"WHY?! Why am I a failure, my whole life?! Oh, mama... I've started with such promise! Where did it all go wrong?! WHERE?!"
As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
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Season 1
- When Nano "died" while he was saying "Daa-ddy...".
- Kirby giving Donatello a sketch of him with a ray gun and final words: Don - "Life at best is bitter sweet." Take care of yourself. - Kirby
- Leonardo's coma in "Tales of Leo." All the turtles recount personal experiences with their brother in hopes that it will help rouse him out of it. Raphael remembers how Leo saved him from a gator in the sewer and by the time he's finished can't even pretend to hide his tears.
Season 2
- Nano's second appearance is just as sad as his first, because he just wanted a family, even getting them money.
- The ending of "What A Croc!", where Leatherhead seemingly died to save the turtles from the collapsing roof of their own lair, but chose to let himself be crushed since he couldn't be reunited with the Utroms. It's fortunately mitigated when it's revealed in season three that he had actually survived.
- The fate of the Triceraton soldier, Zog, in Rogue In The House. He was a regular loyal soldier sent to capture the Synthoid but was warded off by Federation soldiers and the Turtles and got separated from his troops, left to wander the sewers and made delirious from the gas beneath. After meeting the Turtles, he is tricked into thinking they're his superior officers to avoid a potential enemy and plans to kill himself for failing the mission before being convinced by the Turtles that the mission was a success and that he was still a valuable asset. After which the Turtles choose to help the Triceraton who proves highly loyal to the Turtles, even choosing to bravely fight the Shredder for them by his lonesome and sacrificing his life to defeat the Shredder and let the Turtles get to safety.
Season 3
- "Same As It Never Was." The entire thing. It just goes to show that two episodes later, "The Real World Part Two", the waterworks start as Donnie hugs his brothers (one went into a superhero world, the other a intergalactic race) who have no idea what the poor turtle went through.Donnie: Raph, you're alive! And Mikey, you have both arms!
- All of the future Turtles' deaths. Particularly Raphael, where after he's fatally wounded crawls to Leo's dead body so he can at least die next to his brother.
- Speaking of "The Real World Part Two", the Ultimate Ninja gets an Alas, Poor Villain moment as he gets killed off. Seeing the Daimyo see his own son turn into dust and look in horror is heartbreaking—thank god for the Raise Him Right This Time trope.
- When the Kid Ultimate Ninja goes to the Daimyo, he cries that he just had a horrible dream. The Daimyo just reassures him that everything is all right.
- As many fans pointed out, Mikey's dimension isn't exactly a dream come true. On the surface, Mikey always wanted his brothers and him to dress up at superheroes and help people, and now he's in a dimension where his brothers and his counterparts are exactly that. However, Splinter's counterpart the Sliver turned evil a long time ago and is currently threatening to wipe out all life but his sons and Mikey. Mikey has no choice but to kill this world's version of his father to save the world.
- While also awesome, Leatherhead's ferocious attack on Shredder is a good reminder of just how strongly Leatherhead hates the monster who brought so much pain to his adopted family, the Utroms.
- Hun's horror when he discovers Shredder is an Utrom. His almost blind loyalty is completely destroyed as he realizes that not only did Shredder not trust him, but in his eyes, he's been taking orders from a monster. It's Fantastic Racism, but it's a bit crushing to see the eternal loyalist Hun have his faith broken.
- The ending of "Exodus" where the Turtles decide to sacrifice themselves to kill Ch'Rell. After they awaken from their beating, Splinter despondently apologizes to his sons for bringing them into this.Splinter: No, my sons. It is too much to ask, I could never...Mikey: It's okay, Master Splinter. We know the score.Raph: If we don't stop the Shredder now...Don: Millions of innocent beings throughout the galaxy will suffer at his hands.Leo: It's alright, father. We're all agreed.Splinter: ... Very well. So let us end this... together.
- They're just so quiet and resolute about it. Even knowing they'll be rescued at the very last minute doesn't soften the blow, particularly when you take into account that, while Raph, Don, Mikey and Master Splinter recover physically and psychically well enough, it later sends Leo in a spiral of PTSD that's just as heartbreaking to see because he just couldn't save his family.
- Donnie is also the one who emphasizes how millions will suffer if the Shredder succeeds now, painfully remembering his trip to the dark future where the Shredder had won.
- Donnie asks Honeycutt to blow the ship's core, and Honeycutt frets about what it would do. Donnie has a grim look, and Honeycutt realizes what he's asking. He laments that he had worried the situation was hopeless, hammering in just how terrible their prospects looked... but he agrees, and says he is with the Turtles and Splinter to the end.
Season 4
- "Dragon's Brew," where it's revealed the monstrous T9851 Was Once a Man and (likely against his will) suffered extreme Body Horror because of Bishop. To top it off, he wasn't going on a mindless rampage, but was simply trying to go home to his wife and son (who think that he had died years earlier). The episode ends with T9851 alone in a harbor, remembering his wedding day.
- "Bad Day:" The Foot Mystics trap Splinter and the TMNT in a nightmare in which Klunk, April, and Casey all die onscreen.
- One particular moment is Donnie's frantic worry over Mikey when he dives into the whirlpool trying to save Klunk. Donnie himself nearly drowns trying to save him, and even when Leo and Raph manage to pull them to safety, all Donnie can do is ask if Mikey made it.
- Following their battle with the Shredder in "Exodus," Leonardo increasingly becomes a Jerkass obsessed with being a perfect warrior to defend everyone. In "The Ancient One," viewers learn exactly why: he blames himself for not being able to defeat Shredder outright and instead having to choose an action that nearly killed them all."I'm sorry. I did the best I could. I did the best I could! There wasn't any more I could've done!"
- The hallucinations Leo suffers from don't help one bit either. Each one features one of his wounded family members begging Leo to save them from the Shredder, and Splinter even insists that they're all counting on him.
- Leo actually wounds Splinter out of pure anger and frustration. Thankfully the wound wasn’t fatal but it’s a miracle it wasn’t considering the strength of a mutant ninja turtle and the deadliness of two katana. Earlier in “Bad Day”, Mikey bitterly lampshaded that when Splinter appeared to need medical attention, they needed to find a professional doctor who could keep his mouth shut. This and Splinter’s injury rubs it in that any medical condition the family has are far more dangerous than the average citizen’s given their nature as mutants living in hiding. Leo could’ve killed Splinter had the injury been too severe for Donnie to treat.
- When Leo comes to Splinter’s room, Splinter doesn’t even open his eyes, and gravely orders him to take a seat. And he finally spells out what everyone has noticed this season, but with genuine remorse that he as his father has let it get this out of hand.
Splinter: We were all badly wounded in our final confrontation with the Shredder. Your brothers and I have healed - but you have not.- For his part, Leo’s surly demeanor is completely gone and finally he has lost the hardness in his voice he’s had all season - but it’s from the horror at what he’s done. Leo realizes his anger and trauma have grown into something toxic and he agrees with the necessity of the trip, but he's also despondent over it and says he doesn't want to leave. At the same time, Raph, Donnie, and Mikey are all listening outside the door and looking at each other anxiously. The brothers are often portrayed very maturely in this series, but in this moment they seem young, and it really drives home for viewers that they're not only still teenagers, but extremely isolated ones who have never really been apart from each other before.
- "Insane in the Membrane". Sure, it's equal parts scary and Moral Event Horizon, but the childhood flashbacks of Stockman's mama telling him "The sky's the limit, baby..." can easily bring on the waterworks. It wouldn't be NEARLY as effective if not for the reality of how far Stockman had fallen.
- Best moment is after he has kidnapped April, and begins to act as if it's the first day at work - and then gets a flashback of his mother lying in bed. He holds a large cable in his hands, kneeled next to it thinking it's his mother's hands and just cries for her not to leave him. It's heartbreaking. And then he starts to hallucinate even further, starting to see April as his mother, Stockman then tries to save who he believes is his mother out of the tipping back cable car, all the while calling her his “momma” and telling her he loves her. And then the cable car then falls taking Stockman with it just before he could properly say farewell to his 'momma'. Just…good god…
- Made worse in "Adventures in Turtle-Sitting", when the newly-revived cyborg Stockman drops to his knees and screams "Why couldn’t you let me finally rest in peace?! WHYYYYYYYYYYY?!"
- April's attempt to reason the crazed Stockman, trying to remind him about the time when he helped people and how brilliant of a mind he once was, trying to convince him that he can become that again, sparking Stockman's My God What I Have Done Moment. It's clear that April really admired her former boss and mentor, and still cares about him and feels pity upon seeing the state he has fallen into, even after he revealed his bad colors and tried to murder her after she uncovered his secret, and even as he's trying to kill her right now. When Stockman falls to his death alongside the cable car, April does cry in Casey's chest for a moment.
- In "Return of Savanti, Part 2", the Turtles and Renet are stranded in the Cretaceous after defeating Savanti, but Don reminds them that their victory means the asteroid will eventually hit and they have no way to escape. They spend several months in the past, and Don can do nothing but make educated guesses about when the asteroid will arrive based on the steadily growing light in the sky. Leo begins lamenting that this is how they die, stranded in the past, and it's obvious his trauma he had just healed from is starting to come back. Thankfully, Mikey finds the Time Scepter in the fish he was gutting for dinner.
- The death of Tang Shen in "Tale of Master Yoshi", when Mashimi is so consumed by jealousy that he kills her. Yoshi later learns of her death, and Ancient One blames himself for this, as he feels he should've acted when he saw darkness in Mashimi's heart. Yoshi then prepares to confront Mashimi, and Ancient One warns him of what he's doing.Ancient One: Be careful, Yoshi. Vengeance is like a splinter. It gets under your skin, and can poison your whole life.
- Leatherhead's voice-over intro in "Good Genes Part 1" perfectly sums up the horrible situation the turtles find themselves in with Donnie infected and turned into a monster:Leatherhead: As we fly through the night, I can't help but ponder...Letherhead is staring sadly at a mutated Donatello angrily thrashing at his cage.Leatherhead: Intelligence, reason, even simple thought. Most people take these things for granted; I do not. For I know what it's like to be an advanced mind, trapped in the body of a brute. Of a monster. But for once, I am not the monster in question.The other turtles look at Donnie in worry while Splinter closes his eyes and bows his head in sorrow.Leatherhead: My friend Donatello is one of the gentlest souls I've ever met, with one of the finest minds I've ever known. But now, thanks to the evil Agent Bishop, my friend has been transformed into a thoughtless savage. And I fear the Donatello I know may truly be lost forever.
- The entire Good Genes arc, essentially, but also a special mention to Mikey trying to give monster Donnie cereal and juice, nearly losing his leg for it, and then just sadly saying, "I just wanted to give him some food..." It comes off as standard Mikey Cloudcuckoolander stuff, bordering on Too Dumb to Live because he knew how violent monster Donnie could be. But then you realize he's not only worried sick about his brother, but probably feels even more helpless than the others because as The Baby of the Bunch, basically all he can do is wait for the rest of the family and Leatherhead to figure out a plan, and he just wanted to do something to help Donnie. Seeing the normally-energetic Mikey so sad and lost-looking is tearjerking in itself.
- The family has lost one of their key assets with Donnie’s secondary mutation. Leatherhead is at the lair full-time but is struggling to contribute much, as Donnie did the majority of the work on the outbreak, and has only come to the discovery that the mutation is killing him, due to the outbreak mutagen reacting negatively to the Utrom mutagen already in his body. Splinter asks Leo what he’s thinking, and Leo spells out how helpless they seem to be without Donnie.
Leo: I keep turning to ask Don what we’re gonna do, to see what brilliant cure he’s cooked up to fix this… but then I remember, that is Don.- Leo even states in his voice-over intro before the second part of the arc that had it been any one of them as the monster, Donnie would have quickly found a way to cure them back.
Season 5
- At the end of "Lap of the Gods", the Turtles, Acolytes and the Tribunal have seemingly been mortally wounded or already killed by a demon who's made a pre-emptive strike. At the end of the one-sided battle, Leo and Raph are lying together, dying. Leo believes they just weren't enough to do anything before anything even started.
- The deaths of the other four Acolytes in "Beginning of the End". From Feragi giving Leo his sword to Joi asking Raph to avenge her before she's Eaten Alive, to Adam being crushed under a boulder to Tora dying of internal injuries.
- Splinter pulls out all the stops when he decides to take his children and Yoshi's ashes to the Ancient One all the way in Japan. Then he has to be the one to inform the Ancient One of Yoshi's death. Ancient One nearly collapses, he's so devastated. Then the Turtles come to Splinter, crying about a monster. Splinter apologizes to the Ancient One and wearily states that they've had a long journey. It's only then that the Ancient One embraces Splinter and the Turtles as family.
- Splinter's pure horror when the Tengu Shredder has killed his sons, fulfilling his worst nightmare. He's just screaming that it can't be happening.
Season 6
- Stockman's Disney Death during flashbacks in "Head Of State". Bishop appeared genuinely devastated to be unable to save him.
- Cody realizing that his uncle Darius was Evil All Along and is dumbfounded when he witnesses Darius' usual sleazy lying through his teeth firsthand. Darius then tries to murder him, and Cody is only just able to repel him. When he feels alone after Darius' retreat, the Turtles assure him this is not the case.
- The following episode features Darius going on a rampage through Turtle X and comes this close to killing Cody. Then comes Serling, who's spent the entire episode wishing to help fend off Darius, and he rips Turtle X a new one - at the cost of his own life. The fact he is later shown to have been repaired doesn't take away from the tearjerker one bit.Serling: (as he goes offline, he shows Cody his movie he made for him) Oh... and one more thing. Happy birthday, Master Cody...
Season 7
- The end of "Tempus Fugit." The Turtles get what they wanted most, but at a severe cost.Donatello: We're home, but Master Splinter - father, and it's all my fault!
- No matter how evil she was, watching Viral die in such a horrible Nightmare Fuel-filled fashion, screaming the whole time, it's hard not to feel sorry for her.
- Thanks to Serling accidentally being sent to the present day, Cody is left all alone in 2105. He at least got to part ways properly with the Turtles and Splinter, who they knew wouldn't stay in 2105 forever, but losing Serling, his closest thing to a parent and family member, is a blow nonetheless. Thankfully, Serling's absence in Turtles Forever suggests that they were eventually able to send him home, but it probably left Cody in a more vulnerable position without the Turtles, Splinter, and Serling for some time.
