Tear Jerker / Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

More than just a (sexy) phase.

WARNING: Spoilers Off applies to Tear Jerker pages per wiki policy. All spoilers will be unmarked.

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Episode 1: "Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life"

• The look on Ramona's face as she looks down at the coins left from Scott's death. It screams how lost she is after a boy she was just starting to like got killed right in front of her.
• Scott's disappearance is arguably the biggest one in the long run of the series, and possibly the whole franchise.

Episode 2: "A League of Their Own"

• At Scott's funeral, Knives calls Ramona out for being the one who "killed Scott Pilgrim." It gets overshadowed by Envy's diva performance, and then everyone follows Envy out... except Ramona, who stays behind to sadly pay her respects. It's quite clear that she really does believe Scott wouldn't have died if they hadn't gone on a date. She was falling for Scott before his apparent death, but guilt over accidentally getting him caught up with the League is clearly another reason she becomes so determined to find him.
  Ramona: I'm sorry, Scott.

Episode 3: "Ramona Rents a Video"

• Kim has a visibly sad look on her face when she recounts to Ramona how things ended between her and Scott.
• The entirety of Ramona's fight with Roxie offers a deeper look into their relationship beyond Ramona claiming "it was just a phase." It's shown that the two girls had a serious relationship, and Roxie was devastated when Ramona basically left her without even saying goodbye. We're shown the day Ramona moved out of her room, with Roxie despondently looking on as Ramona contemplates saying something, but chooses not to and leaves.
  Ramona: I was too afraid to face you!
  Roxie: So you left without a word?! You made me feel like NOTHING! You were afraid? GOOD FOR YOU! All I wanted was for you to see me!
  • Special mention goes to the moment after Roxie is hit with Ramona's giant hammer. In the comics and movie, most fight scenes were relatively light-hearted, and injuries were rarely shown in very graphic detail (with the notable exception of Book 6); but here, as opposed to the quick-and-easy defeat in Scott and Matthew's fight, Roxie falls to the ground visibly (and heavily) bleeding from a gash in her head where she was struck. From there, she flies into a frenzied, even animalistic rage; screaming and crying as she tackles Ramona and proceeds to claw at her hair and even bite at her like a feral cat. None of this is played for laughs; instead, her reaction comes off as a gut-wrenching depiction of someone lashing out after being hurt. The pain and desperation in Roxie's voice and body language makes it all the more heartbreaking, and this singular moment marks a major tonal shift in the episode (and perhaps the series as a whole) as it begins to sink in just how much Ramona's past actions truly hurt others.
    Roxie: Ramona! You BITCH!

Episode 4: "Whatever"

• Lucas Lee was Ramona's high school boyfriend, the only person who always had his back... until she dumped him for Todd. The flashback gives the impression that she just stopped talking to him one day.
• Lucas tries to be sympathetic to Ramona, but she's not in the mood.
  Lucas: Sorry about your new boyfriend.
  Ramona: [angry] He's not my boyfriend. Someone made sure that train never left the station.

Episode 5: "Lights. Camera. Sparks?!"

• After having an affair with Wallace, Todd declares his love, only for Wallace to callously blow him off and reveal he doesn't care about him, breaking his heart, and causing him to slam his head on the floor several times in distress.
• Okay, maybe Envy deserved it, but her realization that not only has Todd fallen for someone else, but he apparently never cared about her.

Episode 6: "WHODIDIT"

• Although somewhat funny to see Gordon Goose egregiously presenting the most popular girl in school with a 12 point business plan on why he should date him, it's easy to feel sorry for him after being coldly rejected. Even more so when he collapses to the floor and is laughed at by everyone except a young Julie, who looks at him with pity.
• A flashback briefly shows Ramona dating the Katayagani twins. The relationship abruptly ended when Ramona and Kyle accidentally walked into a class Ken happened to be in. Ken realized he had been cheated on and glares at the two, while Kyle looks mortified and raises his hands defensively. While they were both serial womanizers, they both clearly did not choose to have a sham relationship with Ramona. Even worse, it's heavily implied that the twins initially assumed that the other twin betrayed them, meaning Ramona almost ruined the brother's relationship.

Episode 7: " 2 Scott 2 Pilgrim"

• Seeing how aggressively Old Scott backslid into telling himself that he was a good husband to Ramona, that he isn't the problem, and convincing himself that he should never have gotten together with her, is more than a little vexing knowing how much personal character development Scott had to go through in the books to successfully get together with Ramona. It's made all the more harsh by the fact that Ramona admits to regular Scott that she still deeply loves him despite having separated, and that she couldn't bear the thought of him erasing their past together.

Episode 8: "The World Vs Scott Pilgrim"

• Scott being forced to fight Older Scott and how he seems like more of an inevitability for him. You can hear the legitimate despair in Scott's voice as he tells Ramona "You think I want to become him?!"
• Even Older Scott is motivated by a twisted sense of love; because he can't get over loving Ramona, he thinks the best solution is to have never loved her in the first place. When he learns the whole break up was just a misunderstanding, he earnestly asks if he had a chance to mend things, and sounds like he's on the verge of a Heel Realization when Even Older Ramona tells him why it's too late.
• Future Ramona rejecting Older Scott's attempt to get back together with her after learning he overreacted when they were just going through a rough patch in their relationship. She makes it very clear that he had a chance to mend their relationship but after he spent ten years wallowing in his misery, that bridge was burned and that this version of Scott lost the girl forever and it's all his fault. After becoming Super Ramona however, she acknowledges that while Older Scott is a real mess, it's never too late to clean up a mess, implying he might still have a chance to make things right in his timeline if he makes the effort to.
• Future Ramona is so jaded that when her present self asks if she should just skate on and call her relationship with Scott another failed experiment, she just says "Will that come as any surprise?".
  • Even Older Scott responds to this with a sardonic dare for the Ramonas to just run away from something they love again, which strikes a chord with Present Ramona about her fault in her failed relationships.
• Ramona has a Jerkass Realization on how she left her exes and we get to re-witness Ramona cruelly abandoning Matthew after they defeated the jocks interested in her, Ramona cheating on Lucas with Todd as he walks away dejected, Ramona moving out and leaving a heartbroken Roxie in the dust, and then dumping the twins apathetic to the argument they're having after realizing Ramona cheated on both of them with each other. Although the inclusion of Gideon is questionable, it really hammers in the point that Ramona handled her relationships just as bad if not worse than Scott, something touched upon but glossed over in the comics and movie. It makes the happy endings they get all the more satisfying.

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