15 Saddest How I Met Your Mother Episodes

In Bad News, the first part of this double-whammy of emotion, Marshall and Lily try to get pregnant, with each of them worrying they won't be able to. Based on the title and the majority of the episode's tone, it's pretty clear something's going to go wrong, but you can't be blamed for thinking it would be about their future baby.

But it's not. In the show's single most out-of-the-blue reveal, just as things are starting to look up for the couple, Lily tells Marshall that his dad has died after a sudden heart attack. Jason Segel's improvised reaction to the news is as tear-inducing as the show has ever been, but things go up a gear in Last Words, where Marshall gets a voicemail from his dad and breaks down about how much he loved him and how unfair death is.

In both episodes, wet eyes are a guarantee.