Warning! Due to this series' large amount of Wham Episodes, major plot reveals, and content that tends to head exceedingly quickly into spoiler territory when discussed, spoilers are off for this page. Proceed at your own risk.
- Everything about Ben Weir's faked suicide and the aftermath.
- John, having snuck out of the house to go visit his father that night, arrives just in time to hear the gunshots, and when he enters his father's office, clearly terrified, to see what he believes to be his brutally-destroyed corpse, blood and bits of brain matter splattered across the office wall. His screams and desperate pleas for his dad are utterly haunting.
- Even Ben himself, who in the present seems relatively uncaring about the effect this had on John growing up, has to be dragged away from the scene by his coworker when he hears John's screams, crying out for his son but unable to go to him lest he risk his life and safety.
- Almost everything about John's life winds up defined by this event, and it's nothing short of a tragedy for both him and everyone around him. His mother ships him off to a boys' school when she's unable to deal with his grief any longer (for a death that, if Ben is to be believed, she knew was faked), and if John's words to his father are of any indication, either drank herself to death or wound up committing suicide herself. He forges his entire education and career around his father's work as a psychologist, all in an effort to be closer to the father he loved so desperately, and is forced to come to terms with the fact that he built his life around the death of a man who was alive the entire time, and chose not to reveal it until he needed John's help.
- John, having snuck out of the house to go visit his father that night, arrives just in time to hear the gunshots, and when he enters his father's office, clearly terrified, to see what he believes to be his brutally-destroyed corpse, blood and bits of brain matter splattered across the office wall. His screams and desperate pleas for his dad are utterly haunting.
- John learning that his father is alive is no better, as he breaks down in front of him, screaming in pain and rage over the fact that his father not only faked his own death in such a horrific, traumatizing way and left him alone to deal with the aftermath, but that the only reason that he's willing to reveal that fact is that he's exhausted all his other resources and avenues of help and assistance, and thus is now forced to turn to John.John, on the verge of tears: Get the fuck out of my apartment. Please. Just go.
- When we cut to him in the aftermath, he's in Miles' home, completely non-verbal and unable to do anything but attempt to soothe himself by rocking back and forth, head buried in his hands. He only stops when Miles, clearly upset as well and obviously concerned for John's well-being, begs him to stop for a moment and take a drink of water. It's clear that he's been there for a fairly long time, given that it's light outside and it was night when John arrived home from work and found his father.
- The fact that Miles knows John so well and intimately to know exactly how to handle his reactions and his bad mental health moments is a tearjerker in and of itself. He gets John to drink water, gives him number puzzles he's clearly made enough times for him that he can make them up on the spot, and gives him a safe space to process and readjust. They clearly know each other like no one else does, and when Miles dies John loses that sense of safety and kindness, for all he knows, completely permanently.
- And John's terror at the thought that his father's reappearance in his life could cause his mental health to completely backslide again, telling Miles that he isn't capable of handling his emotional state from eight years ago all over again. Miles' response is a combination of heartwarming and tearjerker, given that we know his eventual fate and that John will be left completely without that support during the events of the series as his circumstances continue to get worse and worse.
- When we cut to him in the aftermath, he's in Miles' home, completely non-verbal and unable to do anything but attempt to soothe himself by rocking back and forth, head buried in his hands. He only stops when Miles, clearly upset as well and obviously concerned for John's well-being, begs him to stop for a moment and take a drink of water. It's clear that he's been there for a fairly long time, given that it's light outside and it was night when John arrived home from work and found his father.
- Hailey's attempts to get Weir to open up to her in the fifth episode are not shut down with anger, or with open disparagement of the lies she's told him and his father about the money she's stolen and the people she's pissed off, but with this one, somber line:John: For those of us who lie for a living, our only connection to reality are the people who really, really know us. And for me that was Valence, and only Valence.
- He spends most of the episode itself on the verge of a breakdown over his failure to get into contact with any members of his team (who according to John, faked their deaths under the Tom plan and should therefore be safe and sound and ready to be contacted under their new identities, but by the end of the episode turn out to have been killed by the Intern before they could do so), the steady destruction of just about every plan he comes up with and attempts to find safety or solace in and his father's steady dismissal of both his plans and his faith in Miles' loyalty (it's also clear that he receives quite a bit of comfort from planning things out and being able to stick to those plans, and in the absence of them he is very much left fumbling), and his failing attempts to track down the number that called Valence right before his suicide. By the end of the episode he's left on the verge of a panic attack, trying and failing to keep from reliving his flashbacks of Miles falling from the balcony repeatedly.
- It's to the point that John winds up completely dissociating in the middle of a conversation with Hailey while she attempts to reassure him that she's there because she trusts him, clearly reliving Miles' suicide yet again. His exhausted, out-of-it attempts to reassure her that everything's fine clearly only manage to concern her more.
- And subsequently, having gone through nearly all the phone numbers that Miles dialed, John dials the last one... and hears his father's cellphone ring. His subsequent breakdown to his father over this echoes the breakdown he had in the third episode flashback over learning that his father was alive, only there's no Miles there to comfort him over the betrayal, only Hailey's desperate pleas for them to leave the cabin they're staying in before it's no longer safe for them to do so and his father's desperate pleas to John to believe him when he says that he never told Miles to kill himself when he called. One gets the impression that out of everything, this is the one betrayal John can't possibly manage to get over.
- And to make things even worse, the reason Ben called Miles in the first place was ostensibly to warn him that his attempt to get rid of the Intern (without John's permission and against the plan they had set) had gone wrong, having gotten Ben stabbed and tipping off the Intern himself to the fact that he'd been burned. The Intern, ordered by Crowley to do a broom sweep of the entire operation if he'd been found out, had returned to John's office and slaughtered his entire team within a matter of minutes, dumping their bodies in the building's elevator shaft. So not only did Ben's interference in the operation potentially help to provoke Miles' suicide, it also directly resulted in every single member of his team (who, let's remember, he's known for almost a decade, trust him completely, and are implied to be the closest people to him second to Miles and his father) getting brutally murdered before most of them could even call out for help.
- It's notable that, out of all the things that have happened throughout the course of the series, both in flashbacks and in the present, this is the only thing that, for a moment, makes John look as though he's about to weep.
- He spends most of the episode itself on the verge of a breakdown over his failure to get into contact with any members of his team (who according to John, faked their deaths under the Tom plan and should therefore be safe and sound and ready to be contacted under their new identities, but by the end of the episode turn out to have been killed by the Intern before they could do so), the steady destruction of just about every plan he comes up with and attempts to find safety or solace in and his father's steady dismissal of both his plans and his faith in Miles' loyalty (it's also clear that he receives quite a bit of comfort from planning things out and being able to stick to those plans, and in the absence of them he is very much left fumbling), and his failing attempts to track down the number that called Valence right before his suicide. By the end of the episode he's left on the verge of a panic attack, trying and failing to keep from reliving his flashbacks of Miles falling from the balcony repeatedly.
