Television is one medium that's excellent at making viewers feel deep emotions. There are plenty of tear-jerking movies out there of course, but the power of a TV show is its ability to let viewers spend more extended amounts of time with the characters. If the writing and acting are great, these fictional people can become deeper, more endearing, and more sympathetic than fictional characters in other more restrictive mediums.

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And when it comes to high-quality TV, few television networks deliver as high a standard as HBO. The nature of serialized television and the output of HBO has led to plenty of emotional TV episodes airing on the network, with the following being some of the most notable times HBO shows had viewers tearing up.

This list will contain spoilers for the shows discussed.

1 'The Last of Us' - "Long Long Time" (2023)

The Last of Us - Episode 3 - Long Long Time - 2023

Three episodes in, and the live-action adaptation of the 2013 game The Last of Us is off to a great start. It's been high-quality television, but also emotionally devastating television, with episode 1 outlining the tragic backstory of the show's protagonist, Joel, and episode 2 featuring a well-liked character sacrificing herself to ensure Joel and the young girl (Ellie) he's escorting cross-country can escape a horde of infected safely.

But it's episode 3 that provides the biggest gut punch yet. In a detour from the game, it centers on the relationship that builds between Bill (a never-better Nick Offerman) and Frank (an equally strong Murray Bartlett). In less than one episode, their love comes across as fully formed and heartwarming to see, which makes their difficult decision to end their lives together near the episode's end all the more heart-wrenching.

2 'Game of Thrones' - "The Rains of Castamere" (2013)

Richard Madden as Rob Stark and Oona Chaplin as Talisa Stark in the red wedding scene in Game of Thrones The Rains of Castamere
Image via HBO

While a few main characters began cheating death during the back half of Game of Thrones, that certainly didn't feel like it happened in the show's earlier seasons. This is made most clear in the penultimate episode of the show's third season, "The Rains of Castamere," as not only do several important characters die abruptly and brutally, the show's most sympathetic House - the Starks - is nearly completely decimated.

As such, no other episode of Game of Thrones so effectively drives home how dangerous and miserable the show's world can be. It's an excellent and genuinely traumatic episode of television, and still feels shocking a decade on from its initial - and game-changing - airing.

3 'Six Feet Under' - "Everyone's Waiting" (2005)

Peter Krause in Six Feet Under
Image via HBO

Given Six Feet Under is a show that deals with death in every episode (the main characters run a funeral home, after all), it's easy to see why it can be pretty heavy-going. Someone dies at the start of every episode, and while it's usually a one-off character, it's sometimes someone that the show's viewers already know and care about.

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The show's legendary finale, "Everyone's Waiting," takes this to a whole new level in its iconic closing montage. There are flash-forwards to the deaths of all remaining characters, with a crushing sense of finality being conveyed through seeing so many fictional people you've come to know meeting their ends. Most live long, relatively happy lives, but it's still devastatingly bittersweet, and likely to move the majority of viewers to tears.

4 'The Leftovers' - "Pilot" (2014)

The Leftovers - Pilot - 2014

The Leftovers is a heavy show throughout much of its three-season run. It presents an interesting take on the idea of a rapture, as it centers on a group of characters left on Earth several years after two percent of the population mysteriously disappeared without a trace and never returned.

It's hard to single out one episode as the most emotional when the entire show deals with grief and loss, but the pilot episode might hit the hardest for introducing the show's premise, and establishing how and why the main characters are struggling. For viewers, it's likely to be The Leftovers' most consistently sad hour.

5 'Band of Brothers' - "Why We Fight" (2001)

Band of Brothers - Why We Fight - 2001

A critically acclaimed miniseries about a company of soldiers during World War Two, Band of Brothers provides a raw and often emotionally brutal look at the European side of the worldwide conflict. Tonally, it's similar to Saving Private Ryan, being a bittersweet look at the horrors of war, and highlighting the sacrifices made by those who fought in it.

Its most emotional episode ends up being set after the fighting is over, with the penultimate episode, "Why We Fight," centering around the characters discovering a part of the Dachau concentration camp, with its prisoners left abandoned there by Nazi soldiers who've fled. For laying bare the horrors of the Final Solution, this episode is a harrowing yet important watch.

6 'Flight of the Conchords' - "Drive By" (2007)

Flight of the Conchords - Drive By

In all honesty, Flight of the Conchords would be a pretty sad TV show if it wasn't so silly and charming all the time. It follows a pair of musicians from New Zealand trying to make it big in America, though they're so cosmically unlucky they never catch a break, and find their situation increasingly worse with every passing episode.

It rarely feels genuinely sad, but it's hard not to feel bad for the duo's long-suffering, dedicated, but ultimately hopeless manager, Murray, when a co-worker he fell for suddenly leaves. His sorrowful ballad - titled "Leggy Blonde" - is kind of silly, but there's also some sincerity to it that's able to make you feel surprisingly bad for the guy's lot in life.

7 'The Sopranos' - "Long Term Parking" (2004)

The Sopranos - Long Term Parking (1)

The Sopranos has a cast that's filled with characters who are usually morally dubious at best, and outright monsters at worst. It can be a very funny show - often darkly - but at its core, it's also deeply disturbing and troubling, as it uses its protagonist - Tony Soprano - to ultimately argue that no matter what, some people may well be hardwired to never change for the better.

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Among all the mobsters and their associates are a small handful of genuinely good people, with Adriana La Cerva likely being the kindest. She was forced into becoming an informant for the FBI though, and the mafia doesn't take kindly to "rats", with "Long Term Parking" seeing Adriana meet a violent, unfair, and heartbreaking end. To call it sad would be an understatement.

8 'Girls' - "Goodbye Tour" (2017)

Girls - Goodbye Tour - 2017

For the most part, Girls is something of a sitcom (with some dramatic elements) about a group of flawed characters living in New York City. The characters aren't exactly great people, and they're not always sympathetic when they run into certain hardships.

It's one reason the show is divisive, but even the detractors of Girls would likely admit the show's penultimate episode, "Goodbye Tour," is pretty sad. The four main characters had been growing apart for some time at that point, and more or less officially call their collective friendship quits in this episode. It's like seeing an inevitable yet sad break-up occur, but twice as many people are involved compared to normal.

9 'Deadwood' - "Advances, None Miraculous" (2005)

Anna Gunn as Martha and Timothy Olyphant as Seth in Deadwood
Image via HBO

Deadwood is a bold take on the Western genre, centering on the titular town and its group of fascinating, morally complex characters. There are few truly good or truly evil characters, but the episode "Advances, None Miraculous" does see one of the town's completely innocent members tragically pass away.

The main character's stepson is trampled by a horse, and unconscious for the episode's duration. It soon becomes clear that no medicine in the town can save him, with the rest of the episode featuring the entire town coming to terms with a child's death. It's very bleak and moving, and does an effective job of highlighting the cruelty of the Old West.

10 'The Wire' - "Clarifications" (2008)

The Wire - Clarifications

The streets of Baltimore as seen in The Wire are a harsh, deadly place. Drug dealers and gang members fight over certain territories, and confrontations can turn deadly at the drop of a hat. But the one guy who seemed to have it figured out was lone wolf Omar Little, who was like Baltimore's Robin Hood; able to steal from all the gangs without getting caught.

However, in the third last episode of the show, he's shot in the head out of nowhere and dies instantly. It wasn't even a rival of his that did the shooting... it was a kid. It's shocking, infuriating, and devastating, all in equal measure, and a bold yet brutal choice on the writer's part to send off such a legendary character so anticlimactically.

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