Tear Jerker / Arby 'n' the Chief

Despite its ferociously acerbic and irreverent humor, Arby 'n' the Chief can be deceptively heartbreaking, especially later on in the series.

Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

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Season 1

Season 2

Season 3

Endgame

• Whenever Chief and the Arbiter have to confront the fact that they are falling apart.

Season 4

Season 5

• Greg the spider leaving the apartment after Chief tries to kill him. It doesn't help that Greg also acknowledges and accepts Arbiter's arachnophobia before he goes.
• Trent Donnovich is caught cheating on his fiancee Claire, and deals with it by severing Arbiter and Chief's any means of contacting either of them to cover it up - not before delivering a Breaking Speech to Arbiter, catalyzing his existential crisis which follows him throughout the rest of the show.
  • Hell, putting a stop to his wedding came with both toys being banned permanently from Xbox Live.

Season 6

• Arbiter becomes a full blown alcoholic following the consequences of crashing the wedding in Season 5.
• Some viewers have remarked how utterly sad they feel for Adam's mother.
  • The relationship between mother and son starts out clearly strained, deteriorating over the season and culminating in Adam being hauled off to a juvenile corrections facility.
• Arbiter's goodbye to Claire in Season 6, driving him into another brief depression even to the point of crying.

Season 7

• Chief inadvertently melting and killing Cortana in the oven, and how everyone in the apartment reacts to it.
  • Chief talking with his guilt-induced hallucination of Cortana that manifests during the later part of the season, especially during "Game Over" where an utterly broken Chief can only sit in the tub and list off everything he's done to alienate his friends.
    Cortana: You really feel terrible about this, don't you?
    Chief: no fucking shit. i killed u. greg left cuz of me. i blamed both of the 2 of u leaving on arbitur. eugene was the only guy i met online whos evar liked me and he just put a bullets thru his fucking head.
    • Chief realizes that he loves Cortana - only for her to disappear before he can tell her, finally at peace.
  • Greg is forced to cover for Chief in order to maintain the already fragile dynamic in the apartment. He can only sit in tortured silence for a few episodes before he vaguely explain himself when he leaves the apartment permanently while giving Arbiter some final, tragic words of wisdom.
  • Arbiter is manipulated into putting the blame not only on Chief but also himself once Chief recalls Arbiter briefly arguing with Cortana over his own use of derogatory language in an earlier episode. The loss of his only friends outside of Chief is enough for him to start using Frag Ban 2.0 with Eugene.
• Arbiter deals with Claire's sudden return extremely poorly. Under the influence of Eugene's gang, he brutally chews her out for being a 'fair weather friend', breaking down the heroic acts he did for her during the previous two seasons without her ever returning the favor, then ending it with a simple 'Go fuck yourself.'
• Brody is arguably one of the biggest victims of Eugene's gang, as both Eugene and Tyler attend the same school he does in real life. It's demonstrated very early on that their sadism is not limited to online gaming and social media, and when Brody steals the physical thumb drive for Frag Ban 2.0 Eugene proceeds to use these circumstances to his full advantage, sending him through such mental and physical abuse that he attempts suicide.
• Tyler also frequently abuses his dog Charlie just for barking during matches.
• Eugene and Tyler don't seem to get along well, only really connecting when trolling or otherwise causing chaos. Outside of that, Eugene and Colin christen Frag Ban 2.0 without Tyler after promising to include him, and Tyler barely shows any empathy for Madeline's condition. It really says something when Eugene has an easier time talking with a literal pedophile than with someone he's known since elementary school.
• When meeting Arbiter for the first time, Eugene reveals that his sister Madeline is fighting leukemia. As much of an ass as he proved himself to be, Eugene makes it clear that she's the only positive influence in his life, and in a later episode even calls out their abusive father for doing little to nothing about her situation.
  • In response to being called a bitch, Brody calls out Eugene's apparent hypocrisy with an Innocently Insensitive jab about him crying outside during school. It's likely Brody has no idea about Madeline, but far less likely for Eugene's childhood friend Tyler, who briefly mocks him over it.
  • Made even worse with her actually dying, which just makes Eugene go off the deep end. One can only wonder how Eugene and Tyler manage to stay friends after the latter crudely compares hemorrhaging with hemorrhoids upon learning how she passed.
  • Arbiter's speech about Eugene after his suicide in "Game Over", where it's shown that he doesn't even hate Eugene, just pities what happened to him and can't help but feel responsible. Chief makes a valid point that Eugene had chosen this path long before he met the duo, but the sentiment towards Eugene still remains.
    Arbiter: Eugene was an abused animal. The world bit him hard, and he bit back. It pushed him to the absolute edge. Then we nudged him off.
    Chief: we didn't nudged him. he jumped.
• The final episode "Ignition". All of it.
  • Especially this last bit right before Chief and Arbiter apparently get blown up:
  Chief: if both of the 2 of us are gonna want 2 the after life, u gots 2 hung around the front entrance so i can found u. k? well went in together. fuck shit up.
  Arbiter: Sure, pal.
  Chief: :')
  • Jon revealed in the post linking the final episode that the Arby and Chief action figures that he used to film the series are falling apart, despite his best efforts to keep them together with tape and glue.

Season 8

• Following the disastrous Ray Cist podcast, Arbiter sinks even further into his existential crisis, dealing with it by consuming computer duster.