TV's most devastating scenes: Grey's Anatomy, One Day, Stranger Things and more heartbreaking moments

Every so often, television hits us right in the gut. A moment so powerful, so perfectly played, that it leaves us staring at the screen in disbelief, certain we’ll never be able to watch it again.

These are the scenes that remind us just how deeply TV can get under our skin: the sudden deaths, the quiet goodbyes, and the losses we never saw coming.

Here at Radio Times, we know the pain all too well. So we gathered our writers to relive – reluctantly – the most devastating moments they’ve ever seen on screen, from Stranger Things and Doctor Who to EastEnders and Futurama. Even the hardiest among us were reduced to emotional rubble.

If you’re ready to experience the heartache, read on – but don’t say we didn’t warn you.

TV's 15 saddest scenes ever

1. Sons of Anarchy: Season 5, episode 3 – Laying Pipe

Opie’s Silent Sacrifice

Some deaths are shocking. Some are heartbreaking. And then there’s Opie Winston’s in Sons of Anarchy, a moment that lingers long after the screen goes dark. After the SAMCRO club is thrown into prison, Damon Pope demands a life in retribution for the death of his daughter. When the moment comes, Opie steps forward without a word, sealing his fate.

He turns to Jax and gives him a single, wordless look, a devastating exchange that speaks of brotherhood and inevitability. It's not just a glance, it's a lifetime of loyalty compressed into a silent goodbye. Moments later, Opie is forced into a cage fight and beaten to death with pipes as Jax, Tig and Chibs watch, powerless. The sound of steel meeting flesh fades beneath the grief on Jax’s face, pure, broken disbelief.

Opie’s sacrifice becomes the show’s emotional core, a turning point that shatters Jax’s soul. It’s a devastating reminder that loyalty and love can’t save anyone in the violent world of SAMCRO, making this one of television’s most heartbreaking scenes. Ifra Khan

2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 5, episode 16 – The Body

Buffy finds her mother dead at home

After five years spent fighting demons and saving the world, Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) encounters something she can’t fight when she comes home to find her mother lying dead on the sofa. It’s not the result of a supernatural attack, but something far more distressingly real: a brain aneurism. “Mom?” Buffy says as she approaches the sofa. “Mommy?”

The power of this episode comes both from its heartbreaking performances (Gellar in particular) and its pared-back production. There’s no musical score. No demonic “Big Bad” to conquer. Just long, unbroken camera takes that root us in Buffy’s grief — the episode’s opening four-minute single take is genuinely upsetting in its authenticity, as Buffy tries and fails to revive her mother.

“I really give credit to the whole crew because that was a team effort,” Gellar said of this remarkably adult and unforgettably sad piece of television. Josh Winning

3. This Is Us: Season 2, episode 24 – Super Bowl Sunday

Jack dies saving his family in a house fire

There are not many episodes of Dan Fogelman’s This Is Us that haven't made me cry, but this one, detailing how Jack Pearson (Milo Ventimiglia) dies, had me in floods of tears. You know he’s died, leaving behind his wife Rebecca (Mandy Moore) and their children Kevin, Kate and Randall, ever since season 1, but it’s not exactly clear how until this moment.

What’s even worse is that it could have been prevented. In an awful scene of foreshadowing, two episodes prior to this one, Rebecca asks Jack to remind her to pick up batteries for their smoke detector, but they both forget. When a faulty slow cooker causes a house fire, the Pearsons aren’t alerted as quickly as they would have been, but Jack leaps into action, making sure Rebecca, Kate and Randall are all safe (Kevin wasn’t at home at the time), before going back into the blaze to retrieve their dog.

They all go to the hospital, where Jack suffers a cardiac arrest. When Rebecca is told, she munches into a chocolate bar, completely in denial and refusing to believe it until she sees his lifeless body in the hospital bed – with a heartbreaking performance from Moore. Jack’s devastating loss is felt until the sixth and final season – through flashbacks, his friends’ and family’s grief, and in his flawed, but honourable legacy. Laura Rutkowski

4. EastEnders: 2nd April 2009

A mother-daughter reunion cut short

I will never forget the sound of Samantha Womack’s wailing as Ronnie Mitchell was finally reunited with her long-lost daughter, Danielle Jones, only to have her snatched away cruelly, thanks to a speeding Janine Butcher (Charlie Brooks). Fans had got to know Ronnie’s tragic backstory over the last two years, and recent months were in on the secret that the child she believed dead and had been forced to give up for adoption was actually living on Albert Square and attempting to get to know Ronnie before revealing her identity.

An explosive reveal saw Ronnie convinced Danielle was delusional until the evidence of a locket that she had given her baby before she was taken away saw all confirmed. This long-running storyline had tugged at the heartstrings, but this moment solidified Ronnie as the peak tragic heroine of EastEnders' history and drew out sobs from teenage me at the time as she finally got to be addressed by the word “Mum”. Lewis Knight

5. The Sandman: Season 2, episode 6 – Family Blood

The fate of Orpheus

Love can make one do crazy things – like ignoring all warnings from your dad and aunt and deciding to become immortal in exchange for a one-way ticket to Hell to rescue your dead wife. After failing to save his wife Eurydice from the Underworld, Orpheus – son of Morpheus also known as Dream – literally loses his head. Desperately wanting to join his beloved, he seeks out the Maenads to end his life but instead is forced to live as a talking, singing head.

Unable to face this new reality, he begs Dream to end his misery, a dream (see what I did there?) his father is unwilling to grant. After a few centuries apart, Dream accepts his son will never find happiness on Earth again and grants him reprieve, finally ending years of suffering. Their story proves to be one riddled with both tragedy and redemption – a father-son bond bound by anger, love, regret and ultimately peace, found in the most heartbreaking way possible. Taina Popoola

6. 24: Season 5, episode 12 – Day 5: 6:00pm–7:00pm

Edgar Styles's tragic end

There is no time for sentimentality in 24, proven by the cruel death of Edgar Styles during the fifth season, regarded as one of the show's finest hours (or days). Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) is struck by a terrorist attack. Specifically, nerve gas is inhaled by the air conditioning system and breathed around the building.

Jack Bauer and friends make it to a sealed glass safe room – hooray! But not everyone is safe. Cue an ethereal choir as we spot the beloved-if-bumbling CTU analyst Styles jogging through an empty office. He locks eyes with 24 icon, Chloe O'Brian: "Chloe," he utters. That's the clincher, the piercing moment. His shell-shocked colleague can only mouth his name. A single tear rolls down her cheek, before he collapses into a fit.

The famous "silent clock" is used 14 times in the history of the show, all but one instance is accompanied by other noises. Edgar's death is the exception, marked by total, stunning silence. Michael Potts

7. One Day: Episode 14

Emma's death shatters the Mayhews

Even if you’ve read the book or seen the 2011 film, nothing can prepare you for this. After 12 frustrating (but excellent) episodes, our protagonists finally sort themselves out and get together. We then get one episode to see the happy couple, only for one of them to die at the end of it. But it’s the aftermath of Emma’s death that is the most heartbreaking part, as Dexter and his father try and navigate their painful new realities without their wives.

The once welcoming Mayhew family home is grey and cold without Emma’s wit and Alison’s warmth, and flashbacks to the cosy Christmas scenes from a decade before highlight the men’s inescapable grief and debilitating emptiness. Although some comfort could be found in the father and son’s shared experience, Emma being snatched away from Dexter feels somehow more cruel here, and the scene of him crying in bed is a puncture to the heart. Alex Berry

8. Grey's Anatomy: Season 2, episode 7 – Losing My Religion

Izzie and Denny’s final moments together

At the end of the second season of veteran medical drama Grey’s Anatomy, Izzie (Katherine Heigl) has fallen hard for a patient, Denny Duquette Jr (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who requires a heart transplant. The operation is apparently successful, and an equally smitten Denny successfully proposes to Izzie. But as she prepares for a prom, Denny has an unexpected stroke and dies on his own.

In a truly emotional scene, the rest of the team go to Denny’s room, where they find Izzie, in her pink prom dress, lying next to Denny’s body, and refusing to leave. As they try to work out what to do, and to the strains of Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars, Alex (Justin Chambers) reminds Izzie that this isn’t Denny any more, and gently lifts her off the bed, cradling her as she collapses in tears. Floods all round. Gill Crawford

9. Stranger Things: Season 2, episode 8 - Chapter Eight: The Mind Flayer

Bob Newby's death

Stranger Things has delivered more than a few gut-punching, soul-crushing moments (with many more anticipated in its final season) but none have hit harder than the death of dear, sweet Bob Newby. Sean Astin’s character arrived in season 2 as Joyce’s new boyfriend and made a sparkling first impression that endured, right up until the bitter end.

Whatever the ask, nothing was too much for Bob. He’d fix whatever tech problems you were having, help you with your Halloween costume and listen to your problems (without an ounce of judgement) in a single breath. He was the partner Joyce had long deserved, and the dad Will and Jonathan had never had. So when he met a brutal end at the jaws of a demodog while selflessly helping the gang in Hawkins Lab (and right in front of Joyce, I should add), I cursed the Duffer brothers for inflicting yet more heartbreak. But while I’ve long moved on from the others, I’m not quite ready to forgive this one. Abby Robinson

10. Twin Peaks: Season 3, episode 15 – There’s Some Fear in Letting Go

Margaret Lanterman's last scene

David Lynch and Mark Frost’s 2017 return to Twin Peaks resisted easy fan service and trapped its hero, Kyle MacLachlan’s FBI agent Dale Cooper, in a bizarre and frustrating limbo for most of its 18 episodes. Ingeniously for a high-profile reboot, the series’ key theme was that time is irreversible. You simply can’t go back.

Enter Catherine E Coulson, who had known Lynch since the 1970s and played the quirky Margaret Lanterman – known as the “Log Lady” – in Twin Peaks’ original, early-90s run. Her reappearance in The Return is positively funereal: Coulson was dying of cancer when her scenes were shot at her home, her hair short and thin, an oxygen cannula in her nose, yet beautifully framed and made-up for her final performance.

In episode 15, Margaret, her telephone hand trembling, tells Deputy Hawk (Michael Horse) that she’s dying and offers the vital statement, “There’s some fear in letting go.” The simplicity of this brief, quiet scene, with its calm, nocturnal tone, is profoundly affecting. Calum Baker

11. The Royle Family: 2006 special - The Queen of Sheba

A quiet goodbye in The Royle Family

As one of the North West’s great chroniclers, writer Caroline Aherne was seemingly able to peer in at working class front rooms across the region, observing all the faults and failures within, while also finding affection and loyalty. And never was that gift more evident than in The Queen of Sheba, a 2006 special for The Royle Family that focused on the decline of the show’s emotional anchor – Liz Smith’s Nana.

In the episode’s key scene, comedy and tragedy overlap as Barbara (Sue Johnston) styles the white cloud of her mum’s hair in curlers, each saying goodbye to the other without uttering the actual words while Que Sera, Sera plays on the radio. In a series that usually mined humour from mundanity, this interaction feels quietly profound, as daughter and mother appear to switch roles, the former becoming caregiver to the latter to preserve her dignity at life’s end. David Brown

12. Futurama: Season 4, episode 7 – Jurassic Bark

Fry’s dog waits forever

Sometimes the impact of a particular storyline depends on timing as much as execution. Such was the case when, as a 19-year-old living hundreds of miles from home for the first time, I fatefully stuck on Futurama’s gut-punch episode Jurassic Bark.

The plot revolves around man-out-of-time Fry (Billy West) discovering the fossilised remains of Seymour; his pet dog from the 20th century. Having accidentally frozen himself and woken up a millennium later, it leads him to ponder what might have happened to this affectionate stray that he had once taken under his wing. Fry comfortingly assumes that Seymour would have found a new owner to adore, and lived a full and happy life – but we, for our sins, know otherwise. In a sadistic twist, we find out that a lovesick Seymour waited in the cold and rain outside of Fry’s pizza parlour until his death years later; forever hoping for his master’s return.

My own childhood dog looked a bit like Seymour and (according to my parents) had been spotted lingering around my own vacant bedroom after I moved away. Is it any surprise, then, that this scene broke me? Futurama’s (shameful!) writers reframe Seymour’s fate favourably in later storyline Bender’s Big Score, which goes some way to healing the hurt. Nevertheless, Jurassic Bark remains an episode I generally skirt past on every rewatch. David Craig

13. Doctor Who: Season 19 - Earthshock

The Death of Adric

Such was Delia Derbyshire’s genius that as ominous as the Doctor Who theme tune sounded at the beginning of an episode, it was solace at the end. When Adric died at the end of Earthshock, there was no solace. Not the first of the Doctor’s companions to die but such was the enormity of the loss, the end credits rolled in silence.

It’s not like I didn’t know about death before March 16, 1982 - I vaguely remember John Lennon being shot – but I’d never gone to a fancy dress party as the Beatle. For all the peril of Doctor Who, it’s very rare for companions to die - and even those that do, don’t. While I’d never watch it again, I'm grateful for Adric’s death because the moral of the story – not everyone gets a happy ending – meant I was prepared when real life started schooling me with the same lesson. Gareth McLean

14. The West Wing: Season 2, episode 21/22 – 8th and Potomac/Two Cathedrals

Delores Landingham dies in a car crash

Over seven, era-defining seasons between 1999 and 2006, Aaron Sorkin wrote many memorable scenes, as viewers followed the politics and personal lives of Democrat US President Bartlett and his staff. But the off-screen death of Bartlett’s longtime PA, Delores Landingham (Kathryn Joosten), still holds as an epic heartbreaker.

She had established herself as a no-nonsense mother-figure and conscience for the president, as well as a fierce gatekeeper to his office. It’s not a surprise when he persuades her to buy a new car, but the bombshell for him and us is when she is killed in a crash on her way home from the showroom.

During the following episode (the season finale) the president recalls occasions in his past with her while deciding about standing for re-election and going public with his MS. It’s one of The West Wing's best episodes and has been lauded as one of the greatest television episodes of all time – and it all hangs on a blunt, humble woman and her ill-fated car journey. Tom Folley

15. Angel: Season 1, episode 9 – Hero

Doyle's final act

Angel episode Hero sees half-demon loner Doyle (Glenn Quinn) make the ultimate sacrifice in one of the series’ most memorable and emotional moments. Throughout the show’s early episodes, Doyle serves as Angel’s (David Boreanaz) unlikely ally and moral compass, a flawed but good-hearted messenger burdened with painful visions from the Powers That Be.

When a group of human-demon hybrids faces extermination, Angel prepares to give up his own life to save them – but Doyle intervenes, revealing his true courage by taking Angel’s place, a selfless act which redeems his past mistakes and cements his legacy as a true hero.

In the heartbreaking aftermath, Angel and Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) watch a light-hearted commercial Doyle had filmed for their detective agency, his final line – “Is that it? Am I done?” – now carrying tragic weight. Glenn Quinn’s real-life death in 2002, aged just 32, renders the episode even more poignant. Morgan Jeffery

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