Tear Jerker / The Fall (2013)

• Rose Stagg's video where she tries to defy Spector.
  • When they finally find Rose, it turns out she tried to carve a message to her family using her fingernails. Into her own arm.
• The first onscreen victim's sister finding her body.
  • Before that, the victim Sarah had called the police to report signs of an intruder - her underwear and her vibrator had been left out on the bed. The police's scrutiny causes Sarah to hang her head in shame; many survivors of sexual assault can relate to the feeling of being blamed and not believed, and how it silences and invalidates them.
  • Worse yet, the same officers have an Oh, Crap! moment where they realize Sarah's report was in line with the other murder. On a hunch, they return to Sarah's house to try and follow up with her, only to get no response. Cue a cut to Sarah being gagged, mere inches away from her phone where Danielle leaves a message telling her that they were right outside her home, wanting to talk about her previous report. Unfortunately for Sarah, the officers aren't omniscient and simply assume she had left to stay with her sister and they themselves leave.
• The fear of each victim as Spector stalks them, as they realize that they're in danger, and the way fear and despair takes over their lives, and the way Spector feeds on that. You get a sense of utter hopelessness watching that.
• Spector's daughter Olivia hugging her father goodbye, as he is at that point likely going to prison.
  • There is something deeply sad about Spector and Olivia's relationship in general. It seems, despite how repulsive he is, that Spector loves her as much as he can love another person, and Olivia utterly adores her daddy. Their relationship could be sweet, if Spector had decided not to become a murderer and torturer. And there's the realization that he's risking Olivia's happy childhood as he gets deeper into his own depraved world - but it's not enough to make him stop.
• Liz Tyler's depression over her son's death, and her fear of her abusive husband finding her when she flees from him.
  • After he attacks her at the safe-house, she begins to seize with the trauma of what just happened. You can just see any improvement in her mental well-being she had been making since leaving him utterly crumble with that.
  • The way that each of the women tries to step in and not let him take Liz away, and the way he offhandedly shoved all of them back. And then when he threatened to shoot all the women there and then himself - it is a very real fear many survivors of domestic violence have, that their abusive partners will find them and kill them.
• Spector's wife Sally Ann breaking down when Spector tells her he has been engaging in an affair with the underage babysitter.
  • Her slow but inevitable decline in mental health following that. She is never seen smiling after that point, and the hits keep coming in. She's accused of perverting the course of justice, then has a miscarriage, then is informed she'll be taken to trial over it, and finally when she drives herself and her children to the beach.
• When Stella visits Olivia in the hospital, she has enough time to ask if Olivia remembers her and how she's feeling... before the girl wordlessly holds out her arms for a hug. The look on both their faces is heartbreaking. It really sinks in that this little girl has lost everything - her beloved daddy who she idolizes is in jail and she might never see him again, on top of that he turns out to be a murderer and the other kids bully her and her brother for it, her babysitter is a sick teenager who supports her father's sicker side (and lied about having an affair with her father), and then her mother drugs her and her little brother and tried to commit murder-suicide. And apparently Olivia regained consciousness enough to realize what was happening, because she was screaming for help when they were rescued. The little girl might not have anyone left at this point except for her little brother and her grandmother. It's heartbreaking.

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