Follow TV Tropes

This is based on opinion. Please don't list it on a work's trope example list.

Following

Tear Jerker / Red Panda Adventures

Go To

    open/close all folders 

    Season Two 
When Darkness Falls
  • Harry is introduced when he finds a dying agent of the Red Panda, Gregor Sampson, who broke cover to deliver a vital report. Although it logically follows that being an agent of the Red Panda is a dangerous job, this is the first time we see someone die while fighting crime.
The Big Top
  • The Red Panda reconnects with his foster family, the Amazing Androvs, who taught him many of his aerial skills, but when he finds out they're pulling Robin Hood crimes, he's forced to stop them. He doesn't end up having to bring them in, but his foster mother disowns him, and he's never mentioned to have reconciled with them.
  • On the part of the Androvs, the only reason they started pulling heists was seeing the effects of the Depression on the lower classes. While their methodology was wrong, it's hard not sympathize with their motives, especially when you consider the pain of seeing suffering and being unable to do anything about it.
  • At the end, the Red Panda is depressed, wondering if his foster mother is right, that it never gets better. Fortunately the Flying Squirrel is there to reassure him that what they do does make a difference and that she'll always be there for him.
The World Next Door
  • In the alternate timeline, the Flying Squirrel died in a death trap meant for their Red Panda. Worse yet, that Squirrel was just a kid.
  • For Baboon Mcsmoothie and his friends in the alternate timeline, stealing Von Schlitz's machine is only the first step. They're still in the throes of World War II, and there's no guaranteeing that they'll be able to find a weakness and exploit it in time.

    Season Three 
A Midwinter's Murder
  • The murder turns out to have been an act of desperation by a woman whose father wouldn't let her marry the man she loved because he was a servant. Her lover tries to sacrifice himself to save her from arrest, which the Panda and Squirrel thankfully prevent, but at the end, the father is still dead and the woman will go to prison and live with the knowledge of what she's done, and all because of classism.

    Season Four 
The Third Wave
  • Jack Peters dies while pursuing a lead that could bring down the Third Wave, a Nazi hate organization threatening to infect Toronto. The Flying Squirrel finishes writing his story and submits it to the Chronicle to be published under his byline as a last tribute.
  • The defector Peters was meeting with is also killed by the Third Wave. He was just a regular guy who joined because he thought it was a neighborhood protection organization and turned informant when he realized it was much more insidious.

    Season Five 
Sins of the Father
  • The villain is a man whose father's business was ruined by Gus's father. The father never recovered and died in poverty. Although the man clearly went way too far both in killing innocent bystanders and in trying to get revenge on Gus, who had nothing to do with the original crime, it's tragic seeing both father and son ruined by the greed of an already ridiculously wealthy man.

     Season Eight 
The Honoured Dead
  • This episode is rough on Kit. What starts out as a jovial time travel adventure is immediately marred by Kit seeing the newspaper column written by Jack Peters, who she knows will die soon after the current point in time and can't do anything about it. Investigating the case Peters has for them results in meeting with Spiro Pappas, who by the present day has died of a heart attack, and Harry Kelly, still a little boy and not the teenager who enlisted then disappeared. Something Kit had desperately tried to prevent.

Power Struggle

  • The Red Panda and the Flying Squirrel discover that as part of the supervillain experimentation project, Simon Radford and the Electric Eel have been well and truly split. One of the effects is that all the strong emotions have been given to the Electric Eel while Simon has been left with all the fear but no anger or stronger emotion to give it force, meaning Simon feels he has nothing left to live for. Another, unintentional, side effect is that harm to Simon's body is reflected in the Electric Eel's energy matrix and vice versa. At the end, Simon exploits this to destroy a rampant Eel by throwing himself off a building. Whether or not you think Simon was separate from his villainous persona in early appearances, there's no doubt he died a hero.

The End of the Beginning

  • Mr. Amazing uses up his life-force to stop Tiwaz, a German ubermensch, so that D-Day can have a chance at succeeding. And since this is D-Day, it means that Mr. Amazing's heroic sacrifice is only the first of many.

    Season Nine 
Empire of Death
  • Professor Zombie, half-crazed from having been forced to take her own formula after which being memory-wiped and buried alive, is out for revenge by zombifying Toronto's population. When the Red Panda foils her scheme by finding an antidote that will kill the zombie virus and revive the (otherwise resulting) corpse, he tries to cure her. Zombie forces him to end her once and for all. It's suggested Zombie might have seen it as a mercy kill, but the Red Panda feels rotten afterward.
    Flying Squirrel: How are things there?
    Red Panda: It's over.
    Flying Squirrel: And Zombie?
    Red Panda: It's over.
    Flying Squirrel: (shaky sigh) I'm sorry, Sweetie. We saved about a million people tonight if it makes you feel any better.
    Red Panda: You know what? It really doesn't.

The Gadget

  • The episode is focused on tracking down and finally putting an end to Friedrich von Schlitz. The Red Panda, Kit Baxter, and John Archer, in a human body are trapped by von Schlitz, only to be saved by the timely arrival of the Red Ensign. Despite the others' pleas to bring von Schlitz to justice, the Red Ensign instead chases down von Schlitz and carries him to the A-Bomb testing site in Trinity, New Mexico just before tests are set to begin. Before he does so, he asks John Archer to give Anna Chronopolis his love while he will tell Anne goodbye on his behalf.
  • While the Red Ensign is carrying von Schlitz to his fate, the Nazi scientist pleads for his life. He promises the Red Ensign anything he wants. The Red Ensign's final words, just before the A-Bomb test goes off:
    Red Ensign: This is what I want.

     The Mind Master 
  • The Red Panda's master, Rashan, has his own son and student turn against him, and it's implied that the son eventually returned and killed his father.
  • At the end of the Red Panda's training, he wants to return to Toronto but also doesn't want to leave Rashan.
    Red Panda: I have to leave. I have disobeyed my father's wish to return for a very long time. But if I could return to one father without abandoning another...that would be best.
    • Even more sad when you realize that Gus's biological father dies before his return and he probably never saw Rashan, his adoptive father-figure, again. It makes you wonder what nightmares he must have had about dying in the field and leaving Billy fatherless.

    Pyramid of Peril 
  • We don't see much of Kit's interactions with the rest of the staff usually, though it's been implied they think Kit and Fenwick are romantically involved even before they get engaged, but here we see more clearly that Kit is socially isolated by the rest of the staff. When Weston stops by to talk to her, Kit is so used to the butler taking a special shine against her that she expects a scolding. Luckily Weston is a better man than his predecessors.

Top