General
- It's a safe bet that any time a Keaton Henson song starts playing, you should probably have a box of tissues ready. Most notably used in the two season finales with "Corpse Roads" and "You".
Season One
- The first episode shows it's not playing around with the murder of Ken's wife, a PDS sufferer, at the hands of Bill.
- In the finale, Kieren's father finally recalls the day where he discovered Kieren's body after he committed suicide. His subsequent breakdown of having to relive that moment and the obvious love he has for his son is absolutely heart-wrenching.
- In the finale also, the scene in the cave with Kieren and his mother, when Ren seems about to take his life again, and them talking about his suicide.
- The whole first season is really an exploration of not only what it means to be different, but also what suicide does to the people left behind. How does a family even begin to heal from that?
- When Amy finds out how Kieren died. She starts to realise over the course of the conversation that it wasn't from natural causes. So she very quietly asks "How did you croak, Kieren Walker?", and in response he rolls up his sleeves.
- Kieren finding Ricks dead body in from of the garage door. Him screaming at Ricks dad shows the sort of pain and isolation that Kieren must have felt, being gay in a small community. His cries of this being the 'one shot' they had to fix it, to get Rick back, are particularly heart wrenching
- Most of Kieren's early interactions with Jem are this from his POV. its implied that before the rising, Jem almost hero worshipped Kieren, so to now have such a hostile and broken relationship with her clearly causes him a hell of a lot of emotional pain.
- The flash back of Jem finding Kieren rabid in the supermarket. At this point she's a big bad HVF fighter, but she still cannot bring herself to pull the trigger on her big brother. This particular event is one that continues to haunt her, all the way through to season 2
- The funeral.
Season Two
- Simon's backstory with his family. After killing his mother in his untreated state, his father holds deep resentment toward him. When he's finally allowed to go home, there's an evening of strained effort to become a family again before his father finally kicks him out in a fit of grief, in the middle of the night. Even if you dislike Simon, it's hard not to sympathize with his hurt confusion when his father finally turns his grief and anger onto him.
- Jem's PTSD is explored extensively, and we get to see the awful affects that something like that could have on a teenager
- Her being unable to visit the supermarket without having flash backs
- In the last episode, her finally tearfully admitting to Kieren that she really needs some help. Their relationship has been strained over the whole show, not just because of his PDS, but also because he was a good 5 years or so older than her, and now she is older than him so their dynamic has changed. But in this scene, Jemma needs her big brother, and thats what she gets.
- Amy Dyer's full transformation back into a human...after Maxine stabs her in the heart and kills her.
- And for that matter, her second funeral in general. The grief of her friends is juxtaposed with Amy's own special brand of cheer and decoration as they try to honor her memory. It makes for an extremely heartbreaking, extremely moving scene.
- Seeing the full extent of what was done to Simon to get the cure. It starts with us seeing the scar, but it gets so much worse than that.
- His endless hope that he can be cured and sent home to his family is particularly painful as you know its not going to happen, not the way he wants.
- Him deciding he no longer wants to be experimented on, and he asks the scientists to stop. And the scientists ignore him.
