Tear Jerker / Transformers: Rescue Bots

• The looks of horror on the faces of the Rescue bots in "Family of Heroes" when Optimus tells them Cybertron is now a dead planet.
  • Likewise, Optimus's little uncomfortable pause when he struggles to find a way to break it to them that all the other Rescue Bot teams have been destroyed: "I did not know that any rescue teams were... still active."
• While it isn't brought up too much, every time Cody is brushed aside or overshadowed by the rest of his family simply for being too young to be on the rescue team. And just about every time he tries to find a way to contribute, he fails.
  • Like in "Cody on Patrol", when he accidentally unleashed a swarm of crazed nanites while trying to upgrade his go-kart.
  • Or the "Rescue Boy" fiasco.
  • Watching Cody grow ever more despondent in "One for the Ages". When even after being aged into adulthood, nobody seems to appreciate his abilities. It reaches the tipping point when Frankie stops wanting to play basketball with him because he's just too big, making the odds uneven.
• On the flip side, Dani is legitimately devastated when Cody tells her that she makes him feel like an annoyance when she brushes him aside during their heart-to-heart in "Hotshots"; she had been feeling unappreciated for a while up to that point but never realized that not only did she make her little brother feel the same way but she outright made him feel unwanted.
  • Then this heart-to-heart is followed by her accidentally nearly getting herself, her partner and her little brother killed when Blades is injured and the three of them are trapped by a forest fire.
• The Burns kids' attempt at a surprise party in "Little White Lies" nearly gets their father killed because he believes that they actually forgot and comes home from a different route than he leads them to believe; all four of them are clearly panicked and confused by their lack of luck finding Charlie and it's clear that things have spiraled well out of control.
• When Heatwave is protecting Frankie in "Shake-Up" from the rocks that are falling on them because Boulder was trying to locate them in a tunnel via sonic waves. Just the way Heatwave yells "Boulder! Stop! You're crushing us!" can bring tears...
• From the "It's a Bot Time-Bot to the Future" two-parter, Cody, Frankie and the rescue bots return from the year 1939, only to discover present-day Griffin Rock turned into the truest form of a dystopian society. Ruled by Doctor Morocco of course. It's hard to say whether the hardest part is watching Frankie worry about her other timeline dad, or Cody come to terms with the fact that he doesn't exist in the new timeline.
  • Cody meeting his dad in the alternate timeline. Cody was never born, which prompts Charlie to say:
  Charlie: I don't have a son named Cody.
  • The look on Cody's face is devastating.
  • While it's not brought up as much as other elements, Dani being terrified of flying tugs at the heartstrings because it's a clear indicator of how Morocco screwed her and her family over, turning one of her greatest pleasures in the proper timeline into a source of fear.
• Watching the entire Burns family frantic over Graham in "Feed the Beast". Once they learn the townspeople are setting up traps for "the monster", they all start to (rightfully) worry what might happen if Graham's caught by an angry mob.
• Trex in "Land Before Prime", after saving Doc from a rock fall, gets trapped under some rocks. Every time the team tried to rescue him they had to ditch him for fear of being eaten by real Dinosaurs, not once but twice.
  • Trex just looks so innocently confused each time he's abandoned.
• Captain Ambrose from "Phantom of the Sea", his ship is struck by lightning in what he thinks is a perfectly harmless emergency, completely unaware that he and his ship are skipping forward ten years at a time until the Burns's and Bots reveal the truth. Every time he looks at the picture of his fiancée, you really feel for the man, especially when he realises that she was Dead All Along.
  Dani: If it helps, she never forgot you.
  • From the same episode, we see Frankie approach Cody after the time skip, now all grown up. It wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the fact that it was made perfectly clear that she didn't like that she had to do so without her best friend.
• The Bots increasingly difficult attempts to help the revived caveman (nicknamed Ira) adjust to modern life in "Did You See What I Thaw?".
  • After running around for a while, Ira ends up in a museum, he finds mannequins of other cavemen and looks at them mournfully.
• Much of the situation with Blades. A grounder on Cybertron, he was forced to scan a helicopter despite the fact that he's deathly afraid of flying, and is expected to remain one indefinitely. No one around him ever seems to care.
  • Not to mention that even after Dani finds out he's not just a machine, it takes her a good while in-universe to start respecting him, even outright dismissing his fears when Cody tries to tell her to be gentle with him.
• In "Today and Forever" the bots resort to using their own energon to power the dome around the town long enough to safely return to its home and it's treated as them dying in front of their partners as they're helpless to watch. Kade's reaction as he watches Heatwave faint is especially devastating.
  Kade: What's the point of saving our home if you're not going to be here anymore?!
  Optimus Prime: You would have done the same for him, Kade.
• For a moment in "Family Business" it looks like Chief Burns has been crushed to death in front of his family including the bots in the line of duty. The sorrowful music only drives the emotion home.