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Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: HBO, Disney, Netflix, FX
Come, weepers! Come, sobbers! Come, ugly-ass criers! You are all welcome here at our annual countdown of the scripted TV moments that undid us emotionally in 2025. Our tear ducts definitely got a workout this year, as television offered up a bounty of gut-wrenching, sob-inducing moments. There were major character deaths and thwarted happy endings and a devastating breakdown against a backdrop of cartoon forest animals. Are you ready to relive all these weepy moments and more? Ready to let television stir the deepest part of your soul? Ready to slide down a door while crying out that it’s all just too damn much? Cool, me too. Below, find the ten moments from the 2025 TV season that we’re still crying over.
Forever, “Forever …”
Photo: Netflix
Justin and Keisha actually break up about halfway through Forever’s finale, and while it’s certainly upsetting, it’s both inevitable and refreshing to watch two 18-year-olds come to the wildly mature conclusion they need to let each other go so that both of them can figure out who they are and what they want. But this is by no means the most emotional moment of the episode. That gut-wrenching honor is saved for later when they meet up one more time at the end of the episode to say good-bye before Keisha leaves for Howard while Justin stays in L.A. to pursue music. There’s no awkwardness, just two people who love and care about each other, who are grateful for what the other gave them. Their final moment together is dripping with bittersweetness. As Frank Ocean’s cover of “Moon River” kicks in, there’s nothing more for these two to say, so instead they take each other in one last time; there’s sadness and longing in their expressions, and also an undeniable feeling of hope that they might find each other again someday. But until then, they have to walk away.
Photo: ABC
There we were, innocently thinking 9-1-1 is an insane procedural about bee tornadoes and cops in space, when along comes the surprise death of a main character to leave you drowning in a puddle of your own tears. When Angela Bassett cries, I cry, this is just a rule to live by. Part of that reaction comes down to shock — both that the show would actually kill off Peter Krause’s Bobby Nash, arguably the lead of the ensemble, and at the reveal that Bobby knew the whole time that he was infected with the virus they were called in to contain, but kept quiet so that Chimney, also infected, would get the only dose of the antidote. The other reason this hits so hard? Krause and Bassett are 9-1-1’s mom and dad, so from the moment Bobby says, “I want some time alone with my wife,” you know we are in for it. He tells Athena he loves her, that he would choose her if he could, and then proceeds to bleed out right in front of her. He wants her to go, but she refuses to leave his side until it’s over.
Photo: HBO
There’s nothing like a catharsis cry, and that’s exactly what Task serves up in its final montage of what befalls both Tom Brandis and Maeve Prendergast once the Dark Hearts case is wrapped up for good (for now). In the end, Tom, who has taken in Sam, the young boy who accidentally stumbled into Robbie’s revenge tour on the Dark Hearts, must let his foster son go. It’s bittersweet to watch Tom “be unselfish” with his love, knowing that giving up Sam is ultimately the best thing for a boy who needs — deserves — stability that Tom can’t give at the moment. (That shot of Emily helping Sam button up his shirt before meeting his new family? Makes me sob every single time.) But forgiving his own son and letting Sam into his heart has offered Tom a fresh start. He seems somehow lighter at the end of all this — isn’t Mark Ruffalo so good at his job?
But Tom is not the only one given this ending. Maeve, too, makes an unselfish act by taking her young cousins into her care and giving them a new life somewhere else. Moving out of that house is the only way forward, but Maeve also makes sure not to dismiss what happened there — she still wants to honor her late father and uncle. For a show as bleak and depressing as Task is for most of its seven episodes, having it end on such a note of overwhelming hopefulness is a welcome and moving surprise.
Photo: Netflix
Honestly, when are you not crying while watching Adolescence? Its one-take formula is made to break you — there are no breathers, the intensity simply keeps building to its apex. This is especially true in the final episode, as we watch Jamie’s parents, Eddie and Manda, and his sister, Lisa, attempt and repeatedly fail to make Eddie’s birthday a celebratory one, even after they wake up to a slur spray-painted on the side of his van. It feels almost in reach until Jamie calls and informs his family that he’s changing his plea to guilty. The dam of emotion Eddie has been holding in bursts, and upstairs in their bedroom, Eddie and Manda have a teary, honest conversation about how they should’ve done better with their son. It feels like the first time they are admitting to the enormous guilt they’ve been internally grappling with. “We made him,” Manda says more than once. They made every part of him, and to have any shot at moving forward, they have to own it.
Photo: AppleTV
Severance has the most complicated and most heartbreaking love triangle on television. With four people and only three bodies, will anyone come out of this thing with even the tiniest bit of a happy ending? Sure, you can’t fault Innie Mark for choosing to stay with Helly and, you know, continue existing, but the implications of that choice are absolutely devastating for Outie Mark and Gemma. For two years, he’s been mourning her “death” and she’s had her brain severed 25 times. Mark’s plan to go rescue his wife is so risky and so insane and so fucking triumphant that it is impossible not to burst into tears the moment Gemma steps out of the Cold Harbor room and returns to her old self, recognizing her husband standing in front of her. Finally, Outie Mark and Gemma are reunited, and the mix of joy and relief and love on Adam Scott and Dichen Lachman’s faces as their characters take each other in wallops you. Mark and Gemma’s elevator ride might be the biggest emotional whiplash on television this year: One second you are crying tears of joy as Mark finally gets to kiss his wife again, and then you get punched in the gut in a whole new way when they reach the severed floor and return to Innie Mark and Miss Casey. It’s a real “Didn’t we almost have it all?” moment, and I would like it severed from my brain immediately.
Andor, “Welcome to the Rebellion”
Photo: Disney+
Andor uses the fact that it’s a prequel to Rogue One to its advantage several times throughout its two-season run, but never does that fact deliver a more emotional blow than when Bix sacrifices her romance with Cassian for the good of the Rebellion. Cassian is ready to leave the war against the Empire behind for a quiet, happy life with Bix, but she refuses to let him choose her over that fight, so she secretly leaves the rebel base, and Cassian, in the middle of the night. When he finds her good-bye video the next morning, she’s already long gone, despite his desperate run out to the ships to see if he can catch her. (Diego Luna’s face here — kill me.) Now, this would all be heartbreaking on its own — especially when paired with Brandon Roberts’s gorgeous scoring of this scene — but the waterworks really start to flow when Bix promises Cassian that once they win this war, she will find him and they can live the life they want together. Her hope is devastating because we know that none of this will ever happen, that Cassian is destined to sacrifice his life for the rebellion. We know that they will never see each other again. Fuck you, Rogue One!
The Last of Us, “Through the Valley”
Photo: HBO
Unless you stayed off the internet for the two years in between seasons one and two of The Last of Us, you likely already knew that Pedro Pascal’s Joel was living on borrowed time. Abby’s brutal, fatal revenge on Joel for murdering her father to save Ellie back in season one was hardly a surprise, and yet that doesn’t blunt the emotional impact. The entire sequence is hard to watch, not only because the sheer level of violence is a shock to the system, but also because of how devastating it is to see Ellie, who tries so hard to act older than she is, shed that veneer and become instantly childlike. She knows he’s dead, but this doesn’t stop her from crawling over to him in tears to hold his hand one last time, just a kid begging the only father she’s ever known to live. Bella Ramsey sells the hell out of this moment, and the scene only becomes more potent on rewatch since by the end of the season we learn that when Ellie told Jesse at the beginning of this episode that she and Joel will be just fine, she really meant it — they were on the precipice of healing what was broken between them. She left for that patrol feeling hopeful, she returned from it forever changed.
Upload, “Mile End”
Photo: Prime
Upload has absolutely zero business going this hard. Yet this silly rom-com — about a dead guy named Nathan whose consciousness is uploaded to a swanky virtual afterlife where he falls in love with customer-service rep Nora — wraps up its final season with an episode that goes so hard I did, admittedly, ugly-cry just thinking about it hours after watching. Nathan and Nora have already had to fight for their happily-ever-after through developments including, but not limited to, getting downloaded into the clone body his clingy ex grew for him, and getting kidnapped by evil billionaires who upload him over 100 times while running evil billionaire experiments on him. And just when they’re finally reunited, they realize that Nathan’s brain will never recover and he’s dying — there’s nothing they can do to stop it. They’ll never get a lifetime of happiness together, but they do have a few hours. Nora gets Nathan home and they lie in bed, where she uses her VR goggles to take him to Montreal, the place they planned to run off to together. They watch the sunset while Nathan tells Nora happy birthday and good morning and asks what she wants for dinner — all the little conversations they’ll never get to have. And then he tells her how happy she made him, that she was the love of his life, “this one. And the next one and the one after that …” and then he’s gone. In the real world, she takes off their goggles and holds him just a little bit longer. And now I’m crying again. Like I said, Upload goes hard.
Photo: HBO
Half of this list could be filled with scenes from The Pitt even though the medical series generally prioritizes authenticity over sentimentality. Maybe that’s the reason its most emotional moments hit so hard — it all feels so real. This is especially true of Noah Wyle’s performance as Dr. Robby, our stalwart leader, the calming voice in the shitstorm that is this season-long shift. It’s honestly a miracle the guy goes 13 hours before breaking down. You know it’s coming, too, as Robby, already attempting to compartmentalize his PTSD, collects one loss after another in the wake of the Pitt Fest shooting. But it’s his inability to save Jake’s girlfriend that finally does him in. Robby holds back tears as he tries to explain himself to his ex’s son, he sobs as he rattles off a list of people we’ve watched die throughout the season, and finally he erupts, kicking Jake out so he can be alone, weeping on the floor of that pediatric room turned morgue. The desperation as Robby falls apart is agonizing to watch, and yet there is some sense of relief, too, that this guy who has been trying to hold it all together for his team and for his patients is finally allowing himself to feel the full devastation of the shift from hell.
Dying for Sex, “It’s Not That Serious”
Photo: Hulu
Well, it’s right there in the title: This is a series about death. But Dying for Sex is much more than a solemn march as Molly’s terminal cancer takes her life, and two of its most magical elements, the ones that elevate it beyond some schmaltzy weepfest, really get to shine in the finale. First, there’s the pitch-perfect blend of comedy and tragedy. You will be crying for this entire episode — yes, even during the flying-penis bit — but you’ll be laughing, too. Laughing through tears, there’s really nothing like it. The second, of course, is the gorgeous friendship between Molly and Nikki, which anchors the show thanks to two fierce performances from Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate. When it gets to the end, Nikki and Molly, who has been in hospice and is in so much pain she asks to be sedated, go into it knowing this will be the last conversation they’ll ever have. As Molly drifts off, Nikki tells her that she’s grateful, that she’s proud of her, that she loves her. Molly takes one last look at her best friend and says good-bye with a simple yet deeply rooted truth: “You were my favorite person in the whole wide world.” Molly may finally be free of pain, but the rest of us are left as crumpled-up disaster zones on the couch, attempting to wipe away the seemingly never-ending snot and tears spewing from our faces before making a much-needed call to our best friends.
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Maggie Fremont
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