TV Scenes That People Always Fast Forward Through
Binging a television series from start to finish can be a very relaxing way to spend some downtime, but even the most re-watchable shows are bound to have a scene or two that gets on everyone's nerves. Whether it's a moment that still looks too disgusting to sit through more than once or a traumatic situation that produces a lot of secondhand anxiety upon review — or even just an exchange that involves too many bad character decisions to deal with again — the fast-forward button can come in quite handy when revisiting a show.
When it comes to these television series, even the biggest fans often have to cry uncle and skip through a bit whenever their least favorite scenes come up onscreen. From triggering tragedies to stomach-churning body horror and cringeworthy romantic hookups, here are the scenes that leave people lunging for their remote controls the most.
13 reasons whyyyy
Netflix's adaptation of Jay Asher's young adult novel 13 Reasons Why got a lot of people talking, but a great deal of the headlines were heavily critical of the show's explicit depiction of suicide. In the first season's final episode, the central character Hannah is shown using a razor blade on her wrists in the bathtub. Rather than using choice camera cutaways or suggestive sound effects to illustrate the moment, the imagery is unflinching in its brutality, and audiences were horrified by what they saw. Survivors of suicide attempts roundly condemned the scene for exploiting such a devastating reality, and it had the unexpected result of inspiring copycat incidents of self-harm.
As if that moment of controversy wasn't enough for the series to endure, the show's second season produced another bathroom scene that was similarly upsetting. In the season 2 finale, a boy named Tyler is violently assaulted by a trio of bullies who proceed to sodomize him with a broomstick — and, once again, the attention to every detail of his agony is unsparing and left social media in an uproar with trigger warnings. Showrunner Bryan Yorkey has defended the series' darkest moments as inspiring important conversations, but that doesn't mean fans will want to endure them more than once.
The walking dread
When it comes to onscreen gore, there's almost nothing The Walking Dead isn't allowed to do. Since the whole series revolves around the zombie apocalypse, with human survivors ripped to shreds and eaten alive on a regular basis, the grosser it gets, the better... with one glaring exception. In the show's season six finale, villain Negan promised some serious retribution, and after a summer of frenzied guessing games and audience anticipation, he delivered on it in the season 7 opener.
Audiences who were familiar with Robert Kirkman's comics series were well prepared for what they were about to see, but that still didn't soften the sight of Glenn Rhee's battered face, complete with the same dangling eye that had been drawn on the page. Some viewers even threw in the towel on the show altogether as a result of the scene's savagery. The kicker was that Glenn wasn't the only fan favorite to meet his end, so the scene was doubly punishing. While fans of The Walking Dead might be willing to wade through endless carnage everywhere else, this is one scene that's proven to be too much to take.
The handmaid's wail
The dystopian portrait of an America that's been overrun by patriarchal zealotry as presented in Hulu's adaptation of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is staggeringly awful in many ways. There are public executions of dissidents, and the whole show revolves around the endless diminution and subjugation of women. It's been largely lauded as a sort of cautionary tale for the modern world; however, there was one moment of torment from the show that left audiences crying foul.
In the second season, Offred is nearing the end of her pregnancy and has become increasingly obstinate to her "family" (government-authorized captors). To punish her for her disobedience, and to speed up her delivery so they can get her out of the home, the lady of the house helps her husband sexually violate June as audiences are made to zero in on her tortured expressions throughout the assault. The episode's writer later said she meant for the distress of the rape scene to highlight the banality of evil of the entire enterprise, which forces a few fertile women to sleep with and conceive the children of the men in charge. No matter the intentions, a lot of viewers were exceedingly disturbed and consider the scene to be utterly unwatchable.
True blech
One could easily make a feature-length mash-up of the many moments on True Blood that are uniquely gruesome and/or so bizarre that they're hard to revisit in retrospect, but there's one scene in particular that really seems to sicken people the most.
In the show's third season, Bill's contentious relationship with his manipulative maker Lorena culminates in the two having a rowdy romp in bed. Since his heart isn't in it, though — as he repeatedly reminds her that he will "never" love her — he doesn't want to look at her during their sudden tryst. Instead of closing his eyes or perhaps even ending the affair, he proceeds to snap her head completely around so her face is 180 degrees away from where it should be as the two continue their dalliance. Bill isn't driven by some unusual kink in doing so; his action is fueled by pure rage, which only spurs Lorena on. Even on a show that's ventured into some very weird sex scenes — from a werepanther assault to a shapeshifter basically making out with himself — Bill's vicious bedroom behavior in the scene is just a little too twisted to tolerate a second time.
Friends without benefits
Another TV hookup scene that's completely off-putting for fans is the moment when Rachel and Joey try to take their budding romance to the next level in their shared apartment. There are several slightly more tolerable smooches that lead into to the scene, of course. After an unusual courtship that has seemed completely one-sided, the two start fooling around during the Barbados trip in season 9 but put the brakes on letting it go anywhere until they receive the blessing of her ex Ross.
Once Ross gives the okay, the earlier element of unrequited affection and any excitement over their forbidden attraction is gone, and the two come to realize that there's nothing real between them. The spark of curiosity that brought them together on the sly in the first place is doused, and what remains is an uncomfortable attempt to make something happen anyway. The scene that results, with them trying to "power through" and force the issue of establishing a physical relationship, is exhausting. Not only are they unable to get past the lip-locking stage, but the entire effort is so cringeworthy that it's an easy mark for the miss list for even diehard Friends bingers.
Game of bones
There have been a lot of scenes in HBO's adaptation of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice series that have caused an uproar among audiences: there was the Red Wedding, Sansa's excruciating wedding night with Ramsay Bolton, Lady Walda and her baby being left to the dogs, and Samwell Tarly's terrible turn as bedpan eliminator in Oldtown was arduous and disgusting.
The Game of Thrones scene that has been seared into everyone's memory forevermore (and thus does not bear repeating), however, is Theon Greyjoy's mutilation. In the show's third season, the bastard heir of House Bolton captures Theon and tortures him into complete submission — even redubbing him "Reek" to underscore his pet-like subservience. To ensure his complete humiliation and defeat, Ramsay decides to relieve Theon of his manhood and tease him about that castration by taking a suggestive bite of some sausage. As if the cruelty of the moment isn't apparent enough, Ramsay's blithe indifference to the horrors of his own making renders the scene almost unendurable.
Mad woman crush
Betty Draper Francis (January Jones) has had some of the most GIFable screen moments of Mad Men's entire run. From gunning down a bird mid-cigarette to spite her nasty neighbor to her very literal use of shade, Betty is a big part of what makes the show so bingeworthy. Yet there's one subplot that seems to turn people off the character in a big way: her twisted connection to her daughter's childhood friend, Glen. As a kid, his curiosity about womanhood is downright creepy, but she plays into it by giving him a lock of her hair upon request. That scene is unsettling enough on its own, but it's the moment when he returns in adolescence that's really maddening.
In the show's final season, Glen pays a visit to the Francis household to reveal that he's joining the military, despite it being the height of the Vietnam War. He declares that he's doing so to protect his country and channels that bravado into an attempt to woo her. It's clear from her face that she's still flattered by the boy's infatuation with her, but she sheepishly declines the advance on account of the fact that she's married. Not only is the actors' chemistry unusually bad for the otherwise excellent series, but the scene is so bizarre and unpleasant that it's a sure thing for the speed-through treatment.
The night of bad feet
There's a lot to like about HBO's miniseries The Night Of (a pseudo-revival of Britain's Criminal Justice). The show's did-he-or-didn't-he mystery building is completely captivating, and the character development of the perp Naz and his lawyer John Stone in particular proves to be a selling point. However, there was one element of the show that seemed to serve little purpose other than to make people uneasy: the excessive attention to Stone's chronic eczema problem.
Sure, it's a good way to encourage empathy for a very real and underappreciated issue that people do suffer from, but with scene after scene spent documenting Stone's many attempts at home foot treatment, enough is enough once the Crisco comes out. In the show's fourth episode, the character is shown using a vat of shortening and some saran wrap to soothe his dogs before finally paying a visit to a doctor who can prescribe him something beyond his "Mickey Mouse medicine." With all the painstaking close-ups of his condition, the scene is not only bound to offend the squeamish, but it is also far too down the rabbit hole of this subplot for some audiences to stomach and can be missed without missing much.
Gross anatomy
The love life of Meredith Grey on Grey's Anatomy has made for many of the series' most memorable episodes, for better and for worse. The ups and downs of her long-lasting relationship with Derek Shepherd are particularly captivating, but she's also been paired with a few other romantic partners that make for good TV time as well. One coupling that still does not sit well, however, is her onetime hook up with George O'Malley in season 2.
Sure, part of the problem is that seeing her with anyone but Dr. McDreamy seems wrong somehow, even though he's walked away from their relationship to try and patch things up with his estranged wife, but the real buzzkill is how completely removed from the situation she is. She even cries mid-coitus to really drive home how wrong the whole thing is. Fans of George have slammed the scene because they think Meredith took advantage of his vulnerability and open affection for her as a means of getting over her other issues. On top of that, though, the scene is just unbearably awkward and serves little purpose to the overall plot, which means there's zero love lost in bypassing it altogether.
Lost the point
ABC's Lost had a few episodes that missed the mark, including a highly controversial finale that put its showrunners on defense for years. Perhaps no scenes are more universally hated, however, than the ones involving Nikki and Paulo. In the third season, an entire episode is inexplicably devoted to the two supporting characters who also survived the crash of Oceanic Flight 815. While the showrunners were simply trying to open up the scope to include some other new characters, audiences were unimpressed.
That divisiveness was due not just to the unfamiliarity of the characters, but their scenes also made up a "Gift of the Magi"-style mini-movie that has little bearing on the main arc. Their backstory of betrayal and thievery and paralyzing spider bites is completely pointless to the rest of the show's narrative. In fact, if not for a couple of throwaway scenes involving the central figures of the show, the entire episode could be removed from the rotation without costing viewers anything of substance. In other words, Nikki and Paulo's scenes could easily get lost in the rewatch process, and few if any would miss them.