27 Grey's Anatomy Episodes To Watch When You Need A Good Cry

The train crash episode was difficult to watch mainly because of the two patients who were impaled by the same pole. Tom and Bonnie both kept their sense of humor up as long as they could, but then, when Bonnie realized she'd need to die so Tom could live? Instant waterworks.

Who could forget when Meredith had her hand inside a live explosive that hadn't detonated yet? Even though she was scared out of her mind, the bomb squad guy on the case did everything he could to talk her through it. Unfortunately, when she did finally pull her hand out, the bomb detonated and the bomb guy was killed, and that moment was heartbreaking.

Denny's death was one of the most heart-wrenching moments in Season 2 — not just because he'd become a beloved character in his short time on the show, but also because watching Izzie break down when she realized he was dead was horrifying.

Meredith drowning after the ferry boat crash was one of the saddest moments on the series, but seeing the doctors come to terms with the fact that she might not survive was even worse. Eventually, she pulled through — and those sad tears turned right into happy ones.

It took a long time for Meredith and Derek to get it right (we're talking years) but when they finally did, it was so worth the wait. Meredith making Derek the house of candles when she was ready to commit to him for real is one of the highlights of the entire series, and the moment couldn't have been more perfect.

After losing a pregnant patient that he'd grown really close to, Derek disappeared into the woods. One by one, the other docs went out there to try to convince him to come back to the hospital, but he ended up just making them all sad with him. Top top it off, when Meredith showed up he threw her engagement ring (which he hadn't yet proposed with) into the woods.

In one of the most magical moments on Grey’s, Meredith walked into the elevator and Derek proposed to her in the best way possible: with scans from all the cases they'd worked on together.

Being that absolutely no one saw this coming, George's death hit fans hard. He was an unidentified patient for most of the episode before Meredith realized he was George... and the only thing more brutal than that moment was seeing him in his military uniform in the elevator, waiting for Izzie who almost died herself.

No matter how many times you watch this episode, it's still impossible to get through it without crying. It's scary AF to watch a shooting play out in the hospital, but to see multiple beloved doctors get shot and some even killed? Meredith begging the shooter to kill her instead of Derek and having a miscarriage is almost worse, but the whole thing is a massive cryfest.

Let's just pretend that this didn't lead into the show's one and only musical episode, OK? Because aside from that, this episode was truly heartbreaking. Finding out that Callie and Arizona were in a horrific crash that almost cost both Callie and unborn baby Sofia their lives was rough.

It seemed like everything that could have gone wrong before Callie and Arizona’s wedding did, but in the end, it was perfect... even if their marriage ultimately didn't survive.

Meredith and Derek's adoption process was an emotional rollercoaster, but there was nothing more gratifying than when Meredith came home from a long day at work and the doorbell rang and there was Zola. So many happy tears.

Cristina and Owen had a lot of ups and downs over the course of Grey's, but one of their saddest moments came when Owen confessed that he had cheated on Cristina — and the entire episode that followed, where they both stayed in their apartment and attempted to talk it out. What made it worse was the fact that this is just one of a few times in the entire series that Cristina was actually heartbroken.

There are few episodes of Grey's that are quite as horrifying as the plane crash episode. As the doctors were on the way to Boise to help with a surgery, their private plane crashed, and Arizona, Mark, Lexie, Meredith, Derek, and Cristina all ended up stranded in the woods. It's hard to say which was harder — seeing Lexie die as Mark laid next to her, or knowing that even though he'd survive the crash itself, Mark would be dead soon, too.

There's something so cruel about watching Mark make it back from Seattle after the plane crash, have his "surge" and be his old self again, and then end up dying anyway... as if losing Lexie in the plane crash wasn't bad enough.

After her struggles with infertility, Meredith was shocked to find out she was pregnant with who would turn out to be baby Bailey. Seeing her tell Derek by showing him a "big sister" shirt she got for Zola? Priceless.

When Jackson and April where at their best, their relationship was beautiful — especially when Jackson stood up during April's wedding and said that he didn't want her to marry Matthew.

Jackson and April had plenty of ups and downs, but one of their lowest moments came when they faced losing their son, Samuel, after finding out he had a fatal birth defect. Hearing April constantly talk about how maybe there would be a miracle? Well, if that doesn't make you cry, you may have no soul.

Is there anything more heartbreaking than hearing Derek narrate his own death? He knows exactly what the doctors around him need to do to save him, but he can't tell them... and then seeing Meredith say goodbye to him? A total punch in the gut.

When Meredith was assaulted by a patient after he had a seizure, it wasn't clear if she'd survive — and seeing the other doctors react to her injuries was heartbreaking. Who didn't tear up seeing Alex cry?! It was even sadder to watch her difficult recovery, and how excited she was to see her kids again, only for them to be terrified of her.

To see Meredith win the Harper Avery award and reach a lifelong goal after 14 seasons, only for her to remember her mom and finally feel like Ellis was proud of her? It's impossible not to cry about how much that moment would have meant to her.

First, viewers wept through Jo learning the painful truth that she’s the product of rape, her biological father is dead, and her birth mother wants nothing to do with her. The scene that required extra tissues, however, involved Grey Sloan patient Abby Redding, who arrived at the hospital after surviving a brutal rape herself. Traumatized by the assault, Abby experienced a paralyzing fear of men, and so Jo enlisted all the female staffers to line the entire route to the operating room to make her feel more comfortable. Jo even held Abby’s hand through her entire surgery.

Maggie was thrilled to meet her lookalike biological cousin Sabrina, aka Sabi (played by Kelly McCreary’s real-life sister, Crystal), but their tight relationship was short-lived. It turned out that Sabi, who is Richard’s niece, had a life-threatening cardiac tumor, and Maggie was the one she wanted to operate on her. After watching the two women build a close and immediate bond, viewers then saw Sabi die on Maggie’s operating table. To add to the already emotional scene, Maggie also had to break the news to her newfound family members afterward.

As Meredith noted while closing out Karev’s farewell episode, there’s no good way to say goodbye, and that might be especially true when it comes to the series’ O.G. characters. Following Justin Chambers’ abrupt exit, Grey’s spent the better part of Season 16 trying to explain away his absence. The answer — he moved to a farm in Kansas with Izzie to raise their 5-year-old twins — may not have been what fans expected, but it was the effect his departure had on those he left behind (particularly Jo), coupled with a healthy dose of nostalgia, that really did viewers in.

Fans needed their own resuscitating equipment following DeLuca’s shocking death — and not just because the writers had, once again, lulled them into a false sense of security. Though he got stabbed while in pursuit of a child trafficker, the doctor seemed to have pulled through, since he was totally conscious and talking to friends and family post-surgery. After suffering an unexpected complication, however, DeLuca died on the operating table. The subsequent memorial video shown in the Grey Sloan parking lot certainly didn’t help to quell any tears.

To offset Season 17’s emotionally heavy storyline, Grey’s elicited plenty of happy of tears by bringing back beloved past characters like Derek, George, Lexie, and Mark. In Derek’s final appearance of the season, he and Meredith finally had their nostalgia-heavy beach wedding. This was also the episode where Meredith finally woke up for good, and just the image of Zola rushing to her — in full PPE — had viewers weeping.

Though Addison’s return to Grey’s Anatomy began with some Easter egg-filled comedy, her emotional elevator scene with Meredith really cued the waterworks. The tough-as-nails surgeon broke down in tears, admitting to her onetime foe that she returned to Seattle thinking she’d find Derek there. “Addison, he is here,” Meredith replied. “And he’s in his children, and they are very real. And I would love for you to come and meet them.” And, yes, the episode ended with “daddy’s friend” having a bittersweet ice cream party with Zola, Bailey, and Ellis.