Tear Jerker / Firefly

For moments from Serenity (2005), see here.

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Firefly:

• "Serenity"
  • When Mal realizes that the spaceships he heard are not the the ones he had hoped for the camera zooms in on his face while sad cello music plays. It's not a Tear Jerker the first time around, but after watching the whole series and the movie, you will realize that the man's faith and optimism are being torn brutally from him.
  • Shortly before that you see Mal kiss a cross he keeps around his neck, it really hammers in how much it crushed Mal to lose the war, considering his usual reaction to other peoples' faith.
  • Moreso if you take into account a Deleted Scene. Mal was just a sergeant in charge of a few dozen soldiers. During the Battle of Serenity Valley, all the officers had been killed along with hundreds of soldiers; only Zoe was left from his original unit. Mal rose up to keep everyone going and had over two thousand following him. Until the fighting stopped while top leadership was negotiating the surrender of the Independents. Over the next week, only 150 survived the disease and starvation from lack of medical supplies and food. And that's when the ships came over the horizon.
  • Let's not forget Mal, Kaylee, Simon and the big sad violin... at least the first time you watch it. Until it cuts to half the crew dying of laughter. ("That man is psychotic!")
  • River's entire introduction in the Pilot. Up until this point Simon has been cold and aloof, but you can see his heart breaking as his sister wakes up disoriented and screaming.
  Simon: [about River's coded letter] It just said, "They're hurting us. Get me out." Kudos to Sean Maher and his delivery throughout this scene.
  • River's youth is also emphasized in Simon's story: she was going to a school in the hopes of being challenged, and she got tortured and broken for it, as a child.
  Simon: She wanted to go. She wanted to learn... (with quiet sadness) She was fourteen...
  • Simon readily admitting that his money was what saved River, before appending "...and luck". The look on his face and the tone of his voice suddenly remind you that trauma surgeon or not, he's not much older than his sister and has put himself in a position where he's nearly as lost and confused and helpless as she is.
• Any time River's time at the Academy comes up.

  Simon: They opened up her skull and they cut into her brain (...) They did it over, and over.

  • Adding to that, the scene in "The Train Job" where River wakes up, panics, looks around the ship's infirmary in confusion, gets deeply saddened Puppy-Dog Eyes, and whispers "This isn't home." in this broken little child's voice. It's a tiny thing, but the look of loss and pain on her face is so profound.
• The scene in "Safe" where River tries talking to Simon, and breaks down.
  River: I took you away from there. I know you don't think I did, but...I get confused. I remember everything. I remember too much, and...some of it's made up, and some of it can't be quantified, and...there's secrets.... But I understand. You gave up everything you had to find me.....and you found me broken. It's hard for you.... (beginning to weep helplessly) You gave up everything you had....
  Simon: "Mei-mei. Everything I have is right here."
  • Made all the worse when River succumbs completely to delusion and tearfully assures Simon that their father (who it's implied was more concerned for his social standing than River) will come for them and that she'll get better.
    • It becomes better if you think that River was not talking about their actual father, but rather about Mal. (Her new brain patterns use metaphor a lot more than literal fact.)
    • And it gets worse when you remember that Simon absolutely thought she was talking about their biological father- the father he knows abandoned them both at the drop of a hat. Simon's smiling adorably when River pops a berry into his mouth, but his expression crumples a second later when River thinks their dad will come bring them home. The pain is still very raw for him; he turns away and can't bear to respond.
  • One really hard-hitting part is when River tries to assure Simon that she will get better....but after seeing her breakdown in "War Stories" you realize that River doesn't believe she'll get better. And she's just trying to reassure Simon that she will heal, knowing that she can't, and that she blames herself for the way Simon's life was ruined.
  • As well as the moment right before the trope namer for Big Damn Heroes...
    (Simon climbs onto the sacrificial pyre and embraces River)
    Witch-Burning Villager: That's not gonna stop us, Doctor.
    Simon: Light it.
• "Jaynestown". There's just something about Jayne managing to convince himself he did something good and worthwhile, then being bluntly reminded that he's still kinda a bad guy. Plus, everything after the mudder's sacrifice is a legitimate Tear Jerker in its own right.
  Jayne: All of you! You think someone's just gonna drop money on ya, money they could use? There ain't people like that! There's just people like me.
  • "It don't make no sense."
  • During the scene, a sad instrumental version of 'The Hero of Canton' is playing, which on its own would induce tears. It helps if you're a sucker for sad versions of happy songs.
  • Jayne walking over to scold the downed mudder not yet knowing he's dead and trying to get him on his feet. He's so much like a child in that brief moment.
  • I always thought the real tearjerker was that he missed the opportunity for revolution. If Jayne had called on them to revolt, to overthrow the leadership, they would have done it — they would have followed him. The Serenity crew could have taken a share of the loot from the house, and the mudders could have set up a democracy and made life better for everyone, not just the company elite. Instead he screws the whole thing up and destroys any hope for revolt the mudders had.
    • Or they would have been ruthlessly gunned down and bullied back into submission and have ended up working under even worse conditions for having tried to kill their bosses. For all their talk of "standing up to the man" and "giving him the what-for", the whole point is that their hopes are false. They're dirt-poor and untrained laborers on a planet with no infrastructure and no support except through the company that owns it. If The Cavalry exists at all, it's the Alliance and it will roll in to enforce the 'property rights' of the 'productive citizen'. Hoping for money to fall from the sky was the only thing they could do. Mal at this point would never have encouraged that sort of pointless rebelliousness. He knows exactly where it leads.
• "Out of Gas" is an episode in which Serenity suffers a terminal breakdown that destroys her engines and life support. Everybody except Mal has to abandon ship, and he sits alone at the helm of the ship that was the only worthwhile thing left in his life. Waiting to freeze to death.
  • The episode opens with haunting, empty shots of Serenity's interior as she floats lifelessly through space. The chilling wrongness of seeing her so alone truly hits home the fact that Serenity is the show's tenth cast member. For added heartbreak, the sets may very well have looked something like this when the show was canceled.
  • Before Serenity catches fire, the crew were all just about to celebrate Simon's birthday. As he and Inara process their impending doom via suffocation, Simon somberly notes that "...it was my birthday". All Inara can do is hold his hand.
  • Speaking of Inara, she confides that she doesn't want to die at all. Knowing that she suffers from a terminal illness, this line has even greater meaning than at first glance.
• In "Ariel", Mal deduces that Jayne betrayed members of his crew. And must die.
  Jayne: What're you gonna tell the others?... 'Bout why I'm dead...
  Mal (curtly): Hadn't given it much thought.
  Jayne (no longer terrified, just ashamed): Make something up. Don't tell 'em what I did.
  • Followed by a bit of Black Comedy moments later — the brilliant whiplashing effect moments later when Mal seals the airlock, sparing Jayne, and walks away. Jayne, after a few moments of silence, asks if Mal would open the doors to let him in.
  • When Simon scans River and sees what the Feds have done to her. Simon then dumbs it down for Jayne (and us), making it very, very clear how bad it was. It was really, really bad. And it's forever.
• River's scene in "War Stories" where she talks about how much she hates being able to think clearly because she knows it will go away, and then breaks down in Simon's arms.
  • The real power behind that scene is that it establishes just how much of a woobie River is, by showing that she lives in a constant state of quiet despair. The fact that she hates thinking clearly because she knows she can't ever be truly healed just amplifies how painful that scene is to watch.
• The ending to "The Message", where Tracy finally realizes how much of a Jerkass he's been and tries to repent in his last moments, and then his family and the crew are shown gathered around his coffin while he speaks the titular message. The music in this scene is so absolutely powerful.
  • Also, Mal's choked up comment after shooting Tracy, echoing his words at the beginning of the episode.
    "...You've killed me, Sarge."
    "You killed yourself, son. I was just carrying the bullet a while."
  • And then that Goddamn little soldier's poem. "When you can't run... you crawl. And when you can't crawl, when you can't do that..." "You find somebody to carry you."
  • In the special features of the series box set, they actually say (paraphrased) "That music at Tracy's funeral? It wasn't for Tracy as much as it was for the show. We all knew it was going to be over by that point...
    • On that note, in the fan-made documentary Done the Impossible, Adam Baldwin describes when he was told that the show was canceled. He is visibly trying not to cry. This is during the interview, most of four years later, after Serenity (2005). And he still misses the show that much.
  • Small thing but it grows profound in hindsight — Jayne taking off his "cunning hat" when seeing Tracy's body being handed over to his grieving family grows painful to watch when you factor in his closeness to his own family and his earlier talk to Book about how "[his] kind of life don't last long." It's easy to get "there, but for the grace of God..." vibes from his looks, all because Adam Baldwin is just this good an actor.
    • Since you mentioned the hat, the look on Jayne's face when the Alliance agent tells him the hat — you know, the hat his mother back home made and sent him? — is stupid is gut-wrenching.
• Inara in "Heart Of Gold". When she discovers that Mal slept with Nandi, she says to his face that she hopes they both enjoyed themselves (but is also appaled... at Nandi's taste in men). Once she's alone however, she completely breaks down in tears.
• "Objects in Space":
  • River is briefly cogent in and horrified by her own insanity:
  River: I don't belong....dangerous, like you. Can't be controlled, can't be trusted. Everyone can just go on without me and not have to worry. People could be what they wanted to be... could be with the people they wanted... could live simple. No secrets.
  Simon: No.
  River: I'll be fine. I'll be your bounty, Jubal Early, and I'll just fade away.
  • The looks of guilt on the faces of the rest of the crew really pull on the heart-strings.
  • Anything involving River and Simon is going to be either Tear Jerker or Heartwarming Moment or both. Especially when River is saying she'll go with Early so everyone can have a normal life, and you can see the look on Simon's face.
  • That tiny little moment when Simon, upon hearing what the Alliance was trying to do to River, a girl he still thinks of as his goofy, bratty know it all sister, just quietly brokenly says, "She's just a kid, she just wants to be a kid ". It's so easy to forget that he still just sees her as a little girl.
  • Kaylee managed to take things to a whole new level of sad and scary with one line:
  Kaylee: There's... there's nobody can help me.

  • What makes this even more sad is the fact that Mal said in the pilot episode, "I don't believe there is power in the 'verse that can stop Kaylee from being cheerful." Yet there she was. Crying. A superb Break the Cutie moment.
  • And, of course, the ending: Early's line, "Well... here I am." Not too moving... until you realize those are absolutely the final words of the show.

Comics

• The tributes to Wash. Just try reading “Watch How I Soar” or “Warrior and the Wind” without some Kleenex. Especially the what if part of “Watch How I Soar” with Wash and Emma. And when Wash is telling Zoe that if he dies first, she should go on without him, keep him close, but let him go and keep living her life. Followed by some Mood Whiplash when she threatens to strangle him with his shirt and bury him in the lake they’re on.

Other

• In "The R. Tams Sessions," there's a moment where River says that she wants to see her brother. She is very near tears. Her interrogator simply says, "I'm sure he is very busy." And you can almost see this as the moment when River gives up hope as she quietly agrees, "Yes. I'm sure."

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