From ‘The Office’ to ‘Ted Lasso’, 9 Comedy Episodes That Make Us Laugh and Cry

Sometimes you want to laugh, sometimes you want to cry, and sometimes you have the very particular urge to do both. These 9 episodes of comedy provide a big dose of that specific kind of catharsis. Whether happy, wistful, sad, or some mixture of all three, these episodes will help you laugh through the tears — or cry through the laughter.

The Good Place, Season 4, Episode 13/14 — “Whenever You’re Ready”

Yes, there are laughs in this episode, but the series finale of The Good Place, NBC’s comedy about moral philosophy, the afterlife, and what we owe to each other, may take the crown for the heaviest sobs prompted by a single episode of a comedy. As each member of the core four members of Team Cockroach contemplates walking through the final door of eternity, we are given the chance to cry for every one of them and how far they’ve come. But the weepiest passage belongs to Chidi (William Jackson Harper). He explains his choice to leave the Good Place to his afterlife partner Eleanor (Kristen Bell) by comparing existence to a wave, which must eventually return to the ocean. If you don’t burst into tears within two notes of Arvo Pärt’s “Spiegel im Spiegel,” check your pulse: you may be in the Bad Place.

But this is a comedy, after all, which means that one of the most intensely moving episodes of network television ends with a cheerful “Keep it sleazy” — though whether that full-circle moment makes you laugh or cry harder is between you and the universe.
New Girl, Season 6, Episode 22 — “Five Stars for Beezus”
new-girl-jess-nickImage via Fox
Over the course of New Girl, Fox’s sitcom about a gang of uniquely zany but perfectly matched roommates, we watched the two central couples hook up, break up, make up, and, in Schmidt’s (Max Greenfield) case, stuff a small fortune into the Douchebag Jar along the way. So when the Season 6 finale gave us two exhilarating cappers on those relationships, it earned our happy tears. Schmidt and Cece (Hannah Simone) discovered that they were having a baby, news Schmidt delivered to his wife in a room filled to the brim with flowers. And Nick (Jake Johnson) and Jess (Zooey Deschanel), a TV couple with some of the best chemistry in recent memory, finally got back together for good. After a series of elevator-vs.-stairs misses, a small unhelpful dog, and a flurry of scattered index cards, Lorde’s “Green Light” crescendoed just as the elevator doors opened on their long-awaited big kiss. This high-spirited episode has the vibe of a farce, and that dizzying energy just made the moments of exuberant happiness all the more tear-worthy.

The Simpsons, Season 6, Episode 13 — “And Maggie Makes Three”

This long-running animated sitcom has run the emotional gamut across more than 700 episodes, so it’s made us cry more than once. But “And Maggie Makes Three” may be the show’s gold standard for combining laughter and tears. In this flashback episode of The Simpsons, Bart (Nancy Cartwright) and Lisa (Yeardly Smith) ask Marge (Julie Kavner) and Homer (Dan Castellaneta) why there are no pictures of baby Maggie in their family photo album. In telling the story of how Homer was briefly able to quit the power plant and live his dream of working at a bowling alley, we are treated to the show’s typically high density of jokes and an explanation of where Homer’s hair went (it turns out he’s never taken pregnancy news particularly well).

But when Marge becomes unexpectedly pregnant with Maggie, he eventually has to return to the power plant for a better salary. After watching Homer’s disappointment and Mr. Burns (Harry Shearer) enact revenge for being humiliated by Homer’s enthusiastic resignation, it’s a welcome burst of sudden joy to learn where all those baby photos went. They’re at Homer’s desk, strategically covering Mr. Burns’s cruel “Don’t forget: You’re here forever” plaque so that it now reads “Do it for her.” Homer may not be the smartest or most mature man, but this reminder that his heart is in the right place breaks and warms ours.

How I Met Your Mother, Season 6, Episode 14 — “Last Words”

This CBS sitcom about the friendships and romantic foibles of a group of five friends celebrated its silliness, from slap bets to suiting up. But How I Met Your Mother could also turn on the waterworks, as it did with the death of Marvin (Bill Fagerbakke), Marshall’s (Jason Segel) father. While back home in Minnesota for the funeral, Marshall discovers a final voicemail from his dad on his newly charged phone. When he finally listens to it, ready for his father’s last words of wisdom, he’s greeted instead with a pocket dial and a long stretch of static. The tears start during Marshall’s raw, grief-stricken rant about how cheated he feels to have lost his dad and the cruel cosmic joke of the voicemail.

The Office, Season 7, Episode 22 — “Goodbye, Michael”

By the time this late-Season 7 episode arrived, NBC’s mockumentary was no stranger to emotional moments. The employees of paper company Dunder Mifflin faced declarations of love, separations, professional frustrations, proposals, weddings, and more. But the biggest tears in The Office come from Michael’s (Steve Carell) departure to join his fiancé Holly (Amy Ryan) in Colorado. A series of increasingly emotional events preceded it — chiefly, Michael’s candlelit and fire sprinkler-soaked proposal and the staff’s “Seasons of Love”-inspired goodbye song — preparing us to get good and weepy when it was time for the final round of goodbyes.

The biggest culprits? Jim’s (John Krasinski) choked-up assurance that a red-eyed Michael “turned out to be the best boss [he] ever had,” and the silent hug between Michael and Pam (Jenna Fischer) on the far side of airport security. After seven seasons of Michael’s buffoonery, it was with a mixture of happy and sad tears that we watched him fly off into the sunset a better, more fulfilled man and — cue the tears — the best boss Dunder Mifflin ever had.

Futurama, Season 4, Episode 7 — “Jurassic Bark”

When Fox’s animated sci-fi comedy wanted to, it could really go for the emotional jugular. We wept when Fry (Billy West) — accidentally cryogenically frozen in 2000 and awoken in the 31st century — entered his bereaved mother’s dream and brought her some peace after his disappearance. We misted up when a time loop allowed him to grow old with his love Leela (Katey Sagal) and then choose to do it all over again. But for sheer brutality, the nod for biggest cry has to go to Futurama Season 4’s “Jurassic Bark.” When Fry discovers the fossilized remains of his beloved dog Seymour Asses in a museum, he tries to have him cloned. But he changes his mind when he learns that Seymour lived for 12 years after Fry’s disappearance, believing his beloved pup lived a long and happy life.

But the closing minute of the episode shows us the truth: he waited outside the pizza shop where Fry disappeared for the whole 12 years, through rain, snow, and old age, before finally closing his eyes for the last time right in that very spot. It’s a real gut punch, and all the more emotional in comparison to the gleefully absurd hijinks that the show’s characters usually got up to.

Parks and Recreation, Season 6, Episode 13 — “Ann and Chris”

When this sunny mockumentary about City Hall employees in Pawnee, Indiana, made us cry, it was usually from happiness. But the big exception is “Ann and Chris,” when Leslie Knope’s (Amy Poehler) “poetic noble land mermaid” of a best friend Ann (Rashida Jones) leaves Pawnee to make a life in Michigan with her soon-to-be-born baby and Chris Traegar (Rob Lowe). Despite the all-time great romantic pairing of Leslie and Ben (Adam Scott), friend love was always at the core of this show. Watching its longest and most important relationship be separated — and to see Leslie’s can-do optimism try and fail to overcome her heartbreak — is the rare occasion for tears of sadness rather than joy.

But this is Parks and Recreation, where hopelessness doesn’t survive. Leslie is as sad as she’s ever been, but as she watches Ann drive away, Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) promises breakfast food as a sure-fire cure. The show plays us out with Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers,” a song all about wishing a loved one a place to feel free, whether they have to run away or stay nearby to find it.

Ted Lasso, Season 2, Episode 10 — “No Weddings and a Funeral”

For what’s mostly considered a feel-good, radically optimistic show, it sure proved difficult to pick just one episode for this list. Apple TV+’s sitcom about Ted (Jason Sudeikis), a terminally cheerful American coaching an English football club, is one of the funniest and most heartfelt shows out there. Whether it’s sad tears at the breakdown of Ted’s marriage, happy tears at Roy’s (Brett Goldstein) triumphant rom-com moment as he embraces his true love of football, or tears of awe when Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) finally busts out her gorgeous singing voice, there are plenty of opportunities for letting it all out.

Roy and Jamie’s (Phil Dunster) cathartic embrace in “Man City” is a very close runner-up, but the emotional trophy goes to Ted Lasso’s “No Weddings and a Funeral,” largely for the audacity of making us cry while we’re being Rickrolled. The episode focuses on the funeral of Rebecca’s father, with whom she had a difficult relationship. From Ted and Rebecca each laying bare their respective traumas for the first time to the full church bolstering a shaky-voiced Rebecca as she sings Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” in place of a eulogy, this episode was full of revealing our protagonists hurt and how they found healing.

Schitt’s Creek, Season 6, Episode 14 — “Happy Ending”

Of all the episodes on this list, this one might have the wildest swings from tears to laughter and sometimes draws both at the very same moment. Over six seasons of Schitt’s Creek, we watched the formerly rich Rose family learn to grow into better people while maintaining their very specific quirks, including a truly impressive wall of wigs. When we get to “Happy Ending” — named for both the fulfillment each character finds and an extremely mistaken instruction to a massage therapist — the show goes for emotional broke. We swing from scream-laughing at Moira’s (Catherine O’Hara) pope get-up while officiating David (Daniel Levy) and Patrick’s (Noah Reid) wedding to ugly crying at the choral arrangement of Tina Turner’s “Simply the Best” — a song foundational to their relationship (and to “Open Mic,” another episode that probably made you cry).

During the wedding, everyone on screen is weeping just as much as we are, and every time you think you’ve got it under control, something else arrives to make you laugh-sob. Patrick sings Mariah Carey’s “Always Be My Baby” as his vows! David ends his lovely, vulnerable vows with a cheeky reference to his own happy ending that afternoon! Moira, usually averse to softness, delivers the ceremony in a guttural cry-voice that is nigh on indescribable! By the time they head off to their own (metaphorical) happy ending, we are crying at their growth and how they’ve found their way to sincere care for each other while cackling at the joyfully silly people they still are.