Jordy: "Please, God, let my luck be in! Just this once. Please, God, just this once." (BLAM!)
Not to mention his brief imaginary (or is it?) conversation with his father's spirit. As the plants continue to grow over him they start making him itch terribly, so Jordy attempts to get in a bathtub full of water to ease it. His dad warns him not to do it, since water makes the plants grow faster and getting in a tub with that much would cause him to be covered entirely. But Jordy grimly realizes that not getting in would just delay the inevitable. The way he voices this helps add to the depressing ending of an otherwise darkly comic story.
Aunt Bedelia's touching diatribe at her father's grave and anguishing over the death of her lover. She's also wracked with guilt for killing her father in the first place.
Aunt Bedelia:(quietly) Happy Father's Day. (sits down) I didn't know l had it in me! I'm your daughter, right? You bootlegger! Killer! Murderer!Ungrateful Bastard. You shouldn't have killed Peter! He was a man, see, a real man! Everything I wanted, he wanted for me! You stupid bastard! You screwed it all up. You screwed up my mother, you screwed me up. You got me so mad, you drove me crazy. "I want my cake, Bedelia, you bitch!" (near sobbing) You called me a bitch! Sylvia fixed it all! Ashtray back in place! Chair overturned! (calm) A fall, Daddy, a bad fall. Nobody could catch us. Nobody! You taught me, you taught Sylvia! You taught us all.
The comic adaptation makes it even sadder. Instead of her cathartically ranting at his tombstone, its her sadly remarking that he should've let her marry her fiance and that she would've still taken care of him. Even after everything he put her through, she can't even bring herself to hate him, even admitting that she misses him moments before he rises up. The comic turned her from a spiteful old woman who gleefully rubbed the act in his face to one who just can't catch a break.
It's hard not to cry over the terrible thing Harry and Becky from "Something to Tide You Over" go through. Buried up to their necks in sand, watching each other die a slow and painful death from the tide, struggling to stay alive in the process....
Not to mention the music forces the sympathy of them down our throats.
Lenore Castonmeyer's tearful breakdown over the phone. Made much worse by how Upson shamelessly mocks her grief — and even plays a violin for her.
TV Series
Timmy's entire situation in "Gray Matter". A few years prior, his mother passed away in an accident right after a horrible fight with his father Richie, who tried to drown his sorrows to the point where he lost his job. Then, after one contaminated beer, Richie slowly mutates into a Blob Monster that develops a taste for flesh, leading to Timmy having to feed him not only neighborhood pets, but the twin girls who were shown to have gone missing. His new monstrous body then self-duplicates at a rate that will bring about the end of the world in only six days. And despite how much his dad changed, and how afraid he is, Timmy refused to give up on him to the very end.
Timmy: He promised me he was gonna quit [drinking]. He's my Daddy. I love him.
You will feel sorry for Evie and the poor ghost-menaced Smithsmiths from "The House of the Head", never mind that the latter are dolls.
"All Hallow's Eve", whose protagonists are a group of ghostly children avenging themselves against the teenagers who burned them alive. What's even more bitter is that Pete and Jill were obviously at the cusp of a relationship, which will now never progress.
There's also the scene where Pete tells his little brother Skeeter that their mission of vengeance is over and they can finally rest.
Pete: I wish we had known each other longer, Skeet. (giving the boy a hug) I love you, little brother.
The entirety of Brenner's tragic backstory from "The Companion".
"Night of the Paw" has Whitey's story of how his beloved wife died and how he turned her into a zombie via his wish, tearfully proclaiming his love for her as he returns her to the grave.
"Skincrawlers"; Henry's struggle with body image and self-esteem can easily hit a nerve for those who suffer from the same thing.
"By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain" is a significantly dark episode compared to the rest of the series. There's no comedy or Bathos, protagonist Rose recites her dialogue listlessly and on the constant verge of tears, Leigh and her daughter are growing apart, and of course, Chet and his abuse. Thankfully, there's a happy ending.
The ending of "Survivor Type", where Richard gives up on self-preservation and eats his hands while succumbing to madness. Flashbacks to his rough and rocky life help the audience to sympathize with him in spite of his criminal lifestyle, and they do the job well.
"Twittering from the Circus of the Dead"; Despite spending almost the entire story complaining about her, Blake's final line is a gut-wrenching cry for her mother while the staff drag her to her doom. The ticket-taker then uses her Twitter account to promote her as the Circus' next ringmistress, forced to avoid the same zombies that killed and infected her family for her captors' amusement.
In "Model Kid", there's the abuse Joe gets from both his bully and his uncle. After getting smacked by Kevin when he loses his job, Joe sits in bed wearing a skull mask to hide the potential bruise and looking at an old photo of him and his mom.
Joe: I miss you...
Norm, the kindly artist/veteran/TV host from "Public Television of the Dead", uses his painting to supress his trauma from 'Nam, as evidenced when he stares at a blank canvas while the sounds of war echo in his head. Both Claudia and George are sorry for him when his show ends up canned, but are still charmed by how gently he takes the news.
In the same episode, the possessed Henrietta channels the spirit of Mrs. Bookberry's abusive father, causing her to cower and promise that she'll make him proud. Though she spends all her screentime not on-camera acting like a bigoted bitch, this little moment shows that she wasn't always who she is now.
In "Pesticide", even though he's an obnoxious, grandstanding jerk at first, Harlan is tormented nonstop by waking nightmares of being mauled to death by giant bugs and rats, making the viewers feel for him. He's unfortunately crushed to death by Brenda, who (possibly) mistakes him for a cockroach.
The ending to "The Right Snuff" is gut-wrenching, as Alex kills Ted to become the first person to make contact with alien life and become just as famous as his abusive father, if not moreso. When he meets the Gorangi, they let him know that Ted was an ambassador to their race, and his overusing the gravity wave they created to kill him has hurdled the moon out of its orbit and set it on a collision course with Earth. Just before the planet is destroyed, the Gorangi proceed to kick Alex when he's down by broadcasting his killing of Ted across the globe, letting people everywhere boo and jeer him. When he's left alone in his makeshift tomb in the stars, Alex breaks down weeping as his father rebukes that he'll "never be the one" a final time.
Near the end of "Sibling Rivalry", Andrew becomes torn with either letting Lola stay alive so he won't be the last living member of their family, or killing her to stop her from feeding on innocent people. Thankfully, the siblings decide to Take a Third Option.
Zeller from "Within the Walls of Madness" just can't catch a break, as his lover is slaughtered by a cosmic horror that he goes mad upon seeing, the head of security is inches from blowing his head off, his deranged superior orchestrated the phony containment breach to frame him for the killings as a plot to summon the horror and its bretheren to destroy the world, and his appointed attorney clearly couldn't give two shits about what happens to him, only interested in taking his case for the ancillary rights.
Poor Renee in "Night of the Living Late Show" foolishly married an obnoxious, self-centered, and adulterous gold digger against her father's wishes, causing the man to disown her. The phone call she has with him, which occurs right before she discovers Simon's infidelity and ends with her breathing heavily and almost breaking down in her car, shows that he still hasn't forgiven her, nor will he ever.
Renee: Hi, Dad. I hope I'm not disturbing you. I know we haven't spoken in such a long time. Renee's father: (patronizingly) How's your husband? Renee: He's... he's fine. He's fine, we're good. He's actually, um... he's working on a new invention right now, believe it or not. Renee's father: Mhmm. Who paid for it? Renee: Well, the money's not really the point, Dad. Renee's father:You sure about that? (hangs up)
The confrontation Bloom and Hank have in full-view of Jack in the opening scene of "Mums" ends with the boy being forced to watch his mother get hauled off to the police station, after which Hank and Beth (who Hank was cheating on Bloom with) gaslight the boy without remorse by telling him that Bloom is gone.
Later in the episode is when Jack discovers that Beth was not only lying to him about his mother, but was his father's lover on the side, who tipped him off about Bloom's plan to run away with her son. The first thing he does is race to the backyard and sob into his hands.
The ending of "Queen Bee", where Regina is revealed to have hypnotized Deborah from the very beginning at one of her concerts. After a Big "NO!", the episode cuts to Trinice pleading and screaming as she's stuck in Regina's hive, with Deborah herself letting one of the pop star's "babies" eat her alive.
"Familiar" ends with Jackson being duped into killing Fawn in a paranoid rage after the Familiar stalking him harasses him one time too many. The poor girl's sobbing as she's stuck in the crate and dumped into a lake is gut-wrenching.
Elmer's situation in "Okay, I'll Bite", where he's locked in prison and treated as the resident punching bag after euthanizing his dying mother in an act of mercy. There's also the scene where Bullet and Polish Frank torture him by breaking his fingers and watching as his pet spiders are crushed one by one. After the torture, Elmer picks up his dead pet and tells the body that they didn't die in vain.
The state of the world in "Meter Reader", where demons possess everyone they can find and trick their loved ones into trusting them so they can be eaten. Teresa herself is so jaded and cynical because she's seen all of this first hand under her father's training.
"Time Out"; Even though some may have seen it coming a mile away, it's incredibly sad to see a rapidly-aging Tim banging on the doors of the armoire, watching as his son on the outside tries to catch on. Unlike typical horror victims, the audience sympathizes with Tim. Apart from his ambitious legal career, he's a genuinely good guy who loves his wife and son, and it only took one hole in the pocket of his sweater to ruin everything. Worse yet, his son Henry walks straight into the armoire once his dad crumbles into dust, dropping the key outside and thus submitting himself to the same fate that befell Tim.
The ending of "The Things in Oakwood's Past". Even though Marnie manages to make it to safety, the demons of Hell housed in the titular town's "time capsule" slaughter everyone she ever knew in gorily violent methods, including her father and love interest, and she's left with nothing but the trauma for company.
From "Drug Traffic", Mai's mother's desperation to keep her daughter well-fed and keep her instincts from resurfacing. Near the end, she's forced to watch her monstrous daughter slowly die before her own eyes, sobbing hysterically the whole time.
One of the biggest in the whole series would be the one surrounding "A Dead Girl Named Sue", where the titular little girl was kidnapped, tortured, raped, and brutally murdered (and likely not even in that exact order) by the criminally-insane Cliven Ridgeway. Her father spends all of his camera time a blubbering wreck, and Chief Foster is so distraught by the evidence that Cliven did unspeakable things to her that he immedieately rebukes his morals so the girl herself can get her vengeance on him.
The whole of "Twenty Minutes with Cassandra" is a sobering metaphor for the grief and trauma that people carry throughout their lives, which take the form of humanoid, animalistic monsters bound to their creator's rules. Cassandra herself has lived an exceptionally tough life of death, loneliness, and utter despair, and she manifested the monster from her grief at the world that made her so upset, which kills everyone Cassandra meets because she honestly thinks that people would rather die than be sad after she leaves. The monster itself, resembling a mouse that gnawed off its own paw to free itself from a glue trap she left lying around, goes into detail about it when sitting down with Lorna:
Monster: (...) She had trouble sleeping, trouble eating, started losing time at work, at home; it was grief. Her father had died about a month before. After the mouse thing, she tried calling her mom, but her mom didn't pick up because... because she died, alone. Heart disease, they say, but Cassie knew; she knew it was loneliness. Cassie promised herself that she wouldn't go like that, but she still needed some kind of connection. So she started getting to know people for a few days, and then vanish. And the sadness she would leave behind made her feel monstrous. So... she made me. Not knowing, or trying to put the mice she captured out of their misery. Can't be a monster if you're running from one, right? Lorna: Why me? Monster: She saw you at the open mic night, in the café. You read a poem, and she thought to herself: "There's someone who's sad. There's someone who's just like me." Lorna: She thinks that people would rather be dead than sad that she's gone after 20 minutes? Monster: It began with longer relationships. Lorna: (scoffs) Y'all are wild.
When Lorna declares that she's ready to die, the monster decides that he'd rather just sit a while longer, then complains about how tired he is killing people for Cassandra. Lorna pats his shoulder and tells him that she understands.
The title of "Smile" is notably ironic, since after letting a South American boy and his father drown in a river so he can take photos of their suffering, James is haunted by the spectre of the man in question, who haunts him and his wife as a photographer with magic, future-telling pictures. The ending of the episode has him being duped by the spirit into drowning his pre-teen son Max in his pool as Sarah can only sob in agony, the spirit photographer's camera displaying a photo of him holding his dead son in his arms, a shellshocked look on his face.
Richard's entire situation in "Grieving Process", where his wife turns into a cannibalistic ghoul who craves human flesh, forcing him to kill random citizens and turn their bodies into five-star meals for her, desiring above all else to see that she's taken care of, even as a monster. Once the little girl who transformed his wife reveals her motives (wanting a family), she and April plead that they're hungry as Richard somberly heads back upstairs, dedicating himself to continue killing people to feed them.
April's younger sister Jean shares how April took her in after she was assaulted in college at one point. The next scene has April, acting horrifically unlike herself as her transformation progresses, calling her younger sister a freeloader and demands that she get the hell out, notably leaving her teary-eyed. Further along in the episode, Richard ends up throwing Jean to the monstrous April, who she no longer recognizes her and ferally devours.
Lyle's entire life in "The Parent Deathtrap", which he spent entirely alone, being a universally-hated creepy loner in school, and being rebuked by his horrifically abusive parents. Just when it looks like the ending throws him a bone, with his parents genuinely showing him affection and him getting married to Violet, it's revealed that she only married him for his inheritance and didn't outgrow her Alpha Bitch personality at all. The last scene has Lyle pleading as he's thrown into prison, the ghosts of his parents, Violet's parents, and Violet herself following after him, never leaving him alone again.
The incrediblySudden Downer Ending of "To Grandmother's House We Go", where just after Marcia accepts herself as Ruby's mother and successfully gets her to Belinda's house, Ruby turns into a werewolf, spouts out a cheesy one-liner, and tears Marcia's throat out as Belinda suffers a heart attack from the sight.
"Meet the Belaskos" ends with Anna sacrificing herself to save Alex by carrying him to the hospital as she disintegrates in the sunlight.
Angela from "Doodles" keeps getting rebuked by Roger and has her art stolen from her by Sonia, but she's clearly traumatized from learning that they've died when she doodled on their pictures. The ending has both her and Calvin meeting the same form of "death by doodle" she's subjected to the former two.
Miranda in "Baby Teeth" is a hopelessly smothering individual who has had everyone in life leave her because of it, but this is because she lost her mother to the Fae and is trying to protect her atrociously bratty daughter from the same fate. After her daughter dies and gets replaced by a changeling baby, she's shown to have learned nothing from the traumatic experience, coddling the new baby all over again.
