Tear Jerker / Hollyoaks

• During a fire at The Dog in The Pond, Joe Spencer saved both Zoe and and Kris, before going back to help Olivia. Zoe rings his mobile to check that he's okay, and they hear it ring. Kris remarks that 'People like Joe are just born lucky' right before they realise the ringing is coming from a bodybag.
• Hannah's friend Melissa dying in hospital from anorexia. Melissa wasn't the nicest of people, but it's heart wrenching watching Hannah put on her make up for her, because she's just too weak to.
  • It got even sadder as the storyline went on. In the episode when Melissa died, Hannah was crying over her corpse and desperately hoping that she was still alive, and in a later episode Hannah saw Melissa's ghost/her memory of Melissa waving goodbye to her.
• Tina dying in Dom's arms after the church explosion, her last words begging him for forgiveness after cheating on him and breaking his heart. Made even worse, when he finds that he can't forgive her, even after her death.
  • Mercedes, John Paul, and Carmel volunteering their lives in said incident to both protect Tina, a mother, and Michaela, the youngest.
• Max dies on his wedding day by running out into the road to protect his little brother Tom.
• Mike Barnes being told of eldest daughter Sarah's death, in The Stinger of the episode. No dialogue, just the silent shot of Mike breaking down as he realises what happened.
• The Costellos reactions to finding out their mum had died.
• Nancy losing her baby is one hell of a Tear Jerker storyline.
• Lynsey's death. It's even one in-universe and she was basically an All-Loving Hero compared to everyone else in the village, with no-one having a bad word to say about her.
• Esther's suicide attempt was an absolutely heartbreaking episode.
• Katie's death, especially once it is revealed that Sinead was entirely innocent and was right about her daughter being ill whilst everyone ignored her.
• Jade's fight against, and eventual death from, cancer. Jade was a kind-hearted teenager who spent most of her childhood on the street. After struggling for so long, Jade is taken in by the Osbourne family, who treat her as one of their own. She's then diagnosed with cancer, along with her boyfriend Alfie, who has already battled cancer before as a young child. Despite all evidence pointing to Alfie being the one to die, Jade's cancer is the one that gets worse. She dies not long after her sixteenth birthday, after a rather cruel Hope Spot that she might have been getting better.
  • Alfie's reaction is very sad, he's so racked with grief by Jade's death that he ends up imagining that he sees her everywhere, and even has conversations with her. He is able to make peace with her death eventually, but he still clearly misses her deeply.
• The Hallowe'en Spooktacular 2016. All of it. After kidnapping her best friend Peri Lomax, who she developed a possessive crush on, Nico Blake decides to go to Jude Cunningham's Hallowe'en celebration in order to kill Tom Cunningham and steal his and Peri's daughter so she and Peri can run away together to France. She gets caught by Jude and Cindy Cunningham who overpower her and quickly take their little brother to safety, but when they return, Nico is nowhere to be seen. However, Nico's mother Sienna who took the blame for Patrick's murder in order to save her daughter from prison had been freed after a visit from Maxine Minniver (Patrick's emotionally and physically abused wife) and Warren Fox who loved Sienna and had been taking care of Nico in Sienna's stead. She was convinced to confess that she did not kill Patrick in order to allow Nico to get help and pay for her own crimes. Sienna finds Nico in a maze and the two reconcile briefly with Sienna informing Nico that she loves her and that she won't let anything bad happen to her. As the two tried to find their way out of the maze, Peri's father Cameron out of a desire to protect his traumatised daughter, set the maze alight, causing a large piece of wood to fall and trap Sienna and Nico. Realising that his beloved could die, Warren ran inside and was horrified to realise he could only save one. He chose to save Sienna, who screamed at him to save her little girl, but was forcefully dragged away from her daughter.
  Sienna: "I love you!"

  Nico: *death glare* "I hate you."
  • Generally, Sienna's whole relationship and history with Nico is a colossal tearjerker. Sienna was separated from her twin brother, Dodger Savage, when the two were very young and they met when they were thirteen and had sex, not knowing who the other truly was. They parted ways and she discovered she was pregnant. Her father, Patrick, found out and locked her in a basement to give birth. After, he quickly sent the baby - who Sienna named Sophie - away to foster parents and told Sienna that her baby had died. She spent the next 15-16 years grieving for her "dead" daughter to the point she kidnapped other people's children such as the baby son and young nephew of Nancy Osborne and Leela Lomax's daughter Peri who had been born around the same time as Nico. When they finally found each other, Sienna was so blinded by love that she couldn't see Nico's psychotic tendencies for what they truly were until it was too late for them both.
    • And Joe Roscoe's death. He and Mercedes had had a very tumultuous relationship involving a woman named Joanne who lusted after him and made Mercedes look like a madwoman whilst worming her way into Joe's trust and life. Having just seen Joanne for what she was, Joe was desperate to win Mercedes back and so, with brother Freddie Roscoe's help, decided to propose to Mercedes (again) on top of a Ferris Wheel. However, Joanne spitefully threw away the key and the two had to rely on the help of a cherry picker to get them back down again. Despite having planned to humiliate Joe, Mercedes softened after he apologised profusely for believing Joanne and leaving her at the altar and accepted his proposal of marriage. Unbeknownst to them, the Ferris Wheel was damaged because of the fire from the maze and after Mercedes was urged to go on the cherry picker first, there was an explosion that led to Joe hanging by his fingertips from the cherry picker while Mercedes desperately begged him to hang on. Despite her best attempts to reach him, he couldn't hang on and fell, landing on the poster he and Freddie had made which asked 'WILL YOU MARRY ME?' Later on, he died in hospital from brain injuries with Freddie and Mercedes by his side.
• Ellie Nightingale's rape at the hands of Nick Savage. She wakes up after a heavy night of drinking at a Traffic Light party - the purpose of which is to wear red, yellow and green in order to let people know if you are available -, still in her green dress, but with no underwear on, leaving no possible doubt as to what happened. She is traumatised and soon turns into a shadow of her former self, drinking more to cope, lashing out at boyfriend Freddie Roscoe, and cutting her hair after Nick touches it. When she finally tells Freddie what happened, they both break down and cry together.
  Freddie: You didn't want it. It wasn't your fault. You were raped.
  Ellie: *nods tearfully before sobbing heavily*
  Freddie: *carefully kneels beside her and hugs her*
  • It doesn't end there. When it comes out who raped her, she is met with disbelief, especially from Holly Cunningham who is Nick's girlfriend and accuses her of making the whole thing up just because she had a drunken one-night stand. Because there were so many months between the rape, there's no hard evidence and given that she was drunk and was wearing green to say she was sexually available, Nick is allowed to wander free. Alfie, who is brother to both Holly and Ellie, begs his birth mother Cindy to be careful with Nick and Holly, explaining that he couldn't bear it if anything were to happen to both his big sisters.
    • Holly being raped by Nick is heartwrenching. Throughout the entire storyline, she has given him unwavering support and love, even as he grew more obviously abusive by forcing her to make a sex tape, forgiving him for sleeping with Tegan Lomax and for snapping at her. After Zack kisses her, he mentions it to Nick at his graduation party while apologising for kissing his girl. Nick reacted with rage by calling Holly a whore, but later apologised. While at home, packing for a trip to Thailand, he told her he wanted sex, but she refused, saying 'no' several times. All we see him do is lie on top of her, stroking her thigh, but Amanda Clapham does an incredible portrayal of the fear, confusion and helplessness Holly feels. As a side note, Holly is wearing red as she is raped, which meant STOP in the Traffic Light party.
• Maxine miscarrying her and Warren's child. She wanted the baby to keep her daughter Minnie company in case she ended up in prison for Patrick's murder and Warren wanted to know this child so he could have a new chance at fatherhood. At the time of the miscarriage, he and she are no longer romantically involved and Sienna is in prison for Patrick's murder in order to protect Nico, but Warren and Maxine still cling to each other for comfort, brokenly asking how and why this has happened to them.
  Maxine: Why? Why is this happening to us?
  Warren: I don't know

• The Reveal that Harry Thompson killed Amy Barnes during an argument when she and husband Ryan Knight wanted to take her and Ste's kids, Leah and Lucas, to America. For six months, Ste was alone in prison, not knowing at first if he had done it or not, but facing opposition from nearly everyone but Harry who insisted Ste's innocence the entire way, particularly when Ste remembered his true whereabouts on the night of Amy's murder. Ste was beaten, he risked his own life by not taking his HIV medication to avoid altercations, he even had his own children think for a time that he did kill their mother. His quiet, broken demeanour when he confronts Harry at the trial just sells how hurt he is, not only from Amy's death, but by the fact the man he loves killed her and let him suffer for it.
  Ste: It was an accident, though, wasn't it? *paces around, not looking Harry in the eyes* I mean it must have been. My Amy, she was an amazing woman. It was her wedding day. Nobody wanted her dead.
  Harry: *closes eyes tightly*
  Ste: Do you think she knew? Eh? Do you think she realised in that moment she was about to die?
  Harry: Just tell me who you're covering for. Who killed Amy?
  Ste: *stares at him* You did. Harry.
  *flashback in which we see Harry push Amy to the floor. He stands over her, shocked by what he has done* Amy?
  Ste: It was you.
• Mercedes realizes her unborn baby son Gabriel has stopped kicking, and goes to hospital where she is told he has died. She then has to still give birth to him, and doesn't even have the support of his father (Joe Roscoe, who was in France at the time.)
• The episode about Alfie Nightingale's schizoaffective disorder. He had been terrified about his mental breakdown and had been trying to hide it for weeks, but it had got so overwheling by this point that he tried to jump off a bridge. He gets rescued and taken to hospital, but because of his condition he starts to think his family are abandoning him in there. In reality, they are all distraught with what has happened, and feeling guilty about the fact that they didn't notice anything earlier. It perhaps most sad for his mother Cindy, as she had been through similar mental health struggles herself.
• An episode focused on Cleo McQueen's bulimia begins with her in hospital; where she gives a romantic, idealised description of her wedding day. Under pressure from her therapist Farrah, she tells the true story which includes her running for miles, her hair falling out when she brushed it, having to pin herself into her dress because she'd lost so much weight, and vomiting after being pressured to eat breakfast with the family. She believes she is in hospital because she fainted during the ceremony, until Farrah tells her the truth - she has had a heart attack and is close to death unless she can conquer her illness. The episode ends with Cleo brokenly sobbing that she's too young for a heart attack.
• Lily abandoning her plans to run away with Romeo, deciding that Prince is her true love and she wants to make their marriage work and return to hospital so she can recover from her mental illness. Just moments after saying goodbye to Romeo, she collapses and dies alone in a public bathroom.
• Sid’s death was truly one of the saddest deaths in recent years. A lot of fans sympathised with him due to his status as The Woobie having: accidentally killed his father, being abandoned by his family, being groomed to deal drugs, losing his education, having his big cousin killed and then his best mate sent to prison. The poor kid tried to bring down the man responsible for the County Lines in Hollyoaks, and came so close. If it wasn’t for Ollie ratting him out to Victor, he would not only have brought down the evil drug kingpin, but would have still been alive. Sid died a hero and the episode the day after is nothing but confirmation of that, as Ste, James and the other villagers react to his death and reveal he was trying to bring down Victor. But then, it turned out that Sid's death was fake and he was in witness protection! The show originally planned for Sid's return to be a surprise big twist, but the audience were so upset about Sid's 'death' the show released a video of Sid's best bits, which contained an Easter Egg of Sid's actor Billy Price appearing to, while not outright say that Sid was still alive and would be back, still very heavily implying it by saying "It's not over" and "Sid isn't going anywhere". So this was an example of a Tear Jerker working a little too well!