During the final scene, just after throwing Mrs. Lovett into the oven, Sweeney returns to his dead wife's side. In the original version of the scene, he sings a reprise of "Not While I'm Around", which has since been replaced with a reprise of "The Barber and His Wife". Either one fits this trope.
Sweeney Todd's reaction in general to him accidentally killing his wife. Imagine if you were in his position. You killed the person you love the most, and you had no idea it was them the whole time. Some versions have him look utterly anguished as he stands over her corpse. Some also have him cradle her body before Toby slashes his throat. The concert version has him kissing Lucy's hand and unbutton his collar, implicitly begging for a Suicide by Cop (well, by Toby).
The Johanna Quartet. While Anthony sings about wanting Johanna and Johanna sings about how excited she is to be eloping with him on Sunday, Sweeney Todd sings about letting go of his daughter and one of the last few threads of his humanity. It gets even sadder if you subscribe to the theory that Todd would kill Johanna if he saw her again...something that very nearly does come true.
In one version of “The Beggar Woman’s Lullaby”, there’s a moment when Johanna peeks out of her hiding spot and stares at the beggar woman. The beggar woman seems close to tears and tries reaching for her. It’s implied that, like her vaguely recognizing Sweeney, she recognizes Johanna as her daughter, but has difficulty fully realizing who she is.
Depending on the performance, "Not While I'm Around" can turn into this, Nightmare Fuel, or a combination of both: while it starts out sounding like a heartwarming oath of love and devotion from Toby to Mrs. Lovett - who he sees as a mother figure - it gains a more sinister undertone once Mrs. Lovett joins him in song, and then turns even more unsettling once Toby recognizes the purse Mrs. Lovett has as Pirelli's. Mrs. Lovett realizes he's putting the pieces together and must be killed, telling him she's finally going to let her help bake the pies like he's wanted to. In the 2023 revival, Annaleigh Ashford's Lovett was silently crying when this happened:
Mrs. Lovett: You know, dear...it's the strangest thing you coming to chat with me right now of all moments...because as I was sitting here with my needles I was thinking: "What a good boy Toby is...so hardworking...so obedient..." And I thought... [deep breath]...you know how you've always fancied coming into the bakehouse with me to make the pies?
Toby, after finding the Beadle's body, bangs on the door calling for Mrs. Lovett, begging her to let him out of the bakehouse.
The fact that the only time Sweeney sees Johanna, face-to-face, since she was an infant, he doesn't recognize her and nearly kills her. Adding this to the fact that minutes before he did kill Lucy for the same reasons shows that he was literally too blinded by rage and revenge to see his family, the ones he wanted to get home to so badly, right in front of him.
We get our first hints of the tragedy that befell the Barker family in the song "A Barber and His Wife."
Sweeney: There was a barber and his wife and she was beautiful. A foolish barber and his wife. She was his reason and his life. And she was beautiful. And she was virtuous. And he was...naive. There was another man who saw that she was beautiful. A pious vulture of the law, who with a gesture of his claw, removed the barber from his plate, then there was nothing but to wait. And she would fall! So soft! So young! So lost and oh, so beautiful! Antony: And the lady, sir? Did she succumb? Sweeney: Oh that was many years ago. I doubt if anyone would know.
In the original stage production, the first thing Sweeney does when he arrives at Mrs. Lovett's is run upstairs to his old flat, excited to see Lucy and Johanna again...only to find the place cold, dark and empty.
"My cage has many rooms, damasked and dark. Nothing there sings. Not even my lark. Larks never will, you know, when they're captive. Teach me to be more adaptive..."
Most of the movie is shot with harsh and dark lighting and colors (while the "By the Sea" sequence is bright and garish, there's still dark colors present). One of the two exceptions is "A Barber and His Wife", which is a flashback showing the Barkers walking around an open market selling flowers. It then cuts to Turpin catching sight of the beautiful Lucy. For an extra dose of Kick the Dog, he tells the Beadle something and then we next see two policemen immediately bludgeon Barker and drag him away. The shot is then from Barker's perspective, watching as he's dragged away from his confused and frightened wife and crying daughter and Turpin rushing to her side like a concerned bystander. It'll be the last time he sees his loving family...for fifteen years.
Some of the lyrics for "Poor Thing" have been changed. We learn from Lovett that Turpin would send Lucy flowers once a day after arresting her husband. And we see him standing in view of the flat, waiting for Lucy to appear and show her the flowers he got her for the day. But Lucy stays in the flat, crying because of what happened. The fact Turpin would purposefully wait outside her home gives the implication that poor Lucy couldn't even leave her home without running into the man who ripped her loving husband and father of her baby away from her. Which leads to...
The rape scene.
Poor Lucy being violated by the judge is horrific enough, but what's even worse is the crowd of rich people laughing at Lucy's anguish. Her fate afterwards isn't much better, and this isn't helped by the way she's eventually casually dispatched by her own husband under mistaken identity.
"Epiphany", which in spite of (or actually partly because of) it displaying Sweeney at his most animated, also marks the point where he completely jumps off the deep-end of the sanity scale after losing what he felt was his best and potentially only chance at killing Judge Turpin. For the first time this sullen personality whose bloodlust was deservedly targeted towards the man responsible for destroying his life is now turning the lens of his fury towards anyone and everyone whose throat he can reach with his blades. From then on he becomes just as wretched as his antagonists, from which point he never looks back until it truly costs him in the end.
The "Johanna" reprise, which implies that as much as Sweeney misses his daughter and hopes to have her back, he really can't help but feel a deep disconnection.
At one point towards the end of the song, Sweeney finishes up shaving a customer, and glances over to where the man's wife and daughter sit, playing with dolls. As the customer gets up and walks over to them, he looks away, clearly thinking of what might have been. ("If only angels could prevail, we'd be the way we were...")
Just as the final notes of the song play, Sweeney is seen sitting in his barber's chair looking at a double portrait of Lucy and Johanna. He runs his bloodstained fingers over the glass, leaving streaks of blood.
Just how happy Toby looks as he and Mrs. Lovett sing the film's version of "God, That's Good!" From his perspective, he now works for someone who cares about him, and unlike his job with Pirelli, he's advertising something that he actually thinks is good. He has no idea that the meat pies are made from human meat and he's just become a pawn for someone else's charade.
"Not While I'm Around" is more of a Fridge Horror tearjerker, since it all goes waaaaaay downhill from there.
Mrs. Lovett trying to conceal her anguish as she tries to remain cheerful around Toby and sensing that bad things will come for Toby because he voiced his suspicions about Todd.
"Forget my face."
Anthony's and Johanna's final interaction on-screen. He assures her that they can leave all the "ghosts" behind. However, Johanna disagrees, believing that the ghosts will never die. Although it's implied they do manage to escape Turpin's clutches and move on, Johanna knows that her trauma will always haunt her.
The final scenes with Todd. He takes the dead Lucy in his arms, and Toby slashes his throat while he cradles her, freezing them in place as he slowly bleeds out. Todd may have ended up becoming a serial killer, but the look in his eyes is the look of a completely broken man.
Todd's reaction when he realizes the dead beggar woman is his wife. Usually in the stage productions, the actor playing Todd will scream and break down. But with Depp, his reaction is more quiet but with a growing sense of horror. He's finally gotten his revenge, but at a terrible cost.
nightingale, blackbird, teach me how to sing! If I cannot fly.. Let me sing!"