The end of Mother Simpson.
Homer’s always believed his mother is dead but, in this episode, she re-emerges, having been in hiding for decades. But it doesn’t last—she has to go back into hiding again.
The end of the episode is just Homer, sitting on his car’s hood, looking up into the sky as music plays.
When John saw that Sherlock was actually alive. Up until that point, the restaurant scene had been played for laughs and you were expecting it to continue as somehow funny. Then Martin Freeman did something magical with his face and you saw horror, shock, disbelief, anger, and then choking rage pass across it for the next minute or so. Then you were on John’s side, grieving and angry.
However, then it got funny again.
I don’t even watch this show, but one of the few episodes I’ve seen…
Pam was having an art exhibition that few people came to, and even fewer purchased something. So Michael Scott purchased one of her pieces.
The Don’t Look Back in Anger short film from Saturday Night Live, 1978. John Belushi visiting the graves of the rest of the other original Not Ready For Primetime Players. The last one alive.
It was fairly touching in places when it first aired. More so after Belushi became the first to die.
It wasn’t pithy, he genuinely loved her art and thought they were the best thing ever. That’s what made Pam so happy.
Big Bird learns about death.
There was a highly fictionalized mini series about the life of Catherine the Great. Julia Ormond played Catherine. Lots of gorgeous costumes, dramatic scenes, and foolin’ around.
But at one point the young Catherine is wrestling with the issue of having to change her faith if she marries the heir to the throne, Paul. She’s German Lutheran, and she would have to convert to Russian Orthodoxy. One priest calms her fears about the differences between the two, telling her a parable of sorts. He asks if she knows how a pearl is made, and tells her that a grain of sand gets inside an oyster. The oyster finds it uncomfortable and coats it over with a beautiful jewel. The priest tells her the words of Jesus are like the grain of sand, uncomfortable sometimes, so each denomination, in it’s own way, coats them over with different dogma and ritual. But, he says, if you break open all that, as you might crack open a pearl, you still find the same “grain of sand” in the middle.
I have no doubt this little scene was made up out of whole cloth. But it’s still so very true, and I was surprised to find such a sensitive bit of writing in what was bascially a costumed soap opera.
When George took Weezy to see her childhood apartment before it was demolished, and she took the doorknob as they were leaving.
Sure, but then Mr. C sends his own son Chuck away, never to be seen again.
My Name is Earl had quite a few of those moments.
My favorite was at the end of the episode Early Release. Earl was in prison for most of that season, after selflessly taking responsibility for his ex-wife’s crime. Earl had been helping the inept warden out of jams all season, is exchange for a promised early release. In this episode, the warden realizes he needs Earl’s help and reneges on the early release, so Earls friends decide to break him out. So most of the episode is this hysterically funny madcap bungled jailbreak plot, but everything works out in the end and Earl gets out of jail. The last scene shows the main characters in a silent group hug in the parking lot of the prison. The soundtrack was Dylan’s I Shall Be Released. The tone was so different from The craziness of the rest of the episode that the contrast made the moment especially moving.
My favorite example is a Twin Peaks episode in which Agent Cooper comforts Sheriff Truman after the death of Josie. Everything in that show was so unrelentingly bizarre that this very simple human moment stood out like a klieg light.