Tear Jerker / Dark (2017)

Season 1

Episode 1: Secrets

• The beginning of the episode: Michael writing his suicide note...and then hanging himself, all while the camera lingers to the note that simply reads "Do not open until November 4th, 2019, 10:13 PM" and a photo of a smiling Jonas, Hannah, Ines...and Michael looking lost.
• During a talk with Peter, Jonas finally explodes at him when he asks what he would ask his father. Jonas's response? Why he killed himself and why he didn't even say goodbye.
• Ulrich's horrified reaction seeing a dead boy in the middle of the forest, certain that he's Mikkel. That's only reduced when he confirmed he's not his son. The later revelation of who that body really is makes it worse.

Episode 2: Lies

Episode 3: Past and Present

• Watching Mikkel being a Fish out of Temporal Water really hurts. No one believes him, his mother bullies him, and the police officer dismisses him as a setup for a prank.
• At the end of the montage, Ulrich and Mikkel end up exhausted and crying in the same cave, Ulrich for being unable to find any clue to Mikkel, and Mikkel unable to travel back to the present.

Episode 4: Double Lives

Episode 5: Truths

• Mikkel is Michael. This means he never went back to 2019, staying in the timeline from 1986 forward. Ulrich and Katharina will never get their son back, as Mikkel as Michael committed suicide possibly due to never fitting in the past he was thrust into.
• Jonas's reaction reading his father's letter spells of this, as he realizes that he had accidentally played a hand in his father travelling into the past and becoming missing.
• Tronte holding back Jana as the police arrest Ulrich, the only surviving Nielsen son (for a crime he didn’t commit).

Episode 6: Sic Mundus Creatus Est

• The episode starts with Regina having a nightmare of her childhood, when Katharina and Ulrich tied her to a tree near the cave. She wakes up screaming.
• At the end of the episode, Ulrich realizes to his horror that the dead boy he found in the forest back in the first episode was his long-lost brother, Mads, after recognizing the scar in his chin.

Episode 7: Crossroads

Episode 8: As You Sow, so You Shall Reap

• Ulrich's attempt to kill young Helge with a rock is as nightmarish as it is heartbreaking: After all the pain and horror he endured the entire season, Ulrich finally snaps, and tries to kill Helge before he can ever grow up and harm those children.

Episode 9: Everything is Now

• Ulrich's crusade ends in a complete disaster, as he learns that the boys are still dead, despite him 'killing' Helge to Ret-Gone the murders.
• Hannah convinces Katharina that Ulrich wanted to leave her, and he didn't love her anymore, as part of Hannah's revenge for Ulrich scorning her and wanting to take him down.

Episode 10: Alpha and Omega

• Jonas's attempt to bring Mikkel back, even it costs him his existence, is rendered void by Noah and Helge kidnapping him, and the Stranger leaving him in the bunker.
• Seeing the Stranger, who's now revealed to be an older Jonas, so broken and despondent, as he closes the passageway and leaving his younger self alone to suffer, as he goes into 2052.

Season 2

Episode 1: Beginnings and Endings

• The opening scene with a teenage Noah executing his father for losing faith in Adam. He is later seen bawling his eyes out beside his older self, who reassures him that such grief will pass - though tiny details in the adult Noah's expression suggests he never did quite get over it. Becomes more devastating once the identity of Noah's father is revealed to be Bartosz.
• Another brief moment is when Adam talks about Bartosz's naivety in past tense, knowing that his childhood friend died. He takes a brief moment to catch his breath, trying to suppress whatever grief he might have.

Episode 5: Lost and Found

• Ulrich finally made his way to Mikkel, unwittingly waiting 34 years, losing his prime and now in his eighties, only to have his efforts thwarted by his son's insane guardian who couldn't let Mikkel go back to his time.
• As Ulrich is led back to his asylum, he sees his other children, Martha and Magnus. The old man clearly missed them as well, as he lets a shout to be released, in order to meet them, but the officials, thinking he has cracked, don't believe him. From Martha and Magnus's side, they just feel the old man is somehow familiar...
• Noah, the affable mastermind of most of the series, breaking down in front of Charlotte, his daughter, as he realizes Adam lied to him in order to make him do his dirty work.

Episode 6: An Endless Cycle

• In this episode, we see Michael/Mikkel shortly before his suicide. Suffice to say, he is shown to be emotionally damaged from living in the past and seeing his future self grow up without his real parents. This is especially made apparent when he encounters Mikkel and is left a shaking mess.
• It gets worse when Jonas arrives at the house to prevent Michael's suicide. He hugs Michael and slowly reveals that he knows he's Mikkel through the "ultimate fist bump" that Mikkel would always do to him. While Michael is shown horrified, Jonas tells him it's okay and embraces him, all while Michael cries in Jonas's arms and begs him to forgive him. Ouch...
• The episode's ending is much more painful with contrasting scenes: Katharina caring for a sick Mikkel as Ulrich and Hannah start their affair, Past-Jonas and Martha finally making love while Bartosz sits with his family depressed, Magnus realizing his love for Franziska while she learns about her father's affair with the transgender prostitute, all while Jonas is forced to let Michael commit suicide to preserve the timeline and has to leave with Claudia.
• Even Adam gets this as he remembers the things from his past self's perspective, and is truly sad to make Jonas enact Michael's suicide, as he doesn't react to Adult Magnus's questions other than to prepare for the impending Apocalypse.

Episode 8: Endings and Beginnings

• The death of Noah is truly tragic. Noah confronts Adam after realizing that Adam had been manipulating him. Adam tells Noah that he must sacrifice those he loves most and that Elisabeth and Charlotte did not earn a place in “Paradise.” Noah’s sister is the one to kill him, after she takes the gun from his hand.
• At the end of the episode, Adam kills Martha to finally give Jonas the push to become him. Made worse by the fact that, while Jonas breaks out in tears as he helplessly watches Martha dying, Adam says that he will carry this pain with him for the rest of his life.

Season 3

General

• The many deaths in Season 3 are utterly heartbreaking, such as Peter dying to protect Elisabeth from an intruder, Regina being killed by Tronte ala Mercy Kill due to slowly dying of cancer, Katarina being murdered by her own mother in 1987, and of course, Jonas being killed by another future version of Martha in order to put the second-timeline Martha on the path to become Eve.

Episode 5: Life and Death

• Katharina meets the eldelry Ulrich after he's spent decades at an asylum. Quite unlike Hannah, she promises to get him out of there, as her mother holds the keys. She attempts to take them on the same night, only to end up horrifically murdered by her own mother after she's forced to attack her. Katharina ends up as the "Lady in the lake" from the story Bartosz tells in 2019, and Ulrich is once again left alone at the asulym, looking entirely hopeless as he glances at the clock at the time they settled on for his escape.
  • That's not even getting to the later scene with her mother. Helene arrives, obviously shaken and horrified at what she's done and 1986!Katharina goes to comfort her, even asking if she's okay. Helene at first seems to be touched by this...only to become infuriated by a hickey her daughter has. She then proceeds to beat her daughter and screaming that she's a whore, before declaring that she "should have gotten rid of her too". 1986!Katharina is left shaking and crying in the corner afterwards...
• Elisabeth losing her father at the hands of the burglar, added with the disappearances of her mother and sister leaves her a sobbing mess, and she goes straight to Noah.
• Tannhaus revealing to Charlotte that he lost his son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter, and that Charlotte was given to him by two strange women that night. Charlotte tearfully asks him who her parents are and who she is, and Tannhaus can only say “I don’t know.”
• Jonas gradually losing his trust on Eva, like the way he was played by Adam. He goes to Eva to get his answers, while he's told he's fulfilled his mission, and is shot by an older Martha. Jonas dies in the exact same way as Martha in his world, as he comforts the younger Martha, giving an angelic vibe as he succumbs to the gunshot.

Episode 7: Between The Time

• Tannhaus, desolate, looking at the graves of his family, and beginning to work on a time machine, shouldering the pain of losing his family for decades. We eventually learn that this was the Origin World, whose accidental destruction caused the series.
• Jonas losing faith on Claudia, and deciding to hang himself, the same way Mikkel committed suicide, though Noah saves him in the nick of time. This gets worse for Jonas as it's revealed as Adam exists, Jonas won't die, beginning his spiral into destroying the Knot.
• Noah and Elisabeth deciding to raise Charlotte, only for her to get snatched away by older Charlotte and Elisabeth herself. It eventually drives Elisabeth into a ruthless soldier and Adam's pawn, as well as beginning Noah's own journey as a villain in the initial seasons, and dying at the hands of his sister after realizing he was the fool all those times.
• Bartosz after Silja dies giving birth to Agnes, getting disillusioned after knowing his son will eventually manipulate him into time-traveling and be involved in the kidnappings, and Agnes being the Nielsen matriarch, knowing Jonas played him into perpetuating the Knot.
• Hannah travels to 1911 in an attempt to redeem herself, even bringing Silja for her to meet her elder half-brother to reunite the family. Unfortunately, Adam has become so jaded that at this point he can only think of kidnapping Silja to bring her to the future, and personally kills Hannah so that she can't interfere in his goal to destroy the Knot.

Episode 8: The Paradise

• The revelation of the entire series: There was never a way to break the knot, at least... not the way Adam thought, as both universes are tied together to Tannahaus's world, where he attempted to create time travel to prevent the accident that killed his son, granddaughter, and daughter in law. At the very end, the entire endless suffering the characters went through... was a reflection of what Tannahaus felt: The sadness, pain, guilt, and self loathing caused by losing his loved ones.
• When Jonas saves the second Martha before she goes on her journey with Sic Mundus!Magnus and Franziska, she seems ecstatic and happy...only to realize Jonas doesn't recognize her.
  Jonas: You look like her...
• The first thing Jonas and Martha 2 see in the Time Stream?: Their parents, with both their younger counterparts seeing them only for Michael and Katharina to comment that they don't see anybody. At the very end, it shows Jonas and Martha 2 that they are about to lose their parents once they prevent the accident.
• The first scene in the Origin World shows that Tannhaus had a rather strained relationship with his son, Marek. The two are shown arguing over the fact that Tannhaus had planned for Marek to inherit the clock shop and continue the family business, only for the latter to angrily reply that he never wanted it in the first place. While the scene doesn't paint Tannhaus as a bad person, it shows that he simply didn't understand that Marek had other plans for his life. Tannhaus is clearly regretful about this when Marek decides to leave the house and take Sonja and their daughter Charlotte, with the foreboding that this would be the last time he would see the three.
• Jonas and Martha 2 preventing the accident...and then realizing they're beginning to fade away, as well as Jonas's last words as he and Martha dissipate.
  Jonas: We're a perfect match, don't let anybody tell you otherwise! *gives the other Martha a gentle smile*
• The shots of Adam, Eve, The Stranger, 2052!Eve, and Claudia slowly fading away, all to Soap&Skin's cover of "What A Wonderful World", turning a whimsical song to a borderline bittersweet tone of accepting the end with a smile.
• Despite the fact the two worlds were wiped, there is some tearful smiles at the show's final line.
  Hannah: I think Jonas is a beautiful name.
• Also from the last moments of the finale, we got "To a world without Winden." Somehow, despite everything that has happened (and didn't happen) and despite the surviving characters living seemingly-well and happy lives, Winden's existence as a "festering wound" that brings misery to all those who live in remains unchanged.