History TearJerker / TheSopranos

* Johnny Sack's eventual quiet, understated death in prison after a long, debilitating battle with cancer in "[[Recap/TheSopranosS6E14StageFive Stage Five]]". That he was always one of the more sympathetic mobsters (his [[PetTheDog devotion to his wife and children]] being his major redeeming quality) certainly makes this harder to watch.

** Vito Jr. being abducted to a boot camp in Idaho just because [[ItMakesSenseInContext Tony lost too much money at gambling.]]
* Christopher relapsing and trying to open up to Paulie and the guys about his newborn daughter in [[Recap/TheSopranosS6E17WalkLikeAMan Walk Like a Man]], and Paulie makes cruelly insensitive jokes about her. The distorted laughter only illustrates to Christopher that he chose to sacrifice the love of his life for these men who don't give a shit about him. AlasPoorVillain indeed...
** In the same episode, we see Chris at an AA meeting, talking with a guy he's befriended after discussing their shared experiences with being judged for them being addicts. Chris obliquely talks about Adriana and its clear that he deeply regrets giving her up to Tony and the crew, holding back tears as he says so. It's dampened a bit by Chris' [[NeverMyFault refusal to admit]] his own culpability in her death, but it's hard not to feel for him while sharing this human moment.

[[quoteright:1000:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2023_12_15_at_93620pm.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:"Our line of work, it's always out there."]]

** Janice's last scene with Tony, in which it's hinted that her life as a widow will be just as miserable as it was before she married Bobby (or worse, since she now has to raise an infant daughter and two stepchildren from Bobby's first marriage all by herself).

* Christopher relapsing and trying to open up to Paulie and the guys about his newborn daughter in [[Recap/TheSopranosS6E17Walk Like a Man]], and Paulie makes cruelly insensitive jokes about her. The distorted laughter only illustrates to Christopher that he chose to sacrifice the love of his life for these men who don't give a shit about him. AlasPoorVillain indeed...

*** There are also [[HarmfulToMinors a group of young Boy Scouts eating at the diner]], so they'll have ''that'' to scar them for life.

* As the Sopranos are sitting at Holsten's, AJ repeats Tony's old advice to [[[[Recap/TheSopranosS1E13IDreamOfJeannieCusamano "try to remember the times that were good."]] It turns out Tony has completely forgotten about the time he said those words to AJ and Meadow and, when AJ confirms they were his own words, Tony can only shrug and say "it's true, I guess." With everything that has happened since the first season, Tony has become a shell of his former self.

* Combined with NightmareFuel. If Tony really was whacked in the diner at the end of the show, then he was [[BoomHeadshot shot in the head]] right in front of his family, with Carmela and AJ sitting at the same table as him when it happened, probably getting splattered by his blood. Meadow, who walked into the diner at the exact same time he was shot, gets to see it play out, her last sight of Tony before she could even speak to her father one last time, and Meadow in the doorway potentially being the last thing Tony sees when he dies.
** There are also [[HarmfulToMinors a group of young Boy Scouts eating at the diner]], so they'll have ''that'' to scar them for life.
** For those who don't believe Tony was whacked in the diner, it's still depressing to view the ending as Tony so paranoid that he envisions that there are potential assassins in everyday situations, and he'll be hounded for the rest of his dwindling days.

** The heart-wrenching cries of Junior's mistress as he breaks it off with her, fires her and humiliated her by shoving a pie she bought for them in her face, all because she circulated the rumor he gives oral sex and she begs for forgiveness, saying she loves him. Along with Junior's clear grief and misery over having to do it in order to preserve his tough-guy image in the mob once he steps outside.

** Uncle Junior's final scene, in which Tony realizes that he doesn't even remember his own family, or the man he used to be, that Tony waited too long to visit him, now it's too late. With Tony rising at the end and walking away silently while fighting tears. A quiet scene that manages to be one of the most haunting in the entire show.

!!Meta:
* Sadly, Creator/JamesGandolfini's passing in 2013. Not only did the world of acting lose a man who was essentially the best example of MeanCharacterNiceActor, but it killed off any interest in seeing the story of Tony and the ''Sopranos'' universe afterward. The only silver lining was fourteen years later with ''Film/TheManySaintsOfNewark'', with Gandolfini's son Michael playing his father's famous role.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSUFaSVPCRQ The 2019 reunion]] for much of the cast...except, obviously, for James Gandolfini. There are numerous instances throughout the reunion where the cast remarks how weird/sad it is to be together without the main star. They also shared how kind and generous a human being he was, a total opposite from his on-screen persona, which overlaps with [[Heartwarming/TheSopranos Heartwarming]].

** There are also [[HarmfulToMinors a group of young boys at the diner]] eating after a baseball game, so they'll have ''that'' to scar them for life.

** There are also [[AdultFear a group of young boys at the diner]] eating after a baseball game, so they'll have ''that'' to scar them for life.