Valentine’s Day—a made-up holiday, sorry to admit—has at least one benefit: It’s the ideal occasion to appreciate fictional couples and pop culture’s take on romance in every way. One of those ways is heartbreak, as no romance is complete without some tragedy, right? To that end, this AVQ&A asks: What’s your favorite tragic TV romance? (Favorite, admittedly, might be a weird way to put it but ... you know what we mean.) Let’s take a deep breath, steel ourselves, and get into it.
Fleabag’s heartbreaking romance between Fleabag (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) and her Hot Priest (Andrew Scott) rocked our worlds (and swept the Emmys) when it premiered in 2019. It wasn’t just that he was hot, though Scott turned the disheveled, swearing Catholic pastor into something unbelievably attractive. It was that he really saw her, and loved her, but he still chose God. The emotional gut punch when he walks away after Fleabag declares her love—knowing full well it was a doomed cause—remains one of television’s most devastating series finales. [Mary Kate Carr]
Is a show like The Sopranos, thematically speaking, capable of having a great romance? These people in this world, we’re reminded constantly, are monsters. But if it is—and that is a big if—it’d have to go to Chrissy (Michael Imperioli) and his fiancé Adriana (Drea de Matteo), right? Yes, he cheated (remember his fling with his cousin’s Hollywood-connected fiancé?), tried to force her into a threesome with her new bestie, accidentally killed her dog when he was high, and was physically abusive. He, like everyone in Tony’s crew, is irredeemably awful. But if any two people on this show were cut from the same cloth and just seemed, for lack of a better word, right for each other, despite all of that awfulness and drama, it was them. (And hers is maybe the one—spoiler alert—big-character death on the show that forces me to turn away and wrecks me each and every time.) [Tim Lowery]
You’d think The Office’s Michael Scott and his onetime boss Jan Levinson (formerly Levinson-Gould) would be a disaster as a couple—and you’d be absolutely right. Michael (Steve Carell) is deeply insecure, completely self-unaware, and not too bright. Jan (Melora Hardin) is a bit of a mess, prone to self-sabotage, impulsive decisions, and emotional outbursts at inappropriate times. From their first night together at Chili’s after landing a client to a clandestine getaway at Sandals in Jamaica to their epic breakup at the most awkward dinner party ever, these two were nothing but toxic. Yet there was something about their chemistry that made us root for them, like somehow these two broken people could find a way to mend their damage together. Instead, they just made each other worse. And it was often funny to witness.[Cindy White]
Young love: dreamily irresponsible and potently emotional, it’s half infatuation and half identity crisis. As if Buffy Summers didn’t attract enough trouble, there was Angel: tall, dark, handsome, and undead, his piercing gaze trained longingly on her from outside The Bronze. They get Claddagh promise rings; they kiss during a rare Sunnydale snowstorm. But after they’re intimate for the first time, Angel turns into someone else, shattering Buffy’s innocence in more ways than one. Gellar’s performance in Buffy The Vampire Slayer as a lovelorn teen with one too many responsibilities is nuanced and numb with anguish. And I haven’t seen anything else quite like it on TV since. [Hattie Lindert]
Okay, yeah, it’s not like anything terrible happens between Alexis (Annie Murphy) and Ted (Dustin Milligan) on Schitt’s Creek. There’s no betrayal, no death, no world-altering reason they can’t be together. But that almost makes it worse. These two spent six seasons doing the on-again, off-again thing, and in that time we got to watch them both grow as people. The moment when Alexis admits to David (Dan Levy) that she’s in love with Ted even though Ted has already moved on is heartbreaking. And then, when they finally get together, and it looks like they’re going to go the distance, it’s just circumstance—and the recognition that they can’t give each other what they need—that keeps them apart. [Jen Lennon]
How many times does each member of a couple have to watch the other die for their romance to count as tragic? For literally star-crossed lovers John Crichton (Ben Browder) and Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black) on Syfy’s fish-out-of-water action-drama Farscape, the answer turned out to be “more often than you’d think.” These two already had a whole living ship’s worth of nigh-irreconcilable differences to work out: He’s a pacifist scientist cracking under the strain of homesickness and a galaxy-wide man-hunt, she’s a recovering space fascist with murder-level mommy issues. It all seems to pale in comparison to the sheer amount of actual grief they manage to inflict on each other over the show’s four seasons. The fact that these two manage to stick it out owes as much to the Farscape universe’s sometimes liberal approach to resurrection and cloning as it does to Browder and Black’s undeniable onscreen chemistry. [William Hughes]
There’s a tragic romance, then there’s Lost’s Jin (Daniel Dae-Kim) and Sun (Yunjin Kim). Their relationship evolves beyond space and time, emotional and physical distance, and plenty of miscommunication to become the show’s singular best romantic endeavor. Yes, Lost boasts couples like Desmond and Penny, Sawyer and Juliet, and Jack and Kate. But it’s Sun and Jin who evoke the most visceral emotions over six seasons because of their ups and downs and especially due to how their story concludes.
Sun and Jin couldn’t catch a happy break for long periods of time, huh? Their love marriage turned sour, they crash-landed on a sketchy island, and got into lots of small fights. And when they finally managed to reconnect and rediscover their passion (thanks to honesty and understanding), it’s all ripped away. She escapes; he doesn’t. She raises their child alone; he jumps back to the ’70s Dharma Initiative. How is that fair, Lost? How? To make it worse—and not counting the flash sideways—Sun and Jin reunite in the final season for barely an episode before dying together in the next. Even their reunion was short-lived. [Saloni Gajjar]
Greggs (Sonja Sohn) always had too much McNulty in her to be a good partner to Cheryl (Melanie Nicholls-King), her TV-working better half who saw, early on, that Kima was more connected to the job than her. (You can see as much in the scene above.) Like Jimmy, she cheated and came home sloppy on work nights, eventually forcing Cheryl’s hand in throwing her out. Greggs eventually is able to form a bond with Cheryl’s son, Elijah (their son, at one point), as the show nears its conclusion. But there’s a real bittersweetness to that, as the two, for a time, were clearly good together. [Tim Lowery]
Dickinson never got the accolades it deserved, but let’s start right now by naming Emily (Hailee Steinfeld) and Sue (Ella Hunt) as one of the most heartwrenching tragic romances on television. It’s not just that they’re two women in love who live in an era that would be unforgiving to them. It’s that Sue longed for family and stability while Emily longed for immortality. Their rapturous romance inspired her poetry. But her art was often an obstacle to their relationship because both were equally consuming to the reclusive genius. And then there’s the little complication of Sue marrying Emily’s older brother. Regardless, it was also love so transcendent that it allowed Emily to live forever through her words—and what’s more powerful than that? [Mary Kate Carr]
No TV death took me more by surprise than Orange Is The New Black’s gut-wrenching way of killing Poussey (Samira Wiley). It’s unexpected and depressing—and it comes on the heels of Poussey and Brook (Kimiko Glenn) establishing their relationship. It took a while for them to move from friends to lovers, but in season four, the pair became one of OITNB’s sweetest parts. So it’s heartbreaking that they never get to live up to their couple potential. Instead, of course, Poussey was rubbed out during a prison riot, while Soso spent the rest of the show’s run trying to move on. [Saloni Gajjar]
The Buffyverse romance between Wesley and Fred has layers of tragedy. While Angel and Cordelia take center stage for much of Angel’s run, supporting characters Wesley (Alexis Denisof) and Fred (Amy Acker) play out the most heart-wrenching romance of the series. Following seasons of their unrequited love simmering, Wesley and Fred finally get their moment together—and we only mean a moment. It’s not long before Fred is yanked away from Wesley and replaced by Illyria, the ancient demon who used her body to regenerate. Wesley is then forced to work alongside Illyria, who lacks empathy and human understanding. The two eventually develop a mutual respect for one another, though, with Illyria getting the depth of Wesley’s care for Fred—so much so that when Wesley dies in the series finale, Illyria takes on Fred’s persona to comfort Wesley as he passes. Say it with me: Dagger. To. The. Heart. [Gabrielle Sanchez]
Review was somehow simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking. Watching Forrest MacNeil (Andy Daly) end his (once) happy marriage because of a viewer-submitted request on his television show is brutal. To make things more tragic, Forrest loses almost everything in the subsequent divorce. And his efforts to win back Suzanne (Jessica St. Clair) are thwarted, naturally, by his complete dedication to the integrity of his show ... which is eventually canceled. It’s truly painful. And truly funny. [Peter Scobel]
At this point, 19 seasons in, the chances of a relationship surviving on Grey’s Anatomy are slim to none. Regardless of how cruel the writers are to most Seattle Grace couples, nothing beats the catastrophic destruction of Mark (Eric Dane) and Lexie (Chyler Leigh). Their unexpected pairing in season five quickly won hearts because they had everything (chemistry! banter! looks of longing!) Lexie made him a better person, while he encouraged her to speak up and become more confident.
Mark and Lexie suffered their fair share of dating drama, including the time he impregnated Callie, not to mention when his older daughter showed up. Still, nothing could stop their romance. Lexie’s admission of her feelings in season eight remains one of Grey’s Anatomy’s most memorable dialogues. It’s too bad that soon after they get on a plane with their coworkers that crashes, and she dies right in front of him. Two episodes later, he succumbs to his wounds. Gutting. [Saloni Gajjar]