Tear Jerker / Ghosts (UK)

• Jemima's whole situation. As the only child in a house of adult ghosts, she's doubly ostracized by her unintentional creepiness—all she does is sing a song in a slightly creepy way, and nobody wants anything to do with her.
  • Possibly averted by Series 3, as she doesn't appear again, implying she's moved on.
• Though it's played as Black Comedy, how Fanny died is actually quite distressing. After finding out that her husband was cheating on her with two men, he decided to push her out of a window, believing that she couldn't be trusted to keep it secret. Except Fanny did and kept it a secret for more than century even after she had died, only confessing after being outraged that Julian pushed Alison out the window. Then even in death she couldn't find peace, as Fanny is forced to relive her murder every single day, and can't do anything to stop it.
• In Happy Death Day Pat is devastated after finding out that his wife cheated on him with his best friend (whom she married after Pat had died). After asking a horrified Alison to murder his wife with hopes that she'd become a ghost and stay at Button House, Pat becomes disgusted with himself and flees to Thomas' Sighing Spot. There Pat admits to Thomas and Robin that he doesn't know if he wants them to come anymore. Thomas bitterly notes that eventually no one will.
• In Monah Ston Robin explained why the lunar eclipse was so important to him. He had seen plenty come and go - whether it'd be building or people - but the only thing that was constant was the moon. To him the moon was his only companion for a long, long time.
• Kitty fleeing the scene in tears when it looks like Alison has made up her mind to leave.
  • The other ghosts all look absolutely miserable when they hear it, even Julian (who had previously been described as someone who could "take or leave" Alison and Mike).
• In Redding Weddy, we learn a bit more about the Captain while he was still alive. While stationed at Button House, it was implied that he was in love with his second-in-command, Lt. Havers. After finding out that France had fallen, Havers announced to the Captain that he had put in a transfer to the North African front. This devastated the Captain, but he buried his true feelings because he knew how much Havers wanted to fight. It still clearly affects him years later, as shown when he slips up briefly when explaining the bomb to Alison, saying that "he left me" before correcting himself. At the end of the episode the Captain stares out the window, watching as a vision of Havers waves farewell to him. Later in Season 5´s "Carpe Diem" is revealed that Havers is alive and well and attending a exclusive VE Day, so the Captain tries to infiltrate only to watch him, but, he dies of a heart attack in front of him, after being caught by another generals.
• How Thomas died: his cousin, Francis Button, tricked him into believing that Isabelle, the woman he loved, didn't return his feelings (when she actually did). This led to Thomas challenging another man to a duel in order to prove his love for Isabelle, thinking the other man had been talking smack about her (when he'd actually been talking about Mary Shelley). Francis then took advantage of the situation and lied to Thomas about how many paces to take, ensuring the other man was able to shoot first. Then, when a dying Thomas asked for Francis to fetch Isabelle, Francis never did, and the rest of the party's guests left, leaving Thomas to die alone (apart from the watching ghosts), believing that he died unloved. And then, Francis swooped in to comfort the distraught Isabelle and eventually married her - solely for her inheritance (the house, her money). He didn't even love her. Thomas and Isabelle could've been happy together, and it was ruined by the first Lord Button's complete selfishness. When Thomas finds out the truth and Alison asks if knowing Isabelle did love him makes him feel better, he replies that "No. It's worse."
  Kitty: He waited, and he waited, but [Isabelle] never came.
  • His death was so heartbreaking that even Julian nearly shed a tear.
• When trying to hitch a ride home, Alison stumbles upon another girl hitchhiking... who asks her if she was murdered while hitchhiking, too. Alison immediately freaks out and hurries away. Adding an extra layer of heartbreaking is that the ghost looked so happy to finally have someone to talk to, only to look upset when Alison hurries away.
  • Minor, but seeing Robin frantically bolt through the woods only to be repeatedly turned back at the Button property line really hammers home just how stuck the ghosts in this world are, how attached they're forced to be to the place they died. In an emergency (like the Button House burglary), they are largely helpless to run away or to get help themselves.
  • Just like Robin can't leave the Button House grounds, that poor hitchhiker girl is forever stuck on the side of the road. Alone.
• When Fanny is furiously ranting about the same-sex marriage going on in the house and how it's a an affront to decency and tradition, Headless Humphrey calmly and sadly tells her about his own marriage — arranged, when both of them were just children, and loveless, In fact his French wife didn't even like him, even though he did try to reach out and connect with her, since they were also separated by a language barrier.
• Keith, the boy who accidentally killed Pat, returns to Button House to attend a wedding being held there, and he's so guilty about killing him that just being there's driving him to drink. Pat is angry to see him, but eventually forgives him, even claiming that it was his own fault and that he should've never given children a lethal weapon.
• In the Christmas episode, Kitty mentions that her memories of Christmas include opening presents... and then her sister coming into her room and picking out the ones that she wanted.
• Julian is haunted by the fact that he ignored his wife and daughter every year at Christmas, and realizes that he deeply regrets his actions - added to that, his daughter was only four years old when he died. He even sheds a manly tear when he tells the others about it.
• Mary shows surprise that the baby staying with them made it to morning. A dark reminder that back in her day, a lot of children didn't survive early infancy.
• Mike's frustration with how his parents basically commandeered Christmas dinner after he put so much effort into planning it, as well as his sisters' obvious glee when they bully him into having a breakdown (and have apparently done so repeatedly in the past) and promptly whip out their phones to film his humiliation.
• Humphrey's heartbroken reaction to discovering that his wife is part of a plot to kill the Queen.
• It's quite startling to see Julian's reaction to his own death, and then refusing to accept that he's a ghost.
  • The way Julian addresses Heather Button implies they were familiar with one another, maybe even close. Indeed, after Julian died and everyone else has left Button House, she just sits alone at a table with a distant look on her face.
• The ghost of the Roundhead that follows Alison and Lucy on their walk. It's clear nobody's seen or spoken to him in centuries—after what looks to be a very violent and painful death by spearing—and as soon as he makes eye contact with someone, she ignores him and walks away. It really reminds you just how lonely a thing being a ghost can be.
• Alison is an orphan, her father having passed away when she was five, and her mother having passed more recently. She's also an only child who always wanted siblings. Which makes it all the more heart-wrenching when she finds out that her "long-lost half-sister" is actually a scammer after her money. And even though Lucy (the scammer) was foiled and didn't get away with Alison's money, her response to Alison's questioning is a cruel twist of the knife.
  Alison: Why me?
  Lucy: Don't take it personally.
• Pat realising that his strict adherence to schedules is what drove Carol to cheat on him.
• Judging by Julian's dreams, he still feels guilty that his affairs separated him from his daughter.
• It's quick and played off by the others, but seeing Kitty bawling as someone throws out her "Bunty Bear" is very sad.
  • Kitty's backstory: she was adopted, but her sister Eleanor didn't accept her and was cruel to her, even saying to Kitty's face that she should get most (if not all) of their father's inheritance because she's actually his daughter. She cut holes in Kitty's dress to stop Kitty from going to the ball, and when their father gave Kitty a dress that belonged to their mother, Eleanor broke a figurine of their mother and blamed it on Kitty. Thus Kitty couldn't go to the ball and Eleanor was allowed to wear their mother's dress instead. What's more, most of Kitty's experiences with her sister are so terrible that's she's suppressed and rewritten the memories, believing instead that her sister was actually a kind person.
• Robin's mother had her face bitten off by a wolf. Right in front of him.
• Fanny's backstory, already dismal enough, gets even worse in "He Came!" When she was young she was a brilliant mathematician and wanted to stay single so that she could help her father with the struggling estate, but her mother pressured her into getting engaged to the man who (as we well know) she had a miserable and unfulfilling marriage with, and who would eventually murder her.
• The sad truth behind Mary's death: the village's harvest was destroyed by frost and instead of taking responsibility, the farmers decided to accuse Mary of witchcraft and blame her for it, all because she was a "strange" woman who talked to herself and lived alone. It's also a sad case of Truth in Television, as women like her were often accused of witchcraft and there was nothing they could do about it.
• Annie spent her life being constantly told to shut up by the men around her with the implication that she didn't choose to become a Puritan. When she dies, she's at first upset that she's a ghost instead of going to Heaven, believing that her suffering was All for Nothing. Though she quickly takes to being a ghost quite well, which should say something about what her life was like when she prefers being dead.
  • Though her husband wasn't all that great from what little we see of him, he does seem visibly upset when Annie's body is taken away.
• In the episode "Gone Gone", perhaps the saddest of the entire series, Mary moves on. The whole episode is treated like she's passed away (even though she was already a ghost) as everyone deals with their grief in different ways.
  • It happens right in front of the other ghosts. It's the equivalent of watching a close friend die right in front of you.
  • Alison is speechless when she’s told.
  Alison: Just... gone?
  • Fanny falls asleep watching TV and wakes up when Loose Women comes on. She starts calling out for Mary since it's her favourite show... only to remember that Mary's gone.
  • The Captain spends the episode making himself busy. When confronted by Alison who assures him that they understand:
  The Captain: But if I stop, then... (stops himself from breaking down)
  • Robin spends the episode partying and acting like he doesn't care. When confronted:
  Robin: I've been around a long time. Like a really long time. I've seen this happen so much... Can't do this every time. The pain... (looks at Mary's picture) I deal with it my own way.
  • At the beginning of the episode, they realize that they haven't see Robin in a few days and start to panic, thinking he might have moved on. Any one of the ghosts can move on at any time, without anyone else around, and no one could realize for days.
  • At the end of the episode, the Captain has taken to counting the ghosts to make sure everyone is there. He freaks out when he realizes Humphrey is missing, and everyone is relieved when they find his head outside.
• In the episode "Poached Guests", new ghost Maddocks doesn't like to linger at the hedge because it's where he died. Yet he's forced to stand there in the episode for hours because the other ghosts want to talk to him.
• The smell of a thunder storm is enough to freak Robin out and give him PTSD flashbacks to the day he died.
• "Fools" begins with Alison being unable to find any of the ghosts and, thinking they can't have all moved on at once, believing that she's lost her ability to see them. Then when the ghosts appear and yell "April fools!" she immediately bursts into tears. Even though she later says she got so emotional as a side effect of her newly-discovered pregnancy, that doesn't make her feelings any less valid.
• After the other ghosts spend most of "Pineapple Day" believing that Kitty was poisoned by various suspects, it's revealed that this was not the case; a deadly spider had been brought along with the titular pineapple, and Kitty had simply been unlucky enough to have been bitten by it. It's unclear if anyone else ever figured it out, with it looking like Kitty fell ill for no apparent reason, and Eleanor is shown to have regretted mistreating her sister and apologised while Kitty was on her deathbed and most likely unable to hear her at that point.
• It turns out that Robin is quite good at speaking French, which he picked up from Humphrey's wife Sophie and her nursemaid. Since he was alone at the house for quite a while between his friend William moving on and the Bones moving in, he sympathised with Sophie after her nursemaid, implied to be her closest friend, died (and almost immediately moved on) and Humphrey didn't do much to console her over it - but of course, being a ghost, Robin couldn't give her any comfort himself. Then Sophie has to escape after the events of "The Bone Plot" and Robin sadly watches her go, knowing that he'll likely never see her again.
  • During a podcast focused on the episode in question "En Francais", Laurence Rickard and Ben Willbond mentioned that they imagined Robin became heavily invested in one-sided friendships with the living when he was the only ghost 'in residence', for the sake of his own sanity; he knew Sophie better than anyone else, and yet she never even knew he existed.
• The final episode, "A Christmas Gift",
  • Allison and Mike, after having Betty (Mike's Mom) living with them to help deal with Mia's born, decides to tell Betty that they need to move on with their life, this also move the Ghosts that realize that they are also influencing so much in Allison's life and convince the pair to sell the property and start a new life.
  • The final scene of Allison´s shows her visiting her ghosts friends in the golf resort some years later, implying that, despite the sell, the couple has visiting the resort every year to allow Allison to keep track with them.