Tear Jerker / I Am Not Okay With This

• Prior to the start of the show, Syd's father killed himself, and despite the fact that it's been more than a year, Syd is still in mourning.
  • The one person helping Syd get through this is her best friend, Dina. While narrating, Syd remarks that they'd been together when Syd's father had passed, and that Dina had cried with her when they found out. She then goes on to say that she's never had a best friend before, let alone someone like Dina.

• At the end of the first episode, Syd tries opening up to her mother, at the suggestion of the school's guidance counselor. Her less-than-helpful response when Syd confesses that she feels like the people she loves don't love her back pushes Syd into a breakdown that causes her to crack her bedroom wall.

• In one episode, we see Stan dancing around his room, singing along to his music and excitedly picking an outfit as he practices how to ask Syd to homecoming. When he gets upstairs, his good mood evaporates upon seeing his father sitting on the couch, nursing a beer. To make matters worse, his father doesn't even greet him properly. Instead, he takes one look at Stan and remarks "You look like a faggot" before returning to his game.
  • After Syd accidentally causes Stan to crash his father's car, Stan drives home to find his father waiting up for him. Stan swallows audibly, as if steeling himself for something, and shuts the car door before heading inside. The next time we see him, he has a visible black eye and a cut below his eyebrow. And this is despite the fact that Stan is one of the nicest and sweetest characters on the show.

• Syd running away from Dina after she kisses Dina and the latter's less-than-stellar reaction. For a second, she'd actually thought the other girl was reciprocating her feelings, only to be proven wrong when Dina hurriedly backs away. You can just see the heartbreak in Syd's eyes, especially when Dina tries to wave it off as the two of them being drunk. She runs out of the house and into the woods, despite the pouring rain, and when she's unable to hold it in any longer, releases all of her emotions with a loud scream of "FUCK!" It's especially relatable to anyone who's ever confessed to someone, only to be shot down in turn.

• In an effort to get her to start using her powers, Stanley tries to anger Syd. After calling her dumb and ugly doesn't work, he starts insulting her family. This causes Syd to launch two bowling balls at his face. While this pleases Stan, Syd is clearly horrified at the fact that she almost murdered her friend. And even though Stan tries to reassure her that he's okay, she's too upset by the exercise that she leaves the bowling alley without another word.

• In the penultimate episode, Liam gets beaten up by his school bully and blames Syd over it before angrily storming up to his room.

  Syd: Worst day ever.

• Mrs. Novak blowing up at Syd after she implies that she'd rather her mother had died instead of her father. You can tell that she really doesn't want to be a shitty, barely-there parent, but her husband's death has taken its toll and if she doesn't put in long hours of work for their family, then nobody will. Even her comment of "You're making me look like a bad mother" after Syd wears the same sweater two days in a row hits differently after the reveal that she has been doing everything in her power to keep their family from falling apart even more.

• Syd starts going through her dad's old stuff and learns more about him from her mother. Apparently, he was a US marine who was traumatized after serving in the military. It's also implied that he killed himself out of guilt that he alone survived a big explosion that killed everyone in the vicinity, his own squadron included. Syd, however, realizes from her description that he also had powers and did it to protect his family.

  Mrs. Novak: He never talked. He was paranoid all the time. He thought a man was following him.

• When Stan is about to leave for homecoming, he passes his father before going out, and Mr. Barber reminisces about his time as homecoming king. Stan, clearly having had enough of his behavior, icily tells him "How's that working out for you?"

• Even though he was a complete jerk during the show, cheated on her, forcibly outed Syd and was bullying her in front of the whole student body, all Dina can do upon Brad's death is to look at his body in shock with her hands over her mouth.

• In the graphic novel, everything about Syd committing suicide. In the run-up to it, it's obvious that she's searching for someone to talk to, and she gets shut down each time; first by Ryan, who berates Syd for ghosting her and orders her to leave, and then by the guidance counsellor, who misinterprets something she says and, again, orders her to leave without hearing Syd out. Syd ends up having one last conversation with her brother and then climbs up a mountain as her chosen spot to kill herself at and talks about how this is her "gift" to everyone.