12 Emotional TV Moments That Made Us All Cry In 2013

12. The Office - Michael Returns

I'll admit that as much as I love Steve Carell, I was never a huge fan of Michael Scott. But despite that it's hard not to admit that the writers and especially Carell pulled this off beautifully... even if it was at our own emotional expense. It's natural for show writers to want to do something big for their series finale, and it's also natural for them to want to do something big for their 200th episode. When the two happen to coincide, as did this finale, one might think they'd do something HUGE, and that's exactly what happened. It wasn't just the one year flash forward or the incredibly emotional last round of interviews or Jim and Pam moving to Texas or Dwight and Angela's wedding. The big surprise was that it was announced not long before the episode finished production by the show runners and Carell himself that he would absolutely, unequivocally, 100% NOT appear in the show's swan song. This led to a fan onslaught of anger and online petitions and one of the highest rated episodes of the series, if not the very highest, and the big reveal during the wedding that the whole thing was all one last laugh when Michael showed up to stand by Dwight's side as his best man. When called upon this in the show's post-mortem, Carell basically said, "Yeah, I lied. Sorry." Is it possible to be angry and crying and happy and laughing at the same time, or would your head explode? The Office finale basically put that to rest.