Tear Jerker / Invincible (2021)

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

"You lied to me."

Aside from all the violence (to say nothing about the gore), Invincible (2021) has many heartbreaking moments. And we do mean many.

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General

• Despite the brightness and level of optimism the show appears to have, it does not shy away from showing the harsh realities of superheroing. People will get hurt no matter how hard one tries and sometimes they die.

Season 1

It's About Time

• Mark spends his Origins Episode struggling with learning to control his powers and angry at his lack of progress when he fails to prove to an Instant Expert. It was already bad enough for him as he has spent years waiting for his abilities to kick in and hated being a "late bloomer".
• Omni-Man's less-than-enthused reaction to Mark excitedly telling him he finally got his powers. In hindsight, it becomes clear this is the moment he realizes that his dearest hope of peacefully outliving his family so they don't have to see him complete his mission is no longer possible.
• The Guardians of the Globe's brutal murder at the hands of Omni-Man, especially after we spent the whole episode with him trying to be a good father to Mark. Before this, we get glimpses into the Guardians' civilian lives and see the people behind the costume, who are just as good as you expect superheroes to be.
  • In the original comics, Omni-Man managed to murder all of the Guardians sans Immortal who dies right after telling him he never liked the man. Here, his last words are to feebly ask his supposed friend and ally "why?" before being killed. Before that he is the one most disbelieving of Omni-Man’s murderous rampage, insisting that some villain has to be controlling him.
  • Omni-Man's face at the end of the fight. While it may have been a side effect of the beating he took, he looks mentally exhausted after the fight.
    • Was he just tired from the beating he took? Or did he feel remorse over what he had just done? Given that he is staring directly at Immortal's head, the latter is heavily implied.
  • Green Ghost never fights back during the slaughter. Her final act is to become tangible and gently catch the body of Darkwing. She remains cradling his corpse and never looks afraid or angry before Omni-Man kills her - only very, very sad and confused.

Here Goes Nothing

• As the GDA medics pick up and analyze the corpse of the Guardians of the Globe, one of them mentions on how they had worshipped Dark Wing as a kid before finding their great hero's corpse.
• The Grayson family holding vigil over Omni-Man, who has fallen into a coma following his fight with the Guardians without them or the GDA knowing what happened.
• Mark, as Invincible, tries to fill his father's shoes by taking on an alien invasion...and it goes about as well as one would expect from a newbie hero with no combat experience or proper training. He quickly gets overwhelmed and the one person he rescues is badly injured.
  • Said civilian is a much older woman who suffers catastrophic injuries and ends up in a medically induced coma, dying off-screen despite being brought to a GDA facility afterwards. Mark is crestfallen that the one person he had gotten medical help for died anyway, facing the hard truth you can't save everyone even with superpowers.
• When the Flaxans (an invading species from another dimension) attack Earth for a third time, Omni-Man arrives to help the Teen Team and Invincible, being transported to the dimension in the process. Despite being reassured by his mother that he'll be fine, Mark's fear and worry that his father may be lost in another time forever is genuine. One can understand his elation upon his father's safe return.
• The Flaxans final attack occurs at the same location during a memorial for the hundreds of deaths from the previous attacks. The Flaxans then appear through multiple portals this time in MUCH greater numbers with vastly superior weaponry. The area was filled with people mourning their lost loved ones, and given they were surrounded on all sides by the portals, it is implied many of them were slaughtered.
• In response to the actions of the Flaxxan commander and his army, Omni-Man destroys the entire planet, no doubt killing millions of innocents. He then forces some scientists to teleport him back to his dimension and kills them anyways. They are seen holding each other before their inevitable demise.
• The Guardians of the Globe have been dead for less than a day and an alien invasion happens while Omni-Man is in a coma, leaving the Earth vulnerable. In the aftermath, Director Steadman mentions the death toll of the first battle is over 300 and climbing following the two more battles over the next few days. Less than a week and the world is already suffering from losing their premiere Super Team.

Who You Calling Ugly?

• The Guardians' funeral (both of them) is made even worse as their murderer, Omni-Man, is the one giving the eulogies at both events.
  • The first funeral is more of a "show funeral" for the public so they can share their grief over the loss of their heroes. The second one is held in a secret location and attended only by family and friends, and will tug the heartstrings of anyone who's lost a loved one in the line of duty.
  • Olga, Red Rush's wife, has a breakdown as her husband is being buried:
    Olga: [crying] You wouldn't even let me see him. Josef is finally standing still and I still can't see him!
    • Made all the worse as because of his grievous and horrifying injuries, his body is definitely something she wouldn't want to see.
• Atom Eve coming back from the funeral and finding her boyfriend Rex in the shower with their teammate Dupli-Kate ("All three of her!"). Worse is when Kate tells her how Rex said she [Eve] were an item with Invincible now. When she confronts him about it, his tone indicates it wasn't a lie in the sense he really did think something was going on especially given his reaction when she tells him it isn't true.
• Robot tries to sympathize with Monster Girl's troubles by telling her he understands how difficult it is to have the world judge you on your external appearance, unable to see what's inside. She fails to return the favor and realize he's referring to himself, instead brushing him off and asking how he could understand since he's just a robot.

Neil Armstrong, Eat Your Heart Out

• Invincible has no idea that a Martian replaced one of the astronauts and that the real one is left behind and infected never to return home.

That Actually Hurt

• Eve arguing with her sexist parents who are not happy to learn that she had broken up with Rex and wants her to forgive him. They only agreed to let her be a superhero because she was with Rex and ends up saying that she doesn’t think she wants to be a superhero or part of the family anymore.
• Titan genuinely cares about his wife and sick daughter, but is forced into crime to provide for them.
  • He's also very clearly unhappy with what Battle Beast did to Invincible.
    Titan: Sorry kid. Didn't mean for it to end this way...but I gotta take care of mine. Hope you make it.
• Invincible is horrifically beaten by Battle Beast and several other of Machine Head's goons, and is left bleeding out with the GDA being unsure if he can survive. The news is given to his mother and Eve, who can't break the news to his girlfriend and can only assure her that Mark loves her. One has to keep in mind, what makes it even worse is that Omni-Man was watching and allowed his son to be beaten to an inch of is life.
• Robot cradling Monster Girl after Battle Beast beat her up and tore her face off.
  Robot: I'll fix you.

You Look Kinda Dead

• Doug Cheston gets kidnapped and turned into a Reaniman. When he won't stop screaming he gets his vocal cords cut out. He manages to escape but everyone takes him for a random villain attack. The audience can tell that he is screaming for help but without his vocal cords none the characters understand him. He starts lashing out until Mark manages to pull his helmet off. Seeing his reflection and how his body is falling apart, he kills himself. While being a massive douche, he didn't deserve that.
• When Eve decides to move out of her parents’ house, live on her own and continue being a superhero, they try to talk her out of it, but the way her father words it is especially harsh.
  Adam: You want a fresh start? Give up this superhero crap. You can’t save the world, Samantha. It’s gonna get you killed! The worst day of my life was when you got powers.
  Eve: …Wow, that hurts much more than I thought it would.
• Mark and Amber's relationship falls apart entirely when he seems to have run away from the heat of the Reaniman attack. While the audience knows he was Invincible and actually came back to save them, Amber is left exceptionally betrayed by the notion that Mark just ran away, having thought he was a good man. Mark, meanwhile, is heartbroken, knowing he can't tell her the truth but that lying to her will ruin things.
• Rick, a Nice Guy to the core, gets turned into a Reaniman as well, and even though he frees himself and saves William and Mark, he'll never be the same again. He even turns away when William, who he had a relationship with, reaches out to touch his face.
• Debbie learns that Omni-Man absolutely did kill the Guardians. She and Art are heartbroken and horrified by the fact the person they loved is an outright murderer, and when Nolan gets home, Debbie is seen drunk for the first time in the entire show. Worse yet, Nolan knows Art and Debbie know, meaning it was almost all pointless. It's not clear why quite yet, but he at least doesn't murder them.
• Although it follows an absolutely iron-willed moment where Debbie finally curses out the murderous bastard, Nolan and Debbie's relationship is irreparably damaged by the revelation that he killed the Guardians. We see Nolan the most shaken he's ever been when Debbie goes upstairs after telling him off, shattering the bottle he brought her, punching a hole in the wall, and ultimately just sitting down and contemplating, unable to do anything to gaslight her or ease her well-founded fears this time.

We Need To Talk

• Amber breaks up with Mark, revealing she always knew he was Invincible, and is heartbroken he lied to her. Mark flies away, leaving the stone he got from Mars on her windowsill.
• Rudolph Connors is revealed to be deformed and unable to make contact with air, living a life of absolute pain. He copies his mind into a clone of Rex, but as it only copies it, it means he's still stuck in his original body. Even though the new Rex clone knows what the plan was, he pleads to save the original's life, but ultimately euthanizes him at his own request. Even one of the Mauler Twins begins to tear up.
  Mauler #1: (About the procedure) This will be painful.
  Rudolph: My entire life has been painful.
• Nolan practicing to explain to Mark how he killed the Guardians like an awkward, normal dad is funny, but it's also somewhat sad, showing what his mission has done to his personal life.
• Nolan painfully squeezes Donald's spine. Donald gives some parting words to Cecil before he blows up the house Nolan burst into, and Cecil is clearly distraught at his death.
  Donald: It's been an honor, sir.
  Cecil: [sadly] The honor was all mine.
• Debbie realizes that Cecil has no intention of calling off the kaiju that Mark and Omni-Man are fighting, and losing, against. She is clearly distraught that she might have to watch her son and her husband (even if he is a murderer) be killed.
  Debbie: This is why I have always hated you.
  Cecil: (sighs) That's why I hate me, too.
• Mark witnessing Omni-Man killing the Immortal during their fight. He conveys being shocked and heartbroken when he starts to realize who and what his father is, all with one word.
  Mark: Dad?

Where I Really Come From

• To keep things brief: the emotional rollercoaster that Mark, Debbie, and even Nolan go through upon the truth being revealed is one that also hits the audience pretty hard.
• Mark learns that his father has been lying to him the whole time and is not a peaceful protector but a conqueror who was sent to weaken Earth's defenses. He initially thinks that someone is controlling his father, and breaks into tears when he realizes that Nolan is telling the truth.
• Debbie has to hear her husband claim that he never truly loved her as a wife, and she was more of a pet to him. She also watches him almost beat her son to death.
  • When Debbie tries to comfort Mark in the GDA hospital he shrinks away from her touch. She gives him time alone to rest, but as soon as she steps into the hallway out of his sight she begins sobbing so much she needs to lean on the wall for support.
  • She puts on a strong face for Mark, but by the end of the episode she can only cry uncontrollably in her room.
• Invincible manages to save a pilot that Omni-Man tried to kill, only for Omni-Man to fly down and crush his skull just to spite Mark.
• Invincible tries to save a family from a crumbling building that was caused by Omni-Man punching him through it. The building collapses anyway, and the only thing Mark has left in his hand is the arm of the woman he tried to save.
• Nolan tries to prove his point to Mark by holding him in front of an oncoming subway train and uses him as a wrecking barrier to destroy the train, collapse the tunnel, and gruesomely kill all the passengers. Mark is helplessly forced to watch as the passengers splatter into him and soak him with their blood. Then Nolan casually crushes a survivor—who is desperately reaching towards his young daughter's corpse—under the rubble just to drive it home even further.
• During that No-Holds-Barred Beatdown he subjects Mark to, Nolan briefly flashes back to one of Mark's little league games, where he goes from being cold and indifferent to genuinely joyous that his son got a home run. The memory is enough to make Nolan stop his beating, and it seems that Nolan's earlier disdain wasn't quite as genuine as he may have wanted it to be.
• As Omni-Man is putting off finishing Mark off, ranting at him about the insignificance of Earth and its people and how Mark is making a mistake in giving them any value, he tries to hit him with an Armor-Piercing Question...
  Nolan: WHY DID YOU MAKE ME DO THIS?! YOU'RE FIGHTING SO YOU CAN WATCH EVERYONE AROUND YOU DIE! THINK, MARK! You'll outlast every fragile, insignificant being on this PLANET! You'll live to see this world crumble to dust and BLOW AWAY! EVERYONE and EVERYTHING you know WILL BE GONE! WHAT WILL YOU HAVE AFTER FIVE HUNDRED YEARS!?
  Mark: ... You, dad... I'd still have you...
  • In the comics, after Mark says this, Omni-Man tries to punch Mark one more time with a Single Tear in his eye and blasts off. Bit sad, right? Here though, thanks to the animators doing wonderful work on the facial expressions, you get to see Omni-Man ponder, look at the damage he has caused to Mark, and emotionally collapse. The TV show really makes an effort to make you feel for Omni-Man here. Then, without another word, he leaves Earth completely before he can break down. And he still leaves behind a Single Tear floating in space...
    • Given Nolan spent so long trying to claim Mark's life meant nothing and that he could always start again, these actions become very telling... and brings a lot of the cold remarks he made into question as well. Did he truly think the Guardians were 'weak'? Did he truly love his wife as nothing more than a pet? How many of those callous words were his honest feelings and how many of those were him trying to convince himself?
• A subtle one, but William and Amber's reactions to the aftermath of the fight. Keep in mind, the last time they spoke to Mark before the fight, William blamed Mark for what happened to Rick and essentially told him it's his own damn fault Amber broke up with him and Amber told him to buzz off, not caring what he does. So knowing they said that right before he went into that fight, not knowing if he even survived for over a month really comes off as them having a My God, What Have I Done? moment.
  • Another thing: William has spent the past two weeks with a Thousand-Yard Stare, knowing that he nearly got Mark killed by pointing Nolan in the direction of where to find his son. He's going through the motions: eating lunch alone, sorting Mark and Debbie's mail, and making sure their refurbished house looks clean. Later he says that doing that gave him hope that his best friend would come back.
• When Allen hears the full story of Mark nearly dying, he looks and expresses that he feels guilty for not arriving on time. He says that he did everything he could to fly back. Just his realization that Mark nearly died for the crime of refusing to be a conqueror. Allen is especially guilty for warning Mark that the Viltrumites won't leave the Earth alone, and never abandon a planet. Mark reassures him that knowing is better.
• Allen the Alien reveals that the Viltrumites destroyed his planet and he was born in a breeding camp and never knew his father. Mark feels jealous.
  • When Nolan was explaining the truth about the Viltrumites, in the flashback Allen’s people were the first people shown that they invaded, and that Nolan was part of it.

Special

Invincible: Atom Eve

• The episode starts off with the hope that Polly will be able to survive and give birth to her own daughter at the hospital. At the hospital, Erias Brandyworth warns the doctors to be careful on extracting Eve from her mother's body, but suddenly, a powerful spark is created that ends up killing Polly.
  • With the doctors knocked out, Dr. Brandyworth ends up being pushed to surgically remove Eve from Polly's own corpse.
• While Dr. Brandyworth succeeded in saving Eve from the potential horrors of having to live as a weapon under Steven Erickson, Eve is instead suffering from her abusive parents.
• The Wilkinses grieving their stillborn child.
• Eve's childhood. She basically has few to no friends and the one friend she does gain ends up disassociating herself from her when Eve shows off her powers to her. Her parents, while loving her to the best of their abilities, just aren't equipped with how to deal with a super powered child who is also intelligent making her feel even more isolated, even in her own home.
• The light-hearted banter between Omni-Man and the Guardians. It shows they really did consider each other friends but we know Nolan's mission will eventually force him to kill them.
• God, the ending of the episode. Eve basically finds and loses her entire biological family in the course of one day, and on her birthday, no less. When she gets back home, she's then yelled at by her father, and is so emotionally broken that she retreats to her room. Not helped by her Jerkass adoptive father saying this to her, unaware of what she went through.
  Adam: Like it or not, we're the only family you've got!

Season 2

General

• The hold Nolan has over the Grayson family still.
  • Mark throughout this season has a constant aura of sadness around him. From his eye bags, to the way he flies and the way he interacts with his friends, you can tell that he's just sort of there. While his disposition does brighten up a bit more throughout the season, it's very telling that the guilt along with the PTSD of watching his father kill thousands of innocent people, calling his mother a pet (and basically saying his feelings for her amounted to almost nothing), and nearly beating him to death while telling him he's replaceable have had a profound effect on him.
  • Debbie, as much as she tries to hide it, can't move on from the hurt and while some people such as Olga are able to realize that there was no way for Debbie to have known Nolan's true nature, others like Theo only compound her guilt. Made worse by her being left to manage this on her own. Mark at the very least has Amber, William, and Eve to help him through this. But the one chance Debbie does get to finally let her emotions out in a support group, she's shunned for confessing to her marriage to Omni-Man and told not to come back.

A Lesson For Your Next Life

• After the introduction of one of the evil Invincibles and Angstrom Levy, we're reunited with the main universe Mark as he goes on an On Patrol Montage set to Radiohead's "Karma Police" while continuing to grapple with the devastating battle with his father in the last season. It ends with Mark having a traumatic flashback to all the carnage while witnessing a bank robbery in progress, showing just how Nolan affected his worldview.
• Angstrom's meltdown at the end of the episode, after the incident that accidentally fused him with his alternate selves. He starts ranting about how he now has all their memories of the loved ones that the alternate Invincibles have slaughtered, resulting in him vowing revenge on Invincible and setting him down on the path to becoming his Arch-Enemy. The worst part is that he caused it and botch his own experiment to save Invincible from the Maulers, when they ignored his request to not kill him.

In About Six Hours I Lose My Virginity To A Fish

• The News segment on Martian Man showing what a Nice Guy and Friend to All Children he was. It makes it all the more tragic that he was killed by Omni-Man.
• Eve visits home, which ends with her and her father having yet another go at each other when it’s revealed that the Battle of Chicago caused the furniture company he worked for to go under. Stuck with working a minimum wage job at a Burger Mart, Eve repeatedly offers to use her powers to help her family only for her father to stubbornly refuse.
  • What's worse is that it’s a pretty clear case of Adam simply being a prideful and misogynistic man who refuses to accept help from his daughter because he's the "man of the house" and should be the one providing for his family.
  • During a second visit, Adam reveals to Eve that her trying to help the neighborhood made things worse due to her building it on unstable ground. Eve feels incredibly guilty over her actions, and this isn't helped with her dad berating her and telling her that her powers make her dangerous.
• Debbie is clearly NOT over Nolan. During a house sale she bitterly mumbles "she's not your pet" to a man arguing with his wife. She gets sent home after this and after taking out her frustrations on a defective cupboard door, smashing several glasses in the process, she breaks down crying.

This Missive, This Machination!

• As silly as the Lemony Narrator is, he doesn't sugarcoat the sadness of Allen's backstory at all. The Unopans were a once a peaceful and prosperous people who lived in harmony with nature and technology until the Viltrumite Empire invaded their world. The Unopans fought back to modest success, which only prompted the Viltrumites to spitefully decimate the planet because if they couldn't have it, nobody could. The surviving Unopans were forced to flee into space and began a gene-engineering program to create a super-warrior capable of fighting Viltrumites, which bore fruit in Allen, who came to be seen as a beacon of hope to the Coalition of Planets… until he first tried to fight a Viltrumite and got his ass kicked, revealing that even with his enhancements, he was far below their level. Humiliated and deemed a failure, Allen was reassigned to testing planetary defenses and by the present clearly seethes over his comparative lack of power compared to the enemy and the lack of respect he gets from everyone other than Thaedus and Telia. It's sad to see a guy who's so cheerful and kindhearted have this kind of darkness lingering over him.
• The utterly horrifying No-Holds-Barred Beatdown Allen gets from the Viltrumite hunting party, one that would have killed anyone else, all while his girlfriend Telia watches helplessly and accompanied by a heartwrenchingly gentle and melancholic tone. A perfect illustration of the senseless cruelty and brutality of the Empire, and it comes right after things seemed to be looking up for poor Allen.
• William ends up admitting to Mark that he hasn't been able to work up the nerve to try dating since Rick's transformation into a Reaniman, and it becomes clear that he's still haunted and traumatized by what Sinclair did to those poor men. Mark, meanwhile, is still guilt-stricken over not being able to prevent it. This comes to a head when, after trying to reject the call to help billions of aliens in favor of focusing on himself, William calls out Mark and implicitly reminds him of the Reaniman incident.
• Debbie joins a support group for superhero spouses where she bonds with a man named Theo. When Theo reveals that he is the husband of the Green Ghost, one of the heroes killed by Omni-Man, she breaks down and reveals who she is out of guilt. Theo feels betrayed and tells her not to come back to the group as it wouldn't feel like a safe space with the ex-wife of Omni-Man there. And even though you still feel bad for Theo and understand why he feels the way he does, it's truly heartbreaking to see Debbie being essentially punished for not knowing her husband was a villain.
  Debbie: I didn't know. I didn't know who he was.
  Theo: You should have.

It's Been A While

• When we last saw Nolan, he flew away from Earth in tears after Mark's famous Armor-Piercing Response, and this episode opens with a montage of him contemplating his life up until now - set to a haunting cover of Leonard Cohen's "Avalanche'' performed by Nick Cave - as he roams the stars. We even get to see Nolan contemplating suicide as he gazes at a black hole, almost letting himself get pulled into it before he discovers a Thraxan ship in danger.
  • Remember how Viltrumites can create their own leverage and use it to fly? For them, they can fly basically by bending space, and the pull of a black hole would otherwise be no obstacle. If not for the Thraxan ship, Nolan would have simply allowed the black hole to pull him in — so deep is his despair.
• Similarly, we see Debbie going through a similar montage after the events of the previous episode where she visits her husband's grave to wonder Was It All a Lie?.
• Donald Ferguson's existential crisis when he discovers that he died in the first season, and wonders if he's a clone.
• Mark arrives to the Thraxan homeworld and discovers... Nolan was the one who recommended the signal. The reunion begins with a tense stare down, moving forward into Mark hugging his father for the first time in a while... and then we see a big departure from the comics. Whereas in the original issues, Mark begged his father to come home, here he assumes that Nolan used the Thraxans to coax Mark into meeting him because he knows that his son wants nothing to do with him. Nolan knows he has every right to make that assumption and tries to clear things up, but the language he uses to describe his sins, calling them "mistakes", disgusts Mark so thoroughly that he disowns him to his face and moves to leave. He only hears Nolan out because the man refuses to take "no" for an answer, not even because of his usual ways, but because he is desperate for genuine help to save the planet he's calling a new home.
• As comic readers probably expected, Oliver is introduced this episode along with his mother Andressa. Mark, while having just told his dad to essentially “fuck off”, is still understandably hurt and it only reinforces what he thinks about Nolan: that he never cared for nor loved him or Debbie and moved on the first chance he could, despite Nolan and Andressa telling him that wasn’t what happened.
• The Viltrumites arrive and slaughter most of the Thraxans, with Mark and Nolan only barely able to save Oliver and Andressa.
  • In their fight, when Lucan declares Nolan to be deserving death for dishonoring the Viltrumites. Nolan, after spilling Lucan's guts and impaling him, simply responds "I know." Given Nolan's Conflicting Loyalty, it's likely that he agrees with Lucan not just for his disobeying of Viltrum, but also because of all the horrible things he did on Earth. The worst part is that, due to him denying his attachments to the slaughtered Thraxans, he may not even be fully aware of his own remorse of the latter at that moment.
  • Just the fact that Nolan is actually heartbroken and visibly sad about all their deaths. While on Earth he tried to play it off through excessive cruelty, here he realizes that he has started to care, and it angers him to the point where he cries and nearly chokes Mark to find out why he cares. To him, as a Viltrumite, he should see them in the same way he supposedly saw the humans he protected for 20 years. Mark only has this response:
    Mark: This is how you should have felt on Earth!
  • Mark himself is already appalled by the destruction, but despite his misgivings with his father he recognizes Nolan's pain at seeing the Thraxans killed and tries to gently call to him. When he tells Nolan that his feelings for the Insectoid Aliens is what he should have felt on Earth, it sounds like he's not only still frustrated with his father's stubbornness and past actions, but also trying to get him to understand that such feelings are natural and that he shouldn't keep denying them. This is what seems to finally make it click in Nolan's head that he's changed from the conqueror he once was.
• Eve fights Kill Cannon when he tries to rob the old Teen Team headquarters, and she prolongs the fight to take her frustrations out on him. During the battle she reflects one of his shots in a way that ends up knocking a car off the bridge they're fighting on, and he disrupts Eve's attempts to rescue the people in it. She pulls them out of the water, but it's ambiguous if they survived. Afterwards, Eve is distraught at letting her emotions cause such a thing and returns via bus to her parents' house.
• Mark's situation by the end of the episode; He and Nolan are separated again, with the latter being taken off to Viltrum to be executed, and Kregg forcibly conscripts him to take his father's place as Earth's conqueror, warning him that if the planet doesn't submit to Viltrumite rule, they'll kill millions of people. Poor kid just can't catch a break.

This Must Come As A Shock

• Andressa's farewell to her son. Despite knowing how her and Nolan's DNA means that it's best for Oliver to go with Mark, she has nearly reached the end of her life span, and so will anyone Oliver will recognize. She deeply loves her son and wishes that he at least can remember that.
  • Andressa long coming to terms that, if Nolan does survive, he will go searching for Mark instead of her, knowing that even if she did survive the Viltrumite ambush, she will long be dead of old age
• The look on Cecil's face when he contacts the remaining Guardians on Earth. It is as if he knows on some level he's sending Rex, Dupli-Kate and Rae to their deaths, just to hold the line until the others get back.
• The fight with the Lizard League goes very badly for Rex, Kate and Rae. Rex ends up freaking out as Kate and then Rae, who was coming to Rex's aid, die horribly in front of him. He barely survives himself and then collapses, laughing and crying in shock.

It's Not That Simple

• Despite the Guardians' victory in outer space, one look from Donald was all it took for everyone to realize something terrible occured.
  • The brutal aftermath Shrinking Rae and Rex's injuries, both just barely surviving their ordeal. With Rex alone having to survive a bullet through his head and a missing arm, one can only imagine what Rae will deal with.
  • Despite the rocky nature of their relationship, Atom Eve can't help but shed tears for his, and possibly all other members, state. It really did affect her for a while.
  • Dupli-Kate's unfortunate death and funeral, attended by Mark, Eve, and all able-bodied Guardians. This leaves The Immortal completely destroyed; he really did love her, and anguishes over his belief that they'd have more time together.
    • The scene of Immortal in a morgue room surrounded by all of Kate's clone dead bodies.
• Mark and Amber's relationship has suddenly hit a road block as they don’t know how to handle each other's commitments in their lives. Mark especially feels like he's doing her a disservice for not being able to be there for her when she needs him to be.

I'm Not Going Anywhere.

• Realizing that he's in no mental condition to lead them after all he's been through, Immortal quits the Guardians.
  Immortal: I was already broken, Cecil. Kate's death, just finished me off.
• Feeling like Mark's double life is putting too much strain on their relationship, and feeling guilty about missing him when she knows what he does is important, Amber considers ending it. Right when they were enjoying time together, Amber's decision ends up being made when she's threatened by Anissa. She only has a brief moment to be consoled by Mark from her Near-Death Experience before he's forced to leave and speak with Anissa under the threat of a massacre, and Amber's alone in her dorm room by the time Mark returns. She states having felt that her life was insignificant compared to his, but even in trying to find contentment with it, she now feels like a tool that can be used to threaten him. And for Mark's part, he fears what he might become if something did indeed happen to her, and how it may turn him into something like his father. Realizing it can't work, they agree to break up.
  Amber: [tears flowing] This isn't going to change, is it? I can't live in your world. I want to. I really tried, but I can't. So how does this work, Mark?
  Mark: ...I don't know.
  Amber: Maybe that's an answer.
  Mark: [tearing up] I'm sorry.
  Amber: Me too... [they hug]
• Rick has traumatic flashbacks to being turned into a Reaniman by D.A. Sinclair, and being put back together by the G.D.A.. It gets to a point where Rick attempts suicide and William calls up Donald to help him out. Donald, having just come to terms with the realization of how many times he's died to the point where he's more machine than man now, tells Rick that You Are Not Alone. Rick backs down from jumping off the roof, uncontrollably sobbing into William's arms.

I Thought You Were Stronger

• Mark finally gets the upper hand on Levy and begins beating him severely, at times almost shot-for-shot identical to his own beatdown at the hands of Nolan. But in a brief moment of clarity, he stops and looks down at himself dripping in Levy's blood, Levy himself not moving in the desert sand... and he breaks down realizing that he killed the man in his rage.
  "I thought you were stronger..."
  • Making it worse is that Mark sincerely did not mean to kill him. Levy's abilities along with being able to go toe to toe with Mark understandably gave Mark the impression Levy could take the beating and be simply incapacitated only for Mark to find out that he wasn't.
  • Mark's breakdown doesn't just end there. He starts to think about reasons why he had to kill Levy, trying to make his guilt go away, but the more he tries, the worse it gets. Finally, he freezes when he realizes that he lost control.
  Mark: I wanted to kill him. What does that make me? I thought he was stronger! He TOLD ME he was STRONGER!! ...I wanted to kill him, but I didn't think I could...!
• The event, along with the incident with Anissa, has Mark come to the conclusion that he needs to drop out of college. Debbie protests, but even she realizes that Mark isn't doing this because college is difficult or because he sees himself as being above it; he sincerely believes that he needs to dedicate every moment he has training to be better. Better at controlling his strength, better at fighting, he needs to be better to protect his family and friends.
• While it certainly doesn't excuse Angstrom's actions, the mental anguish he is going through is genuinely heartbreaking. Not only is his mind clearly warped from the psychological changes he went through, but it's clear that he's constantly haunted by visions of his variants, many of whom were completely normal family men who were tragically born into a world where Mark was evil. And he has to relive them every single day. Even when he's close to realising the error of his ways, the flashbacks return to reinforce his twisted mindset. Doubles as Nightmare Fuel.
  • One alternate Angstrom was a father of a sweet young boy who he tried desperately to protect. He was Forced to Watch as Evil!Invincible gleefully and sadistically grabbed his young son and their pet fox and turned them into a splatter on the wall right in front of him.
  • Another was a perfectly normal man Happily Married to his wife (or at least happy with a long-term girlfriend) and Mark destroyed the street they were on. Angstrom woke up to the impaled corpse of his beloved, her eyes open and glaring at him while all he could do was scream.
  • A third Levy was a dedicated policeman who had his entire squadron brutally murdered in the blink of an eye, with him standing covered in their blood while Invincible casually crushed the head of the last one behind him.
  • And finally, a Levy incarcerated in a police state under Viltrumite rule, where Invincible executed a line of prisoners one by one via decapitation, leaving him last so he could see it happen.
• Nolan's state at the end of the episode and final scene of the season as he has accepted his death due to both his belief that he is no longer a Viltrumite due to betraying his people's beliefs but also the profound guilt and sorrow he has caused for "lesser beings". Then he admits something that leaves him completely floored...which doubles as Heartwarming since it's implied to be what gives him the spark to keep going:
  Nolan: I think...I miss my wife.

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