10 Saddest TV Character Exits That Made You Cry
Be warned, getting through this list is going to be hard... that's what she said.
Who doesn't love a good cry? While movies are often known as the tear jerkers in entertainment, when TV makes you cry, it makes you cry hard. Fans invest years of their lives into TV shows, watching the characters grow and develop. Watching them fail, watching them succeed. Laughing with them and laughing at them. That's why it's so difficult when they leave. Often, seeing a member of your favourite cast depart can feel like losing a member of the family.
TV show exits can bring a tear to the eye for a whole range of reasons. Sometimes it’s because the beloved character will be so badly missed, and other times it’s because of the utter devastation they leave behind. In the interests of variety, there’s some deaths, some finales, some Irish goodbyes and some that made you sad for all the right reasons, just to keep you on your toes.
Fair warning, while some of these moments might have an almost sweet, nostaligic feel to them, others are going to hurt like a gut-punch. This is like watching an old home movie of your faithful dog being put to sleep, after all. Make sure you have a Kleenex ready.
10. Jill Tracy - Scrubs
This is the kind of layered emotional impact that Scrubs was so great at.
Jill was a recurring character, slightly annoying in her fun and quirky ways. Like most characters of that ilk, a lot of her best work came either bouncing off JD's enthusiasm or enraging Dr Cox. Prior to her final appearance, she was a known suicide risk, so when she's brought in with no clear cause of death, they assume this attempt was successful and Cox uses her organs on several of his patients. However, they soon find out she in fact died of rabies, as do all but one of the transplant recipients.
Cox is devastated but in a touching reversal of their peer/mentor relationship, JD reassures him it was the right thing to do. Those patients needed organs quickly. If Cox hadn't operated, they'd have died anyway. Then things get really bad.
Cox's final patient, a man who 'could've waited a month for a kidney' dies as well. After resuscitation fails, Cox has a meltdown, destroying everything in the room and slipping into alcoholism. Jill's death plays the tear jerking long game as we see the strong, proud Dr Cox crumble into nothing over and over again.