WARNING: Spoilers are unmarked.
Season 1
- Meaghan's situation in general. She spends fifteen years locked in an underground quarantine room that is barely bigger than a prison cell, unable to feel the sun or the wind, and with no companionship beyond one visit from Markus per day. Even for most convicted murderers, that kind of situation would be considered cruel and unusual punishment, but Meaghan is a kind woman who is innocent of anything besdies being a Typhoid Mary carrier of the Big Death who hopes her blood can provide a cure but lives in constant terror that she might accidentally expose someone to the disease and cause a deadly pandemic all over again.
- In "Man of Iron, Woman Under Glass":
- After superhero fanboy and traumatized Manchild John/Captain Iron spends most of the episode being earnest and helpful (albeit not to the extent he thinks), he dies with a knife in his back, while finally accepting the deaths of his parents in the Big Death.
- Captain Iron’s sister might be one of the biggest Broken Birds in the show after the episode ends. She is kidnapped and gang-raped. Her brother dies in her arms after helping rescue her. She becomes justifiably (and possibly permanently) estranged from her common law husband after he runs away while she is being kidnapped and refuses to join the mission to rescue her. And she has to leave her home (albeit temporarily) to avoid bandits.
- Jeremiah is heartbroken by watching Captain Iron die, leading to a poignant Rage Against the Heavens rant about the Big Death and the death of Captain Iron.
Jeremiah Are you happy? Are you satisfied? That's how it works, isn't it? You set us up, you take someone like him, and you give him hope, so you can take it away again? What did he do to you? What did any of us ever do to you? What did the whole fucking world do to you, that we deserve all of this? What, the locusts and the death of the firstborn wasn't good enough for you anymore so now it's the death of the eldest? Death of heroes? You know what? Fuck you. Because we're not just going to lay down and die here anymore. You want to finish off the job? Come down here! Do it yourself! You send the angel of death, you better give him one hell of a big sword, 'cause I tell you what; we are going to kick his ass right back to the great white fucking throne! And then we're coming for you. We're coming for you. - In "And the Ground … Sown with Salt":
- After Godhood Seeker Michael starts executing people unless they pray to him, he pardons those who submit, until he reaches one man who he kills anyway despite the man’s desperate pleas, merely to intimidate Jeremiah and demonstrate that no God answers every prayer.
- Michael’s girlfriend and Morality Pet Julie tells him that she is pregnant and he goes on a jealous rant about how she should only love him and orders her killed. At first, she wants to escape (forming an Enemy Mine alliance with his prisoners), but then, as she finally realizes the need to stop Michael, she decides to stay behind as the others escape and blow up Michael's arsenal and everyone near it, with she and Michael sharing a sad, knowing look before she does so.
- In "The Bag", Jeremiah has several flashbacks to the death of his younger brother, who was killed in the crossfire of a gunfight between a teenager selling sausages and two desperate thieves and whose last words were talking about how he was starving. It is a poignant reminder that even if the setting can seem like a World Half Full at times, lots of kids didn’t survive the worst of the Apocalypse Anarchy.
- Kurdy crying as he remembers the suicide of his parents (his mother was infected at the time) in "City of Roses".
- Many of the flashbacks to the last days of The Virus in "Firewall".
- Markus and his dad watch one of the last news reporters still broadcasting express belief the plague can’t be contained and ask anyone who is left alive to deliver a letter to his children, while urging parents to tell their children they love them while there is still time.
- Markus's mother Jean shows up outside of Cheyenne Mountain, infected and talking to her husband Sean and their son through camera feeds while insisting that she just wants to say goodbye and not endanger them. But her husband won’t let her die alone and (correctly) believes the virus will get into the bunker soon anyway, so he leaves to be with his wife after a solemn final conversation with their son, exposing himself to the Big Death. Sean gives Jean an apparently fatal injection, and holds her hand while telling her the pandemic is just a bad dream she had and listening to her reminisce about their wedding day, as a crying Markus watches through the camera feed.
- After a soldier looting corpses brings the Big Death into the bunker, there is a shot of many dead adult bodies as the now-orphaned children of any of those soldiers and scientists who had families stand around sadly, and then start helping Markus move out the bodies.
- In "Journeys End at Lovers Meeting", Kurdy opens up about his sense of isolation, even from Jeremiah, and desire to find belonging with a group of pilgrims who hope to be raptured. He briefly leaves them to help a captured Jeremiah while meaning to come back, despite their warning that leaving to do violence will estrange them. However, when he does return, he finds the pilgrims (including a woman he has romantic chemistry with) gone and is left to choose between two depressing possibilities: that those people he viewed so positively were really a Cult and committed suicide, or that their miracle came true and he got left behind.
- In "Thieves' Honor":
- As abrasive as Theo is, she can feel sympathetic as she watches her two closest lieutenants betray her and prepare to kill her after the three of them are ran out of town. For their part, her lieutenants are pretty unhappy about it, saying they have to do this in order to survive and be allowed back home and that they will still remember better times with Theo.
- Jeremiah, Kurdy, and Elizabeth all feel fresh grief and anger over the deaths of Simon and Matthew while having to cooperate with their killer, Theo, and slowly accepting her place in a Gray-and-Gray Morality setting.
- Theo talks about the many injuries she has suffered over the years and says that being raped when she was thirteen is the only one that has left a scar she truly notices.
- Jacob, a Thunder Mountain radioman, talks about how he was separated from his sister and last relative when he got to come to the mountain but she didn't, and know he desperately wants to see her again (although that plot gets a happy ending).
- In "The Touch":
- One little girl has been living alone for a year since her mother was arrested for breaking the town law against touching while helping her daughter get through a fever. The little girl just sounds so broke while talking about it. When her mother appears, locked up, she is beaten down by her confinement and separation from her daughter, who she has been told is dead. She is mentally broken by this belief and is a mild Death Seeker until Jeremiah tells her the truth.
- A teenage couple who host Jeremiah and Kurdy when they first arrive in town try to run away from the town leaders and their restrictive rules. They are caught, with the boy later being taken off to be stoned to death while begging for mercy in pure fear as his adoptive father (who took him in after the Big Death when he was three and the "father" was thirteen) makes a cold I Have No Son! proclamation. Adding to the tragedy is the way the girl cries when she later sees her boyfriend's body and the look on the boy's father's face as he gets a potential Heel Realization.
- Markus talks about how he is only a little younger than his father was when his parents died and once, growing old was something that people looked forward to, while now it fills them with fear and insecurity.
- In "Mother of Invention", Jeremiah and Michelle meet in a flashback and talk about their losses. The most painful parts are Jeremiah feeling that he let his dad down by not protecting his brother, and the camera having a closeup of Michelle as she talks about her little sister’s Death by Despair after the Big Death.
- In "Tripwire", Jeremiah and Ezekiel talk and Jeremiah learns that while his father is alive and misses him in the Valhalla Sector, his mother is dead. The same conversation also has Ezekiel mourn the death of his father and how he accidentally killed the world by creating the Big Death.
- In "A Means to an End", Andrew, The Starscream (in a Remember the New Guy? way, and with peachy and democratic methods) at Thunder Mountain is crushed when his brother takes his isolationist views too far, tries to frame a visitor for theft, and is paralyzed (possibly for life) in the ensuring fight. His brother begs him to keep this secret and expel outsiders so that his paralysis means something, while talking about how Andrew carried him to Thunder Mountain while he was starving and begged to be let in, not realizing this is just making Andrew feel guilty and selfish about his own goals and their outcome.
- Throughout "Things Left Unsaid Part 1", Jeremiah and Kurdy's friendship deteriorates, with Kurdy telling Jeremiah that they are through after this mission for not even asking him before doing something that risks getting them permanently exiled from Thunder Mountain. Then, after Elizabeth is shot, Kurdy kicks Jeremiah out of their rover before taking her to a doctor, telling Jeremiah that this is all his fault for being a Doom Magnet who dragged them into this quest.
- In "Things Left Unsaid Part 2":
- Elizabeth passes away as Kurdy is holding her hand and talking about how long he has lived her. Right before that, she urged him to forgive Jeremiah, stay alive, and not feel responsible for her death rather than dwell about her own fate.
- Ezekiel tells Jeremiah that he never sleeps, and when asked if he has insomnia, replies that the problem is his memories (likely of his dead father, the end of the world, and his years searching for Jeremiah).
- The Cliffhanger Downer Ending. Jeremiah is captured by the Valhalla Sector right after locking eyes with Ezekiel as his adoptive brother is shot and presumably killed. Kurdy arrives seconds too late to save Jeremiah. Markus and the other regional leaders are captured right as they prepare to formalize their alliance and rebuild society.
Season 2
- In ''Letters from the Other Side Part 1", most of the scenes between Jeremiah and his father, particularly when he cries while talking about their separation and his guilt for failing to save his brother, Michael.
- In "Letters from the Other Side Part 2":
- As the Big Death spreads through the Valhalla Sector, Libby is seen locked in a lab, listening to people that she has known for years (albeit not always in a good way) screaming as they die. She desperately tries to block out the noise with a traumatized look on her face, and even though most of those people are Asshole Victims and Libby herself is less heroic than she appears, it can still be pretty haunting.
- Markus desperately tries to talk Meaghan out of jumping off a cliff as they talk about how much they love each other, but how Meaghan feels she will only endanger people if she doesn't jump.
- In "Strange Attractors":
- Libby talks about how after losing her family to the Big Death, the school she went to for shelter to a fire, and the Valhalla Sector to the war with the Western Alliance, it is hard for her to feel safe anywhere anymore.
- Markus is greeted with cheers when he returns to Thunder Mountain and sternly replies that killing the thousands of Valhalla Sector residents may have been necessary, but is something to feel shame over rather than pride.
- Kurdy is still not ready to trade pleasantries with Jeremiah or have lunch with him and gets a scene looking at the first thing he ever gave Elizabeth and wondering why the universe would make him as happy as he was with her if he was going to lose her.
- In "Rites of Passage", flashbacks show Ezekiel's Doomed by Canon father Paul and Devon in a state of depression after their creation has been used to kill billions. Paul talks about how his son still doesn't understand why they can't leave the Raven Rock bunker and go outdoors. Then, Paul commits suicide to try and stop the virus from being recreated and buy time for his son and Jeremiah's parents to escape. Jeremiah's mother ends up falling to her death in front of the other two, the escape attempt fails, and the camera lingers on "The Book of Ezekiel" in the Bible Paul's son was reading, emphasizing he will grow up to be the unhappy man who calls himself Ezekiel.
- In "Voices in the Dark", Kurdy and Jeremiah reconcile after almost half a season of bitterness and Kurdy talks about how much it hurt that as Elizabeth was dying, her last words were about Jeremiah and their mission rather than something tender for Kurdy. He knows she meant to ensure his safety, but it still hurt, and made him mad at Jeremiah, even if he now sees that was wrong.
- In "Crossing Jordan", Mr. Smith, who normally loyally acts on the visions he receives, has a Rage Against the Heavens moment about how painful that can be after he sees Libby dying. He desperately tries to save her, only to learn time she is a traitor who he has to kill himself, in self-defense. Jeremiah sobbing over Libby's body and Smith spending several episodes struggling with guilt are also powerful.
- The montage of Sims and his soldiers attacking the Neutral No Longer town of Ridgeway in "Crossing Jordan" and enslaving frightened civilians is juxtaposed with haunting music and the main cast enjoying a happy dinner while Smith has a Thousand-Yard Stare due to a dangerous sense of foreboding.
- In "The Question":
- Markus talks about how he originally saw leading the Western Alliance as a means to repair something that was broken, but lately, all it feels like is a job where he has to send people into combat.
- Kent, the biggest idealist and team player out of the New Meat soldiers, is the one who has to Hold the Line and sacrifice himself for the others to escape their first battle alive. His teammates are pretty morose in their next scene.
- Everything about Sims sacking towns in The Alliance in "State of the Union". The horror and grief the main characters feel after seeing the dead people in one town (including recurring character Sandor) is bad enough. Even worse is how Sims has a conversation with a little girl who was out on a walk while he killed or ran off the people in her hometown and lets her blissfully continue on her journey back to her razed home after getting her to thank them for the gift of a harmonica.
- In ''Interregnum Part 1", when Jeremiah learns the truth about Libby, he has to be physically restrained from attacking Smith and accuses him of lying before breaking down when he finds evidence confirming Smith is telling the truth.
