Tear Jerker / The Closer

• In "Maternal Instincts", a teenage boy is shot in an altercation, and is severely wounded, so Brenda puts her niece, Charlene, up to the task of looking after him, where the two grow close. All throughout, the only requests he makes are an iPod playlist and talking to his mother; a flight attendant currently overseas. However, when he starts to succumb due to complications from his gunshot wounds, Brenda is forced to pretend to be the teen's mother, a ruse he buys due to his deliriousness. When Provenza arrives to brief her on the progress of the case, he tells her he could handle notifying the young teen's mother and hands Brenda a handkerchief.
• Flynn comforting a hit-and-run victim as she dies in front of him in "Road Block." To make matters worse for him, she's around the same age as his daughter.
  • The episode begins as a Columbo-like Reverse Whodunit where we follow the perspective of the suspect: a police commissioner's wife who is a serious alcoholic and was driving home drunk when she caused the accident. Worst, she has a daughter the same age as the victim who is very much aware of her mother's problem, and like in real life, has little power to stop her mother.
• Sanchez's reaction to his little brother being shot and killed in the beginning of "Sudden Death". He was mistaken for a gang member due to the hat he was wearing. At the end of the episode, Sanchez breaks down over his deceased brother's blood-stained hat, saying that he had given his brother the hat a month earlier for his birthday. Sanchez then goes on to sob his heart out while shouting, "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" and proclaiming that his baby brother's death was all his fault.
  • Made all the worse by the fact that his full-on sobbing breakdown happens in front of Lt. Provenza, the squad's crotchety old bastard, and when Sanchez starts choking out, "I'm sorry, sir," the look on Provenza's face is enough to break your heart. He awkwardly put his arms around Sanchez, and holds him.
• In "Living Proof, Part 2," Provenza had to tell a little kid his mother, aunt, and grandfather were all dead on Christmas morning. He comes out of the interview room and tells Brenda the kid's been crying all night, "and I'm not doing so well either."
• Any interaction between Brenda and Gabriel in "Ruby", after Gabriel beats the living tar out of a child murderer. Brenda's so angry at him and sympathetic at the same time, and Gabriel, her favorite, is so broken and desperate for her to tell him it's all gonna be okay.
• The last scene in "Red Tape" in Season 5, when Brenda makes a decision about putting Kitty to sleep.
• Brenda hysterically pleading for Sanchez to stay alive after he's shot in "Time Bomb".
• Gabriel realizing that his girlfriend is The Mole.
  Gabriel: We met at church. How I am going to tell my mom? The Chief?
• The son of a bigamist's tear-filled confession in "Home Wrecker". Long story short, his family was rather poor growing up in a poor L.A. suburb. Eventually he figured out his father had a second family in Los Angeles proper... one that was incredibly rich because of the first wife's family money. One night he breaks into their home as the son from the first family snuck out to be with his boyfriend. Then when he confronts his father about everything, the father tells his first wife that his own son was a felon that he works with and not to believe him. That was when the son lost it and murdered his father, the wife, and the daughter from the first family. He goes from sobbing, to breaking down when he mentions the daughter as he knew she was innocent but he was too caught up in his rage to stop.
• After months of worrying about her father's poor health, Brenda finds her beloved, full of life mother has passed away in her sleep. Her cries of agony over the body are heart-wrenching.