Surprisingly, there's a lot for a nighttime soap opera:
- The complex explosion.
- Kimberly, who was already losing her mind and ready to get revenge on the world for her hardships, being absolutely giddy in rounding up her enemies just to kill them all — even those who didn't do her wrong or whom she had nothing personally against, like Billy, Brooke and the aforementioned Alison.
- The image of her giggling like a little girl when she pulls out the detonator, and suddenly donning a Kubrick Stare (see page image) when we cut back to her.
- Even with the Special Effect Failure of Kimberly being blown away and the cop-out of only one person, Mackenzie Hart, actually being killed, it was otherwise very well-done and realistic. Virtually no one walked away unscathed; burns, smoke inhalation and with poor Alison being blown across her apartment and then blinded by the blast is frightening.
- Also, the memory of The Oklahoma City Bombing just a few months prior still being fresh in viewers' mindsnote made it even scarier than it probably would have already been.
- Kimberly, who was already losing her mind and ready to get revenge on the world for her hardships, being absolutely giddy in rounding up her enemies just to kill them all — even those who didn't do her wrong or whom she had nothing personally against, like Billy, Brooke and the aforementioned Alison.
- Kimberly's removal of her wig after her return and the revelation of a huge, disfiguring surgical scar on her head from brain surgery after her and Michael's car accident. In Melrose Place's E! True Hollywood Story, Marcia Cross admitted that fans would tug at her hair to see if it was fake.
- Brooke's pale ghost—complete with the large gash on her forehead from where she hit her head on the edge of the pool before falling in and drowning—coming back to seduce/taunt Billy, which caused him to (temporarily) turn into a Jerkass.
- Prior to that, he had discovered her passed out from a suicide attempt in their bathroom after he first tried to leave her, surrounded by blood from her sliced-up wrists and pale.
- In a Shout-Out to Silence of the Lambs, Michael is visiting Kimberly in jail after she blew up the complex, and she breaking through a glass door just to repeatedly stab him to death. His cries of pain and horror don't make this scene any easier to watch. (Un?)fortunately, it was All Just a Dream.
- In the episode where Sydney accidentally joined a cult and she tried to leave, she is then overpowered by some other members and thrown into a locked cage built into the ground, all while screaming at the top of her lungs to be let out.
- Peter in the mental institution, particularly when he is about to be given ECT and he keeps insisting that he is a medical doctor and not a mental patient and tries to prove it by yelling out medical terms in a desperate last-ditch effort to stop the treatments, which occur anyway. Then there the time where Kimberly's about to perform surgery on him...
- How about Richard's arm popping out of his freshly dirt-filled grave and struggling to claw at some sturdy land above it? It's made even worse by the creepy, sinister music playing while this is happening.
- The circumstances surrounding fake Christine's death, which is also considered Nausea Fuel and Squick. See more on the main page under Cruel and Unusual Death.
- Kimberly's drastic actions to free herself from her electronic home device bracelet, which was to ice her hand, get herself intoxicated and break her own hand in a waffle iron.
- Hell, virtually everything regarding Kimberly's life came across as this; the man who raped her mother on her tenth birthday who she then stabbed to death, her stalker, the fiery death of said stalker, her time as a doctor in the asylum, her Sanity Slippage...
- Sydney drugging Jane's drink, which gave her a stroke and caused her to be paralyzed on one side. Even when she and Michael were going at it at a Christmas party, she passes out midway through and poor Michael actually thought she was dead. Also, as Sydney has to be her caregiver, she doesn't care for her properly, of course and in preparation for a date she was about to have, she kicked the poor girl out by putting her on the beach, which then experiences a tidal wave and pulls her into the water. You can only imagine what would have happened if Jake hadn't found her. Also, there was a moment where Sydney had a rather sick fantasy where she sent her out into traffic and was promptly hit by a bus! It's also worth knowing that Syd is a complete Karma Houdini for doing this...
- Matt thinks he finally has a great guy in Paul, a married doctor but saying that the marriage is over. When Matt drops by his house for a visit, he finds Paul's wife dead and is arrested. He admits the affair but jarred when the cops relate how Paul and his wife have filed restraining orders on Matt. Paul bursts in to berate the man who murdered his beloved wife and Matt realizes Paul set him up for all this. The sight of him in jail is harrowing but worse is when he meets with Paul to trick a confession and how they can get through this. Paul flat out states that he considers himself straight and was disgusted having to be with Matt in order to set him up. It all ends with Paul trying to kill Matt himself and dying, seeming to hang onto his lies but confessing before dying.
- The ordeal with Jo and her baby is this, particularly her being shot when trying to take her son back from her ex-boyfriend's scheming, vengeful parents. Beforehand was pretty bad as well, as poor Jo lost custody of him to them before he was even born and then trusted Kimberly to help her conceal him, only to keep the baby for herself after the birth. If not for Michael giving him back, Kimberly would still have him. Then she ratted Jo out to Reed's parents as a final act of revenge.
- Jane's brutal rape at the hands of Richard is one of the most horrific scenes in the show, especially since it came out of nowhere and because of how powerless she was to stop it. Not to mention her failure to press charges, and Richard blaming her.
- Bruce Teller's death. Also, there's the very macabre message pinned to his chest: "Amanda, congratulations on your promotion."
- A later episode has his ghost haunting her, "bragging" about the deep rope burn left on his neck, telling her that it will never heal and even goading her into touching it.
- Jo's being beaten by Jess after she rejects his marriage proposal. We only hear the majority of it, but even that is pretty difficult to listen to.
- Overall, Jess is just a terrible guy, even hiring a man to rob and shoot Jake, his own flesh and blood, in his bar in order to gain control of it and get Jo all to himself. When he finally admits to it in the aftermath of Jo's attack and that the guy was supposed to kill him, the men have a dive that injures Jake and kills Jess.
- Amanda's stalker, a repairman for the complex, who hid inside of her walls and would watch her shower and undress.
- Jack Parezi, Amanda's former husband. Like with Jo, this storyline definitely hit an emotional nerve with viewers, especially those who went through this themselves. Even on his deathbed, he still tried to kill Amanda, only to die in the process.
- The death of Alycia Barnett, Bobby Parezi's lawyer and Peter's one-time girlfriend. After deciding to confess to killing Bobby, she calls Peter while on her cell phone while driving and ends up colliding with a oncoming truck for her troubles and is killed instantly. Then in the aftermath of the accident, there's a shot of both her destroyed car and the phone laying in the middle of the road while an unknowing Peter cries out for her to answer.
- Eve Cleary. The woman is so obviously disturbed and not afraid to use violence. She was initially an old friend of Amanda's who had killed a violent boyfriend of hers in self-defense, but still went to prison for it since his family was rich, but she didn't really show signs of mental illness until after her release. She finds a rival in Lexi over Peter, but to keep her away from him, she kidnaps her and ties her up in her home with the intent to torture. Even after his and Amanda's fiery "deaths" in an explosion, Eve still taunts Lexi over her love for him and dumps "his" ashes on her, proclaiming "You wanted Peter all over you! Now he's all over you!" Bleah.
- Sydney's pimp, Lauren, is very much like a pimp in real life, even as a female. She may give off the veneer of being a fair boss and a big sister type to Sydney and the other prostitutes, but she is every bit the Manipulative Bitch that one would expect. She had her muscle bust up her apartment due to not having the funds to pay her back, threatened her that she has only days to come up with the $15,000 she owes her and even sent some of her other employees to viciously beat Syd up when she tried to work the streets to earn money even after ordering her not to or else.
- When Taylor was acting as Beth, her long-deceased older sister who died of cancer and Peter's beloved first wife. Aside from the creepiness of acting as a dead woman just to appeal/seduce Peter (and one particularly disturbing scene where he gave her a Forceful Kiss that drew uncomfortable parallels to Marital Rape License), she and Michael eventually Mind Screw him into thinking that he was crazy, on drugs, and regularly beating her so he could take over their partnership and she could keep him from ever going back to Amanda (with her even as one point intentionally slamming a door in her own face to resemble a black eye). When Peter found out about the lies, he was so angry that he threw Michael through a plate-glass window, badly damaging his hands, and he almost pushed Taylor off of a lighthouse, only for her to tell him she's pregnant which culminated in him giving her a "The Reason You Suck" Speech then leaving her at the aisle after she manipulated him into marrying her.
