Line #20 TearJerker/AshVsEvilDead


1	!!As per policy, all spoilers have been left unmarked. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned!
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5	[[folder: Season 1]]
6	* Ash's HappyPlace in his vision quest is an idealized version of Jacksonville, Florida -- a place he was planning to visit with his girlfriend before he went up to that cabin in the woods and his life went to shit. He's never been able to bring himself to go since. The very fact that Ash's only ambition in life has been so modest: to live in an unremarkable but pleasant city where he can drink beer, meet pretty girls, and go fishing. And he can't even have that.
7	* In "A Killer of Killers", a boy who looks no older than about 12-13 is grabbed and thrown by Amanda's newly-possessed-sergeant, getting brutally twisted up into a metal ceiling fan (marking the youngest death in the series so far). Ash looks ''horrified'' and lets out a BigNo as he's helpless to intervene.
8	* The Ending of "Fire in The Hole" where Ash tells the others they hold a special place in his heart and makes a stealth exit while the others keep walking. He heads to the cabin by himself. and doesn't want the others to get involved in it
9	* Amanda's death in "Ashes to Ashes". Since she was genuinely likable, and up to this point it had seemed like the main cast might literally be invulnerable due to PlotArmor, this came as a hell of a shock. made even worse by the fact that Linda's head has been taunting him in the shed about her dying. When he finds her mortally wounded, Ash is devastated.
10	* The Deadites taunting Ash by appearing to him as Linda's severed head. "She" accuses him of not loving her anymore and abandoning her, and then saying that everyone he loves is going to die, again. Although his [[ShutUpHannibal response]] to the matter is [[CrowbarCombatant quite effective.]]
11	* Pablo begging Ash for a MercyKill in "The Dark One" after he's possessed by the ''Necronomicon'' and Ruby uses him to birth new demons.
12	* Ash's literally doomed hopes of ever forming a lasting relationship: he's clearly someone who's capable of great depths of love, as demonstrated by the fact that he mourned [[TheLostLenore Linda]] for ''thirty years''. Sure, part of the [[TookALevelInJerkass jerkass]] persona he develops involves a lot of random sex with women he doesn't really care for, but while it's PlayedForLaughs it's clearly all part of the defence he's put up against the trauma he's dealt with. Over the course of the series, he develops a genuine interest in Amanda, whom he actually has a good rapport with and seems to regard as a potential romantic partner, rather than just finding her sexually attractive. She dies in the same room as Linda did, right after they admit their feelings to one another, at the hands of Evil!Ash. The implication that not only is Ash still, deep-down, the gentle and caring kid who really wanted to love someone, but that after decades of suffering he might have been able to regain something of that, only to immediately lose it again - possibly because he is ''[[DoomMagnet personally cursed]]'' - is just brutal.
13	* Everything hiker/[[HumbleGoal aspiring dental hygienist]] Heather (and to a lesser extent her friends) go through at the hands of the Deadites With no end to it besides perhaps the most brutal death in the series.
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16	[[folder: Season 2]]
17	* "Home"
18	** The revelation why Ash has spent years drifting from one town to the next: everyone in his hometown thinks he just went crazy in the cabin and killed everyone, dubbing him "Ashy Slashy." It's one thing to be jeered at in a bar, but it also destroyed his relationship with his father (who Ash says turned his back on him). And just to pile on the tragedy, Ash's mother is long dead, so he had no reason to go home until now.
19	** Ruby, of all people, earns this when Ash kills one of her children. They turned on her and needed to be fought, but she's still devastated.
20	* In "The Morgue," the group returns to the homestead and heads up to Ash's room. In the hallway, though, Ash spots Cheryl's door and becomes lost in thought over what happened to her. It takes a moment for him to snap out of it. Also, from the look of the door, it's implied no one's stepped foot in her room since she died.
21	* In "Last Call", Ash and his father finally chew each other out, and it's made clear that Brock is fully convinced that Ash is indeed a psychopath who killed his own sister. Ash is clearly devastated by this. They appear to reconcile when Ash saves Brock from a Deadite... but then he's run over and killed by the possessed Delta before he can even finish apologizing. You also have to feel sorry for the Sheriff's daughter. She clearly didn't relish the idea of stealing Ash's car, unlike the rest of her friends, and yet she's the one who ends up trapped inside it when it gets possessed, and is forced to watch it hunt down and kill her friends, and boyfriend. Especially the latter, with whom she barely has time to exchange "I love you"s before he's killed.
22	* Though it's mostly played for laughs, the montage of Ash bonding with his Delta, including flashbacks from the original movies, combined with the genuine hurt and shock in his voice when he finds out his beloved car is possessed, really tugs the heartstrings.
23	* Baal's relentless MindRape of Ash in "Delusion". What really sells it is that for at least a while, it almost seems like Baal ''isn't'' just toying with him, and that everything Ash thought he knew for the past 30 years was actually all in his head. By the end, Ash submits to Baal's "therapy", allowing himself to become an EmptyShell. Fortunately, the following episode reveals that this isn't the case, and he was just playing along with Baal to get him in the same room as Pablo.
24	* In "Ashy Slashy" both Pablo and Lacey die in trying to defeat Baal. Baal had kidnapped Lacey, had her forcibly possessed by a Deadite and she was put down by Kelly, who laments that Lacey was a good kid. Pablo dies when Baal slices him in half wiith his finger claw during the ceremony. Ash, Kelly, Linda B. and Ruby congratulate him when they send Baal back to the underworld, until he falls down, bisected.
25	* In the promo for episode 9, Ash is shown clearly distraught. Having already lost his sister Cheryl (twice), Shelly, Linda A., Scotty, Annie, Amanda, Heather, his father Brock and Chet (the latter three just in the last few episodes of both seasons) but now losing Lacey and Pablo (The former who was an innocent girl accidentally caught up in the mess and the other his best friend/surrogate son) has clearly taken it's toll and he's now off the deep end.
26	* We just were starting to like Ruby, and she and Ash share some kind words before her demise. Made all the more tragic because after laying down her life to distract her younger self, that younger self finds a way to return to modern times and cause Ash even more trouble.
27	** Made even worse when we find out that Baal was hiding in Pablo's corpse and made Ash think he was hallucinating Pablo being alive. After Ruby sacrifices herself and Ash, Kelly, and the seemingly revived Pablo escape with the book, we get a HopeSpot until Baal slices the skin of Pablo's head off and pulls it from his own like a mask.
28	* The death of lonely, KindheartedCatLover Tanya at the beginning of the season 2 finale.
29	* Although it’s PlayedForLaughs, it can also be genuinely upsetting to see Ash lose his hand once ''again'' after so many years of having a stump. Made even worse when you remember how happy he was after getting it back.
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32	[[folder: Season 3]]
33	* The simple horrified and downcast look on Stanley Gibson's face after realizing what he just read from in the season 3 pilot.
34	* In season 3 episode 7
35	** The Ash clone child Ruby created to usurp Ash as the chosen one emerges from a flesh cocoon, calling her Mother and being told of his mission to trick Brandy. But before he can do that, what does Ruby tell him to do? ''Hacksaw his own hand off to be a perfect copy of Ash.'' The way he immediately obeys her as he's being instructed by his mother, even when he begins crying and sounds genuinely confused at why she would make him do this despite how much it hurts she simply tells him to shake it off.
36	** The massacre of the students at the prom is mostly not played for laughs. Evil Ash murders helpless, terrorized teenagers and successfully frames the real Ash, ruining all the hard work he had to do to clean his reputation.
37	** The episode ends with Brandy dying. And even though she's resurrected in the next episode seeing Ash's reaction is still heartbreaking, truly highlighting the sour, cursed side of his life: getting those he cares about involved.
38	* In season 3 episode 8 seeing victims of the book exiled to the Deadlands, having to run and hide with no apparent end to avoid being killed again and dragged off to something even worse. And then there's Dalton's sacrifice and goodbye to Kelly.
39	* More than one in "The Mettle of Man", the show's GrandFinale:
40	** The Dark Ones have summoned [[BeastOfTheApocalypse Kandar the Destroyer]] to destroy the world, and the gang discovers that the demon outbreaks have gone global. Ash promptly goes into a HeroicBSOD and starts [[DrowningMySorrows getting drunk]] while ranting about how ItSucksToBeTheChosenOne, even sounding on the verge of tears:
41	-->'''Ash''': Oh, great. I've doomed humanity. Yeah, well... not like I didn't tell 'em. Pablo, how may times you heard me say this, huh? Why me?! Who am I?! Nobody. ''Nobody''! Guy from Elk Grove, Michigan. Where the fuck is that? In the middle of jack-shit nowhere, that's where! You know what? I got news for you. I didn't ask for this! You think I want this horse shit? Be covered in blood 24/7? Who the fuck would want ''that''?! Savior, my ass! I'm a... [[FailureHero a goddamn failure]].
42	** [[PapaWolf Ash]] locks [[FamilyofChoice Pablo, Kelly]] and [[LongLostRelative Brandy]] in an evacuating army transport. He says a heartfelt goodbye to his kids before [[ActofTrueLove going off to face Kandar alone]].
43	-->'''Brandy''': Dad, get in.
44	-->'''Ash''': ''(Takes one [[LongLastLook Long Last Look]] at Brandy, Pablo and Kelly before shutting and locking the door)''
45	-->'''Brandy''': No! What are you doing!?
46	-->'''Ash''': My father always said I ran from my fights, Brandy. I'm not running from this one.
47	-->'''Kelly''': Ash, come one. Get in the fucking truck!
48	-->'''Ash''': Kelly, people are going to need a strong leader. Someone they can depend on. Someone they can believe in. That's you. Pablo, you're the "Jefe" now. You save them. ''(Gestures towards civilians)''
49	-->'''Brandy''': You said you wouldn't leave me!
50	-->'''Ash''': I'm doing this for you. I'm doing it for all of you. I've got to finally, for once, own up to who the hell I am.

Context TearJerker / AshVsEvilDead