M*A*S*H (television)/Tear Jerker

• M*A*S*H has always been depressing but the finale? Forget a kleenex, you're going to need an IV for the dehydration from crying.
  • While the finale was a heartbreaker, the moment where peace is declared is a moment of such pure joy. The look of relief on Winchester's face and the happiness afterwards makes this troper cry every. single. time.
• Winchester has his share in the finale Tear Jerker moments, but there's also the episode where he meets his soul mate, a woman he quickly, desperately loves, and at the end realizes that he can't bring himself to accept her because her values clash with his. And yet he still loves her....
  • Winchester gets quite a few of these, most likely put in to help differentiate his character from that of Frank Burns, the guy he replaced. This troper's absolute favourite is his convincing the concert pianist that his piano skill is not gone just because one of his hands is immobile. One of his best lines ever comes in the coda: "Each of us must dance to his own tune."

Charles: I can play the notes, but I cannot make the music.

• • His reaction to the musicians being killed in the series finale. I cry whenever I hear the music. Bet you do too.
    • "Those men weren't soldiers...they were musicians!" The heartbreak in that line, and his subsequent smashing of the record...wow. This troper used to love the Mozart Clarinet Quintet. But ever since, just hearing those opening four notes...I can't listen to it anymore.
  • His Heroic BSOD storyline in "The Life You Save", where he's desperate to know what it's like to die. All of it, damnit. * sniffles*
• "I have a message... Lieutenant Colonel... Henry Blake's plane... was shot down... over the Sea of Japan. It spun in... therewerenosurvivors."
  • Particularly shocking as he was on his way home - and more so again when you remember that his son was born while he was in Korea and they never got to see one another.
  • That was also a case of Enforced Method Acting, as none of the cast were told of Blake's death until shortly before that scene was filmed. Radar's choked voice as he reads the dispatch isn't an act.
    • There's a double meaning behind the grief. Mclean Stevenson (Henry) was something of a father figure for the cast, as well as an advocate for their needs as actors with the studio (which did not always treat the cast as well as it should). In a documentary that aired several years ago, several actors and production staffers told the story of how after Stevenson left the cast, the order came down in the form of a "studio note" to kill the character, so the actor could never come back to the show. The implied message came through to the remaining cast loud and clear.
  • In the same episode, Henry's goodbye hug to Radar: "You behave yourself, or I'm gonna come back here and kick your butt." As a viewer, you're still drying your eyes from that when the final O.R. scene begins.
• This troper can't help shedding a few tears (or a lot) at "Quo Vadis, Captain Chandler". Especially at this little scene: "Tell me, does God answer all prayers?" "Yes. But sometimes the answer is no."
• In "Period of Adjustment", watching BJ completely come apart knowing that the first man his little girl called "Daddy" wasn't him.
• Hell, even Frank Burns has a moment. It happens near the end of "Margaret's Engagement" where he loses his mind and everyone (except Margaret) is giving him a break. But then Radar gets Frank's mother on the phone:

Frank: Nobody really likes me here. Well, there was one person but she was just... pretending to like me. You know, the way Dad used to?
This troper: (bawling her eyes out)

• • There's another one for Frank. In an early episode, he's talking with Trapper and mentions that during his childhood no one was allowed to talk at the table, not even hum, without getting a punch in the throat. Trapper's stunned and says that's horrible. Frank then goes on to say that he thinks that's why he became a snitch, it was someone to talk to. He may be an unlikeable guy, but with a childhood like that, it's not surprising he ended up the way he was.
• Similarly, try every other time a character is on the phone with a loved one back home. This troper's favourite moment in the entirety of the show was in "The Late Captain Pierce", when Hawkeye finally gets to tell his dad that yes, he is still alive. Most of the conversation comes across as a very real chat about nothing in particular, and it's still one of the most amazing bits of television ever.
  • Relatedly, this troper always struggles to keep it together when they watch home movies sent to them by their families, especially that one scene where Blake's wife gets the little neighborhood kids to line up with a sign that says, "Miss you." (Hawkeye: "Henry, if you don't give the order to cry, I will.") Also when they're watching Radar's family and his mom mouths, "I love you," and Radar mouths back, "Mommy".
    • Anything involving Henry and his family back home is almost unbearable to watch once you've learned the character's ultimate fate. In his last episode, he's in the middle of discussing homecoming plans with his wife when the phone connection is prematurely cut off, a scene that in retrospect is one of the show's saddest moments in its own right.
    • Especially heartbreaking now is his storyline in "Showtime". It was pretty sad anyway, coupled with a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming when Radar gives him a Korean child to hold because he can't hold his own, but after "Abysinnia, Henry"? It's an effort just to keep it together.
    • Or how about his call to his family in "Henry In Love", where he tells his son that he has to the man of the house, just until he gets back from Korea. Poor kid...
• This troper has to struggle not to lose it during "Heal Thyself", the episode in which a front-line doctor goes completely insane. Just the helpless look he gives Dr. Pierce and that soft, unassuming voice: "The blood won't come off..."
• Henry's speech to Hawkeye in "Sometimes You Hear the Bullet" always drives it home for me and my tear ducts. This Troper often wonders if it didn't inspire Joss Whedon when writing "Lie to Me", cited on the BTVS Tear Jerker page. Both protagonists lose longtime friends in tragic ways; Both get speeches about harsh reality from their mentors; both attempt to save who they can, despite it not being what the characters in question (Ron Howard and the girl who would later be seen in 'Anne') wanted.
• Oh God, who could forget the part in the finale when Hawkeye reveals that a Korean woman killed her own baby because he was hissing at her to keep it quiet so they wouldn't be caught by nearby enemy soldiers. It was such a wrenching Tear Jerker moment it caused Hawkeye to complely lose it and be sent to the crazy house.
• Another Frank moment: when Margaret flies off for her honeymoon, he just stands there and quietly says goodbye. The only moment in which he was afforded any dignity on the show.
• From episode 17 of season 8, "Bless You, Hawkeye", watching Hawkeye as Sidney Freedman (who can somehow cause more Tear Jerkers than any other character) digs into his childhood and brings out the realization that Hawkeye's best friend pushed him off a boat when he was seven. Hawkeye falls apart fairly regularly, but seeing him wail and cry in the bed was more than this troper could handle.
• There was the episode where a soldier came to the 4077th with absolutely no memory of who he was or where he was at all, not even his name. Under hypnosis, it was revealed that he lost it because his younger brother had been killed in action and he felt responsible because he promised his parents he'd look out for him. The hypnosis scene is an all-time weeper. "Oh, Stevie...no, Stevie..."
• Radar's departure, as he has to say his rushed and confused goodbyes to the others as a load of wounded comes pouring in. In particular, the scene where Hawkeye - who has to go to the O.R. before being able to say anything - glances up while operating, sees Radar peering through the window, shoots him an agonized look, and then fires him a salute.
• The end of the penultimate episode does it for This Troper. Margaret is putting together a time capsule to commemorate the 4077's presence in Korea. After expressing resistance for the whole episode BJ and Hawkeye come through at the end.

Hawkeye: [Hands over a teddy bear] This belonged to Radar; he left it for me. Let it stand for all the soldiers who came over as boys, and left as men.
BJ: [hands over a fishing lure] Here, I fished with this a few times. Hawkeye told me it belonged to Colonel Blake. Let it stand for all the men who never came home.

• This troper recently watched "Dear Sis", thinking it was a filler ep to help send her to sleep. Big mistake. The Crowning Moment of Heartwarming ending (and then the truck with the wounded comes in...) from when Winchester saw his childhood winter hat to when everyone is singing "Dona Nobis Pacem", along with moments earlier in the episode of Margaret barely keeping it together in the scene at the Colonel's office and Mulcahy crying because he feels so guilty at punching the jackass soldier, had her bawling like a baby.
• In Frank's last episode, where they're all getting drunk at the Bachelor Party: "Stop laughing without me!" He just sounds so pitiful and desperate that you can't help but feel bad for the poor, ferret-faced man.
• Hawkeye's phone call with his Dad at the end of "Sons and Bowlers". He's saying "I love you. I love you. I'll be home as soon as I can," with this really choked up, happy-tears voice and it breaks this troper every time.
• Hawkeye in "Dr. Pierce And Dr. Hyde". He's exhausted, he's telling chopper pilots not to go up anymore because they always bring mangled kids back down with them and he's so ridiculously vulnerable that you just want to hold him and say it will all be okay.
• This troper nearly always gets misty at Margaret in her early scene with Hawkeye, where she's found out that Donald's run out on her and Hawkeye is pissed because they've changed the point system again. He asks her what she's going to do and she angrily says she'll get a divorce. But then it starts to sink in and she says it a second time while starting to cry. *sniff*
  • Doubled when Hawkeye immediately drops his rant when she starts crying, decides he's had enough, and charges all the way to the peace talks to try and get them to end the war.
• This troper defies anyone to watch the Christmas episode where Hawkeye and BJ are desperately trying to save a mortally wounded soldier all day Christmas day, then trying to keep him alive long enough so that he won't die on Christmas, and not break down. When the man finally dies about an hour before midnight, and the doctors turn the clock forward so the time of death will be 12:01, December 26, so that for the man's children, Christmas won't have to be the day their daddy died-I'm tearing up just remembering the moment to type it on this page. It's beyond heartbreaking, especially when one thinks of all the men and women who did die on Christmas, whether in Vietnam, Korea, or any other war, and how painful that loss would be for their families. The scene with the doctors and Margaret silently looking at the pictures of the soldier's children and the letter from his wife just rips your heart out and stomps on it.
• Trapper, at the end of the "Kim" episode.
• The ending to the episode "Yessir, That's Our Baby". A Korean-American infant girl is abandoned at the camp. The unit quickly adores her but learns as well that because she is of mixed race there is nothing but a grim future ahead of her in Korea. So they attempt to find a new safe placement for the child in the US but for all their effort everything falls through and they must leave the baby at a monastery, a place that will give her a safe but narrow future. Hawkeye's final message to the baby is a tear bringer.

Hawkeye: You brought a little light to a dark and dismal place. And you’ll never know what you meant to a group of tired people stuck in a very strange time. Be happy.