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Tear Jerker / Video Game High School

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WARNING: Unmarked Spoilers Ahead.


Season 1

Season 2

  • In season 2 episode 5, Shot Bot's Heroic Sacrifice to save the Law and the data that can clear his name. Then, in the next episode, Scott Slanders refuses to accept "Shot Bot 2.0" and laments how he's lost his best friend before outright leaving.
    Scott: My best friend is gone.
  • The Law goes from Moment of Awesome to Funny to this in seconds. At the start of episode 6 of season 2, he's seen riding a motorcycle, looking determined to get somewhere...then cut to him at a fast food joint, trying to order through the drive-thru but being refused due to being on a motorcycle. Then he breaks down crying and admits that he's lost, has no idea how to get home, and just lost his best friend. It's sad, but it arguably becomes funny as the people behind him start honking their horns at him.
  • The moment at the end of the second season: Brian, after Jenny confesses that she loves him and making out with her, returns to his room...to find that Ted's stuff, as well as Ted himself, is gone, having apparently moved out.
  • Jenny's speech in Episode 3 is heartbreaking, as well as every time Brian and her talk about it. Consider Brian's advice and his relationship with his own mom...
    • When they first talk about the speech, and she breaks down upon realizing that she doesn't have anything positive to say about her mother.
  • It's brief, but there's a Wham Line in Brian's email to his mom: "Your irl son Brian just checking in!" Why does he need to clarify he's her irl son?

Season 3

  • In the first episode of season 3, Ted and Brian go on a quest in the collector's edition of a game called Deathstalkers to obtain the Babbage's Blade, which they need to get for Ki, who is running for student president, so she can win the votes of the MMO guild. Everything is going swimmingly until the very end of the quest, when Brian picks up the blade and unknowingly binds himself to it, meaning he can't give it to Ted. An argument ensues in-game, and it then carries on into the real world where Ted and Brian end up in a physical fight that results in Ted getting a serious nosebleed. Even though Brian tries to apologize, Ted refuses to accept it, says that he is "done", denounces their friendship, and tells Brian to go to hell.
  • Episode 3 may very easily be the most depressing episode in the entire show. Where do we begin?
    • Jenny ends up costing her team a match against Napalm, and Brian breaks up with her immediately after the game.
    • Knowing that her chances of becoming student president are very slim, Ki resorts to stuffing the ballot in order to win, but she holds the presidency for a good minute or so before finally coming clean to both her team and Calhoun.
      • "Ki left school. She's gone." Ted's look of anguish and heartbreak, paired up with Brian's look of shock and disbelief as he receives the news...
    • Ted blackmails the MMO guild with a Photoshopped picture of their leader's Tomowachi (appearing to be alive, even though it's dead IRL).
  • Episode 4, considering it centers around Freddie's death in a motorcycle accident and how Ted copes with it. At first, he doesn't seem to be affected that much, but as the episode progresses, he realizes the toll his father's death has taken on him and doesn't handle it well at all. To make matters worse, when everyone watches Freddie's last will (which came as a video), we see Freddie berating Ted on camera and bequeathing him a crappy microphone while he gives his most valuable possessions to someone he never met. The episode ends with Jenny, Brian, and Ki managing to find Ted late at night in a laundromat playing Axe Legends, having beaten the game countless times just to hear his dad compliment him at the end. Afterwards, Ted finally breaks down, having realized how much of an asshole his dad was to him.
    • After having gone on a rant about his dad, Ted starts to weep. After Ki tells him that it's okay to cry, Ted just starts bawling and collapses to the floor.
    • Even after the rant, Ted tearfully admits that despite how much of an asshole his dad is, it still hurts that he's gone.
    • "Nothing is alright."
    • Seeing Ki break down in tears with her parents about cheating to win the election was also pretty devastating.
  • In episode 5:
    • We see just how much of a toll losing the election took on Ki. She goes from a peppy and kind-hearted to nihilistic and moody, almost as if she's a completely different person. She does snap out of it by the end, though.
    • In the same episode, we also hear that Brian never truly had any parents that took care of him—his mom was an addict, and he never really had a dad. He had to spend his childhood taking care of himself, and he states that as a result he got used to being alone.
    • "I am an angry, unhappy person. That's probably why I punched Ashley in the face, and why I have no real friends, and why I just ruined my relationship with the only person in my life that's ever really loved me." - Jenny
  • The opening scene of the finale. We see everyone packing up their stuff as the Napalm team renovates on the school and a sad song performed by Raul Panther of The Protomen plays as BGM. Even Calhoun is depressed.

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