for his death. If the parallels between John and Savannah weren't obvious already, it becomes painfully so right at that moment.
    • In the series finale, when they reach the basement only to discover that Cameron has given her chip to John Henry, who just time-traveled to the future. One of the screens displays the words: "I'M SORRY JOHN" being repeated over and over and over again. John has already lost one protector terminator, which served as a protective father/uncle figure to him. And now he's lost another protector, who in this case is somewhere between a sibling and a lover. He's going to be so desperate to go after her.

True Blood/Tear Jerker

  • The end of "I Will Rise Up". Godric's calm, joyful acceptance of his impending death and Sookie's tears for him. Also, when Sookie asks Godric if he's very afraid and he replies: "No, no! I'm full of joy!". It's the delivery that makes it so affecting.
  • Eric, who all Season 3 has apparently been willing to throw anyone under a bus in order to get his 1000-year old revenge, finally shows his true colours by handcuffing himself to Russell and staying out in the sunlight to take the bastard out with him, saving Sookie and Bill in the process.
  • Sam kills Maryann, but that was alright, because she believed she had accomplished her life's goal, and, by extension, was the perfect sacrifice. And then Sam changes back. The look on Maryann's face...
  • In the first episode of season three, after Bill feeds from the old lady, he glamours her into thinking her son showed up.
  • In "Me and the Devil" when Tommy accidently kills his mother. His reaction is absolutely heartbreaking.

The Twilight Zone/Tear Jerker

  • Jack Klugman's monologue in "A Passage for Trumpet" as a washed-up, alcoholic trumpet player.

Joey: Because I'm sad. Because I'm nothing. Because I'll live and die in a crummy one-roomer with dirty walls and cracked pipes. I'll never even have a girl. I'll never be anybody. Half of me is this horn. I can't even talk to people, Baron, cause this horn, that's half my language. But when I'm drunk, Baron...oh when I'm drunk, boy, I don't see the dirty walls or the cracked pipes. I don't know the clock's going, that the hours are going by, cause then I'm Gabriel. Oh, I'm--I'm Gabriel with a golden horn, and when I put it to my lips, it comes out jewels, comes out a symphony, comes out the smell of fresh flowers in summer, comes out beautiful. Beauty. When I'm drunk, Baron. Only when I'm drunk.

Mr. Corwin: "I live in a dirty rooming house on a street filled with hungry kids, and shabby people. And the only thing that comes down the chimney on Christmas Eve is more poverty! I just wish, Mr. Dundee, that on one Christmas - only one! That I could see some of the hopeless ones, and the dreamless ones... just on one Christmas - I'd like to see the meek inherit the Earth." *shot cuts to black child, then back to Mr. Corwin* "That's why I drink, Mr. Dundee... and that's why I weep."

Victorious/Tear Jerker

  • Rex Dies is definitely one, especially when Tori tries to console Robbie after he says that he needed her support. Combined with when Robbie is saying what looks like his final goodbyes to Rex...

Warehouse 13/Tear Jerker

  • Three words: Emily Lake/Stand.
    • When HG is saying they should sacrifice her and then her goodbyes to the team...
      • Steve's death, when Pete begs Claudia to get back to the car and her scream when she finds Steves body had me sobbing my heart out.

Pete: ...Please get back to the car.

  • When HG doesn't know how to save Myka and with tears in her eyes she tells her she's sorry.

The West Wing/Tear Jerker

  • "Two Cathedrals", almost all of it.
  • A lot of Bartlet's monologues.
  • "Election Day", made even worse by the Reality Subtext.
  • Ave Maria.
  • The "guy in the hole" story.
  • Watching CJ wander aimlessly through New York, shocked that the Secret Service agent who'd been protecting her (and whom she had started to fall in love with) had just been killed when he walked into a minimart hold-up. The fact that "Hallelujah" is playing over the scene makes it doubly bad.
  • "Leo? Leo? LEO!" Not that spectacular in itself, but when combined with the fact that it was necessitated by the actual death of John Spencer? Kind of traumatizing. As was Josh's trip to the hospital.
    • Everything associated with that was heartbreaking, but Josh at the end really does it. "Thanks, boss."
      • Other moments were the moments CJ had to go into the oval office and break the news to President Bartlet that first Leo had had a heart attack, and then later that he had died. This latter scene in particular was heartbreaking; CJ walks in without saying anything; Bartlet sees her expression, knows immediately that Leo's gone, thanks her, and turns away with tears in his eyes.
  • The homeless Korean veteran's funeral was rather stirring.
    • How about Mrs. Landingham explaining why she gets a little down around the holidays in that episode?
  • The end of the last episode of Season 4 with the Bartlets in the church, and Josh and Donna standing at the massive amount of flowers people are leaving for Zoey in front of the White House.
  • Bartlet's CMOA when condemning God in Latin in "Two Cathedrals" doubles as a Tear Jerker as you can see how distraught he is how God treats those closest to him.
    • Both the CMOA and Tear Jerker are combined again at the end of the episode as they all go to the press conference.

Leo (sotto voce): Watch this ...

  • Leo's funeral in "Requiem".
  • All of "Bartlet for America," particularly in the opening teaser during this exchange:

Josh: I'm gonna help you out and you know why?
Leo: Because you're so worried about everybody you love dying that you're a compulsive fixer?
Josh: Nah, it's because a guy's walking down the street and he falls in a hole, see?

  • "That was a nice thing you did."
  • Santos' speech announcing his candidicacy, superimposed with President Bartlet walking across the Oval Office with braces and standing for the first time after a particularly debilitating MS attack.
  • From In the Shadow of Two Gunmen, which is practically a goldmine for Tear Jerker moments:
    • Sam frantically shouting "Josh, I'm here!" as Josh is wheeled into GW after being shot at Rosslyn.
    • The scene where Donna comes to the hospital after the shooting.
    • When Bartlet kisses Leo on the cheek before going into surgery.
    • The look on Toby's face after he yells at Josh from behind for fooling around behind the gate, then reaches him and realizes he's been shot. To put it simply, Richard Schiff is an astounding actor.
    • When CJ finds out that Sam was the one who pushed her out of the way of the bullets.
    • When Toby loses it and starts screaming at CJ about wanting to hunt down every white supremacist organization in the country.
    • Bartlet to Leo, while watching Josh's surgery: "Look what they did."
  • The end of "The State Dinner", where President Bartlet is talking on the phone to the sailor on a fuel tender that services the John F. Kennedy, whose entire battle group is in the middle of a hurricane, and Bartlet knows that there's no way the small ship will survive. The static-y, broken-up description of the storm by the sailor, who is awed to speak to his Commander-in-Chief even though he's in the middle of it, coupled with the look of total despair and helplessness on Bartlet's face.
    • And that gets mentioned in Bartlet's tirade against God.

Bartlet:They say we haven't had a storm this bad since you took out that tender ship of mine in the north Atlantic last year, 68 crew. Do you know what a tender ship does? Fixes the other ships. Doesn't even carry guns, just goes around, fixes the other ships and delivers the mail, that's all it can do.

  • When Bartlet gives Charlie the carving knife: "Charlie, my father gave me this knife, and his father gave it to him, and now I'm giving it to you." The implication of the words strikes the audience and Charlie just dead-on. And god, the expression on Charlie's face when Bartlet adds that the knife was made especially for the Bartlet family "By a Boston silversmith named Paul Revere."
  • "Sam, you're going to run for President one day. Don't be afraid, I believe in you."
  • The end of "Posse Comitatus", when Bartlet hears the news that the terrorist-sponsoring foreign defence minister, whose assassination Bartlet ordered against all of his moral convictions, has been killed. While Bartlet's favorite song is performed on the stage inside the theater hall: "And the victorious in war shall be made glorious in peace."
  • The entire speech Toby gives in 25, starting with, "I didn't realize babies come with hats" and ending with, "This isn't going to mean anything to you, but... Leo was right. Leo was right."
  • The episode "Han".
  • Zoey dealing with her kidnapping in "Jefferson Lives".
  • The President telling Ellie "The only thing you ever had to do to make me happy was come home at the end of the day" in "Ellie".
  • "18th and Potomac," which led to all those tearjerkers in "Two Cathedrals".

Charlie: Leo, there was an accident at 18th and Potomac. Mrs. Landingham was driving her car back here.
Leo: What happened?
Charlie: There was a drunk driver, and they ran a light at 18th and Potomac. They ran it a high speed.
Leo: Charlie, is she all right?
Charlie: No. She's dead.

  • The episode "Noel":

Stanley: You have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Josh: That doesn't sound like something they let you have if you work at the White House.
Stanley: Josh...
Josh: Can we have it be something else?

White Collar/Tear Jerker

  • The end of season 1 finale. The plane blowing up is a bit of a Special Effect Failure case, but the look on Neal's face as he realises what happened and tries to throw himself into the fire in a futile attempt to save Kate is heartbreaking.

Xena: Warrior Princess/Tear Jerker

  • The murder of her son Solan, where she denied it at first and cradled the teenager's body like a baby as the truth started to sink in. And when she was forced to kill her undead African lover (long story); she stabs him and kisses him passionately as he slowly dies.
    • The first example is sad enough, but you could see it coming, so you'd think it wouldn't be that sad. But then this line comes up:

"Solon. Solon, please. I'm here now. Your mom is here now just like you always wanted."

  • The end of "Destiny".
  • "Been There, Done That".
  • Most of the Xena/Gabrielle scenes from "One Against an Army"
  • The end of "Sacrifice pt. 2"
  • The crash scene and aftermath of "Looking Death in the Eye"
  • "Motherhood"
  • The poem scene at the end of "Many Happy Returns"
  • The two "Friend in Need" episodes, especially the bit around sunrise of part 2.
  • Gabrielle at the end of "The Deliverer." Forced to kill and used in a horiffic ritual. "Everything's different now."
  • So much of it in "Orphan of War." Xena gave up Solon during her warlord days both because he would be a target and because he would turn out like her. Years later, she encounters her son, who believes she murdered his father and is still a monster. Though those opinions are corrected, the episode ends with Xena not telling him the whole truth. It's the right thing to do, but you can see how much it hurts in that last shot.
  • "A Comedy of Eros" is indeed a comedy, with lots of romances starting because of misuse of Cupid's arrows. Thing of it is, Joxer didn't need any arrows. He really does love Gabrielle, but she didn't and doesn't know he still does. In the end, she thinks the whole thing is laughable. Cue Joxer uttering a completely defeated "Ha-ha."
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