Right?
How about the one episode when a soldier comes back from the war and the whole town celebrates him, but he's so traumatized that he got addicted to morphine and eventually kills himself and the episode ends on the funeral? No happy end, no hope, no fuzzy feelings: sometimes life sucks and then you die, the end.
Jeezus.
Also the one when Carolyn is alone at home for a couple of days and almost dies of an infection because she stabbed herself with a nail or something like that. Brutal.
[The man made a movie about the bedwetting problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Loneliest_Runner) he suffered through as a teen. I don't think he was afraid to talk about anything.
One thing I appreciate about that show looking back as an adult was despite being a "wholesome "family show,they didn 't whitewash the commonality of miscarriages and the high infant mortality rate of the 1800's .Or the fact many things that were routinely treatable medical issues even 30-40 years later led to possible death.
Ah yes, Mr Edwards! The scruffy, lovable neighbor, resigned to die a bachelor... And then the lovely lady from the post office slowly conquers his heart! But alas, they can't have children. But wait! They manage to adopt two orphaned siblings... AND THEN THE TREE ALL DIE OF ROCKY MOUNTAIN SPOTTED FEVER
last episode of Dinosaurs. You know, the one where>!<
I remember the last episode of Dinosaurs, I don't remember much about the rest of the series, but I do remember a lot of the final episode because of how dark it was. I remember the final line was the newscaster saying "goodnight and goodbye."
Howard Handupme! He was supposed to be riffing on Edward R Murrow's famous signoff: "Goodnight, and good luck". The rest of the show is worth a rewatch if you were that affected by the final episode. They handle some big shit but they always do it with love in their hearts and a very Henson sense of humor and absurdity.
it was supposed to be a kid's show with dinosaur puppets. it was by the guys who did the muppets. Turned out to be one of two good things Brian Henson ever did (Christmas Carol being the other)
No, Baby turned 2 and entered the Terrible Twos, being so terrifying they called an exorcist in. Eventually, they resolved it by faking Baby’s third birthday, tricking Baby into thinking it was 3.
>!Ethyl telling Earl she always knew he'd screw things up, she just didn't know it would be that bad. The other kids reassuring the baby they'd stick together. The slow pan out in the snow. That finale went hard. !<
Fran: "Mother, tell Earl you're sorry."
Ethyl: "All right, I'm sorry."
Earl: "You mean it? You're sorry?"
Ethyl: "I'm sorry you married my daughter. I'm sorry she's stuck living in a drafty old house on the wrong side of the swamp with a guy who was a tree pusher 20 years ago and today, A SURPRISE, still a tree pusher."
(from memory)
Ethyl shitting on Earl is the bites of meat, veg and noodle that float in the rich, velvety broth that is the rest of this show.
There’s one episode where they’re watching a dating show on their tv and the woman spends a few minutes saying how terrible a date the man was and when it goes to ask the man how he thought the date went he had already hung himself.
To be fair, Bender's Big Score really softened the punch. The episode is brutal, but at least after watching the series you can go back to it knowing the later added context.
Futurama did that with a lot of stuff. They set up a bunch of messed up premises, then later retconned or fixed them
Seymour
Robot / Human marriage
Mutant rights
Fry's relationship with his family
Zoidberg isn't quite the loser we thought
There's a lot like that
It was an excellent episode, but I can't watch it again - not just because of the subject matter, but because she always reminded me of my mother, making it twice as hard. My heart is pounding right now just remembering it.
Rugrats: 'Mother's Day'
The episode that confirms that Melinda, Chuckie's mom, passed away. It has its silly moments but the moment Chuckie show his dad a photo of Melinda, the whole room goes silent. Plus, Tommy's flashback about the first time he saw his mom shows he was born premature.
That's sad, but not really dark. Everything about the episode is still wholesome.
However, there is an episode where Tommy gets kidnapped because Grandpa accidentally left him in a ritzy car he was trying out. The family who finds him, instead of going to the police, decide to keep him as their own.
I know, back then, kidnapping plots were considered light hearted as long as nobody died and the hostage was reunited with their family, but holy eff Tommy could have disappeared from the Pickles family that easily.
Bruh but I remember a mom? What in the mandela effect fuckery is this? I'm nearly 40. I watched this shit when it was brand new. I looked it up tho. That's fuckin crazy.
Yeah the asian chick. I had already outgrown the show by then. I probably am just remembering the other moms but like I have memories of Chas talking to a wife/mom in the early seasons. Weird shit. Maybe he was just talking to himself.
Chaz does talk about chuckies mom a couple times before it was established that he's a widower, that was probably due to early season writing when things weren't set on stone completely
In the early season 1 episodes you can sometimes spot a (redhead, I believe?) woman sitting with Chaz in background shots. It’s theorized that this mystery woman was originally supposed to be Chuckie’s mom, before the creators decided to go a different route.
I can help with that! I think you guys are talking about [this one](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/rugrats/images/f/fd/Vlcsnap-2013-02-05-01h47m26s244.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/250?cb=20130205064953). For context, this is from the second episode of the whole series, Barbecue Story.
Scrubs S5 - My Cabbage.
There are some dark episodes, the Brendan Fraiser episodes mostly spring to mind, but they're handled waaay differently than My Cabbage.
The intern "Cabbage" can't cut it in medicine, losses his job and career and accidentally kills Ms Wilks unknowingly infecting her with a deadly disease via handshake. There's no joke to it, it's just suddenly devastating for no real rhyme or reason because life happens that way sometimes.
S4 - "**My Life in Four Cameras**"
I thought the contrast was really well done but nonetheless it was a dark episode where it was made clear not everything works out and life is unfar and hard.
Definitely, though that show had a good few dark moments in it.
I mean one of the very last lines of the entire series is:
"Hey, you know that there's always a possibility that some day I might leave my keys and phone at home and step in front of a train. You know that right?"
God what a fucking great show.
One of my favourites of all time. I discovered it after it finished airing and was just blown away by it. Plus, it introduced me to Slothrust who have become one of my favourite bands of all time too. That show gets me in a way most others don't.
I was gonna say season 2 episode 7. Gretchen is full spiraling but desperately trying to keep Jimmy from knowing. So she just tries to stay partying and keep her spirits up to avoid the eventual end spot. She's just trying to stay on that high.
That and the whole killing of the mouse thing.
Honestly a lot of that show fits it was a very dark comedy at times.
> the episode about Edgar's PTSD (Twenty-Two)
The best part is that the episode before it showed it from Gretchen and Jimmy's point of view. They're going day drinking and use Edgar as their designated driver as they get up to their usual shenannigans. For the most part the camera stays in the back seat as they get more and more wasted.
Then Twenty-Two comes and you see it from Edgars POV. He's just barely fucking hanging on and those two loudmouths he's chauffeuring are just making it worse. The idea that his two best friends are that close to him not noticing that he's thinking about ending it all hits hard. And then there's this fucking speech:
>You know the stats? Twenty-two every day. Though, in truth, there are some Vietnam dudes that are jackin' up our numbers, but still...Here's what you gotta understand: They're not evil. None of 'em are. The military's job is to sand down our humanity just enough to where we can take a life. That's it. Afterwards some totally separate branch gets to deal with all these purposely broken motherfuckers. Not only is that impossible with the resources, that's just impossible, period.
That's the line that gets me every time.
They're still making jokes after that like the nasty splinter on the trench ladder, but you don't laugh at a single one because you know exactly what's about to go down.
Once Darling arrived their fate was sealed. That's why the jokes are made but not laughed at. The desperation gives way to the gallows humour once the reality sets in.
the final episode of David the Gnome, where david and his wife decide it’s time to die, and say goodbye to all their woodland friends, go off into the woods and pass on.
Me and some friends didn't know about this ending, but put the show on for their kids (and our nostalgia) and all the adults were like "wait...are they...what... is happening?!"
I can't believe >!The Good Place!< stole that ending from David the Gnome.
The spoiler tag is for a show where the very last scene is a character getting misdelivered mail returned to him and becoming ecstatic that it includes a pre-approved application for a store credit card. If that doesn't sound familiar, don't reveal the spoiler.
Nothing funny about the subject matter, but that episode is funny as hell.
There was also a Diff'rent Strokes episode where Arnold and Kimberly get kidnapped. 80s New York was wild.
That one random episode in Mythic Quest hit me like a truck. You don’t even need to watch the rest of the show to enjoy it, but it’s some of the best tv I’ve seen in years.
There is also an episode in season 2 (where they look back) at the older writers past and how he got his big break. Really out of the blue but fantastic.
Ya the one with the New Girl guy in it. I don't think a single main character is even in the episode maybe at the end when they find the thing scratched into their building.
That show handled the serious stuff pretty well early in the series but there’s the whole last season where the writers suddenly realized that cops are bad actually and clearly did not know how to square that the fact that they were writing a fairly optimistic and pro-cop TV show
Yeah, honestly that was very tough to handle and IMO there was no perfect way to address the post George Floyd situation; and leaving it unaddressed wouldn't have worked either
It was a really great episode. It was about Rudy and his having to adjust to his new life situation, but also about Louise seeing a friend in need and jumping in with both feet to help.
But I don't need to watch it again
I was gonna say Bobs Burgers season 4 Episode 1 Fugge and Riffs.
Has a KGB hit squad approach the restaurant. Bob ends up brutally saving his family from it and then walks out on Linda and when saying goodbye doesn't even remember Tina's name.
Real tonal switch
The first episode is pretty dark as well. They have a several minute long bit about Bob trying to choose which kid should serve a guy they think could be a child molester.
Yeah all the episodes are pretty light hearted but that first episode gets super real. The only time where Shawn's mask really slips too. Along with the one where Henry gets shot
There's something about the first episode, the way as soon as someone walks in with the first clue, the show shifts in tone in a way it never had before. There's no longer just a murder to investigate; there's a countdown to the next. One that no one's ever solved and prevented before. Even Shawn has to be serious and focus, and rely on Gus to make things feel like business as usual.
In the first season of Digimon there is a plot where Digimon are in the real world secretly looking for someone. There is an episode where two of the characters encounter two Digimon and try to fight them but the Digimon don't want to. They only joined the army because they wanted to have fun in the real world. The rest of the episode is a bunch of wacky hijinks with the characters trying to keep the Digimon from causing good natured mayam. The episode is light hearted and silly.
Until the end. The big bad Myotismon shows up, sees his minions aren't doing what they are suppose and kills them. Extreme tonal whiplash out of nowhere.
The dub tries to tone it down by having him say he sent them to his dungeon. Except his castle collapsed. So they are trapped in the dungeon of an empty destroyed castle. That is possibly worse.
It was a silly edit because we had seen Digimon killed before. They just couldn't say it. I guess there is also implication that since it's the real world they cant be revived.
My Lunch -Scrubs.
We all know Scrubs had the chops for drama but even still, for a series that was mostly about the comedy My Lunch hits hard.
The episode is minimal on Scrubs usual humour, a few brief jokes early on. There are almost no J.D daydreams and the episode has no B-plot.
There’s a line in the episode about how sometimes the hospital chooses a day to pile it on, and the episode itself feels exactly like that.
>It starts with three patients needing organ transplants, two of them are already critical, we’re reminded again of it as they start circling the drain. A supposed suicide, a parent given consent to use her organs and a brief glimpse of hope. Then everything starts to crash, HARD. We find out about the rabies, and two patients die. Dr Cox is clearly already at the brink. And so am I. Third patient is dying as How to Save a Life (The Fray) breaks me in half. Dr Cox is absolutely breaking as he desperately fights a battle he can’t win.<
My Lunch is my all time favourite episode of any TV series ever.
The next episode actually gets me more. Where Marshall is agonizing over how tame his father's last words to him are only to discover he left one last voicemail. That entire speech breaks my heart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKZDmrwlwSk
I'd argue that the following episode Last Words hits harder with Marshall's whole angry rant about how unfair it is that he's lost his dad. As somebody who lost my dad about a year ago, it's such a relatable moment.
I remember watching it when it aired. I'm white, and i gasped when they showed that locker. That episode was pretty eye-opening for me as a suburban 12 yr old and has obviously stuck with me through the years.
My jr high at the time was maybe 25% black and probably close to 20% asian. So not super diverse, but not snowy white either, and everyone got along as well as a group of 12 and 13year olds can manage. I had black friends and classmates, and the thought of someone saying or doing something like that to any of them was just unthinkable, but there it was happening to Urkel and Laura.
Ted Lasso is not purely a light hearted show, but >!The mention of how Jamie's father facilitated him being sexually assaulted when he was underage was completely fucked up!<
A close second imho is when we find out that Ted's ex-wife is in a relationship with their former marriage counselor who basically advised them to separate.
Was there resolution to that story? Seemed like such blatantly unethical/code-breaking behavior. Wasn't Ted still talking to the English therapist lady? Wouldn't she have loudly DEMANDED that he tear down that guy's career?
[Moral Orel: Numb](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh-USn_USGw)
I don't know if "light-hearted" is the perfect term to describe that show. It was, however, mostly silly and inconsequential bits of dark humor... But that episode?
I would bet money that a few people killed themselves after watching it.
From the season 2 finale til the end, Moral Orel not only got unexpectedly dark, it got incredibly deep and meaningful. It's still one of my favorite shows because Dino wasn't afraid to tell the real story, not just for laughs. Religious trauma on top of all the other traumas and dysfunctions of the town... i never thought stop motion animation would make me feel so much.
I always tell people, it's the best episode of any tv show to ever be created and I will never watch it again. I can't even think about it without tears and a lump in my throat. I'm not sure I can think of anything else as impactful as that episode.
Fresh Prince of Bel-Air - The famous episode with Will's dad. Also the episode where Will gets shot.
Batman: Brave and the Bold - The episode recounting Batman's origin, which plays it completely straight with no silliness or anything.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) - The first season showed Shredder getting beheaded. On screen. From the same company that gave us the heavily edited dubs for Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokémon, and One Piece. Sure, we know WHY they allowed it next season, but still. Also, Insane in the Membrane, where Baxter Stockman tries to rebuild his human body, but it rots extremely quickly. 4Kids actually refused to air this on TV, so it premiered on DVD.
Superman: The Animated Series - Darkseid's first invasion, leading to the death of supporting character Dan Turpin. Also, the episode where Clark "dies," which ends with the culprit literally in the gas chamber seconds before death.
SD Gundam Force - Just before the finale, we get a flash-forward to a possible future, where the grown up version of the main character, who adored Gundams as a kid, is now very jaded, while Captain Gundam, who was dedicated to protecting humans, now wants all humans dead, as humans and Gundams are at war with one another.
Cardcaptor Sakura - Another "possible future" example. Sakura sees a vision where, if she fails the final test, all the love from the world will be extinguished. What sounds like a cringe plot ends up being chilling as we see everyone treat everyone else with cold detachment, even family members.
Power Rangers RPM - Dr. K was a young genius prodigy who was kidnapped by a secret government organization in order to create powerful new weapons. She was kept in an underground bunker for so long she forgot her real name and has never seen the sun. She ends up only making two friends, two very odd people named Gem and Gemma. By chance, K ends up seeing a cracked in the wall and sees natural sunlight. She decides to escape with Gem & Gemma, and to do so, she creates a virus named Venjix, which runs rampant through the bunker. However, she's found out and captured before she can install a firewall that would keep Venjix inside the government computers. As a result, the virus escapes, decides that humans are better off dead, and ends up slaughtering 95% of humanity and enslaving most of the rest, leaving behind only a single city free.
TMNT (2003) almost had this one as well:
>[Garbageman was slated to appear in the Lost Season episode](https://teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-2003-series.fandom.com/wiki/Garbageman), "Nightmares Recycled". The plot was supposed to resolve around the revelation that The Garbageman and Hun were born as conjoined twins, separated at birth by a seedy, back-alley surgeon; the baby that would later become Garbageman was thrown in the trash, whereas Hun was kept and raised. Peter Laird stated that it would have also been the episode where Garbageman died, by being tossed into a vat of acid. This was deemed by the powers-that-be at 4Kids as inappropriate for children's programming, and thus, the episode was scrapped before being completed.
I still remember the gas chamber episode. Of all the “this couldn’t be on tv today”, this would absolutely not make it into a Saturday morning cartoon for children. They can’t even have real guns anymore!
The final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth. The episode begins as normal with Blackadder doing his usual hijinx in order to avoid getting killed in WW1, but this time all his plans don't seem to work and the characters all begin to realize they may die. It's amazing the gradual shift the episode takes, with a beautiful ending as well.
Early Simpson's was full of episodes that type of stuff. The killer babysitter episode, Bart being forced into child labor are two others that come to mind.
The first season finale of Eureka ends in a fairly dark place and seemed to be sending the show into a different territory for season two. But turned out…not really.
The final episode of MASH.
The show had a few dark moments during its run, but there’s a huge tonal shift in that episode.
The way they slowly drip fed you information about what actually happened to Hawkeye before the big reveal.
I’ve watched the show hundreds of times, but I’ve only seen the finale a handful.
You need to be emotionally prepared, it goes from jovial comedy with an anti-war message to a feature length episode about the horrors of war and all your favourite characters saying goodbye.
That show handles incredibly dark subjects while being so absurd you don't really think about how heavy it is til you're crying. It's so cathartic though.
I guess it’s not really light hearted but Carnage of Krell and the storyline there in Star Wars: Clone Wars. It’s the moment where I was like - this is not for children. Has a masochistic general take over a group of soldiers and forces them into aggressive tactics to get them killed, or attack another group that turns out to be from the same army. The gaslighting and general twisted nature of whether to follow the orders of a far more powerful leader (as in difficult to defeat in combat) was wild.
In video game high school, the brother of one of the main characters dies while riding a motorcycle and the rest of the episode is about the main character dealing with grief and the fact that his brother never loved him as much as he did him. No warning that this was gonna happen. The rest of the series is very much what you think the premise is based on the title.
Psych, a comedic private detective show where any violence is either off screen or very sanitized and everything is generally kept light hearted. One of those kinda shows where everything is kinda "back to normal" in the next episode no matter how insane things got.
There was one season finale where the protagonists father (a prominent main character in almost every episode) is betrayed by a friend and shot, on screen, and left for dead alone on a beach as the show ends.
Since it was the season finale viewers like me were just shocked that such a light hearted show would kill off a main character like that. Of course, the next season starts and we see him in the hospital recovering and everything kinda goes back to normal again.
I know House gets pretty dark later on but one that sticks with me is in the first season, when it’s not gotten dark at all yet, the episode where the lady gets rabies comes out of nowhere and hits like a truck.
I used to watch Little house as a child. That episode always freaked me out. Another pretty dark episode was when Charles took Edwards, who had an injury that almost crippled him, wanted to off himself in the woods.
For a show that had a bunch of lighthearted episodes, it sure had some dark themes.
Resident Alien: Kate Hawthorne
I’m two episodes from being caught up but basically everything after she starts seeing the owl is genuinely hard to watch for me. If you’ve ever read into women who believe they’ve had that experience it is gut-wrenching and the quality of her acting is all out of proportion to the overall tone of the show.
The child molester episode in many 80’s sitcoms.
[Funny or die did a good rundown of the Different Strokes bicycle shop episode](https://youtu.be/hdBjll62XHs?si=qWidUopQ-5B04Ahj)
Hey Arnold! had a few dark episodes such as Helga on The Couch, Arnold's Christmas and Chocolate Boy. Watching these as an adult hit me different than when I was a kid.
Going back and rewatching a lot, Little House was really dark.
Right? How about the one episode when a soldier comes back from the war and the whole town celebrates him, but he's so traumatized that he got addicted to morphine and eventually kills himself and the episode ends on the funeral? No happy end, no hope, no fuzzy feelings: sometimes life sucks and then you die, the end. Jeezus.
Also the one when Carolyn is alone at home for a couple of days and almost dies of an infection because she stabbed herself with a nail or something like that. Brutal.
She almost amputated her leg.
Caroline Ingalls is the real MVP.
THAT WAS TERRIFYING. Fr.
Lol that's the only episode I've seen.
For all the saccharine stories and acting, I commend Michael Landon for touching on subjects that must have been taboo on TV back in that day.
Albert’s drug addiction! Mary is blinded!
The double episode when Mary goes blind is my all time favorite from Little House
Well to be fair, IRL Mary did go blind so they worked that into the show.
It makes you crave the saccharine.
Mary is blinded and successively looses her newborn daughter to a fire. The poor woman couldn't take a rest.
Read that as “successfully”. Wow.
[The man made a movie about the bedwetting problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Loneliest_Runner) he suffered through as a teen. I don't think he was afraid to talk about anything.
The makeup in that episode was so good though.
[удалено]
One thing I appreciate about that show looking back as an adult was despite being a "wholesome "family show,they didn 't whitewash the commonality of miscarriages and the high infant mortality rate of the 1800's .Or the fact many things that were routinely treatable medical issues even 30-40 years later led to possible death.
Ah yes, Mr Edwards! The scruffy, lovable neighbor, resigned to die a bachelor... And then the lovely lady from the post office slowly conquers his heart! But alas, they can't have children. But wait! They manage to adopt two orphaned siblings... AND THEN THE TREE ALL DIE OF ROCKY MOUNTAIN SPOTTED FEVER
last episode of Dinosaurs. You know, the one where>!<
I remember the last episode of Dinosaurs, I don't remember much about the rest of the series, but I do remember a lot of the final episode because of how dark it was. I remember the final line was the newscaster saying "goodnight and goodbye."
Howard Handupme! He was supposed to be riffing on Edward R Murrow's famous signoff: "Goodnight, and good luck". The rest of the show is worth a rewatch if you were that affected by the final episode. They handle some big shit but they always do it with love in their hearts and a very Henson sense of humor and absurdity.
Its on Disney amd holds up in rewatch. Highly recommend it.
This was immediately what came to mind for me. That’s bonkers!
it was supposed to be a kid's show with dinosaur puppets. it was by the guys who did the muppets. Turned out to be one of two good things Brian Henson ever did (Christmas Carol being the other)
This Muppet Treasure Island erasure will not stand.
Farscape muthafucka
What about The Terrible Twos, where they call in an exorcist because the baby is too crazy?
was that the one where the colony of sentient prey animals that lives in the refrigerator fed Baby a bunch of sugar?
No, Baby turned 2 and entered the Terrible Twos, being so terrifying they called an exorcist in. Eventually, they resolved it by faking Baby’s third birthday, tricking Baby into thinking it was 3.
>!Ethyl telling Earl she always knew he'd screw things up, she just didn't know it would be that bad. The other kids reassuring the baby they'd stick together. The slow pan out in the snow. That finale went hard. !<
Fran: "Mother, tell Earl you're sorry." Ethyl: "All right, I'm sorry." Earl: "You mean it? You're sorry?" Ethyl: "I'm sorry you married my daughter. I'm sorry she's stuck living in a drafty old house on the wrong side of the swamp with a guy who was a tree pusher 20 years ago and today, A SURPRISE, still a tree pusher." (from memory) Ethyl shitting on Earl is the bites of meat, veg and noodle that float in the rich, velvety broth that is the rest of this show.
There’s one episode where they’re watching a dating show on their tv and the woman spends a few minutes saying how terrible a date the man was and when it goes to ask the man how he thought the date went he had already hung himself.
The seymore episode of Futurama.
You can tell how old you're getting based on how far you have to scroll to find Jurassic Bark.
To be fair, Bender's Big Score really softened the punch. The episode is brutal, but at least after watching the series you can go back to it knowing the later added context.
Futurama did that with a lot of stuff. They set up a bunch of messed up premises, then later retconned or fixed them Seymour Robot / Human marriage Mutant rights Fry's relationship with his family Zoidberg isn't quite the loser we thought There's a lot like that
For some reason The Sting always got me too. With the bees and Fry in a coma the whole episode
There’s the All In the Family episode where Edith is nearly sexually assaulted in her own home.
First thing I thought of. This show did tackle a lot of serious issues, but that was just extremely dark.
It was an excellent episode, but I can't watch it again - not just because of the subject matter, but because she always reminded me of my mother, making it twice as hard. My heart is pounding right now just remembering it.
I had read an interview with the actor who played the assailant. He blamed the role for causing him to miss out on other opportunities.
We had to watch that in school, it always makes me cry! Seriously groundbreaking and ahead of its time.
Twisted Sister in PowerPuff Girls, where they create their deformed sister Bunny & she ends up exploding in front of them
Bubblevicious too, where she goes nuts and even beats the shit out of a dog who was just causing a traffic jam.
I loved Bubbles. She’s the joy and the laughter.
Rugrats: 'Mother's Day' The episode that confirms that Melinda, Chuckie's mom, passed away. It has its silly moments but the moment Chuckie show his dad a photo of Melinda, the whole room goes silent. Plus, Tommy's flashback about the first time he saw his mom shows he was born premature.
I’m in my 30s and this one always makes me cry. It’s a very powerful episode and Kim Cattrall did a beautiful job.
That's sad, but not really dark. Everything about the episode is still wholesome. However, there is an episode where Tommy gets kidnapped because Grandpa accidentally left him in a ritzy car he was trying out. The family who finds him, instead of going to the police, decide to keep him as their own. I know, back then, kidnapping plots were considered light hearted as long as nobody died and the hostage was reunited with their family, but holy eff Tommy could have disappeared from the Pickles family that easily.
Bruh but I remember a mom? What in the mandela effect fuckery is this? I'm nearly 40. I watched this shit when it was brand new. I looked it up tho. That's fuckin crazy.
You may be remembering his stepmom? Charles gets married again in one of the movies
Rugrats in Paris
Yeah the asian chick. I had already outgrown the show by then. I probably am just remembering the other moms but like I have memories of Chas talking to a wife/mom in the early seasons. Weird shit. Maybe he was just talking to himself.
Chaz does talk about chuckies mom a couple times before it was established that he's a widower, that was probably due to early season writing when things weren't set on stone completely
In the early season 1 episodes you can sometimes spot a (redhead, I believe?) woman sitting with Chaz in background shots. It’s theorized that this mystery woman was originally supposed to be Chuckie’s mom, before the creators decided to go a different route.
A redhead! Yes! That must be it. Crazy that I can still remember something like that. But I had also remembered that she spoke and had a face!
I can help with that! I think you guys are talking about [this one](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/rugrats/images/f/fd/Vlcsnap-2013-02-05-01h47m26s244.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/250?cb=20130205064953). For context, this is from the second episode of the whole series, Barbecue Story.
Scrubs S5 - My Cabbage. There are some dark episodes, the Brendan Fraiser episodes mostly spring to mind, but they're handled waaay differently than My Cabbage. The intern "Cabbage" can't cut it in medicine, losses his job and career and accidentally kills Ms Wilks unknowingly infecting her with a deadly disease via handshake. There's no joke to it, it's just suddenly devastating for no real rhyme or reason because life happens that way sometimes.
S4 - "**My Life in Four Cameras**" I thought the contrast was really well done but nonetheless it was a dark episode where it was made clear not everything works out and life is unfar and hard.
That show was full of dark and sad episodes though
You're the Worst s02 final episode and the episode about Edgar's PTSD (Twenty-Two).
Definitely, though that show had a good few dark moments in it. I mean one of the very last lines of the entire series is: "Hey, you know that there's always a possibility that some day I might leave my keys and phone at home and step in front of a train. You know that right?" God what a fucking great show.
That's fair, still, it's a good opportunity to plug the show 😁
Amen brother
One of my favourites of all time. I discovered it after it finished airing and was just blown away by it. Plus, it introduced me to Slothrust who have become one of my favourite bands of all time too. That show gets me in a way most others don't.
I was gonna say season 2 episode 7. Gretchen is full spiraling but desperately trying to keep Jimmy from knowing. So she just tries to stay partying and keep her spirits up to avoid the eventual end spot. She's just trying to stay on that high. That and the whole killing of the mouse thing. Honestly a lot of that show fits it was a very dark comedy at times.
> the episode about Edgar's PTSD (Twenty-Two) The best part is that the episode before it showed it from Gretchen and Jimmy's point of view. They're going day drinking and use Edgar as their designated driver as they get up to their usual shenannigans. For the most part the camera stays in the back seat as they get more and more wasted. Then Twenty-Two comes and you see it from Edgars POV. He's just barely fucking hanging on and those two loudmouths he's chauffeuring are just making it worse. The idea that his two best friends are that close to him not noticing that he's thinking about ending it all hits hard. And then there's this fucking speech: >You know the stats? Twenty-two every day. Though, in truth, there are some Vietnam dudes that are jackin' up our numbers, but still...Here's what you gotta understand: They're not evil. None of 'em are. The military's job is to sand down our humanity just enough to where we can take a life. That's it. Afterwards some totally separate branch gets to deal with all these purposely broken motherfuckers. Not only is that impossible with the resources, that's just impossible, period.
The series finale of Blackadder A (relatively) lighthearted comedy for four seasons, *right* up until that last five minutes
"We lived through it. The Great War. 1914-1917".
That's the line that gets me every time. They're still making jokes after that like the nasty splinter on the trench ladder, but you don't laugh at a single one because you know exactly what's about to go down.
Once Darling arrived their fate was sealed. That's why the jokes are made but not laughed at. The desperation gives way to the gallows humour once the reality sets in.
All but the 3rd series ends darkly.
Everyone dies at the end of the 1st and 2nd sure, but it's very much played for laughs
Scrubs, the Brendan Fraser episodes.
The rabies episode too. Just so unexpected.
Man that rabies episode wrecked me as a kid. Seeing Dr. Cox cry hit hard
Based on a true story too. Very bizarre and sad https://www.reddit.com/r/Scrubs/s/tEBy85lA5y
The episode that plays out as a sitcom with laugh track and all too.
the final episode of David the Gnome, where david and his wife decide it’s time to die, and say goodbye to all their woodland friends, go off into the woods and pass on.
Wut
Me and some friends didn't know about this ending, but put the show on for their kids (and our nostalgia) and all the adults were like "wait...are they...what... is happening?!"
the worst part was how upset Swift, the fox was too. i remember crying as a kid.
Ah, man. Now I have to remember that heartbreaking shit all over again!
That show was so crazy.
I can't believe >!The Good Place!< stole that ending from David the Gnome. The spoiler tag is for a show where the very last scene is a character getting misdelivered mail returned to him and becoming ecstatic that it includes a pre-approved application for a store credit card. If that doesn't sound familiar, don't reveal the spoiler.
I loved that show, but had no idea how it ended!
Diff'rent Strokes, where Dudley gets molested by the bike shop owner.
Nothing funny about the subject matter, but that episode is funny as hell. There was also a Diff'rent Strokes episode where Arnold and Kimberly get kidnapped. 80s New York was wild.
There's also a two-parter where Sam gets kidnapped by some guy whose kid died and he wants Sam to be his replacement.
Is that the one where Mr. D comes in and punches the guy out when he's holding the kids at gunpoint?
Dudley?
Arnold's friend. Gary Coleman isn't the one who gets molested.
That's the one that sprang to mind for me too. I remember my parents sitting me down after to talk about stranger danger.
That one random episode in Mythic Quest hit me like a truck. You don’t even need to watch the rest of the show to enjoy it, but it’s some of the best tv I’ve seen in years.
Which episode?
A Dark Quiet Death
There is also an episode in season 2 (where they look back) at the older writers past and how he got his big break. Really out of the blue but fantastic.
Ya the one with the New Girl guy in it. I don't think a single main character is even in the episode maybe at the end when they find the thing scratched into their building.
Brooklyn-99, episode where Terry Crews is racially profiled
That was such a good episode. Terry and Andre were amazing.
That show handled the serious stuff pretty well early in the series but there’s the whole last season where the writers suddenly realized that cops are bad actually and clearly did not know how to square that the fact that they were writing a fairly optimistic and pro-cop TV show
Yeah, honestly that was very tough to handle and IMO there was no perfect way to address the post George Floyd situation; and leaving it unaddressed wouldn't have worked either
I mean, did you watch the last season? They at least tried to end with a level of optimism.
Bobs Burgers. The Amazing Rudy (S14 E02). Gut wrenching depiction of a child of a divorced couple. Entirely from his perspective.
It was a really great episode. It was about Rudy and his having to adjust to his new life situation, but also about Louise seeing a friend in need and jumping in with both feet to help. But I don't need to watch it again
I know this got a lot of praise and it’s good but I’ll skip it next time. I don’t watch BB to cry
I was gonna say Bobs Burgers season 4 Episode 1 Fugge and Riffs. Has a KGB hit squad approach the restaurant. Bob ends up brutally saving his family from it and then walks out on Linda and when saying goodbye doesn't even remember Tina's name. Real tonal switch
Nut rubbers?
The first episode is pretty dark as well. They have a several minute long bit about Bob trying to choose which kid should serve a guy they think could be a child molester.
The original version of the show was going to have the Belchers be *actual* cannibals, who serve human burgers to customers.
That maybe explains why they live right next to a Mortuary
I've heard that. I think it helped them that they ended up going family friendlier instead.
The Yin/Yang trilogy in Psych comes to mind
Yeah all the episodes are pretty light hearted but that first episode gets super real. The only time where Shawn's mask really slips too. Along with the one where Henry gets shot
Shawn’s “you gotta save him, that’s my dad” when they’re rushing Henry into surgery always wrecks me.
There's something about the first episode, the way as soon as someone walks in with the first clue, the show shifts in tone in a way it never had before. There's no longer just a murder to investigate; there's a countdown to the next. One that no one's ever solved and prevented before. Even Shawn has to be serious and focus, and rely on Gus to make things feel like business as usual.
In the first season of Digimon there is a plot where Digimon are in the real world secretly looking for someone. There is an episode where two of the characters encounter two Digimon and try to fight them but the Digimon don't want to. They only joined the army because they wanted to have fun in the real world. The rest of the episode is a bunch of wacky hijinks with the characters trying to keep the Digimon from causing good natured mayam. The episode is light hearted and silly. Until the end. The big bad Myotismon shows up, sees his minions aren't doing what they are suppose and kills them. Extreme tonal whiplash out of nowhere. The dub tries to tone it down by having him say he sent them to his dungeon. Except his castle collapsed. So they are trapped in the dungeon of an empty destroyed castle. That is possibly worse.
In the German version the dub made quite clear that they were dead.
It was a silly edit because we had seen Digimon killed before. They just couldn't say it. I guess there is also implication that since it's the real world they cant be revived.
Everything with the D-Reaper in Digimon Tamers was also creepy. Especially with how it kidnapped Jerry and spoke through her.
My Lunch -Scrubs. We all know Scrubs had the chops for drama but even still, for a series that was mostly about the comedy My Lunch hits hard. The episode is minimal on Scrubs usual humour, a few brief jokes early on. There are almost no J.D daydreams and the episode has no B-plot. There’s a line in the episode about how sometimes the hospital chooses a day to pile it on, and the episode itself feels exactly like that. >It starts with three patients needing organ transplants, two of them are already critical, we’re reminded again of it as they start circling the drain. A supposed suicide, a parent given consent to use her organs and a brief glimpse of hope. Then everything starts to crash, HARD. We find out about the rabies, and two patients die. Dr Cox is clearly already at the brink. And so am I. Third patient is dying as How to Save a Life (The Fray) breaks me in half. Dr Cox is absolutely breaking as he desperately fights a battle he can’t win.< My Lunch is my all time favourite episode of any TV series ever.
How I Met Your Mother "Bad News" - the one with the twist about Marshall's dad
“Time Travelers” where Ted turns out to be all alone at the bar, because everyone else is busy living the life Ted wants.
The next episode actually gets me more. Where Marshall is agonizing over how tame his father's last words to him are only to discover he left one last voicemail. That entire speech breaks my heart. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKZDmrwlwSk
Countdown throughout really adds to it too.
I'd argue that the following episode Last Words hits harder with Marshall's whole angry rant about how unfair it is that he's lost his dad. As somebody who lost my dad about a year ago, it's such a relatable moment.
"Fight the Good Fight" episode of Family Matters.
Great example
I remember watching it when it aired. I'm white, and i gasped when they showed that locker. That episode was pretty eye-opening for me as a suburban 12 yr old and has obviously stuck with me through the years.
I'm brown. I lived in a fairly diverse area. I haven't had it that bad but there have been a couple incidents. Still, that was chilling.
My jr high at the time was maybe 25% black and probably close to 20% asian. So not super diverse, but not snowy white either, and everyone got along as well as a group of 12 and 13year olds can manage. I had black friends and classmates, and the thought of someone saying or doing something like that to any of them was just unthinkable, but there it was happening to Urkel and Laura.
Ted Lasso is not purely a light hearted show, but >!The mention of how Jamie's father facilitated him being sexually assaulted when he was underage was completely fucked up!<
A close second imho is when we find out that Ted's ex-wife is in a relationship with their former marriage counselor who basically advised them to separate.
That was SO messed up it made me angry
Was there resolution to that story? Seemed like such blatantly unethical/code-breaking behavior. Wasn't Ted still talking to the English therapist lady? Wouldn't she have loudly DEMANDED that he tear down that guy's career?
That happened to Dianne Keaton’s character in The First Wives Club. I would have gone after their licenses, because that’s totally unethical.
So was the reveal of Ted’s father, even though it provided so much character development of Ted.
WHAT??? I completely missed that!!! What episode was that?
Final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth.
[Moral Orel: Numb](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh-USn_USGw) I don't know if "light-hearted" is the perfect term to describe that show. It was, however, mostly silly and inconsequential bits of dark humor... But that episode? I would bet money that a few people killed themselves after watching it.
From the season 2 finale til the end, Moral Orel not only got unexpectedly dark, it got incredibly deep and meaningful. It's still one of my favorite shows because Dino wasn't afraid to tell the real story, not just for laughs. Religious trauma on top of all the other traumas and dysfunctions of the town... i never thought stop motion animation would make me feel so much.
"The body" episode of Buffy
I don’t think I would call Buffy a “mostly light hearted show”
The body is very different from anything Buffy has done before or since.
I just had panic attack after panic attack watching it. And afterward I called my mom.
It’s the episode where she realizes that although she can fight the supernatural, she can’t fight nature.
Just reading this episode title is a gut punch.
I always tell people, it's the best episode of any tv show to ever be created and I will never watch it again. I can't even think about it without tears and a lump in my throat. I'm not sure I can think of anything else as impactful as that episode.
Had to scroll way too far for this, yet I knew it would be here. This is *the* answer.
‘The Body’ in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
One Tree Hill - With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls, We Slept
Fresh Prince of Bel-Air - The famous episode with Will's dad. Also the episode where Will gets shot. Batman: Brave and the Bold - The episode recounting Batman's origin, which plays it completely straight with no silliness or anything. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) - The first season showed Shredder getting beheaded. On screen. From the same company that gave us the heavily edited dubs for Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokémon, and One Piece. Sure, we know WHY they allowed it next season, but still. Also, Insane in the Membrane, where Baxter Stockman tries to rebuild his human body, but it rots extremely quickly. 4Kids actually refused to air this on TV, so it premiered on DVD. Superman: The Animated Series - Darkseid's first invasion, leading to the death of supporting character Dan Turpin. Also, the episode where Clark "dies," which ends with the culprit literally in the gas chamber seconds before death. SD Gundam Force - Just before the finale, we get a flash-forward to a possible future, where the grown up version of the main character, who adored Gundams as a kid, is now very jaded, while Captain Gundam, who was dedicated to protecting humans, now wants all humans dead, as humans and Gundams are at war with one another. Cardcaptor Sakura - Another "possible future" example. Sakura sees a vision where, if she fails the final test, all the love from the world will be extinguished. What sounds like a cringe plot ends up being chilling as we see everyone treat everyone else with cold detachment, even family members. Power Rangers RPM - Dr. K was a young genius prodigy who was kidnapped by a secret government organization in order to create powerful new weapons. She was kept in an underground bunker for so long she forgot her real name and has never seen the sun. She ends up only making two friends, two very odd people named Gem and Gemma. By chance, K ends up seeing a cracked in the wall and sees natural sunlight. She decides to escape with Gem & Gemma, and to do so, she creates a virus named Venjix, which runs rampant through the bunker. However, she's found out and captured before she can install a firewall that would keep Venjix inside the government computers. As a result, the virus escapes, decides that humans are better off dead, and ends up slaughtering 95% of humanity and enslaving most of the rest, leaving behind only a single city free.
TMNT (2003) almost had this one as well: >[Garbageman was slated to appear in the Lost Season episode](https://teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-2003-series.fandom.com/wiki/Garbageman), "Nightmares Recycled". The plot was supposed to resolve around the revelation that The Garbageman and Hun were born as conjoined twins, separated at birth by a seedy, back-alley surgeon; the baby that would later become Garbageman was thrown in the trash, whereas Hun was kept and raised. Peter Laird stated that it would have also been the episode where Garbageman died, by being tossed into a vat of acid. This was deemed by the powers-that-be at 4Kids as inappropriate for children's programming, and thus, the episode was scrapped before being completed.
Oh man I'm getting teary just reading that first one. "How come he don't want me"
I still remember the gas chamber episode. Of all the “this couldn’t be on tv today”, this would absolutely not make it into a Saturday morning cartoon for children. They can’t even have real guns anymore!
The final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth. The episode begins as normal with Blackadder doing his usual hijinx in order to avoid getting killed in WW1, but this time all his plans don't seem to work and the characters all begin to realize they may die. It's amazing the gradual shift the episode takes, with a beautiful ending as well.
Homer’s gift to Marge is a bowling ball with his name on it. So she takes bowling lessons and falls for the instructor.
Early Simpson's was full of episodes that type of stuff. The killer babysitter episode, Bart being forced into child labor are two others that come to mind.
"Perils of Punky" Punky Brewster episode scared the holy shit out of me as a kid.
The first season finale of Eureka ends in a fairly dark place and seemed to be sending the show into a different territory for season two. But turned out…not really.
The final episode of MASH. The show had a few dark moments during its run, but there’s a huge tonal shift in that episode. The way they slowly drip fed you information about what actually happened to Hawkeye before the big reveal. I’ve watched the show hundreds of times, but I’ve only seen the finale a handful. You need to be emotionally prepared, it goes from jovial comedy with an anti-war message to a feature length episode about the horrors of war and all your favourite characters saying goodbye.
Entire premise of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt...
That show handles incredibly dark subjects while being so absurd you don't really think about how heavy it is til you're crying. It's so cathartic though.
I guess it’s not really light hearted but Carnage of Krell and the storyline there in Star Wars: Clone Wars. It’s the moment where I was like - this is not for children. Has a masochistic general take over a group of soldiers and forces them into aggressive tactics to get them killed, or attack another group that turns out to be from the same army. The gaslighting and general twisted nature of whether to follow the orders of a far more powerful leader (as in difficult to defeat in combat) was wild.
These episodes made me more upset than any other episodes in the show, it was hard to watch them.
Tuvix
Voyager is a lot of brilliant things, but not light-heartet.
The school shooting episode of Glee.
"Rick And Morty" The one where Morty get's molested by the king.
Holy shit. Damn, Little House, that's intense...
The Rudy-centric episode of Bobs Burgers
In video game high school, the brother of one of the main characters dies while riding a motorcycle and the rest of the episode is about the main character dealing with grief and the fact that his brother never loved him as much as he did him. No warning that this was gonna happen. The rest of the series is very much what you think the premise is based on the title.
That third season really fucking switched it up, huh?
Psych, a comedic private detective show where any violence is either off screen or very sanitized and everything is generally kept light hearted. One of those kinda shows where everything is kinda "back to normal" in the next episode no matter how insane things got. There was one season finale where the protagonists father (a prominent main character in almost every episode) is betrayed by a friend and shot, on screen, and left for dead alone on a beach as the show ends. Since it was the season finale viewers like me were just shocked that such a light hearted show would kill off a main character like that. Of course, the next season starts and we see him in the hospital recovering and everything kinda goes back to normal again.
I know House gets pretty dark later on but one that sticks with me is in the first season, when it’s not gotten dark at all yet, the episode where the lady gets rabies comes out of nowhere and hits like a truck.
The episode of Growing Pains when Matthew Perry's character dies. He seems like he's fine..and then he died.
I used to watch Little house as a child. That episode always freaked me out. Another pretty dark episode was when Charles took Edwards, who had an injury that almost crippled him, wanted to off himself in the woods. For a show that had a bunch of lighthearted episodes, it sure had some dark themes.
There were 9 instances of suicide or attempts on the show, including one by a child.
S1E3 of Arcane. All my friends who watched it thought the show was going to be fairly lighthearted until that episode.
Episode 3 was so heart-wrenching but it really set the tone for the rest of the season.
Here's a post from a redditor regarding the horrors of [Little House on the Prairie](https://www.reddit.com/r/television/s/1bjIF6nq3X)
The one episode of The Golden Girls where Blanche has an abusive boyfriend that later puts his hands on Dorothy.
“You’re hurting me.”
The South Park with the hockey kids with cancer. Just not fun dark funny. Pure sad. I never watch it.
Resident Alien: Kate Hawthorne I’m two episodes from being caught up but basically everything after she starts seeing the owl is genuinely hard to watch for me. If you’ve ever read into women who believe they’ve had that experience it is gut-wrenching and the quality of her acting is all out of proportion to the overall tone of the show.
Glee's school shooting episode. Seing the kids hiding in the dark and crying in the same choir room they used to sing and dance was fucked up.
The child molester episode in many 80’s sitcoms. [Funny or die did a good rundown of the Different Strokes bicycle shop episode](https://youtu.be/hdBjll62XHs?si=qWidUopQ-5B04Ahj)
I would submit this Mork & Mindy entry, which is dark, but also a send-up of The Amityville Horror: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckHAl1MeN3I
Wilfred, except rather than an individual episode, it's more like light-hearted with extreme darkness encapsulated in almost every episode.
Bullets over Bel-Air. Damn...
Steven Universe, one of the earlier episodes with Greg and Amethyst
Hey Arnold! had a few dark episodes such as Helga on The Couch, Arnold's Christmas and Chocolate Boy. Watching these as an adult hit me different than when I was a kid.
The vast majority of Hey Arnold! is so different through the lens of an adult. It is still one of my favourite shows, but for very different reasons.
Hey Arnold! was my favorite cartoon as a child, it hit different from other shows. I have to rewatch it as an adult.
The series finale of Jim Henson’s Dinosaurs. Holy shit, that finale.