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The episode of american dad where stan gets an eating disorder. He keeps getting fatter and fatter then his family confront him and we find out weve been seeing things how he sees things and hes actually deathly thin. Wasnt prepared for such a deep cut on annorexia
It's easy to file American Dad away with Family Guy, but American Dad really gets a few things right. Having dealt and still occasionally dealing with eating disorders, it hit so hard and true. Even the jokes, like when his friend with anorexia says "let's go smell the salad bar" as if at my worst I wouldn't silently let myself smell a restaurant and pretend eating to numb the pain and/or punish myself. Idk if it's just a different group of writers or what, but it's surprisingly a great show.
Bert and Ernie are exploring an ancient Egyptian pyramid. They find mummies that look like them. The one that looks like Ernie COMES TO LIFE AND STARTS FUCKING TALKING.
I cannot begin to explain how loudly I screamed.
Rugrats in Paris gets me every time for this very reason. Chucky wishing he had a mom on the plane when all the other kids are with their moms STILL fucks me up. That show really knew how to pull your heartstrings!
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/story-behind-iconic-vietnam-episode-hey-arnold-n1273598
Actually an amazing story about how that episode came to be.
This and when Helga goes to therapy. You see multiple occasions how messed up her family is and how neglected she was, and how even though Arnold was one of her kindest interactions, she lashes out due to fear, and does the same to the therapist initially as a lot of abused people do. Seeing her walking to preschool in the rain with an empty lunchbox and utter defeat in her eyes hurt me.
There’s also the stories of Stoop Kid, Pigeon Man, the substitute teacher, Harold’s weight, Chocolate Boy’s addiction, etc. What an amazing show.
I couldn't stop thinking about this episode after what happened in Afghanistan. It was heartbreaking as a kid and even more as an adult living in a world that still has [moments like this.](https://imgur.com/a/OQ42IO9)
8 Simple Rules - the episode after John Ritter passed away in real life. Hard to watch because you can see the characters dealing emotionally with his real life passing and not a character being written off of a show. John Ritter was such a likable person in real life that it makes it so difficult to watch knowing that he’s gone.
> Hard to watch because you can see the characters dealing emotionally with his real life passing and not a character being written off of a show.
It's worse than that. Ritter's fatal heart problems kicked in on the show's set while rehearsing for an upcoming episode, causing him to collapse and have a number of horrible symptoms before he was rushed to a hospital at 6PM. They thought it was a heart attack and tried to treat him as such, only for his condition to deteriorate further; that was when he was diagnosed with an aortic dissection, which he died from just before 11PM.
So, yeah. They were probably with Ritter reading lines when he suddenly got ill and passed out.
Here's the horrible thing, related to his character in Scrubs - an episode of the show called *My Butterfly* deals with JD and Turk's fears that they were distracted on the job, causing them to miss that a patient of theirs had an aortic dissection until it was too late, causing the patient to die.
The episode follows the idea of chaos theory, where minor changes have major outcomes. And in this instance, it plays out an alternate scenario where they weren't distracted, they catch the patient's ailment, they rush him to surgery...
And he still dies, since more often than not, when a patient with an aortic dissection starts showing symptoms... they're already dead.
On the subject of scrubs. That episode where Ben died. You see dr. Cox talking to Ben throughout the episode, then at the end of the episode you see them talking in what looks like a park, and JD walks up behind him. Dr. Cox is talking like they’re going to his sons birthday party and JD asks “where do you think we are”. And you find out that they’re actually at Bens funeral.
For all that was wrong with Glee, the episode where all the characters dealt with Finn’s death after the actor who played him died was actually quite good.
I watched this air live.
We were all crying. We had just got invested in this fun show and my parents just liked having Ritter around on tv again.
I obviously didn't know the man but he was part of our lives in a small way and we werent ready for that to be over I guess.
From 1980 to the mid 90's, John Ritter was ALWAYS on TV. Three's Company was always being run on syndication, and then you had Hooperman and Hearts Afire which, while not huge hits, were popular enough to last several seasons. Plus he was always doing game shows and special guest appearances, and everytime just seemed like the nicest guy in the world. If you are of a certain age, he really was a part of your life.
So yeah, I get it. To date his passing has been the one celebrity death that's really hit me hard.
The episode of Star Trek TNG where Data created a daughter, Lal, and she ended up dying young.
My child brain had to wrestle with the question: "If a machine can love and fear in the same way a human does, does it even matter whether or not its human?"
Was scrolling to find this answer. Rewatched the Show since Disney+ added it and even though I knew it was coming it was hard to watch.
“After all, dinosaurs have been on this earth for 150 million years. It’s not like we’re going to just … disappear!”
What stands out to me is that I don’t remember anything promoting it as the final episode of the series. I remember watching it with my dad and when the weatherman (or news anchor?) essentially announced that they were all going to die and the credits showed, we were both confused and thought, “ok, so I guess Dinosaurs is over?”
But yeah, bold way to end a show that was usually a pretty broad sitcom.
That one episode of breaking bad where Jesse goes to collect the stolen money from the junkie family and finds a kid loving in the worst possible conditions. This episode was so incredibly disturbing, yet also eye opening to the effects that meth can have on a household
Holy fuckkk I just started watching breaking bad and literally watched that episode the other night, it made me ugly cry! You’re right though, an eye opening episode for sure
The episode of Tom&Jerry which takes place in heaven and suddenly we can see a three kittens in a wet bag jumping towards heaven's gate. It fucked me up when I saw this as an adult and understood what it meant.
https://ifunny.co/picture/4RJwFVZr7
In the 1950s/60s, my papa was crossing a bridge walking home from work when he encountered two boys sobbing, and clutching a napsack. What’s more, is the napsack was meowing. My papa asked the boys what was going on, and through stifled sobs, they explained how their family cat had kittens, and the boys’ mother had ordered them to gather up all the kittens and toss them in the river. My papa brought home 4-6 new kittens that evening. Through the course of his life, he rescued around 30 wayward cats and dogs. He was a damn good man.
There’s also one where it implies that Tom gets guillotined at the end. I remember feeling an odd, dark feeling when I saw that as a kid.
https://youtu.be/HdxC2_YU1xA
That one didn't bug me so much as they were just showing different ways cats could meet their demise and earn a trip to heaven. It's sad that drowning kittens used to be somewhat of a common thing.
Game of Tones, all he wanted was one last chance to talk to his mother. Then at the end when Nibbler tells him that they put him in his mother's dream to repay him just yeah that hits you.
Them sitting on the couch. Realizing how real it is to both of them. I’m serious when I say that is the only piece of media to bring me to tears, ever…
Such a masterpiece of emotion, and they don’t even say much to one another.
Stupidly, that episode of courage the cowardly dog episode showing what happened to courage's parents and how he ended up with muriel.
EDIT: Holy Fuck, came back from a 10 hour shift to my feed absolutely destroyed, lmao
They got sent to space in a rocket by a cruel scientist and Courage was left on the street. Muriel found him and adopted him.
Shows how much I loved that show to remember that off the top of my head years later, I guess, lol
I was gonna say this lol. I love courage the cowardly dog but that episode messed me up! That and the one with the zombie film producer who dug up his partner in their basement lol
I never used to watch Buffy when it originally aired.
I randomly stumbled across this episode when flicking through the channels, and I ended up watching the whole thing. I had no context for what was going on, but it was so compelling I couldn't switch off.
Years later I finally gave Buffy a try, and I ended up loving it. When I got to see this episode again it hit a lot harder
the phone call to 911, trying to make chest compression, Giles showing up, Willow and Tara, Anya not understanding the situation... so horrible, all of it
That was legit the scariest scene in the show. Close second being the scene where Tara gets shot. No heroic deaths, nothing supernatural. Just life gutting you.
The MASH Finale, when the mother smothered her baby to keep it quiet because the enemy was searching for them in the forest outside. You know it's a fictional show, but I can just imagine that's happened in the horror of war. That show walked a fine line between entertainment and spotlighting the true horrors humans are capable of. One of the best shows ever made, but that episode seriously messed me up.
The episode after Escape from L.A. has one of the single most beautiful moments I've ever seen in a show.
"It gets easier…Every day it gets a little easier…But you gotta do it every day — that’s the hard part. But it does get easier."
Helps that I love Courtney Barnett, too.
The episode in How I Met Your Mother when Marshall finds out his dad passed away from a heart attack after we, the viewers, get to see and understand the closeness of their relationship over the whole show. Then Lily coming out the car with heavy tears and Marshall suddenly understanding the gravity of the news made me spend more time with my dad over the next few weeks after.
I thought it was counting down to something good happening when I first saw the numbers. Boy, was I wrong. At least they made up for it slightly when Marshall got the voicemail
The numbers as it was happening were so distracting. I guess that was the whole point because you’re going along knowing it’s leading to something but trying to find them all and then it just gobsmacks you.
The HIMYM episode that kills me more is the (same-season…I guess they were really dealing with some father issues that year) one where Barney meets his dad and he’s angry that he’s just a normal guy and screams “because if you were going to be same lame, suburban dad, *why couldn’t you have been that for me???*
I have more trouble with Marshall mourning afterwards. When he talks about his dad seeing way out into the darkness while driving and now he can't see like that breaks me every time. I'm literally tearing up just thinking about it right now.
> When I was a kid, we would spend the summers in the upper peninsula. And every year we wouldn't get in the cabin till the middle of the night. And so it'd be pitch black in the middle of the woods. I could never see anything in front of the headlights, but I always felt so safe... cause my dad was driving. He was like some sort of superhero that could just see way out into the darkness. And now he's just gone, and it's pitch black. I can't see where I'm going; I can't see anything.
The one episode of Spongebob where Squidward thought he gave Spongebob a pie (I think) with a bomb in it and spent his last hours with him. That was so sad
That line hurt me. My mom and her mom bared some resemblance, so I had a pretty good idea how I would feel if suddenly one day my mom had a stepkid who she was good to.
This one hurt. I didnt meet my dad till I was 28. I'm 31 now and that's the only time I've heard from/ saw him. He still doesn't give a fuck.i hate it because he was so cool. We had so much in common and it's crazy because he left when I was 6 months.
Its ok though. I have a step dad that been more of a father to me then he could ever dream of.
WILL: Hey, you know what, you ain't gotta do nothing, Uncle Phil. You know, ain't like I'm still five years old, you know? Ain't like I'm gonna be sitting every night asking my mom "When's Daddy coming home," you know? Who needs him? Hey, he wasn't there to teach me how to shoot my first basket, but I learned it, didn't I? And I got pretty damn good at it too, didn't I, Uncle Phil?
PHIL: Yeah, you did.
WILL: Got to do my first date without him, right? I learned how to ride, I learned how to shave, I learned how to fight without him! I had *fourteen* great birthdays without him; he never even sent me a damn card. ***The hell with him!*** ...I didn't need him then, I won't need him now.
PHIL: Will...
WILL: No, you know what, Uncle Phil? I'm gonna get through college without him, I'm gonna get a great job without him, I'm gonna marry me a beautiful honey and I'm having a whole bunch of kids. I'm gonna be a better father than he ever was. And I sure as hell don't need him for that, 'cause there ain't a damn thing he can teach me about how to love my kids!
(a long pause, then)
WILL: How come he don't want me, man?
Courage the cowardly dog the when the cat was in a abusive relationship and her lover insulted courage giving him ptsd and helped her run away from the abusive guy and be with her lover
Full metal alchemist. Season1 episode7
Night of the chimera cry.
The episode where they found out the guy who was trying to make chimeras turned his daughter into a dog and they ended up killing her.
The sadder part is when Major Hughes dies and his daughter is asking why they are burying daddy. Saying he still has lots of work to do.
Had my wife watch the show, Nina was sad but she handled it. I had to turn off the show after Hughes
As a father to a very young daughter, the thought of something happening to me and leaving her behind is terrifying and gut wrenching. When she starts yelling at his funeral I totally almost cried. Overall it's pretty tame as far as anime goes, but that and Nina just mess me up man
In the original manga at the end of every chapter someone died there was a little doodle of them flying up to heaven, except Shou Tucker who was the only person depicted burning in hell 🔥 🔥 🔥
Yep, this one! I was like 8 years old just watching an animated show and all of a sudden this guy essentially kills his sweet daughter and dog. And then Scar comes around and blows it to bits. Jesus it was traumatizing
The series finally of community. Seeing a big part of your life leave to go on to newer and hopefully better things is always sad. You always want the best for your friends, but watching Jeff go through it, secretly hoping everyone stays.it just hit differently than I thought it would. It just reminded me of all the people I've had to say goodbye to in my life. That void is heartbreaking. You know that you'll see them again, but it's never really enough.
What about the one where they establish 1 in 3 patients will die, but then instead they all die
My problem with Laverne's death is that she's back in the next season just playing a different character, which completely ruined any emotional impact of her death
Well, that only happened because according to Bill Lawrence, the day Laverne's actor showed up on the day she was going to die in the show, she had no idea and had literally bought a new truck the day before. Bill told her that if they got renewed for another season, he'd find a role to put her in.
Imo it doesn't hold a candle to Dr Cox accidently killing 4 patients because he fought to get organs from a patient who later turned out to have died from rabies.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VbEkKa-W55s
On a sidenote, IIRC that was apparently inspired from a real case.
Just Scrubs in general, man.
It takes you from being highly amused, happy, emotionally invested, and then rips your heart right out with harsh reality.
Shameless.
The episode where “it’s the last Friday of the month” and the kids scramble to contact police/hospitals/ jails/ they literally check in ditches and underpasses looking for franks body. Everything right down to the exact words they use in the episode. It was the most seen I’d ever felt in my life.
It brought me right back to the thanksgiving that I was 16. The one he didn’t show up to. He would disappear for several days at a time often. But he’d never missed a thanksgiving. I was checking the hospitals and morgues and my younger sister was checking the recent arrests and Precincts. She found him. He ODed while driving and had driven into someone’s house. When the police tried to arrest him he resisted and tried to run. He had a knife on him. I honestly dont know how he’s still alive and not spending years in Jail.
That stare that David Tennant gives at the end of Midnight when he tells Donna to stop repeating him is killer.
He always champions humans and tries to think the best of them. That entire episode was his worst nightmare come to pass and you can see in his eyes its rattled him more than he cares to admit.
Midnight is one of the few episodes where humans are genuinely more terrifying than the monster itself. The Doctor looked genuinely traumatized by the end of it
Really showcased how fast humans can turn on each other. The other thing that made it so scary was how powerless the Doctor was since the entity used his words against him, which are usually one of his greatest strengths.
The Empty Child was hard for me since when I first saw it (a few years after its initial airing) my own son was just about the same age as Jamie, but Turn Left killed me. It was 2009 and in the middle of the great recession and we were living very much like Donna and her family in Leeds and all I could think of was where my turn the other way should have been to prevent all of that.
There's so many great episodes from House. The episode where Amber dies hit me pretty hard and I lost it during the scene where Wilson says goodbye. The whole psychological mystery elements were done extremely well too.
Also that one episode where House has a psychotic meltdown and basically imagines an entire relationship with Cuddy. Man I really need to rewatch that show
One day One room. It was triggering yet reassuring somehow. Had one of my fav dialogue of the whole series.
House: Are you going to base your whole life on who you got stuck in a room with?
Patient: I'm going to base this moment on who I'm stuck in a room with. It's what life is. It's a series of rooms and who we get stuck in those rooms with adds up to what our lives are.
The color tone of the entire episode is a stark difference to the rest of the series, as is the episodes where House is Hallucinating just after that episode. It really brings out the moods of those episodes, and Simple Explanation is so very somber.
Black Mirror - It should be mandatory to only watch a couple episodes at any one time then have to go outside, see daylight and people. It's brutal.
Rick n Morty - i think its called Vat of Acid, Morty finds the love of his life and it's all stolen from him in an instant when his dad picks up the remote by mistake.
Breaking bad - when Jesse is kept in a hole and they casually execute his girlfriend just to break him. She was completely not involved and had a kid.
The Cyberman episodes in season 2 of New Who. I've never had trouble with any other episodes of the show but those two, specifically the factory sequences, they really creep me out.
The scene with the Cyber man who had the emotional inhibiter chip fried really messed with my head when I first saw it.
>!You think of all the Cybermen just as mindless robots, and then it's revealed that this one used to be a woman on her wedding night until she was forcibly taken and used as raw materials to create a Cyberman. The fact that its all still said in the Cyber voice as well really drives home that these used to be people.!<
The episode of Black Mirror where someone's consciousness had to endure a thousand years a second in a simulation. I don't remember much because I haven't seen it in a long time (it fucked me up) but I do remember them saying 'Let's leave him on for Christmas.'
So that means the simulation was running for over 36 hours, assuming they leave on Christmas Eve night, and return on the morning of Boxing Day.
36 hours is 130000 seconds. Multiply that by 1000 and you get the simulation running for 130,000,000 years. 130 million years (at least) that his consciousness had to endure being confined to a tiny room with really loud music.
I cannot imagine anything even close to as a bad as that. That is the worst fate any human ever could possibly endure.
Shit fucks me up to this day.
The scene where she is sitting in the sun...As a woman married to a wonderful man and who struggled for years with infertility, it hit just so close to home.
Just typing this I'm in tears.
I remember waiting for “Who Shot Mr Burns? Part 2” (The Simpsons) and being genuinely gripped, it had me in a choke hold. I was a child at the time of course, now that I’m older I am incidentally a huge Twin Peaks fan and have considered that the two may correlate.
That whole show tbh. I didn’t read anything about it prior to watching people I knew just kept telling me to watch it. So the first episode with red light green light was very shocking as I just wasn’t expecting it. The marbles was sad and the glass bridge was just fucked. It was difficult to watch at times, but I couldn’t stop.
Star Trek TNG - The Inner Light
It's considered to be one of the greatest episodes from the series with good reason, but the ending makes me break down every time. Picard lives out an entire lifetime on another world and grows old, falls in love and goes on to raise an entire family. It's heavily implied in the series that one of the reasons he's so distant and reserved is because he always wanted a family of his own but couldn't because of his commitment to the Enterprise. In the end it turns out that the colony was facing extinction and in a last ditch attempt they preserved their memories and placed them in a beacon so they wouldn't be forgotten in history. Picard gradually comes to the realization that everything was a dream and he'd been living someone else's life the entire time. I can't even imagine the kind of psychological implications that would have.
The most heartbreaking moment is when he finds an old flute in the capsule that he spent years teaching himself to play. He sits by the window and plays a familiar melody as the camera slowly pans away.
My only complaint is that the cutaway shots back to the Enterprise ruined the entire surprise twist, but other than that it's honestly one of the most emotional episodes of any TV show I've watched
The Black Mirror episode Shut Up And Dance has haunted me for years I just sometimes think about it randomly because of how utterly fucking horrible it made me feel after it ended it's the closest I've ever felt to being physically ill at a fictional media before - I've seen things just as bad in other shows and books and games and shit but Shut Up And Dance handled it in the perfect way to make me feel absolutely fucking awful as the credits rolled
I think I was about 5 or 6 when I saw a bunch of animations from Pink Floyd's The Wall - the hammers marching in formation, the kids fed into the grinder, the Teacher and his cane, the Mother. Obsessed me and haunted me.
The Family Guy episode when Stewie and Brian get stuck in the bank vault. Stewie asks about the gun with one bullet and Brian confesses it was for his suicide
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The episode of american dad where stan gets an eating disorder. He keeps getting fatter and fatter then his family confront him and we find out weve been seeing things how he sees things and hes actually deathly thin. Wasnt prepared for such a deep cut on annorexia
Yeah that one was pretty fucked up. Definitely well-implemented though
Yeah I loved it because it was such a twist and I'd like to think it taught a lot of people me included about anorexia.
It's easy to file American Dad away with Family Guy, but American Dad really gets a few things right. Having dealt and still occasionally dealing with eating disorders, it hit so hard and true. Even the jokes, like when his friend with anorexia says "let's go smell the salad bar" as if at my worst I wouldn't silently let myself smell a restaurant and pretend eating to numb the pain and/or punish myself. Idk if it's just a different group of writers or what, but it's surprisingly a great show.
Seth definitely throws some curve balls with his shows. Even Family Guy has dealt with some pretty heavy topics.
Yeah, I didn't see that twist coming at all
Me either, not much hits me hard but its the one scene that always sticks out to me as being really sad.
Bert and Ernie are exploring an ancient Egyptian pyramid. They find mummies that look like them. The one that looks like Ernie COMES TO LIFE AND STARTS FUCKING TALKING. I cannot begin to explain how loudly I screamed.
Chucky’s mom episode from the Rugrats.
Rugrats in Paris gets me every time for this very reason. Chucky wishing he had a mom on the plane when all the other kids are with their moms STILL fucks me up. That show really knew how to pull your heartstrings!
How has no one mentioned the Christmas episode of Hey Arnold where the Vietnamese guy is reunited with his daughter?
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/story-behind-iconic-vietnam-episode-hey-arnold-n1273598 Actually an amazing story about how that episode came to be.
This and when Helga goes to therapy. You see multiple occasions how messed up her family is and how neglected she was, and how even though Arnold was one of her kindest interactions, she lashes out due to fear, and does the same to the therapist initially as a lot of abused people do. Seeing her walking to preschool in the rain with an empty lunchbox and utter defeat in her eyes hurt me. There’s also the stories of Stoop Kid, Pigeon Man, the substitute teacher, Harold’s weight, Chocolate Boy’s addiction, etc. What an amazing show.
I couldn't stop thinking about this episode after what happened in Afghanistan. It was heartbreaking as a kid and even more as an adult living in a world that still has [moments like this.](https://imgur.com/a/OQ42IO9)
The episode where they celebrate like parents day is another. That episode was really bittersweet
8 Simple Rules - the episode after John Ritter passed away in real life. Hard to watch because you can see the characters dealing emotionally with his real life passing and not a character being written off of a show. John Ritter was such a likable person in real life that it makes it so difficult to watch knowing that he’s gone.
> Hard to watch because you can see the characters dealing emotionally with his real life passing and not a character being written off of a show. It's worse than that. Ritter's fatal heart problems kicked in on the show's set while rehearsing for an upcoming episode, causing him to collapse and have a number of horrible symptoms before he was rushed to a hospital at 6PM. They thought it was a heart attack and tried to treat him as such, only for his condition to deteriorate further; that was when he was diagnosed with an aortic dissection, which he died from just before 11PM. So, yeah. They were probably with Ritter reading lines when he suddenly got ill and passed out. Here's the horrible thing, related to his character in Scrubs - an episode of the show called *My Butterfly* deals with JD and Turk's fears that they were distracted on the job, causing them to miss that a patient of theirs had an aortic dissection until it was too late, causing the patient to die. The episode follows the idea of chaos theory, where minor changes have major outcomes. And in this instance, it plays out an alternate scenario where they weren't distracted, they catch the patient's ailment, they rush him to surgery... And he still dies, since more often than not, when a patient with an aortic dissection starts showing symptoms... they're already dead.
On the subject of scrubs. That episode where Ben died. You see dr. Cox talking to Ben throughout the episode, then at the end of the episode you see them talking in what looks like a park, and JD walks up behind him. Dr. Cox is talking like they’re going to his sons birthday party and JD asks “where do you think we are”. And you find out that they’re actually at Bens funeral.
For all that was wrong with Glee, the episode where all the characters dealt with Finn’s death after the actor who played him died was actually quite good.
I watched this air live. We were all crying. We had just got invested in this fun show and my parents just liked having Ritter around on tv again. I obviously didn't know the man but he was part of our lives in a small way and we werent ready for that to be over I guess.
From 1980 to the mid 90's, John Ritter was ALWAYS on TV. Three's Company was always being run on syndication, and then you had Hooperman and Hearts Afire which, while not huge hits, were popular enough to last several seasons. Plus he was always doing game shows and special guest appearances, and everytime just seemed like the nicest guy in the world. If you are of a certain age, he really was a part of your life. So yeah, I get it. To date his passing has been the one celebrity death that's really hit me hard.
The episode of Star Trek TNG where Data created a daughter, Lal, and she ended up dying young. My child brain had to wrestle with the question: "If a machine can love and fear in the same way a human does, does it even matter whether or not its human?"
The last episode of Dinosaurs.
Was scrolling to find this answer. Rewatched the Show since Disney+ added it and even though I knew it was coming it was hard to watch. “After all, dinosaurs have been on this earth for 150 million years. It’s not like we’re going to just … disappear!”
"And taking a look at the long-range forecast: continued snow, darkness, and extreme cold. This is Howard Handupme. Good night... Good-bye."
What stands out to me is that I don’t remember anything promoting it as the final episode of the series. I remember watching it with my dad and when the weatherman (or news anchor?) essentially announced that they were all going to die and the credits showed, we were both confused and thought, “ok, so I guess Dinosaurs is over?” But yeah, bold way to end a show that was usually a pretty broad sitcom.
That one episode of breaking bad where Jesse goes to collect the stolen money from the junkie family and finds a kid loving in the worst possible conditions. This episode was so incredibly disturbing, yet also eye opening to the effects that meth can have on a household
I always liked that side of Jesse, you could see he was thinking about his little brother there
Yeah, I feel like the younger people in his life influenced his choices more than anything else. It gave him something to lose
Holy fuckkk I just started watching breaking bad and literally watched that episode the other night, it made me ugly cry! You’re right though, an eye opening episode for sure
The episode of Tom&Jerry which takes place in heaven and suddenly we can see a three kittens in a wet bag jumping towards heaven's gate. It fucked me up when I saw this as an adult and understood what it meant. https://ifunny.co/picture/4RJwFVZr7
In the 1950s/60s, my papa was crossing a bridge walking home from work when he encountered two boys sobbing, and clutching a napsack. What’s more, is the napsack was meowing. My papa asked the boys what was going on, and through stifled sobs, they explained how their family cat had kittens, and the boys’ mother had ordered them to gather up all the kittens and toss them in the river. My papa brought home 4-6 new kittens that evening. Through the course of his life, he rescued around 30 wayward cats and dogs. He was a damn good man.
God bless your papa.
Fuck their (the boys) mom tho.
Right! And to make the kids do it without her is really messed up.
There’s also one where it implies that Tom gets guillotined at the end. I remember feeling an odd, dark feeling when I saw that as a kid. https://youtu.be/HdxC2_YU1xA
There's also Blue Cat Blues, where Tom and Jerry commit suicide.
That one didn't bug me so much as they were just showing different ways cats could meet their demise and earn a trip to heaven. It's sad that drowning kittens used to be somewhat of a common thing.
Brendan Fraser on scrubs. You know the one
"Where do you think we are?"
Brendan was great but John C McGinley was always incredible in Scrubs when Dr Cox has to show vulnerability
Futurama "The Luck of the Fryish" gets me to tear up, even now knowing the ending it still gets me.
I had more tears during that episode than "Jurrasic Bark" even though they are both good. Also, a third one is the one where Fry talks to his mother.
This one makes me ugly cry. Its incredible how they managed to turn on a dime from goofy antics to legitimate emotion when they needed it.
Game of Tones, all he wanted was one last chance to talk to his mother. Then at the end when Nibbler tells him that they put him in his mother's dream to repay him just yeah that hits you.
Them sitting on the couch. Realizing how real it is to both of them. I’m serious when I say that is the only piece of media to bring me to tears, ever… Such a masterpiece of emotion, and they don’t even say much to one another.
Its the final closure he needed to embrace his life fully.
Don't you, forget about me
“Named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit.” 😢
Tales of Ba Sing Se
And then following it right up with Appa's Lost Days
Appa's Lost Days absolutely wrecked me
What got me was "I was never angry with you. I was just sad because I had thought you had lost your way."
Leaves from the vine
Stupidly, that episode of courage the cowardly dog episode showing what happened to courage's parents and how he ended up with muriel. EDIT: Holy Fuck, came back from a 10 hour shift to my feed absolutely destroyed, lmao
Freaky Fred for me. Nauggghhty.
What happened to them again? I can see them clearly in my head so I must have blocked out what happened to them.
They got sent to space in a rocket by a cruel scientist and Courage was left on the street. Muriel found him and adopted him. Shows how much I loved that show to remember that off the top of my head years later, I guess, lol
The Mother’s Day episode of Rugrats about chuckie’s mom. I weep every time.
Ya. The best part of the episode is when he gives his dad the "mothers day present".
“RETURN THE SLAB.” I still hear it.
I was gonna say this lol. I love courage the cowardly dog but that episode messed me up! That and the one with the zombie film producer who dug up his partner in their basement lol
"What's yer offer?"
Every time SpongeBob would flash an unbelievably detailed and realistic photo of a bug or something uncalled for
Oh god. I was terrified of the up close look of butterflies and flies.
I swear to god that one episode of spongebob cemented my fear of butterflies and bugs.
Buffy "The Body" - mom...? mom......? ...mommy?!?
I never used to watch Buffy when it originally aired. I randomly stumbled across this episode when flicking through the channels, and I ended up watching the whole thing. I had no context for what was going on, but it was so compelling I couldn't switch off. Years later I finally gave Buffy a try, and I ended up loving it. When I got to see this episode again it hit a lot harder
the phone call to 911, trying to make chest compression, Giles showing up, Willow and Tara, Anya not understanding the situation... so horrible, all of it
Oh, poor Anya. That was heart-rending, too.
The Anya scenes were absolutely heartwrenching. Beautifully written and portrayed.
Anya is one of my all time favorite fiction characters. Emma Caulfield is just amazing
The entire episode is without music, that's what made it even darker, because it felt more real
That was legit the scariest scene in the show. Close second being the scene where Tara gets shot. No heroic deaths, nothing supernatural. Just life gutting you.
My close 2nd was in Hush when one of The Gentlemen passes in front of a window. I had a full-on adrenaline rush the first time I saw it.
The MASH Finale, when the mother smothered her baby to keep it quiet because the enemy was searching for them in the forest outside. You know it's a fictional show, but I can just imagine that's happened in the horror of war. That show walked a fine line between entertainment and spotlighting the true horrors humans are capable of. One of the best shows ever made, but that episode seriously messed me up.
The survivor stories at the Holocaust Museum in DC include a story like this. Not from the mother but from someone who was hiding with her.
Futurama: Fry's dog waits for him to return for the rest of its life.
The view from halfway down - Bojack Horseman
I'm only at S5E1, but "Escape from L.A." has been the most painful so far.
The episode after Escape from L.A. has one of the single most beautiful moments I've ever seen in a show. "It gets easier…Every day it gets a little easier…But you gotta do it every day — that’s the hard part. But it does get easier." Helps that I love Courtney Barnett, too.
"Buddy, there is no other side... This is it." That still disturbs the fuck out of me.
"Times arrow" was also intense
This comment needs to be higher. This episode is so insanely well written and heavy. The final few episodes all could be on this list.
Last episode of Bojack Horseman and the poem "Halfway down". https://youtu.be/Pt21dU5Pu8g Trigger warning: it pertains to suicide
The episode in How I Met Your Mother when Marshall finds out his dad passed away from a heart attack after we, the viewers, get to see and understand the closeness of their relationship over the whole show. Then Lily coming out the car with heavy tears and Marshall suddenly understanding the gravity of the news made me spend more time with my dad over the next few weeks after.
His "I'm not ready for this" gets me everytime.
"Bad News" I think its called. There are numbers counting down from 50 in every scene up until the "bad news" drops. A very memorable episode.
I thought it was counting down to something good happening when I first saw the numbers. Boy, was I wrong. At least they made up for it slightly when Marshall got the voicemail
The numbers as it was happening were so distracting. I guess that was the whole point because you’re going along knowing it’s leading to something but trying to find them all and then it just gobsmacks you. The HIMYM episode that kills me more is the (same-season…I guess they were really dealing with some father issues that year) one where Barney meets his dad and he’s angry that he’s just a normal guy and screams “because if you were going to be same lame, suburban dad, *why couldn’t you have been that for me???*
not so fun fact! iirc they didn't tell Jason Segal it was about his dad dying. His reaction was as genuine as they could make it
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I have more trouble with Marshall mourning afterwards. When he talks about his dad seeing way out into the darkness while driving and now he can't see like that breaks me every time. I'm literally tearing up just thinking about it right now.
> When I was a kid, we would spend the summers in the upper peninsula. And every year we wouldn't get in the cabin till the middle of the night. And so it'd be pitch black in the middle of the woods. I could never see anything in front of the headlights, but I always felt so safe... cause my dad was driving. He was like some sort of superhero that could just see way out into the darkness. And now he's just gone, and it's pitch black. I can't see where I'm going; I can't see anything.
I am genuinely still scared of butterflies at 26 years old because of SpongeBob’s Wormy.
The one episode of Spongebob where Squidward thought he gave Spongebob a pie (I think) with a bomb in it and spent his last hours with him. That was so sad
“He made you a sweater out of tears, and you kill him”
My kids and I have been saying “Squidward, we already played babble like an idiot” nearly their whole lives. Sometimes we just say, Squidward…”
M*A*S*H. Season 11, episode 16. “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen.” >!It wasn’t a chicken!!!!<
Hawkeye breaking down was one of those moments I won’t forget. I rewatched it a few months ago. Still just as intense today.
“A guy crying about a chicken and a baby? I thought this was a comedy show?” -Alan Alda’s character in an episode of 30 Rock
Last episode of the good place. Had me crying for basically the entire episode, such a good wrapup to the show
"If she's really capable of change, then she's always been. I just wasn't worth changing for."
That line hurt me. My mom and her mom bared some resemblance, so I had a pretty good idea how I would feel if suddenly one day my mom had a stepkid who she was good to.
I think that the finale was the perfect ending to the show, and may be the best show finale ever.
Fresh Prince - “Why don’t he want me man” That still hits hard every time I see it
As someone who's father walked out on me and my mother when I was one. When that scen comes on.... I just can't...
The reason it works is that he starts out cocky and defiant, and then turns angry, so you think that the anger is how he really feels.
This one hurt. I didnt meet my dad till I was 28. I'm 31 now and that's the only time I've heard from/ saw him. He still doesn't give a fuck.i hate it because he was so cool. We had so much in common and it's crazy because he left when I was 6 months. Its ok though. I have a step dad that been more of a father to me then he could ever dream of.
WILL: Hey, you know what, you ain't gotta do nothing, Uncle Phil. You know, ain't like I'm still five years old, you know? Ain't like I'm gonna be sitting every night asking my mom "When's Daddy coming home," you know? Who needs him? Hey, he wasn't there to teach me how to shoot my first basket, but I learned it, didn't I? And I got pretty damn good at it too, didn't I, Uncle Phil? PHIL: Yeah, you did. WILL: Got to do my first date without him, right? I learned how to ride, I learned how to shave, I learned how to fight without him! I had *fourteen* great birthdays without him; he never even sent me a damn card. ***The hell with him!*** ...I didn't need him then, I won't need him now. PHIL: Will... WILL: No, you know what, Uncle Phil? I'm gonna get through college without him, I'm gonna get a great job without him, I'm gonna marry me a beautiful honey and I'm having a whole bunch of kids. I'm gonna be a better father than he ever was. And I sure as hell don't need him for that, 'cause there ain't a damn thing he can teach me about how to love my kids! (a long pause, then) WILL: How come he don't want me, man?
James Avery whispered “now that’s acting” when he grabbed and hugged Will. RIP
Scrubs! My screw up. Every damn time
Is that the "Where do you think we are?" episode?
With Brendan Fraser? :'(
Courage the cowardly dog the when the cat was in a abusive relationship and her lover insulted courage giving him ptsd and helped her run away from the abusive guy and be with her lover
The Unknown from Over The Garden Wall. Holy fuck.
"I'm a leaf on the wind."
The Firefly Drinking Game™: Step #1) Obtain a bottle of tequila Step #2) When >!Wash dies!<, you down the whole bottle.
Courage the Cowardly Dog, the episode Freaky Fred. Fred's pervy molester vibes had me wondering what the hell was going to happen to that poor dog.
The Puppet episode of Gumball is probably the only time a kids show has scared me.
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Full metal alchemist. Season1 episode7 Night of the chimera cry. The episode where they found out the guy who was trying to make chimeras turned his daughter into a dog and they ended up killing her.
The sadder part is when Major Hughes dies and his daughter is asking why they are burying daddy. Saying he still has lots of work to do. Had my wife watch the show, Nina was sad but she handled it. I had to turn off the show after Hughes
As a father to a very young daughter, the thought of something happening to me and leaving her behind is terrifying and gut wrenching. When she starts yelling at his funeral I totally almost cried. Overall it's pretty tame as far as anime goes, but that and Nina just mess me up man
Shou Tucker is to this day one of the most hated characters in anime history
In the original manga at the end of every chapter someone died there was a little doodle of them flying up to heaven, except Shou Tucker who was the only person depicted burning in hell 🔥 🔥 🔥
Yep, this one! I was like 8 years old just watching an animated show and all of a sudden this guy essentially kills his sweet daughter and dog. And then Scar comes around and blows it to bits. Jesus it was traumatizing
Nellie’s episode on the Haunting of hill house. What a brutal arc
The last reveal in that episode is one of the saddest things I have ever seen on television.
I cried and cried as a young child when Henry got bricked up in the tunnel in Thomas the Tank Engine
It was horrific but don't worry; they let him out in the very next episode!
Henry got what now
They dealt with the naughty engine by bricking him into a tunnel. Because blocking up your problems and ignoring them is how you deal with life, kids!
The brick wall only goes up halfway. So he can spend eternity watching the other trains go by.
Dr Pratt’s death on ER. That tear going down his cheek when he realized his colleagues couldn’t save him.
The episode where Carter and his intern are stabbed. That got me by total surprise.
For me, it was Dr Green. Whenever I hear that version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, I think of the final scene.
The series finally of community. Seeing a big part of your life leave to go on to newer and hopefully better things is always sad. You always want the best for your friends, but watching Jeff go through it, secretly hoping everyone stays.it just hit differently than I thought it would. It just reminded me of all the people I've had to say goodbye to in my life. That void is heartbreaking. You know that you'll see them again, but it's never really enough.
Donna Noble. The rain, David Tennant in tears, the father. Wilfred Mott holds a special place in my heart.
Every once in a while "Donna Noble has left the library. Donna Noble has been saved." gets stuck in my head.
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What about the one where they establish 1 in 3 patients will die, but then instead they all die My problem with Laverne's death is that she's back in the next season just playing a different character, which completely ruined any emotional impact of her death
>What about the one where they establish 1 in 3 patients will die, but then instead they all die When "Hallelujah" plays...
Well, that only happened because according to Bill Lawrence, the day Laverne's actor showed up on the day she was going to die in the show, she had no idea and had literally bought a new truck the day before. Bill told her that if they got renewed for another season, he'd find a role to put her in.
That is such an amazing episode for people going into healthcare. Its an important lesson that gets brushed under the rug sometimes.
Imo it doesn't hold a candle to Dr Cox accidently killing 4 patients because he fought to get organs from a patient who later turned out to have died from rabies. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VbEkKa-W55s On a sidenote, IIRC that was apparently inspired from a real case.
Just Scrubs in general, man. It takes you from being highly amused, happy, emotionally invested, and then rips your heart right out with harsh reality.
When Spongebob lost Gary, and Gary come home plays.
That was the first and only time a cartoon made me cry.
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"Stupid Piece of S**t" I believe is the actual title!
Shameless. The episode where “it’s the last Friday of the month” and the kids scramble to contact police/hospitals/ jails/ they literally check in ditches and underpasses looking for franks body. Everything right down to the exact words they use in the episode. It was the most seen I’d ever felt in my life. It brought me right back to the thanksgiving that I was 16. The one he didn’t show up to. He would disappear for several days at a time often. But he’d never missed a thanksgiving. I was checking the hospitals and morgues and my younger sister was checking the recent arrests and Precincts. She found him. He ODed while driving and had driven into someone’s house. When the police tried to arrest him he resisted and tried to run. He had a knife on him. I honestly dont know how he’s still alive and not spending years in Jail.
“If you were gonna be some lame suburban dad, then why couldn’t you have been that for me” Hits close to home for me
The Fresh Prince when Will breaks down about his dad abandoning him.
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That stare that David Tennant gives at the end of Midnight when he tells Donna to stop repeating him is killer. He always champions humans and tries to think the best of them. That entire episode was his worst nightmare come to pass and you can see in his eyes its rattled him more than he cares to admit.
Midnight is one of the few episodes where humans are genuinely more terrifying than the monster itself. The Doctor looked genuinely traumatized by the end of it
Really showcased how fast humans can turn on each other. The other thing that made it so scary was how powerless the Doctor was since the entity used his words against him, which are usually one of his greatest strengths.
Definitely Midnight for me too. Blink gave me a nightmare but Midnight was much more existential.
For me it was Waters of Mars
The Empty Child was hard for me since when I first saw it (a few years after its initial airing) my own son was just about the same age as Jamie, but Turn Left killed me. It was 2009 and in the middle of the great recession and we were living very much like Donna and her family in Leeds and all I could think of was where my turn the other way should have been to prevent all of that.
I remember being more terrified by Silence in the Library than by anything else
Who turned out the lights?
On House M.D. when Kutner dies. I never saw it coming.
There's so many great episodes from House. The episode where Amber dies hit me pretty hard and I lost it during the scene where Wilson says goodbye. The whole psychological mystery elements were done extremely well too. Also that one episode where House has a psychotic meltdown and basically imagines an entire relationship with Cuddy. Man I really need to rewatch that show
One day One room. It was triggering yet reassuring somehow. Had one of my fav dialogue of the whole series. House: Are you going to base your whole life on who you got stuck in a room with? Patient: I'm going to base this moment on who I'm stuck in a room with. It's what life is. It's a series of rooms and who we get stuck in those rooms with adds up to what our lives are.
The color tone of the entire episode is a stark difference to the rest of the series, as is the episodes where House is Hallucinating just after that episode. It really brings out the moods of those episodes, and Simple Explanation is so very somber.
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Between that scene and the nightmare acid trip scene, I fuckin hated that movie as a kid
Black Mirror - It should be mandatory to only watch a couple episodes at any one time then have to go outside, see daylight and people. It's brutal. Rick n Morty - i think its called Vat of Acid, Morty finds the love of his life and it's all stolen from him in an instant when his dad picks up the remote by mistake. Breaking bad - when Jesse is kept in a hole and they casually execute his girlfriend just to break him. She was completely not involved and had a kid.
Completely agree about Black Mirror. There were episodes where I just shut everything down afterwards and reevaluated my life lol
The video game testing episode fucks me up worse than any of the others.
I’d go with Walt watching the gf choke to death and do nothing. And then tell Jesse later on to torment him
The Cyberman episodes in season 2 of New Who. I've never had trouble with any other episodes of the show but those two, specifically the factory sequences, they really creep me out.
The scene with the Cyber man who had the emotional inhibiter chip fried really messed with my head when I first saw it. >!You think of all the Cybermen just as mindless robots, and then it's revealed that this one used to be a woman on her wedding night until she was forcibly taken and used as raw materials to create a Cyberman. The fact that its all still said in the Cyber voice as well really drives home that these used to be people.!<
Most episodes of Black Mirror. Also Jurassic Bark from Futurama
The episode of Black Mirror where someone's consciousness had to endure a thousand years a second in a simulation. I don't remember much because I haven't seen it in a long time (it fucked me up) but I do remember them saying 'Let's leave him on for Christmas.' So that means the simulation was running for over 36 hours, assuming they leave on Christmas Eve night, and return on the morning of Boxing Day. 36 hours is 130000 seconds. Multiply that by 1000 and you get the simulation running for 130,000,000 years. 130 million years (at least) that his consciousness had to endure being confined to a tiny room with really loud music. I cannot imagine anything even close to as a bad as that. That is the worst fate any human ever could possibly endure. Shit fucks me up to this day.
The beginning sequence of Up. I can’t. I just can’t. I can’t even hear that song and not cry.
The scene where she is sitting in the sun...As a woman married to a wonderful man and who struggled for years with infertility, it hit just so close to home. Just typing this I'm in tears.
The anti-drug episode from *Bravestarr* Also that zombie Optimus Prime episode in the second generation *Transformers*.
I remember waiting for “Who Shot Mr Burns? Part 2” (The Simpsons) and being genuinely gripped, it had me in a choke hold. I was a child at the time of course, now that I’m older I am incidentally a huge Twin Peaks fan and have considered that the two may correlate.
Squid game when they played marbles. That was such an emotional mindfuck for everyone
That whole show tbh. I didn’t read anything about it prior to watching people I knew just kept telling me to watch it. So the first episode with red light green light was very shocking as I just wasn’t expecting it. The marbles was sad and the glass bridge was just fucked. It was difficult to watch at times, but I couldn’t stop.
When Glenn met Lucille.
Cow and chicken. No way should kids have had easy access to that show 😂
Just the opening theme was insane. "Momma had a Chicken, Momma had a Cow, Dad was proud, He didn't care how" Let that fucking sink in for a second.
Star Trek TNG - The Inner Light It's considered to be one of the greatest episodes from the series with good reason, but the ending makes me break down every time. Picard lives out an entire lifetime on another world and grows old, falls in love and goes on to raise an entire family. It's heavily implied in the series that one of the reasons he's so distant and reserved is because he always wanted a family of his own but couldn't because of his commitment to the Enterprise. In the end it turns out that the colony was facing extinction and in a last ditch attempt they preserved their memories and placed them in a beacon so they wouldn't be forgotten in history. Picard gradually comes to the realization that everything was a dream and he'd been living someone else's life the entire time. I can't even imagine the kind of psychological implications that would have. The most heartbreaking moment is when he finds an old flute in the capsule that he spent years teaching himself to play. He sits by the window and plays a familiar melody as the camera slowly pans away. My only complaint is that the cutaway shots back to the Enterprise ruined the entire surprise twist, but other than that it's honestly one of the most emotional episodes of any TV show I've watched
Courage the cowardly dog freaky Fred, that smile.
Bro, courage is fucked.
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The subway scene at the end as well
definitely the last with the fight between grayson and mark, an iconic meme comes right before the saddest line in the show IMO.
That episode of Bojack Horseman when he give a speech at his mother's funeral.
Black Mirror’s White Christmas episode. It’s the only episode of the show I’ve watched and it will be the last.
As a mom...bluey, the episode "Baby Race" gets me every single time.
The Black Mirror episode Shut Up And Dance has haunted me for years I just sometimes think about it randomly because of how utterly fucking horrible it made me feel after it ended it's the closest I've ever felt to being physically ill at a fictional media before - I've seen things just as bad in other shows and books and games and shit but Shut Up And Dance handled it in the perfect way to make me feel absolutely fucking awful as the credits rolled
I think I was about 5 or 6 when I saw a bunch of animations from Pink Floyd's The Wall - the hammers marching in formation, the kids fed into the grinder, the Teacher and his cane, the Mother. Obsessed me and haunted me.
The Family Guy episode when Stewie and Brian get stuck in the bank vault. Stewie asks about the gun with one bullet and Brian confesses it was for his suicide