Tear Jerker / Wooden Overcoats

• This moment from "Georgina and the Waves," which is one of the few moments one might genuinely feel sorry for Rudyard.
  Antigone: Look, just give up, Rudyard, for God's sake!
  Rudyard: Give up?
  Antigone: That man over there is Eric Chapman, and he'll always be Eric Chapman.
  Rudyard: What's that supposed to mean?
  Antigone: It doesn't mean anything, it's just a fact!
  Rudyard: No, no, come on, what are you saying?
  Antigone: Nothing!
  Rudyard: Antigone, what are you saying—
  Antigone: YOU'RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH!
  [Several beats of Stunned Silence.]
  Antigone: We're not good enough. He... Look at him. He's throwing a party on a yacht... with a fireworks display! We're just not... good enough, Rudyard.
  [Several more beats of silence.]
  Rudyard: He might always be Eric Chapman. But I'll always be Rudyard Funn. And I've got to keep going until Rudyard Funn is a better person to be than Eric Chapman.
• While chatting with the local village hoodlums, Antigone admits she's never really felt happy in the general, existential sense, and describes happiness as something she's always been just on the outside of—she can see it, understands what it is, but she can never quite reach it herself, and is stuck on the sidelines watching everyone else enjoy their lives. It's actually a remarkably accurate and poignant summary of depression coming from such a silly show.
• On that note, her story about the last time she went out (aside from her trips to the cinema) before the series began: the school dance when she was eighteen. Rudyard didn't want to go, forcing Antigone to go by herself... meaning that she had absolutely no one to hang out with or even chat with, and she was too afraid to approach anyone. No one asked her to dance, or even seemed to notice she was there, and she was too afraid to draw any attention to herself to leave early, meaning she sat on the side of the room all night long, watching her classmates have fun while she was utterly miserable. When it finally ended and she went home, she locked herself in the mortuary, and, by her own description, didn't come out for seventeen years.
• When Georgie temporarily quits in Season Two, Antigone and Rudyard are crushed. Rudyard even sounds like he's about to cry during a couple lines.
• So much of "Flip Flap Flop" is Cringe Comedy, but when Rudyard gives his speech, it just becomes really sad. Rudyard is genuinely trying his best to impress all these people, and he's floundering, even with Georgie encouraging him. It's really disheartening to hear Rudyard, who's normally completely full of himself, sound so unsure and nervous. Frankly, he sounds a lot more like Antigone than himself.
• When "Rudyard Makes a Friend" isn't being creepy as hell, it's being deeply depressing. Rudyard befriends Jerry, and expresses almost childlike joy at having someone who wants to hang out with him. His quiet disbelief when Jerry first calls him his friend is equally sad. And in the end, his new friend turns out to be a homicidal lunatic who wants to kill Eric, and is perfectly willing to kill everyone else... including Rudyard.
• From the same episode, Rudyard telling Jerry that if he wants to kill Eric, he has to kill him, too.
• In "Undertakers Underground," Antigone tells a story from her childhood. As a birthday treat, her parents made plans to bring her and Rudyard to the circus. Rudyard didn't want to go, but Antigone looked forward to it for weeks... except, when the big night came, she couldn't actually get excited or enjoy herself, despite it being something she'd really wanted to do. Antigone's depression is played for Black Comedy a lot, but anyone who's actually suffered from it probably knows how she feels. The story seems to end on a happy note, when Antigone reveals that a certain clown at the end of the act finally managed to make her laugh and genuinely feel happy, but she then reveals that she felt jealous of the performer's ability to get up onstage and let loose, not caring how foolish she looked. She then admits that as a kid, she'd actually wanted to become a clown herself, but was discouraged by her family.
• Rudyard cycling through the Five Stages of Grief when he thinks Antigone and Eric died in the mine collapse is Played for Laughs, but it's really sad to see Rudyard so crushed, thinking his twin sister is dead and it's his fault.
• When the clown Antigone loved so much, Bijou, unexpectedly passes away. While the absurdity of the situation (she died in a Clown Car crash with 39 other clowns) is Played for Laughs, it's clear Antigone is deeply saddened, and is desperate to take on the funeral as a tribute to her hero.
• The end of the Season Three premiere, when Rudyard has realized that a wealthy, important client was really just using them to annoy Eric. He comes home, utterly miserable, and sounds outright crushed when he has to tell Antigone they lost the client. It's especially sad because this misfortune, for once, really wasn't Rudyard's fault at all.
• While funny and perhaps unsurprising, it's still pretty sad that Rudyard was always bullied by his peers as a child. Part of the reason he gets on with Calliope is because she, too, is a weird, morbid kid with a peculiar name, and you can tell that hearing her get teased genuinely upsets Rudyard.
• The ending of "The Sunshine Treatment." Georgie's beloved Nana dies while Georgie's at work. The episode ends with a stunned, heartbroken Georgie standing outside in shock, and Rudyard, unaware of what's happened, coming out calling for her. He runs up to her, and immediately, his tone shifts as he realizes something is really, truly wrong. We can only imagine what the look on her face must have been, but it's enough to get Rudyard to completely drop all us usual bluster. The episode then ends with the sounds of the village quietly fading out before we get the credits.
  Rudyard: ...Georgie?
• "Putting the Funn in Funerals":
  • In general, it's clear that Antigone and Rudyard know their friend is suffering and want to help, but have no idea how.
  • Mayor Desmond reveals that his own sister passed away a couple years ago, and admits she likely wouldn't have come to his and Nigel's wedding due to her "traditional" views. It adds a new, sadder layer to him, as you suddenly realize there might be a reason why he didn't find true love until much later in life.
  • In the flashbacks, of Georgie and Nana's talk of travelling the world together is very hard to listen to when you realize Piffling Vale was the last place Nana would ever travel to.
  • Georgie insists on working and later takes a nap at the church instead of going home, because she can't bear to face the empty house.
  • One of Georgie's flashbacks to a conversation with her Nana suddenly crashes back into the present day, as she desperately screams at an empty room, asking why she didn't ever take a moment to tell Nana how much she adored her, and how much she meant to her. And now, despite having had countless chances over the years, she'll never get to tell her. And then Georgie Crusoe, the unflappable, snarky Only Sane Man we've all come to love, breaks down in tears, only being able to stop when Rudyard and Antigone arrive and comfort her. Whatever the podcast version of an Emmy is, Ciara Baxendale earned one for this scene.
  • The ending is a bittersweet one, as Rudyard, Antigone, Madeleine, and Georgie take flight in a hot air balloon and spread Nana's ashes over the ocean, hoping the winds will carry them around the world. Even though she's still grieving and will always miss Nana, this is when it finally becomes certain that Georgie will be okay. She's finally been able to have the catharsis she needed, and can now let go, and get started on moving on.
    Georgie: (whispering) Goodbye, Nana.