Smallville/Tear Jerker

• The episode "Reckoning" is practically dedicated to this trope. The first happens when Clark finally tells Lana his secret and everyone's extremely happy, to the point that you start to wonder what the big deal was with the secret. Then she dies in a violent car crash when Lex gets obsessed with finding out what Lana knows. Clark gets to the scene too late, and his reaction as his dad tries to pull him away is heart wrenching. But then she got better when Clark goes back in time with the help of Jor-El, right after he told him that they weren't gods. Unfortunately, messing with the time stream has horrible consequences, and Jonathan Kent dies in Lana's place. Martha's agonized screams at the time of his passing, and the funeral afterward really made this troper turn on the waterworks.
  • The episode "Vengeance" has one too. The entire episode deals with Clark's grief and regret over his actions in "Reckoning", and how he's been bottling up all of his emotions. It all finally comes out at the end of the episode, when he walks into his living room while his mom is watching an old home video of theirs. It shows Jonathan playing with an infant Clark, and closes off with him turning to face the camera and saying a spirited "goodbye"; it's almost like a posthumous farewell from father to son.
• To this troper, another big tearjerker is in "Memoria" when Lex reveals to Lionel what his brain treatments have caused him to remember - that his mother Lilian was responsible for his brother Julian's death, an action Lex took the blame for and arguably set the tone of Lionel and Lex's relationship. The look on Lionel's face when he realizes that all the resentment he had been holding toward his son was for nothing is heartwrenching; his pitiful attempts to apologize as Lex utterly rejects the gesture and rips himself out of his father's grasp just end it for this troper.
• Am I the only Lex fan who feels like crying every time Clark refuses to tell Lex the truth about him? Particularly is Season 1 episode "Leech", in which Lex pretty much has it figured out for himself and makes it very clear that he intends to keep Clark's secret. All he wants is for his best and only friend to trust him... and Clark pushes him away. He cares about you, dammit Clark!

Lex: You're the closest I've had to a real friend my whole life. You don't have to hide anything from me.

• • In "Finale", right before he heads off to face Darkseid, Clark essentially told Lex he's sorry for not being a better friend.
• In Season 10, we have the death of Hawkman. Stabbed through the chest by Slade, and with his wings on fire, he still manages to fly to the rescue, saving Lois from plummeting to her death. As he dies, he talks about how he's going to be reunited with his wife, cracks a joke, and then goes. Doubles as a Dying Moment of Awesome. And hell, anything to do with The Woobie that is Season 9's Dr. Fate.

Dr. Fate: Carter, you have no idea how much I wish I could remember what my life was like before Dr. Fate. I had a wife. I think her name was Inza. And a family. But I can't... I can't remember. I scared them all away.

• • Of course, by contrast, Carter's response to this statement is a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming:

Carter: Family is more than blood.

• Am I the only one who was horribly upset when Lionel Luthor died? The fact that things between he and Lex deteriorated to the point where there was really no other way it could end was sad enough, but his message to Clark, when he acknowledges that after all those years, he's finally met someone who he admits was better than him? Sniff... don't get me wrong, he was a bastard, there is no doubt about that. But he was a Magnificent one, and it felt like the show lost a part of itself when he went, especially since he'd been trying so hard to turn around ever since Seasons 4 or 5.
  • Even though Earth-2 Lionel is evil as our Lionel use to be, deep down he truly loved his son and regretted letting Earth-2 Clark kill him (he even admit that).
• Season 9's "Kandor". A clone of Jor-El arrives in Smallville and is surprised to learn he has a son. He and Clark spend the entire episode trying to meet, but Tess, Zod, and life keep getting in the way. They finally run into each other at the end, just in time for Jor-El to die of a mortal wound. Goddamn you, Smallville. That hurts!
• Zod chokes the life out of his lover, Faora, for betraying him. As her body lies on the ground, Zod notices her hand resting on her abdomen. He leans down over her midsection and turns on his super-hearing. To his horror, he hears a faint heartbeat fluttering and dying. Zod has just unwittingly murdered his own unborn child. Sure, what he does shortly thereafter is downright bastardly, but for a moment one's heart breaks for the man.
• Ryan, a easily likable character from Seasons 1 and 2 who was telepathic, ended up dying from a brain tumor in the Season 2 episode "Ryan"; Clark did everything possible to prevent that from happening. In the same episode, Ryan even manages to try to warn Lex that he'll become evil if he's not careful. That episode had this troper in tears.
• Clark and Jonathan's reunion in "Kent". Even though it's an alternate universe, the son telling the father everything he taught him...
• For me, one of the stand-out Tear Jerker moments is in "Pariah", when Clark finds that Alicia Baker has been murdered. It's... that Big No he lets out is one of those rare moments where the moment is not Narm - it is an anguished, primal wail, so horrifyingly real and gut-wrenching that you can't help feeling his grief. It's a lot worse when you consider that a) Alicia was the first girl he loved who knew, accepted and understood him; and b) he never even had closure with her, seeing that she died believing he didn't trust her, and he pretty much has to live with that for the rest of his life. Also note just how violent his initial reaction to her death was... even if she was only a three-episode character, her brief presence had a major impact, and her death was as powerfully and painfully emotional as was her relationship with Clark.
  • He also blames himself for her death. Believing if he told everyone about his secret like she said, she'd still be alive.
• Julian's death at the end of "Persona".
• Kara's departure in "Prophecy", abrupt though it was.
• For fans of Lex and Clark's friendship, the last five minutes of Season Seven's "Arctic" can be considered a pretty massive Tear Jerker. Especially with Lex's final words to an injured Clark as he holds him in his arms as the Fortress of Solitude falls around them both.

Lex: "I love you like a brother, Clark. But it has to end this way... I'm sorry."

• "Ageless": Clark and Lana find a baby boy in a field and adopt him. Unfortunately, he starts aging rapidly, and despite everyone's best efforts, he dies. The worse part was the scene where the boy's biological father didn't want anything to do with him.
• "Redux": Clark runs into William, aka Martha Kent's father. They became estranged because William has absolute contempt for Martha marrying Jonathan, a mere farmer instead of a lawyer like him. Wanting to spend time with his grandpa, Clark tries to get William, Martha, and Jonathan to make up, but fails. William never appears again.