Spoiler Alert: This list contains spoilers for multiple TV shows.Television is arguably the best medium when it comes to great payoff. Well-written TV shows can build up to their most impactful episodes, so that when they deliver them, it is an absolute gut-punch. Some of the greatest TV episodes of all time have been incredibly heavy and tough to watch, like Breaking Bad‘s “Ozymandias,” Game of Thrones‘ “The Rains of Castamere,” and The Leftovers‘ “International Assassin.”
Dark episodes give their shows the chance to either explore places that they haven’t been before, or finally get to the heavy and difficult place that the show has been building up to for a long time. These episodes are absolutely brutal, gut-wrenching, and completely worth the watch. These are the heaviest TV episodes of the last decade, ranked.
10
“Connor’s Wedding”
‘Succession’ Season 4, Episode 3
Kendall Roy, Shiv, Roy, and Roman Roy hugging each other and crying in Succession “Connor’s Wedding”.Image via HBO
Succession is generally a very heavy show, even with the sharply funny dialogue scattered throughout every episode. That said, the show has some especially gutting episodes, particularly in its final season. Season 4, Episode 3, “Connor’s Wedding” starts as a simple episode, with Logan (Brian Cox) bailing on Connor’s (Alan Ruck) wedding at the last minute to finalize a business deal. It’s painful but nothing out of the ordinary, until the episode throws viewers for a loop with Logan’s sudden collapse. For most of the episode, Logan is unconscious and dying, experiencing a mundane death as a culmination of his own life choices.
Logan Roy is one of the most complex characters of the last decade, and his death is not inherently sad on its own, but “Connor’s Wedding” is brutal and heartbreaking in its portrayal of the Roy children’s complicated grief. Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook), and Roman (Kieran Culkin) give heartfelt goodbyes to Logan over the phone, and then come together in their grief. Connor, meanwhile, is an afterthought to his siblings once again, and he winds up marrying Willa (Justine Lupe) with none of them in attendance.
9
“Fishes”
‘The Bear’ Season 2, Episode 6
Mikey (Jon Bernthal) and Sugar (Abby Elliott) look at Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) in The Bear Season 2.Image via FX
The Bear is a well-balanced dramedy that tends to break up its more emotionally intense moments with sillier comedic scenes, with one notable exception. Its Season 2 departure episode, “Fishes,” is a flashback to a Christmas five years ago, and it shows the extended Berzatto family celebrating the Feast of the Seven Fishes, as cooked by Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis). Of course, the dinner goes awry, and what follows is an unrelenting and emotionally devastating hour of television.
“Fishes” is an episode with a simple premise, which is what makes it so painful and unsettling. All of the conflict and turmoil in the episode comes from the characters and their clashes with one another. It’s gut-wrenching to watch a past Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) plan for a future working with Mikey (Jon Bernthal), knowing about what comes down the line. Most brutal of all is the fight scene over dinner that ends with Donna driving her car into the house.
8
“Chapter Seven: Loud, Fast, and Keep Going”
‘Barry’ Season 1, Episode 7
Barry and Chris sit in a car and look deep in thought in Barry.Image via HBO
Barry is darkly comedic throughout its four seasons, regularly pivoting between outrageously funny physical comedy, and extremely horrifying death scenes. The later seasons of Barry are very dark, but there is no episode that is more difficult to watch than the penultimate episode of Season 1, “Chapter Seven: Loud, Fast, and Keep Going.” Up until that point in the season, Barry (Bill Hader) has generally managed to balance his life as hitman with his new dream to become an actor.
At the start of the episode, Barry is dealing with the fallout of an attempted attack on Cristobal’s (Michael Irby) crew. Unfortunately, Barry’s old army buddy, Chris (Chris Marquette), was brought in to help without knowing what he was getting into. Now, Chris is reeling from what he just witnessed, and he is determined to go to the police and confess. Feeling like he has no other option, Barry kills Chris and stages it as a suicide, marking the first time in the series that Barry has killed someone that he cares about.
7
“Book VII: Revelation”
‘Midnight Mass’ Episode 7
John Pruitt and Mildred Gunning facing their final sunrise together in the finale of ‘Midnight Mass.’Image via Netflix
Midnight Mass is a very heavy watch all the way through, but its finale is an especially intense and emotional episode. Going into the finale, Riley (Zach Gilford) is already dead, and many of the townspeople have already been turned into vampires (although they never say the word in the show). The remaining townspeople are trapped on Crockett Island, with no way out and no way to communicate to anyone on the mainland.
In an absolutely brutal episode, Bev (Samantha Sloyan) leads the rest of the turned townspeople to attack and turn everyone else, while the remaining humans accept that they won’t survive it, and instead try to stop them from leaving Crockett Island and bringing this to the rest of the world. “Book VII: Revelation” is an intense and nailbiting episode from start to finish, and it ends with all but two of the characters in the show dying.
Collider Exclusive · TV Medicine Quiz
Which Fictional Hospital Would You Work Best In?
The Pitt · ER · Grey’s Anatomy · House · Scrubs
Five hospitals. Five completely different ways medicine goes sideways on television — brutal, chaotic, romantic, brilliant, and ridiculous. Only one of them is the ward your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out exactly where you belong.
🚨The Pitt
🏥ER
💉Grey’s
🔬House
🩺Scrubs
FIND YOUR HOSPITAL →
01
A critical patient comes through the door. What’s your first instinct?
Medicine under pressure reveals who you actually are.
AStay completely present — block everything else out and work through it step by step, right now.
BTriage fast and delegate — get the right people on the right problems immediately.
CTrust my gut and move — I work best when I stop overthinking and just act.
DAsk the question everyone else is ignoring — what’s the thing that doesn’t fit?
ETake a breath, make a joke to cut the tension, and then get to work — panic helps no one.
NEXT QUESTION →
02
Why did you go into medicine in the first place?
The honest answer says more about you than the one you’d give in an interview.
ABecause I wanted to be where it matters most — right at the edge, when someone’s life is actually on the line.
BBecause I wanted to help people — genuinely, one patient at a time, in a system that makes it hard.
CBecause I was drawn to the intensity of it — the stakes, the drama, the feeling of being fully alive.
DBecause medicine is the most interesting puzzle there is — and I needed a problem worth solving.
EBecause I wanted to make a difference — and also, honestly, I didn’t know what else to do with my life.
NEXT QUESTION →
03
What do you actually want from the people you work with?
Who you want beside you under pressure is who you are.
ACompetence and calm — I need people who don’t fall apart when things get bad.
BTrust and reliability — I want to know that when I pass something off, it’s handled.
CConnection — I want colleagues who become family, even if that gets complicated.
DIntelligence and the willingness to be challenged — I have no interest in people who just agree with me.
EFriendship — people I actually like spending twelve hours a day with, because those hours are going to happen either way.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
You lose a patient you fought hard to save. How do you carry it?
Every doctor who’s worked a long shift has had to answer this question.
AI carry it. All of it. I don’t look for ways to put it down — that weight is part of doing this work honestly.
BI process it and move — you have to, or the next patient suffers for the one you just lost.
CI feel it deeply and lean on the people around me — I don’t think you’re supposed to handle that alone.
DI go back over every decision — not to punish myself, but because I need to understand what I missed.
EI grieve it genuinely, find some way to laugh about something unrelated, and try to be kind to myself — imperfectly.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
How would your colleagues describe the way you work?
Your reputation on the floor is usually more accurate than your self-image.
AIntense and completely present — no small talk during a shift, but exactly who you want there.
BSteady and dependable — not the flashiest in the room but never the one who drops something.
CPassionate and occasionally chaotic — brilliant on the hard cases, prone to drama everywhere else.
DBrilliant and difficult — right more often than anyone else, and everyone knows it, including me.
EWarm and self-deprecating — not the most intimidating presence, but genuinely good at this and easy to like.
NEXT QUESTION →
06
How do you feel about hospital protocol and procedure?
Every institution has rules. What you do with them is a choice.
AProtocol is the floor, not the ceiling — I follow it until the patient needs something it can’t provide.
BI respect it — the system is broken in places, but the structure is there for a reason and I work within it.
CI follow it until my instincts tell me not to — and my instincts are usually right, even when they cause problems.
DRules are for people who haven’t thought hard enough about when to break them.
EI try to follow it and mostly do — with a few memorable exceptions that still come up in meetings.
NEXT QUESTION →
07
What does this job cost you personally?
Nobody works in medicine without paying a price. What’s yours?
AEverything outside these walls — I’ve given this job my full attention and the rest of my life has gone around it.
BMy idealism, mostly — I came in believing the system could be fixed and I’ve made a complicated peace with that.
CStability — my personal life has been as chaotic as the OR, and that’s not entirely a coincidence.
DMy relationships — I am not easy to know, and the people who’ve tried to would probably agree.
EMy sense of gravity — I use humour as a coping mechanism, which not everyone appreciates in a hospital.
NEXT QUESTION →
08
At the end of a long shift, what keeps you coming back?
The answer to this question is the most honest thing about you.
AThe fact that it’s real — that nothing else I could be doing would matter this much, right now, today.
BThe patients — individual human beings who needed something and got it because I was there.
CThe people I work with — I have walked through impossible things with these people and I’d do it again.
DThe next unsolved case — there’s always another puzzle, and I’m not done yet.
EBecause despite everything — the exhaustion, the loss, the absurdity — I actually love this job.
REVEAL MY HOSPITAL →
Your Assignment Has Been Made
You Belong In…
Your answers have pointed to one fictional hospital above all others. This is the ward your instincts, your temperament, and your particular brand of dysfunction were built for.
Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center
The Pitt
You are built for the most unsparing version of emergency medicine television has ever shown — one that puts you inside a single fifteen-hour shift and doesn’t let you look away.
You need your work to be real, not romanticised — meaning over drama, honesty over aesthetics.
You find purpose inside the work itself, not in the chaos surrounding it.
You’ve made peace with the fact that this job takes from you constantly, and gives back in ways that are harder to name.
Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center demands exactly that kind of person — and you would not want to be anywhere else.
County General Hospital, Chicago
ER
You are the person who keeps the whole floor running — not the most brilliant in the room, but possibly the most essential.
You show up, do the work, absorb the losses, and come back the next day without needing the job to be anything other than what it is.
You care about patients as individual human beings, not as cases to solve or dramas to live through.
You believe in the system even when it fails you — and you understand that emergency medicine is about holding the line just long enough.
ER is television about endurance. You have it.
Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, Seattle
Grey’s Anatomy
You came to medicine with your whole self — your ambition, your emotions, your relationships, your history — and you have never quite managed to leave any of it at the door.
You feel things fully and form deep attachments to the people you work with.
Your personal and professional lives are permanently, chaotically entangled — and that entanglement drives both your greatest disasters and your most remarkable saves.
You understand that extraordinary medicine often happens at the intersection of clinical skill and profound human connection.
It’s messy at Grey Sloan. You would not have it any other way.
Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, NJ
House
You are drawn to the problem above everything else — the symptom that doesn’t fit, the diagnosis hiding underneath the obvious one.
You’re not primarily motivated by the patient as a person — though you are capable of caring, even if you’d deny it.
You work best when the stakes are highest and the standard answer is wrong.
Princeton-Plainsboro exists to house one extraordinary, impossible mind — and everyone around that mind is there because they’re smart enough to keep up.
The only way forward here is to think harder than everyone else in the room. That is exactly what you do.
Sacred Heart Hospital, California
Scrubs
You understand that medicine is tragic and absurd in almost equal measure — and that the only sane response is to hold both of those things at the same time.
You are warm, self-aware, and funnier than most people in your field.
You use humour to get through terrible moments — and at Sacred Heart, that’s not a flaw, it’s a survival strategy.
You lean on the people around you and let them lean back. The laughter and the grief are genuinely inseparable here.
Scrubs is a show about learning to become someone worthy of the job. You are still very much in the middle of that process — which is exactly right.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ
6
“Cent’Anni”
‘The Penguin’ Episode 4
Cristin Milioti and Marie Botha in The Penguin Episode 4Image via HBO
There’s no episode of The Penguin that isn’t heavy, but the show’s fourth episode, “Cent’Anni,” is an especially hard watch. Up until this point in the show, Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti) has been believed to be the violent serial killer known as the Hangman, and she was sent to Arkham because of it. “Cent’Anni” reveals Sofia’s backstory, showing how her investigation into her mother’s suspicious death led her to realize that her father, Carmine (Mark Strong), was the Hangman.
In the flashbacks in “Cent’Anni,” Carmine frames Sofia for his crimes, and the whole world turns on her. She loses everything, and then she has to go to Arkham, where she is treated absolutely horribly. It is an episode that will make the viewer’s stomach turn, from watching the caring and bright Sofia become an angry and vengeful person who has been broken by this horrible place and her unfair new reputation.
5
“Mac Finds His Pride”
‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ Season 13, Episode 10
Mac McDonald and his dance partner in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia IASIP Mac Finds His PrideImage via FX
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia certainly has some heavy episodes, but these are usually darkly comedic installments where the gang takes things too far, like “The Gang Broke Dee” and “Charlie’s Mom Has Cancer.” The Season 13 finale, “Mac Finds His Pride,” is unlike any other episode of the show — or from any show, for that matter. In “Mac Finds His Pride,” Frank (Danny DeVito) tries to help Mac (Rob Mac) figure out his place as a gay man, so that he will agree to dance on the Paddy’s Pub pride float.
Most of the episode is silly with a tragic undercurrent, as Frank continuously tries and fails to help a dejected Mac, repeatedly injuring himself in the process. Where the episode takes a turn, is when Mac decides to come out to his father, Luther (Gregory Scott Cummins). His first attempt goes badly, so Mac finally performs a coming out dance that he’s been working on, at the prison where Luther is incarcerated. Mac’s dance is absolutely gut-wrenching, but even more painful is the moment where Luther gets up and leaves. Mac is rejected after baring the truest part of his soul to the person he’s always wanted to impress the most, but he still finishes the dance, as a tearful Frank watches.
4
“I Could Not Prevent It”
‘Interview with the Vampire’ Season 2, Episode 7
Roxane Duran, Delainey Hayles, and Jacob Anderson beaten and restrained in Interview with the Vampire.Image via AMC
Interview with the Vampire is another show that is heavy and gutting throughout, but there is no episode as brutal as the penultimate episode of Season 2, “I Could Not Prevent It.” In the present timeline, Louis (Jacob Anderson) finally gets to the hardest part of the story: Claudia’s (Delainey Hayles) death. The bulk of the episode is set in the past timeline, during Théâtre des Vampires’ trial of Louis, Claudia, and Madeleine (Roxane Duran) for violating the Great Laws.
The whole trial is very hard to watch, as Louis, Claudia, and Madeleine all have their words twisted, and their minds tampered with. The verdict had been decided before the three of them even took the stage, and now, nothing can protect them. Even Lestat (Sam Reid), who wants Louis and Claudia to face what they did to him, is unable to protect them from their unfairly harsh punishment. The episode is gut-wrenching all the way up to Claudia and Madeleine’s brutal deaths, and then the banishment of a grieving Louis, who believes that he has been saved by Armand (Assad Zaman).
3
“Chikhai Bardo”
‘Severance’ Season 2, Episode 7
Dichen Lachman in the Allentown room in Severance.Image via Apple TV
Severance is hardly a light show, but it has a few episodes that stand out for being especially heavy. The most brutal of them all is Season 2’s “Chikhai Bardo,” which tells the long-awaited backstory of Gemma Scout (Dichen Lachman). The episode shows the highlights of Mark (Adam Scott) and Gemma’s love story, from the moment they met, to the struggles that they faced when trying to have a baby. It’s devastating enough to watch their marriage, knowing where it leads. Even worse, though, is the reveal of what happened to Gemma.
“Chikhai Bardo” reveals that in the time since Lumon faked her death, Gemma has been severed into 25 innies, who are each trapped in a different room and forced to live out the same unpleasant scenarios over and over again. It is deeply horrifying to see the contrast between the old Gemma, who was so full of life, and her innies, who are all miserable, scared, and at the mercy of the higher-ups at Lumon.
2
“Full Circle”
‘Yellowjackets’ Season 3, Episode 10
Yellowjackets is a violent and heavy show that is always hard to watch, but the most devastating moments are always the ones where the main characters kill each other in the wilderness. Javi (Luciano Leroux) and Ben’s (Steven Krueger) deaths were absolutely brutal, and they made for two of the darkest episodes of the show. The heaviest episode overall, though, is the Season 3 finale, which sees the Yellowjackets in the past timeline trying to distract Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) long enough to let Nat (Sophie Thatcher) look for a signal on the satellite phone.
The Season 3 finale is especially hard, because the Yellowjackets are killing one of their own, not for survival, and not even to appease the wilderness. Instead, Mari’s (Alexa Barajas) death is completely preventable, and she’s essentially just a sacrifice so that everyone else can escape. They didn’t need that last hunt. Hannah (Ashley Sutton) was supposed to be chosen, and they are moments away from reaching society when Mari is killed. Worst of all, her death is absolutely brutal, as is Shauna’s desecration of her body.
1
“That’s Too Much, Man!”
‘BoJack Horseman’ Season 3, Episode 11
BoJack and Sarah Lynn sitting next to each other in season 3 of BoJack Horseman – That’s Too Much, Man! (2016)Image via Netflix
BoJack Horseman fans know all too well that the penultimate episode of each season is always an absolute gut-punch. That being said, Season 3’s penultimate episode, “That’s Too Much, Man!” is one of those unbelievably heavy and brilliant episodes that is impossible to see coming. At the start of the episode, it’s hard to imagine how things can get any worse for BoJack (Will Arnett). He lost out on the Oscar nomination, has alienated all his friends, and is drowning in loneliness and self-loathing.
With seemingly nothing left to lose, BoJack calls up his former TV daughter, Sarah Lynn (Kristen Schaal), who is now nine months sober. The two then go on a month-long bender together, but some very real pain comes up for both of them in the moments between each high. Finally, Sarah Lynn watches herself win an Oscar from a motel room, having missed the ceremony because of the bender. She’s absolutely miserable and broken, and she looks to BoJack for guidance, but he tries to distract her with a trip to the observatory. There, Sarah Lynn dies of a heroin overdose, in what is one of the hardest scenes to stomach of the entire series.
Release Date
2014 – 2020-00-00
Network
Netflix
BoJack Horseman / BoBo the Angsty Zebra (voice)
Todd Chavez / Emperor Fingerface (voice)
