Tear Jerker / Infinity Train

As the passengers on the Infinity Train have to deal with their emotional pain, there's also all sorts of traumas the train brings up that will likely bring tears to your eyes.

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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Book 1

The Grid Car

• The series wastes no time in delving into some really heartwrenching moments. Tulips parents were recently divorced and are still trying to balance out their new lives now, but Tulip is as stressed as her parents. She gets instantly annoyed when Mikayla brings it up, and yells at her mom at why it's so hard for her and her dad to look after their one daughter when it shouldn't be that hard. As Tulip's mom breaks the news that she nor her father would be able to drive her to the coding camp, Tulip storms off to her room and cries to herself.
  • Tulip's father also understands how he made a mistake, given how he sends an apology text about the mix-up. Imagine his horror over how this scheduling error was what caused his daughter to run away from home...

The Beach Car

• Tulip's reaction to seeing the numbers on her hand going down; instead of thinking it's a good thing she instantly believes it's bad and when One-One convinces her it's counting down her to her death she full on starts to panic. We later find out that it was a good thing, but still...
• As Randall practices his salesman pitch and how valuable teammates are, Tulip's expression slowly goes to one of guilt and she starts to worry about what the cat would do to the little robot. She even realizes how little she's cared for One-One and only treating him as a nuisance than a friend.

The Cat's Car

• In order to get out of the Cat's memory trap, Tulip is forced to confront some of her worst memories and put them back together, like the day at DolphWorld that wasn't as great as she remembered (between the lackluster show with sickly dolphins and her parents arguing), or the day she learned her parents were undergoing a separation and she lashed out at them.
• How Tulip remembered the day her parents told her about their separation and what it says about how traumatic it was to her. In reality, her parents were as torn up about it as she was, but in her mind, they were intentionally tormenting her and ruining her life. Present!Tulip understandably doesn't take this realization well.
  • It's also likely that Tulip reacted that way because of how... well, mundane it actually was. A momentous event like your parents telling you they're divorcing and tearing your life apart should warrant more drama, but instead it was just another quiet conversation around the dinner table, so Tulip probably brought on the rage to make it at least mean something. Anything.
  • Her blaming her parents for wanting to change when everything was perfect also ties into her desire to keep things the same, which is perfectly understandable when you remember she's only thirteen years old.
  • When the tape tries to show her parents as demonic figures screaming at her while the room burned, Tulip just says that wasn't how it happened, and it reverts to their quiet conversation... but the room is still burning...
• The memory of a younger Tulip tucking her dad in is both this and a heartwarming moment. Assuming from context, he either had an especially terrible argument with his wife or this is the night after the divorce. The poor guy is even seen crying at the beginning of it.
• The Steward destroying the Cat's possessions, coupled with the Cat's understandably devastated reaction.

The Unfinished Car

• Tulip talking down One-One by assuring him he isn't responsible for the car being broken, just like she isn't responsible for her parents' divorce.
  Tulip: I know what it's like to think that i-if you had just been "better", things would have been different. That you're responsible for fixing things that are beyond your control. Just know that I speak from experience when I say this is not your fault. And I still want to help you, One-One. If you'll let me.

The Chrome Car

• Tulip's reflection calling her out for ignoring people and staying in her room, even pretending that she didn't hear her mother calling because she was working on her game.
  • She also laments that she doesn't even have a name, because all she's ever been is just a reflection of Tulip.

The Ball Pit Car

• This episode hits hard with the Mood Whiplash, going from Tulip's fun playtime "adventure" with Khaki Bottoms the living plush rabbit to her being menaced by the Steward, guilt-tripped by the Conductor, and having to fight and subdue poor Atticus after he's turned into a Ghom. The episode ends with Tulip in tears as One-One struggles to comfort her.
  Sad-One: (putting a hand on Tulip) It's okay to cry.
  • Watch closely after Atticus is turned into a Ghom: he seems to hesitate for a second before going after Tulip.
  • Not to mention another reason why Atticus's death hurt so much—even though Infinity Train itself is a miniseries, the fandom hasn't just gotten to know Atticus over the week the show has aired. We've known him for the 2-and-a-half-years since the pilot.

The Past Car

• Tulip's numbers increasing again as she miserably turns her back on the car and makes in the opposite direction. Atticus' transformation into a Ghom has hurt her so much she feels helpless and angry. She even starts to yell that she doesn't care about her number or if it will lead her home if she has to live with the fact that she essentially got one of her friends killed trying to protect her.
• We finally learn the Conductor's backstory: she was originally a human woman named Amelia who, in mourning for her dead husband Alrick, stumbled across the Infinity Train and took over.
  • The memory revealing that Amelia is the Conductor shows her (after Alrick's death) running through town to her old university, and going up to the roof. It's not hard to figure out what exactly she was going to do...
  • Fridge Sadness: why was she wearing Alrick's hoodie? Probably because she missed the scent of him...

The Engine

• Tulip is clearly tempted for a moment by Amelia's offer of creating a car for her where she can live with her "parents", like the divorce never happened, even if she knows that it wouldn't be real.
• The Conductor's Villainous Breakdown, especially when she reveals that she got so wrapped up in trying to recreate her old life and did so many terrible things, her number just kept getting bigger and bigger, to the point it extends off her hand and all the way up her arm to her neck.
  Amelia: Don't you get it?! I don't want a life without Alrick!!! *Beat* There's a hole in the universe where Alrick used to be. Why won't the train just let me put him back?
• Amelia was a young woman when she boarded the Train, and she's spent so long on it that she's now elderly. Her entire adult life has been spent in rage and misery trying to bring back her lost love. Even if she somehow got her number down to zero and returned to the real world, everyone she knew and loved is almost certainly dead.
• Tulip having to say goodbye to her friends is appropriately tearful.

Train Documentaries

Shorts

• In one of the shorts, Sad-One tries to ask Tulip a question, only to remember that she's "gone forever" and slump down.

Book 2

The Toad Car

• Jesse's reason for being on the train? He's a Nice Guy to the point of passivity and his "friends" peer pressure him to bully his little brother, to the point that he actually has a video on his phone that showed what he's done. Something must've happened that it got to the point that Jesse was taken onto the train so he can work out these issues. To twist the knife on this, Jesse was the one recording this and the video ends with Nate crying and asking why Jesse would do such a thing.
  • Jesse states that he never got to talk to his brother before ending up on the train. Who knows what Nate is feeling if he assumes his big brother just disappeared...
• The toad that gives the episode its name needs to be kicked to open the doors. To make it worse for Jesse, his number goes up just as he is about to kick it but goes down when he doesn't.

The Lucky Cat Car

• A minor one, but Jesse immediately going silent and his sudden face change after recalling a story about Nate, seemingly from a happier time in their relationship. It's clear the poor kid feels a lot of guilt for what he did to his younger brother.
• In order to leave the Lucky Cat Car, Jesse and MT need a thousand points. However, MT notices that she's getting fewer points because passengers have the urgency to leave while denizen don't. Lake bemoans how practically everyone, even the train itself, sees her as lesser or not her own person.

The Mall Car

• The poor ghostly denizen having all of his cubes wrecked by the Apex, with the cult saying that there's nothing of use to them. It hurts because Jesse slowly became corrupted into their thinking just by lightly tapping a cube with his foot.
• Simon telling MT "you're no person", showing just how little the Apex thinks of denizens in general.
• Jesse finally gets his number down but where does that leave MT? He may be able to leave but as MT discovers, she doesn’t have a number and thus, cannot step through the portal. When Jesse disappears, MT starts to cry as the Reflection Police approach her from behind...

The Wasteland

• Mace mocking MT about wanting to leave the train. He laughs at how she tries to act like a passenger yet still is without a number. It only gets worse as Mace points out how MT helped Tulip and Jesse escape more than herself. How she may not even be living her own life and is just be another product of the train. Another reflection.
• After dealing the final blow to Mace, MT climbs up to the top of the train car, and takes a moment to sob over what she just did, before putting a straight face on.

The Tape Car

• MT looks at the memories of a little girl who accidentally killed her new pet lizard.
• MT's breakdown after failing to get a number in her hand, begging the machines to let her off the train, and then resorting to destroying them in a blind rage.
  MT: (tearing up as she stares into one of the porter bots) Look at me! I AM A PERSON! (crushing said porter bot in her hands) I deserve a number!!!!

The Number Car

• MT desperately pleading to One-One for them to find a way to get her off the train, which is compounded by the fact that One-One simply doesn't understand why she would want to, because as he sees it she's supposed to be on the train helping people and is good at it.
• We get to see a flashback of Jesse upon waking up, confused, in the middle of a train car, begging the One-One recording for more information.
• Jesse was so distraught by having to leave M.T. behind that he actually got picked up by the train again.
• Sieve completely loses it when he shows up again, determined to kill M.T. for her killing Mace, even though M.T. had no other option. Villain he may be, but Sieve truly did care for Mace as a friend.
• MT finally gets off the train with Jesse. The moment she realizes that, the tears start rolling on her face, and your face as well...
• Taking into consideration her lamentation about not having a name way back in "The Chrome Car", two words will bring a few more tears: "I'm Lake."

Book 3

The Musical Car

• Grace and Simon's destruction of said car, showing that they don't care about the inhabitants at all. Hell, the one that they capture is for Simon to keep as a spotlight for his own projects.
• The next car they enter is the Unfinished Car...Amelia's car. This is the same car made to give Amelia some comfort of making her deceased husband come back to her in some way and it's being destroyed by these monsters.
  • Even worse? Grace and Simon don't know this was Amelia's (aka The Conductor's) car. They have apathy over something that was personal to Amelia — who is the same person they worship.

The Debutante Car

• It's a quick moment, but when Grace mentions a Null that Simon got attached to when he first got on the train, Simon winces and starts fidgeting, looking down and away from Grace until she hastily changes the subject. The fact that just a reminder of "that Null of his" causes such a stark change in him makes it clear how painful the subject is for him. This becomes harder to look at following the next episode.
• When Grace tries to ask Hazel about her parents, it becomes apparently quickly that she doesn't seem to remember anything about her life before she got on her train, and even approaching the topic upsets her deeply, causing her to cry and withdraw.

The Le Chat Chalet Car

• Simon met the Cat when he arrived on the train, and while he stayed with her for a few months, she eventually left him and he was nearly killed by a Ghom before Grace saved him, and the experience clearly still affects him. He was 10 years old.
• The fact that Simon is so badly affected by being in the same house as the Cat- at first he's just furious, but then his behavior starts to be more in line with someone having a panic attack, particularly when he discovers the Cat's "collecting" room and is startled by a stuffed Ghom. What's worse is how clearly hurt he is by the fact that Grace is too distracted to see how distressed he is.
• The way the Cat acts around Simon is complicated— she snaps back at him when he's hostile towards her, but she's clearly remorseful when she sees how hurt he is by her abandoning him. The "au revoir" the two share at the end of the episode is wistful, but at the moment it seems like whatever affection they once shared is permanently ruined.

The Color Clock Car

• Simon murdering the innocent gorilla Tuba and Hazel crying over it while Simon is oblivious at the fact that he wheeled her friend and is glad for doing such a deed. Even Grace finds nothing to smile at while he shows how his number has grown and boasts on how he took Tuba on solo.
  • Kyle McCarley actually mentioned on his Twitter that the end of Episode 5 was "up there" as one of the more difficult performances of his career, and it was all because of Isabella Abiera's heartbreaking performance.
  Kyle McCarley: The only time I've ever been on a group record and thought, "man, this would be easier if I were recording solo"...the end of episode 5 of Infinity Train has to be up there for the most difficult job because Isabella Abiera is SO GOOD.
  • To make this worse, Tuba was starting to trust Simon. She told him her life story in how she lost her family and honestly began opening up to him. Then he betrayed her in the worst way possible. And after the audience learned about Simon's past, we have to see him reject character development for dominance over the denizens.
  Simon: Teamwork begins when two people trust each other. But you? You're no person.

  • Just before Tuba tosses Hazel to Grace, Tuba sings their "Don't worry" song. That's the last thing she ever says to Hazel before her death...
• The ending Vanity Plate for each episode of Book 3 shows off the hands of the characters. This one only shows off Grace (with a glove), Simon and Hazel's (looking quite monstrous) to show that Tuba is never coming back.

The Campfire Car

• To sum this up in one single word: Everything.
  • Hazel in denial about Tuba being wheeled, wanting her back and promising that she'll be good from now on if it means she'll be with Tuba again as if someone took a toy from her because she had been bad. That's not how it works...
  • Hazel seeing that she's a train person and asks if Grace hates her. Then she panics, afraid that Simon is going to wheel her. It's at that moment Grace realizes just how horrible she's been in the past and the ramifications of how she and the Apex treated the denizens.
    Hazel: Simon's going to kill me too! Grace, I'm afraid of the wheel!
  • Hazel wanting a funeral for Tuba, and Simon refusing it because there's no body. Grace is at this point really upset at Simon's callousness, especially when Hazel blows up and explains that it's all Simon's fault that Tuba is dead. Even Grace calls him out for not showing sympathy since Hazel was younger than he was when The Cat abandoned him.
• The funeral scene. Get your tissues now.
  • Hazel and Grace climb up a tree with Hazel thinking that Tuba would love to see the sun. Instead of a body, Hazel uses the rock inside Tuba's satchel as a makeshift corpse before she begins her eulogy. When Hazel asks Grace to chime in, Grace slowly reveals that she liked Tuba as the tears form in her eyes upon realizing just how important Tuba was to Hazel.
  • As the eulogy goes on, we see a mother bird with her chicks, especially when Hazel hopes that Tuba and her children are Together in Death.
  • The mother bird and two of the chicks fly off but one is unable to.
  • Hazel singing the full version of Tuba's lullaby and then learning to move on from Tuba's death, promising that Tuba was always in her heart. Really, get those tissues. In this, there is absolutely no Background Music, so we only hear Isabela Abeina (Hazel's VA) singing. Just to twist the knife further, Tuba's lullaby is about how she'll always be there.
  We'll always have tomorrow
  No need to let it borrow
  Time from today...
• Simon continues his escalating insensitivity and apathy problems by telling how Hazel was a brave girl, that she'll be able to be with other passengers and even write her as a character in his novel. You can tell that Hazel hates him.

The Canyon of the Golden Winged Snakes Car

• Hazel really hates Simon getting in Grace's personal space. She starts throwing rocks onto the ground in disgust and doesn't care that she's turning into a turtle, stating that she'll use her turtle form to protect her and Grace.
  Hazel: (on the verge of crying while Grace hugs her) I'll be Tuba now! I'm Tuba...
• Simon and Grace's friendship drifting apart due to Simon's apathy and denial over the truth about the train taking over and Grace doing her best to comfort Hazel.
• Simon meeting up with the Cat and being confused as to what is happening to Grace. He is genuinely upset as to their falling out, and wants to understand why Grace is acting the way she is. He even calls the Cat by her real name, "Samantha", to get her to help her out.
  • The Cat, on her part, looks back as Simon leaves with pity, knowing that Simon will regret going through Grace's memories, and can't stop him. She's right. Even worse, this is the last time she will ever see Simon.
• We also learn what happened with The Cat and Simon in the past. The Cat panicked and didn't even realize Simon was gone until she went into the next car and found him missing. However, when Simon points out that she never came back for him, she admits that she did him wrong.
  The Cat: I didn't leave you, Simon. I ran...there's a difference.
  Simon: But you didn't come back for me!

The Hey Ho Whoa Car

• As Simon is having a denial episode over everything Amelia explains about the train, Hazel starts stressing out and transforms into her turtle self in front of everyone. Amelia then reveals the truth: Hazel was a failed experiment to bring Alrick back.
  • When Hazel proclaims her name, Amelia only dismisses it with "Debatable". That is essentially the equivalent of a parent rejecting their child.
• Grace looks somewhat saddened when she learns that Amelia doesn't even remember saving her. Grace made the Apex in honor of the Conductor yet Amelia doesn't remember doing such an act.
• The cars that Amelia made, like The Unfinished Car, are all being "quarantined", regardless of any passengers or denizens inside. Even worse, Hazel just being inside a car when it's scanned will have the same result, meaning that Hazel is indirectly responsible for what happened to Tuba; even if Simon was the one who actually killed her, he would never have had the chance if the cars hadn't shifted. Moreover, remember all those corgis? What's going to happen to them?!
• Hazel is afraid of Grace abandoning her, to which Grace replies "I'll do whatever I want, Null." before looking horrible of having to keep up this act.
• A tiny moment, but when the group is asleep, Hazel is tucked into her shell. Poor girl.
• The ending; just when the audience can really hate Simon, the episode ends with him in shock, tears streaming down his face as he hears Grace tell Hazel that she will keep quiet about Hazel's real self.

The Origami Car

• After spurning Hazel in the previous episode, Grace thinks on it and decides that she wants to protect Hazel even knowing what she is and what her mere presence does to the cars. But Hazel's trust in Grace is broken, so she decides to leave Grace and Simon in order to travel with Amelia instead. Grace begs her to stay, to no avail. Making things worse is the plucky six-year-old doesn’t even wave or smile as she says goodbye, leaving Grace without any closure or forgiveness.
  • Even if Hazel isn't in any immediate danger with Amelia, the latter is still very aloof and has yet to see Hazel as anything more than potential research material. When Amelia makes it clear that she isn't going to waste time being Hazel's caretaker, Hazel says that Grace and Simon weren't much better and that she will take care of herself from now on. Her journey with the two left some deep scars.
  • It was very hard to watch Grace break down as Hazel departs. She is outright pleading to the young girl to reconsider her decision up until the cars begin to shift and she could only watch as Hazel coldly wishes her good luck. The worst part about it is that Grace only has herself to blame for this outcome and she knows it. Grace mourns Hazel's departure as if she was her own child.
• One question on everyone's minds has been: "What were Grace and Simon's pasts like?" This episode gives us the answers.
  • We see that Grace's parents were emotionally abusive and neglectful, to the point that Grace started shoplifting just so she'd get caught and they'd have to pay attention to her. That failing is what led to her getting picked up by the Train.
    Grace: I just wanted to be noticed...
  • On Simon's side, we see what happened with him and the Cat, and Simon is clearly devastated when she abandons him in her panic, and only survives because of Grace. We also learn that Simon's number when Grace saved him was at 55. If he had known that his number was supposed to go down, he would've been able to leave sooner. Grace's lie about numbers = strength deeply affected him, and in the end, this one lie (as well as Simon’s refusal to accept the truth) ended up killing him.
    • Even after everything he's done over the season, it's hard not to feel bad for 10 year old Simon when he starts crying after narrowly escaping the Ghom, believing that the person he had come to see as his friend had abandoned him to die.
  • Grace's flashbacks involving Simon— her saving him, the two of them growing up together, starting the Apex— should be very heartwarming, but because they've come after the dissolution of the two's relationship and Simon's downward spiral over the course of the book, it all has an incredibly bittersweet edge. To hammer the point that the friendship we saw in the flashbacks as well throughout the first part of Book 3 is over, Simon traps Grace inside her memories and shows no remorse as he walks away, leaving her for dead.

The New Apex

• Grace being tormented by the image of Hazel blaming her for everything that's happened; trying to control everyone around her, Tuba's death, and worse of all desperately keeping up the act in the Hey Ho Whoa car to protect herself. The memories and accusations overwhelm Grace with despair, a far cry from the headstrong cult leader she was at the beginning of the book.
  Grace: (with tears in her eyes) It's true. I'm afraid. Afraid of being wrong, of disappointing others, of not being enough. I did everything to avoid being alone... and that's exactly how I ended up.
• The other Apex kids clearly only obey Simon because they're terrified of him, and show genuine reluctance and regret towards acting against Grace more than once.
• Simon and Grace fighting on the bridge. Simon is clearly distraught and betrayed, while Grace can only look in horror at the monster that he is becoming as his numbers climb to his face.
• Grace ends up saving's Simon's life and he repays her by knocking her off. He soon starts to cry, possibly realizing he killed his best friend for years before completely snapping, going Laughing Mad as his face is glowing with all those numbers. Even the Apex children are shocked that Simon would do such a thing. Even more tragic, and ironic, her answer to why he saved her is a plain "I don't know". The words that she could have told him all those years ago when he asked how her number got so big.
• Grace has to watch Simon get melted and devoured by a Ghom. Despite everything he did to her, she still cries at his remains.
• Simon's death. He did terrible things while on the train, but had enough sense of mind to be conflicted about his actions, even as he almost kills Grace. Throughout the book, we see that he was a scared little boy who was abandoned by the Cat and was almost killed by a Ghom and in the end, he's unable to let go of his trauma and hurt. His choices, despite the guilt he felt, ultimately led to his death. The Train means business - only personal growth can save you and help you survive.
• The ending. Grace is completely alone after losing her friend, little sister figure and Tuba. All she can do is admit to the Apex that what she did was wrong and they had to change things for the better. As the kids start talking about the adventures ahead, Grace can only give a melancholy smile while a little bird perches on her shoulder.
  • As mentioned above, Simon originally got the idea of "increasing numbers = getting stronger" from Grace. And because of this misguided belief, Simon murdered denizens of the train (most notably Tuba) and committed other atrocities just to keep his number growing and become "stronger". It’s possible that Grace is aware that, despite Simon being fully responsible for his own decisions and denial, she still ultimately had a hand in his descent into madness and villainy. In other words, if Grace had just admitted to not knowing what the numbers meant instead of being a Know-Nothing Know-It-All all those years ago, the events of Book 3 (and some events of Book 2) would’ve never happened.
• Grace and Simon both came to the train as children. They are now undeniably adults. And even though Grace worked through some of her number, it is still big enough to wrap around her wrist and up her arm and she in her crusade has caused all those kids to raise their numbers as well. They'll be there for a long time, far longer than they should have. By the time they return, their families would have likely long since moved on (or worse), and they'll have to somehow reintegrate into society despite having missed out on many years worth of education. As for Simon, his family definitely will never hear from him again and Grace will have to break the news that he's dead because of her.
  • Speaking of which, even when Grace gets her number to 0, she must still live with the fact that everything that happened was on her: she lost everyone she loved, she kept children separated from their families longer than they should've been, and she's killed and injured numerous denizens during her time on the train all because she was too arrogant, too proud, too stubborn to ever admit that she wasn't the expert she claimed she was. No amount of redemption is ever going to erase all of her sins. There's also the fact that she's not even sure if her parents are still alive or if something happened to them so she ends up just as she started on her train trip: all alone and no one to guide her.

Book 4

The Art Gallery Car

• Min-Gi's anger and sadness over feeling that Ryan abandoned him can bring tears to the eyes of those who also deal with abandonment issues, or can relate to this.

Train To Nowhere

• Ryan's laughter in absolutely hopeless despair can get chilling and disheartening when you've dealt with something similar.
• Kez finally revealing how Jeremy left the train and caused the rift between her and Morgan: Jeremy suffered from survivor's guilt for being the driver in a car crash that killed his entire family except for him. After spending a long time in the train (5 years with Morgan and Kez specifically), he started seeing more and more passengers leave leaving him and Morgan behind, causing depression for the two. During his talks with Kez, she began to make him think more and more on the reasons why he was still there, which ultimately led to their final conversation where Kez kept trying to tell Jeremy that what happened to his family wasn't his fault, with Jeremy treating it as empty platitudes. It was only when an upset Kez told him that he was still stuck in the fog he lost his family in, did Jeremy finally have his epiphany and was forcibly taken home without any closure with Kez and Morgan, with the two left behind winding up broken and hurt.

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