Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)/Tear Jerker

Examples of Tear Jerkers in Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series) include:

• Several moments in the Miniseries.
  • Roslin's reaction to finding out she has breast cancer.
  • The most poignant may be when Adama believes he just lost Lee, his only remaining son. It's too bad EJO hadn't perfected his ship-smashing routine yet.
• Aforesaid ship-smashing after Starbuck's death, especially as she had just gotten him the perfect figurehead hours earlier.
• Adama breaking over Boomer's dead body.
• Adama: "You did it. You brought 'em home, Saul." Tigh: "Not all of them." Gets me everytime.
• Everything that happens after Starbuck dies.
  • Lee's anguish when he watches Kara's Viper explode, right in front of his eyes after he's begged and pleaded with her to pull her bird out of a tailspin so it won't blow up in-atmosphere and she won't die. No wonder the poor guy's mindfrakked...
  • Anders getting blind drunk, standing on a Viper flipping a coin constantly, and then falling off and bursting into tears. Then there's this line:

Anders: "She's still alive, right?" Lee: (Looking on helplessly) "She's gone." Anders: (Bursting into tears) "... I know."

• • The kicker is the aforesaid ship-smashing.
• Caprica-Six's miscarriage.
• Many, many, moments in the Grand Finale:
  • Roslin's reaction to her family's death.
  • The Fleet's final voyage straight into the Sun.
  • Laura's death, Adama burying her, and the last shot before the Distant Finale of him sitting next to her grave talking to her.
    • Not even that. The real tear jerker is when he slips his wedding band on her finger after she dies.
  • "Goodbye Kara, you will not be forgotten."
    • Except she was, wasn't she? Because they abandoned all their technology and their history was lost with the ages.
  • The final episode not only shows Gauis Baltar finally growing a spine but also serves to humanize his motivations significantly.

To Caprica-Six on prehistoric earth while planning a new and simpler life:"You know, I know about farming. *breaks down crying*" Five years earlier just before unknowingly dooming most of humanity to death:"The things men do for love."

• • • To explain: Gauis was a poor farm-boy from a backwater colony before changing himself completely to be respected as a scientist and spent the rest of his days trying to forget who he originally was. The only reminder of his humble beginnings was his senile father whom he was ashamed of. Cue a beautiful woman who is not just another bimbo for Gaius to play his erudite playboy shtick on- but a genuine lover. She helps him gain something resembling peace with his father and he admits he loves her with the latter quote before giving her state secrets to help her gain success in her "company." Forward a couple months to the start of the series and his life is shattered and his love dead- but not before revealing she is a Cylon and he inadvertently responsible for the deaths of 50 billion people.
  • Chief Tyrol choosing to live out the rest of his life alone on an abandoned island after finally arriving on our earth. Understandable, considering the half dozen Break the Cutie scenarios he went through.

"I've had enough of people, humans or cylons."

• At the end of "Scar," Starbuck reciting the names of all of the dead pilots that she can remember, and slowing down the further back she gets, unable to remember everyone's names and looking like she's about to completely collapse in tears as she does so.
• Baltars heartfelt promise to Gina-Six (who has been constantly tortured, humiliated and raped to the point of catatonia for the last few months) that he will help her escape.
  • He makes good on it but, being Baltar, fucks it up a couple episodes latter by offering her sex (the last thing she needs) instead of emotional support. Her subsequent suicide via atom bomb is another tear-jerker.

• The first episode of the new Battlestar Galactica - "33" - has a tear jerking scene right after the opening credits when ALL of the grief-stricken, sleep-deprived Galactica pilots take a moment to touch the picture of a fellow soldier who was watching the destruction of his home world. If you listen very carefully, you can hear most of the pilots say something along the lines of "Never forget". Later on, President Laura Roslin breaks down after learning that a baby was born during the chaos of the multiple jumps through space, and updates the running survivor count accordingly.
  • The scene in "Maelstrom" where Kara "dies", her ship blows up, Saul frackin' Tigh, of all people, cries over her, and then Bill Adama breaks down in his quarters and smashes his model ship.
  • Doubly so because that was genuine anger on the part of Edward James Olmos, who plays Adama, and who had not been told that Starbuck would return. That model ship he smashed? That was an improvisation - the ship wasn't a prop, it was a museum piece being loaned to the production team...
    • Adama looking through some of his effects. He finds an old birthday card from Kara in which she confesses that she always thought of him as a father, and includes a photo of herself on which she's drawn a moustache like he used to have, asking if he sees the resemblance. A moment both hilarious, and yet shockingly sad.
  • Callie's death scene. The fact that its at the very end of an episode where she's become an emotional wreck and has just discovered her husband Galen is a Cylon and she's broken down and shattered into a million mental pieces just makes it all the worse.
    • Consider the fact that she just trusted Tory, one of the secret Cylons along with Galen and got backhanded for it. It's more than likely that she died thinking her husband was complicit in it.
  • Let's face it, Tear Jerker moments are a Once an Episode deal with Battlestar Galactica. The start of season 2 when Chief Tyrol is shocked at the loss of a life during a short mission he was leading

Callie: Talk to me you mother-frakker! Chief: Mother-frakker? (they both laugh and Callie breaks down)

• • • The term "frak" has often been a source of Narm in the show. To be able to go from narm, to comic relief to heartbreaking in the space of a few seconds as Callie just gets overwhelmed by the shock of her situation... it makes me well up just thinking about it. It's brilliant writing.
  • Whenever Edward James Olmos sheds tears,. Especially in Resurrection Ship 1, during the "I can't see you as a blonde." conversation. When he turns around after Roslin calls after him, subtly wiping his eyes...
  • Then "Notion", at the start of season 4.5, has has Dualla's sudden, shocking suicide, and the fallout resulting from it.
    • Agreed on this one. From the beginning of the episode it looked like she was in trouble but her date with Lee had the appearance of walking her back from the brink. Made the eventual suicide, especially the matter of fact way she did it,seem much more heartbreaking.
    • And earlier in that episode, when Roslin gets out of the Raptor, looks at the anticipatory faces of the people in the bay, and she's too heartbroken to even speak.
  • Peggy! Nooooo!! Way to go, Lee, you fat moron.
• For me, it was Gaeta's Lament from "Guess What's Coming to Dinner?" Gaeta had to have his leg amputated and so, whenever he feels pain and can't take it, he starts to sing. Here's the song (sung like an opera)

Alone she sleeps in the shirt of man With my three wishes clutched in her hand. The first that she be spared the pain That comes from a dark and laughing rain. When she finds love may it always stay true This I beg for the second wish I made too. But wish no more My life you can take To have her please just one day wake To have her please just one day wake

• • Part of the reason that song was so damned effective was that it was performed live on the set, as part of the acting. (Apparently it had people trying not to cry on-set.) Alessandro Juliani is really singing it there, as you see him. Also, the version on the Season 4 soundtrack is *gorgeous*, presented first a cappella, then with strings and drums--it's worth a listen by itself.
• In something usually missed by many fans of the show, in the episode The Oath Laird, the deck chief's death. Let's put this in perspective, Peter Laird was on a tiny freighter with his family when the Cylons destroyed the Twelve Colonies. He survives on the ship until they meet up with Battlestar Pegasus who then conscripts him and kills his entire family, he serves on Pegasus until its destruction at New Caprica, then becomes deck chief on Galactica. When the mutiny begins, he is beaten to death by Tom Zarek so he can escape to Colonial One, nobody even mourning or remembering him afterwards.
• What about this Tearjerker/Nightmare Fuel: Razor Flashbacks Episode 3, when the Columbia is destroyed. The last dying screams of the crew...
• In the series finale (Daybreak Part 2), when Bill Adama and Laura Roslin are in a Raptor flying over their new home, talking about their plans, Roslin quietly, peacefully passes away in the passenger seat right next to him, leaving Bill all alone.
  • • When Adama is carrying the dying Roslin to a Raptor, and continued during Adama's farewell to his son, Lee and Kara's farewell to Roslin through the Raptor window, Starbuck's disapperance, and finally Roslin's death.
  • In the season finale, Galactica being flown into the sun, while a faint and mournful version of the original series theme tune was playing over the top..
    • The entire series finale is a Tear Jerker, especially the second part from Anders send off to Adama's "it was heavenly, it reminded me of you."
    • Anders' goodbye to Kara: "I'll see you on the other side." accompanied by this Crowning Music of Awesome reprised.
  • Even if you don't much like Baltar, the moment where he and Caprica-Six are going off to start their lives anew together on Earth, he says he saw a field he'd like to cultivate and farm. Baltar was from a farming planet and culture, which he spent most of his life trying to get away from and prove his worth as a scientist. Now, so many years later, he's going to be a farmer. His life has come full circle. He breaks down crying, not really understanding why, and Six comforts him, saying "I know."
• How about in Exodus: Part 1, where the Adamas say goodbye in Galactica's hangar deck? Sure, the Old Man always comes through, but they don't know that. Seeing them both get choked up is too much for me.
• Half-way through the episode Scar, Apollo says he's worried he'll forget the faces of their dead pilots. Starbuck's response is a half-humorous: "I don't even remember their names." Then at the end of the episode she proposes a toast, and lists the dead pilots, one by one. By the end she's in tears. She's not alone.
• And, going back to 33 -- the first sight of the wall.
• Kat's Heroic Sacrifice in "Passage", especially the scene at the end where she's made honorary CAG then Starbuck adds her photo to the wall.
• No mention of Unfinished Business? Oh, god. Not even counting the heartbreaking Tigh flashback, this episode is emotionally crippling to any Kara/Lee shippers as well as probably anyone who's ever been in love and rejected for someone else. Let's see, first up you have the boxing tournament framing device that hints at some MAJOR Unresolved Sexual Tension between Apollo and Starbuck. Then the flashbacks start. Apollo's longing stares at Starbuck at the Founders' Day party. Their drunken hooking up. Their shouting their love on the rooftops (or, well, in the middle of the forest). And we're not even at "heartbreaking" yet - that would be Apollo waking up alone and confused, walking back to the village and discovering that Starbuck just got married that very morning. If you watch it in slow-motion, you can see the exact moment where his heart breaks. Then there's Apollo bitterly settling for Dualla, who it turns out has absolutely no illusions about being a silver medal. Meanwhile, back in the present, Apollo and Starbuck go from viciously pounding on each other to collapsing in each other's arms, tearfully admitting that they missed each other. Every single second of this episode is a Tear Jerker, doubly so on repeat viewings when you already know what happened.
• The conversation between Baltar and Gaeta before Gaeta gets executed.
• In "Faith", when Roslin starts chatting with a dying cancer patient, you know it's going to end tear-jerkingly. But the dream scene where the patient, Emily, runs across a meadow towards her welcoming, also-dead family... And what makes it all the worse is Roslin watching the scene, in the dream, and just knowing that when she dies too (much later), there will be no crowd waiting for her. That was rough.
• The last conversation between Lee and Starbuck where she tells him she needs to go but doesn't know where and asks him what he plans to do. He looks away for a second and when he looks back, she's disappeared. Kara has earned her rest with Anders.

Lee: Goodbye Kara, you won't be forgotten.