The show may have a dark sense of humor, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't keep a box of tissues near.
All spoilers are unmarked. You have been warned.
- Early on after running away, Alyssa calls home, and her prick of a stepdad picks up. Alyssa asks to speak to her mother, and the asshole coldly tells her her mother doesn't want to speak to her ... despite his wife being right next to him and obviously wanting to talk to her daughter.
- The flashback to James' mother driving her car into a pond, in full view of her young son.
- The poor dog that Leslie carelessly runs over, and the kids having to Mercy Kill and then bury it.
- When Alyssa realizes her dad couldn't give two shits about her.
- Especially as he still tries to betray her after she finally tries to tell him that Koch tried to rape her, which is why James had to kill him. She finally gets into a place where she feels safe enough to tell an adult, and he betrays her.
- After Alyssa and James decide to hold off on sex until she's in a better headspace, she thinks to herself, somewhat surprised, that she really is alright with waiting. She reasons that she might feel better about it in a few days, or even the next day, and if not, she and James have the rest of their lives to take their relationship to that level. Then they head back to Leslie's trailer, and everything goes to hell.
- The final moments of the first season, where James takes the blame for their crime spree and runs away from the police, Alyssa sobbing and screaming for him.
- Bonnie's entire life. Some of the things her abusive mother did include decapitating her favorite toy when young Bonnie did not know the capital of Latvia and forcing teenage Bonnie to eat her lipstick. Bonnie grew up to be silent and secretly defiant, but also very desperate for love. It made her a perfect target for Clive Koch.
- The death of James's father in season 2. The fact that they had just started to fix their stranded relationship and bond again as father and son makes it even more depressing. James is utterly devastated by his death to the point that he cannot bring himself to enter his house again and ends living in the car.
