Tear Jerker / Live-Action TV G to L

Un gars, une fille

• This otherwise hilarious French-Canadian series got a few brilliant tear-jerker moments, all delivered by Sylvie Leonard. The first of the two most notable happens at the end of the episode in which Sylvie's mother dies. She gives a beautiful speech to her mother's grave, and asks her to give her a sign if she heard her. At this point, a pigeon poops on Guy's, her boyfriend, shoulder, turning it into a funny moment.
• The second happens during the final episode. After going all the way to Vietnam to adopt a little girl, Sylvie suddenly collapses in the street and wakes up in hospital. Weak and afraid she might die, she tells Guy how much she wanted to see their new child grow up and how much she loves him. The doctor arrives seconds later to inform them that Sylvie is actually pregnant, turning the scene into a heartwarming moment.

Series/General Hospital

• One would be hardpressed to find a span of time richer with tearjerkers than 1994-1995 on General Hospital. In those two years, you had Monica Quartermaine's breast cancer, Stone and Robin's HIV/AIDS and perhaps the most tearjerking story ever on soaps, BJ's heart.
• Dominique's death in 1993 after hearing her unborn baby's heartbeat (carried by surrogate Lucy).
• Karen admitting to ex-boyfriend Jagger that she had been sexually abused as child, felt unworthy of love, and that that's why she pushed him away and broke up with him.
• The deaths of Lila and Edward Quartermaine in 2004 and 2012 respectively, and passing of Anna Lee and John Ingle. Just watch Jane Eliot scream "I Want My Mommy!!" after her mother dies, and "Please, don't go!" when talking to her dying father.
  • Watching Edward and Lila walk off together when Edward dies is both tear-jerking and heartwarming.
• The reunion of the Spencer siblings and the events that separated, reinforced by Anthony Geary's anguished performance in this storyline.
• Oscar's death, perfectly depicted by him sitting up in bed and seeing his great-grandparents Edward and Lila standing in the doorway, waiting for him.

Generation Kill

• Sergeant Brad Colbert in Generation Kill has a really affecting moment when he realises that a Marine under his command has shot a young Iraqi boy. The fact that Colbert's nickname is "Iceman" for his usually detached and cool attitude
• Navy Hospitalman Second Class Robert Timothy "Doc" Bryan trying to treat and protect a little boy before the group of Marines is overwhelmed by local civilians desperate for help and have to leave.
• When Evan Wright says goodbye at the end. There's a feeling of "it's better left unsaid" because what they'd been through together meant there was just way too much to put into words completely. It's also that, even though he'd become accepted by the Marines as a friend, he's NOT one of them - he's the odd one out.
• The end of the seventh (last) episode, where the energy and tension of the invasion is winding down. Each of the characters (except Trombley) loses his momentum and, when he has a moment to think, realizes what they've all been through. Ray detoxing and provoking Rudy, Godfather defending his decisions in the field... and especially Lilley's video of footage.

Ghost Whisperer

• "Save Our Souls": A room on a cruise ship is haunted by the ghost of a stowaway name Lorelai, where she saw her lover kissing another woman. It turns out the woman she saw was only giving him a goodbye kiss, because neither wanted to marry each other even though they were supposed to. When Lorelai saw this, she ran away and hid in an access shaft, but slipped and plummeted to her death. The captain orders her body be tossed overboard, and she is never found. Her lover then spent years trying to find her across the world, to no avail.
• The season 1 finale when a certain character finds out they're dead:

  ''' Andrea: "But I'm going out with a poet...it's my brother's birthday"

• An episode dealt with the ghost of a teenage boy who died just after his girlfriend dumped him when she saw him dancing with another woman. Turns out the woman had been giving him dance lessons in preparation for the prom.
• The flashback episode to when Melinda was a teenager and she's talking with her grandmother in the hospital. Melinda suspects that a man looking at the two of them curiously is a ghost but her grandmother calmly explains to her what she should be feeling when she sees an actual ghost. Melinda then looks at her grandmother curiously and says "I'm feeling some of that right now" before realising what has happened as a group of panicked doctors run towards her grandmother's room.

Great Teacher Onizuka

• The live action Great Teacher Onizuka episode where Tomoko pours her heart out during the public speaking part of the competition.

Hannah Montana Forever

• The scene in "Love That Lets Go" while we're looking at back at some of the happy memories that Miley has been through with Blue Jeans, as the song of the same name plays over it. Also, the last bit before commercial where Miley tells the audience that it was dedicated to her horse in real life.
• "Been Here All Along", where Miley tells Robby Ray that she's happy to have a father like him, and they hug, which is followed by them having fun together on the pier.
  • Then, Hannah performs "Been Here All Along". Watch and let the crowd's reaction reflect on you.
  • After that, she sings "I'm Still Good", and during the ending credits, the crowd dances along. It should make you happy to watch.
• The finale has quite a few:
  • Lily getting angry at Miley saying that she's the last person she'd want to take anywhere with her.
  • When they're at the airport and are about to leave, at the last second, Lily decides she doesn't want to come because she knows that the movie has been Miley's dream but not hers.
  • The part following it, showing Miley on her flight and arriving in Paris and Lily returning to her dorm in Standford.
  • As well as the closing credits when "I'll Always Remember You" plays, especially if you were a long time fan of the series, you WILL be brought to tears knowing it's all over. As well as when the theme song plays, if you watched this when it premiered, you must have thought, "Wow, this is the last time we'll be hearing this..."
  • This whole episode is one big tear jerker. It won't completely obliterate your heart like that one Disney film, but it will take it, slash it in half and hit it with a giant rock.

nu!Hawaii Five-O

• In the first episode when Steve's dad is killed while Steve is talking on the phone with him has to qualify for some.
• Danny in "Malama Ka Aina" (episode 3) and Rachel threatening to take away Grace from him. The way he pleads at the end for her not to take Grace away (again) is just murder. Especially if you have father issues, and you hear this grown man begging his ex-wife to let him see his daughter because he loves her that much.
  Danno: Rachel, just hear me out. Before you sic your lawyers on me, I wanna remind you of something. I moved 5,000 miles so that I could see Grace twice a week. Twice a week, okay? That is 48 hours, 52 times a year for a grand total of 2,500 hours. When you factor in sleep, and school, I can really only count on 400 hours of real face time each year. And ya know? That's only going to shrink as she starts making friends... Then she goes off to college... So ultimately that does not leave me with a lot of time to spend with my daughter. Not as much as I would want. But I never complained. I never complained. Because every single one of those minutes reminds me of what I am doing, and why I am here. That little girl is my life. So I am asking you- I am begging you to please- please just be kind. Don't take her away from me, that's all.
  • Rachel drops the petition. You may commence with the tears.
  • Later in that same episode, Steve just tells Danno "Maybe you're not as alone around here as you think Danno."
  • Steve finding out that his dad was at his football game. T_T
• Chin's situation. Just, just Chin's situation. And what had to happen to his ex-fiancée Malia...

Hawking

• The "eureka" scene, where a young Hawking - already debilitated but not yet immobilised by his motor neuron disease - comes to a sudden realisation about the nature of the Big Bang and chases after Roger Penrose at a train station before desperately chalking out diagrams on the platform flagstones

Hell Girl

• In episode 2 of the live-action Hell Girl series, Enma Ai's client is a hikikomori whose father has been murdered. There's a heartbreaking flashback sequence in which we see all the times his father talked to him through the door of his room, patiently trying again and again to reach his son. They love each other, but whatever sorrow has taken hold of the boy won't let go. And now it's too late — he'll never see his dad again, never get to make things right. You'll need to hug someone you love after watching this.

Higher Ground

• The end of the Higher Ground episode "Innocence" where Peter's previously estranged father dies, in the midst of a recollection of their visits to Central Park, with the words "I love you too, son" on his lips. If that doesn't get you, the episode's last shot of a 7-year-old Peter muttering "'bye, dad" as his father strides in slow-motion across a bridge will.
  • The end of "Daised (sic) and Confused", when Daisy opens her father's photo album, and finally grieves for her dead mother, after spending the entire episode resenting her and blowing up at her father (and showing up at the funeral in the very Goth getup that led her to the school in the first place).
    • How is "Exposed" missing? The scene in which Scott confronts Shelby in the woods and she loses it is heartbreaking.

Home and Away

• Leah breaking down after Dan's death.
• April's entire OCD storyline, especially the scene where Bianca confronts her.
• Charlie's death
• Bianca's scenes when she's suffering post-partem psychosis.
• Any scene where Dexter or April cry.

The Inspector Lynley Mysteries

• 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.

Inspector Morse

• Inspector Morse The Remorseful Day The last few scenes where Lewis is saying goodbye.

It Aint Half Hot Mum

• In the last ever episode of It Ain't Half Hot, Mum, the war is over and the men are demobbed. As Sergeant Major Williams struggles to make conversation, the viewers and Concert Party realize that the army was his life; he has nothing to return to as a civilian. Gunner Parkin invites Sergeant Major to dinner where he can see Parkin's mother (his former love) again.

I Survived

• Most episodes are this, but some really stand out. Like the story of Jonathan Metz, who ventured into his basement to clean it, only for his arm to become trapped behind his boiler. For three days, he languished there while his pet beagle Portia wandered around upstairs, hungry and confused as to why he had disappeared. When he noticed that her barking fits were getting shorter and less frequent, coinciding with his own weakening state, he realized that they were both going to die if he didn't get free and resolved to cut off his arm. The episodes epilogue established that the man had recovered, married his girlfriend, and . . ."Jonathan's dog Portia also survived."

Jimmy Kimmel Live

• The sketch from Jimmy Kimmel Live! has a very upsetting Geoffrey the Giraffe reacting on the closure of the now defunct Toys "R" Us.
  Geoffrey: Do You Like Toys? Well, I don't have any! (Voice breaks down) Because we are bankrupted! (Sobs Hysterically)
  Jimmy Kimmel: Aww, It's alright, Geoffrey!
  Geoffrey: (In Outrage) NO IT'S NOT ALRIGHT! BECAUSE ALL YOU BITCHES BUY TOYS ON AMAZON!!!
• Linkin Park's performance of "One More Light" in memory of Chris Cornell. Chester can barely even get through the whole thing. And then you realize this was the start of his final decline.

Jin

• Many many scenes - at least one per episode.
• Ogata-sensei's death and the preceding conversation in episode 7.

Joan Of Arcadia

• The scene from Joan of Arcadia when Judith dies just after watching Joan juggle in "Friday Night." And the subsequent reactions to her death, especially Friedman reading Hamlet.
  • Watching "Death Be Not Whatever" and "Jump" scenes involving Rocky
  • The episode "Silence", in which Joan is diagnosed with Lyme Disease and begins to think that her contact with God is just a hallucination. The scene where she is pleading with all the avatars of God to tell her something, and they just look at her in silence...

K- 9

• In the finale of season 1 "Eclipse Of The Korven", K-9 destroys the Korven, burning out his power core, and because he had his regeneration circuit removed in the previous episode, he could not repair himself, killing him. His regeneration circuit does manage to home itself back to him, and revives K-9.

Kamen Rider

• Given its Anyone Can Die policy, Kamen Rider Ryuki, unsurprisingly, has a fair number of these moments.
  • Kamen Rider Imperer's final moments are particularly painful. Betrayed and left for dead in the Mirror World without his armor for protection, he spends his last seconds alive in the rain, gazing at the lone figure of a woman who may have represented everything he wanted in a life, as his body slowly dissolves into nothingness.
  Mitsuru Sano/Kamen Rider Imperer: Why did something like this happen? All I wanted was to be happy.
  • Shinji's death in the penultimate episode. Lethally wounded by a Raydragoon, he drives off an army of Monsters before succumbing to his wounds. It's only made worse in one of the first scenes of the final episode, as Ren regretfully walks away, leaving Shinji's corpse as one more casaulty in the day's massacre.
  Kido Shinji/Kamen Rider Ryuki: I just realized that I do want to close the Mirror World. I'm sure it will cause alot of pain, but I still want it to end. I don't know if it's right or wrong but as a Rider, I have a wish I want fulfilled, and this is it.
  • Asakura Takeshi/Kamen Rider Ouja and Kitaoka Shuichi/Kamen Rider Zolda have had bones to pick with each other since the former's debut. When the time comes to finally settle things between them, Asakura is victorious. However, as Zolda's armor breaks away, Asakura realizes that it is Kitaoka's manservant, Yura Goro, not Kitaoka himself that he had just killed. As for Kitaoka himself, the audience is taken to his mansion, his body resting peacefully on a couch, having finally succumbed to the illness that threatened his life.
  • As the victor of the Rider War, Akiyama Ren finally succeeds in saving Ogawa Eri, but at the price of his life. Crawling all the way to her hospital room, he leaves the memento he'd kept of her, a pair of rings, in her hands before taking his final rest.
  Ogawa Eri: Ren, if you sit there, you'll catch a cold.
  • Realizing that his sister, Yui, would always reject his offer to save her, Kanzaki Shiro, in a moment of despair destroys Kamen Rider Odin, and thus forfeits the final prize of the Rider War. However, unwilling to accept his sister's death, Shiro threatens to restart the Rider War in spite of her pleas. Then the camera pulls back, and we see Shiro for what he really is beyond the stoic malevolence; a young man tortured by the fear of a world without his sister. As the younger version of his sister pleads with him one last time, the camera pulls to a sentimental gaze of the older Shiro as he rewinds time, revealing that now, both versions of the Kanzaki siblings live in their own version of the Mirror World, populated not with the Monsters they created but with the drawings of happy times between them. As the ending credits roll, we return to the Atori, and pull in on a picture of the Kanzaki siblings, a younger version of them as opposed to the older versions, implying that the two died in the new timeline Shiro created.
• [spoiler:Mio]]'s death in Kamen Rider Kiva. The ending of the episode is horribly sad when she shatters in Wataru's arms. Even more heartwrenching is how she dies. Originally, it appeared that she had done a Diving Save to save her husband, Taiga. Later on, Bishop revealed he killed her, seeing Mio as a hindrance.
• Kamen Rider Double isn't as serious as Kiva or Blade. It doesn't matter though, as it can deliver several sad moments. At the end of the A arc, the poor little girl. And Kirihiko's death. As his hankerchief blew away,
  • The Puppeteer Dopant. You have to feel sorry for him, since his daughter died a few months prior to obtaining his Gaia Memory.
  • Phillip's death, with an acoustic version of Cyclone Effect playing in the background. It takes an upbeat song and makes the line "We've got nothing else" tragic in context. Yes, he's brought back to life the next episode but the preview is entirely melancholic for the next episode. Shoutaro himself is in tears cause he is technically the one to kill Phillip by deactivating the transformation.
  • A Bitter Sweet moment: The Sonozaki family reuniting peacefully in death. After having spent the entire series fighting and backstabbing each other, Wakana and Saeko are seen embracing while Ryubee tells Philip they'll be watching over him.

Kasou Taishou

• Kasou Taishou, the show that brought you the famous Matrix Ping Pong brings you a tear-inducing number called Friend in the Graffiti.

Kenan and Kel

• The first half of the Kenan & Kel 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."

The Killing

• Some may say it's a direct lift from Twin Peaks, but the whole scene where Rosie's body is found is heartbreaking in its own right, especially with Mr. Larsen arriving on the scene. "Is that my daughter?"

The L Word

• Dana's death was definitely the saddest moment of the series, no question, but scene in "Lacuna" where Shane finds Jenny in the bathroom cutting herself to shreds is a very close second. Jenny's so broken and Shane is so terrified for her, it's both painful to watch and moving at the same time.

Lassie

• In the three-part episode, "The Odyssey", Lassie gets trapped in a truck and is driven hundreds of miles from Timmy and the Martin family, and tries to return home. Timmy meanwhile, slowly begins to lose hope of ever seeing her again. Near the end of the third episode, Timmy gives up, and with tears in his eyes, goes out to bury Lassie's toys. But as he's burying them, he suddenly hears a familiar bark. He looks up and finds Lassie running towards him down the hill.

Last of the Summer Wine

• The episode "Last Post and Pigeon" starts out as a typical episode, just set in France instead of Yorkshire. But it becomes more serious towards the end when Compo finds the spot where he and some of his fellow soldiers camped overnight after a grueling escape from the Germans. The episode ends with him, Clegg and Truly setting up a memorial on the spot, and Compo plays a sombre trumpet solo. As he plays, and the trio stand in silent respect, the camera zooms in on Compo, spotting a tear rolling down his cheek. Now consider that this was the last episode Bill Owen (Compo) filmed before he died a few days after they finished.

Las Vegas

• When Danny is called back into service by the Marines, Ed makes a phone call to one of his old CIA connections, and asks where his protege is being sent. We don't hear the response, but seeing the tough-as-nails Ed shudder and virtually age ten years makes it abundantly clear that he's convinced Danny will come home in a casket.

Laverne & Shirley

• For a show that didn't usually take itself very seriously, the episode "Why Did The Fireman...?" is just heartbreaking.

Los Archivos del Cardenal

• The Chilean TV series "Los Archivos del Cardenal" ("The Files of the Cardinal"), narrating the struggle of the "Vicaria de la Solidaridad" ("Vicary of Solidarity") during the terrible Chilean dictatorship, is the perfect mix of Tear Jerker and horror. Maybe the names and some circumstances were changed to protect sensitibilites of the victims and their families, but the emotional impact is devastating.

Lost Girl

• 2.19 - Truth and Consequences. The ultimate wham episode. Trick and Bo telling Kenzi she should leave, Kenzi breaking up with Nate to protect him, Nadia's death...all of it.
• Bo draining the unwilling killer Fae in "Adventures in FAEbysitting.
• "Delinquents": Lauren finally breaking down over how horrible her life has become, and then breaking up with Bo.