All of you were expecting this to be number 1, right? Well, it was damn close to it. In "Jurassic Bark", Fry discovers the fossilised remains of his beloved pet pooch, Seymour Buttz. Throughout the episode the viewers are shown, once again, flashbacks of Fry's happier times with the mongrel hound. It is discovered that there's a way to bring the dog back, memories and all, but at the last moment, Fry refuses. According to the remains, Seymour lived many years after he disappeared and Fry refuses to bring back a dog who had moved on, and would not remember him. In a soul-crushing twist, unbeknownst to him, Seymour had in actual fact waited years for Fry to return before eventually giving up and dying. That is the saddest thing that ever happened in fiction. What prevents it from being number 1 is that the writers had a perfectly serviceable bittersweet ending right there before the twist; the dog would have lived a good full life after he disappeared and Fry would have accepted that, and that would have been a perfect end, a fine conclusion of all the narrative strands. Journey complete. But no, they decided to flip the table and make everyone so horribly horribly sad. It's hard not to resent them for pulling our heartstrings with such ruthless aggression.
