A Look at Disney Gets Tangled: Top 6 Saddest Moments from the Show

It is okay to be sad, it is a common emotion that many people feel and express.  And sometimes media that we watch has a way of making us sad.   And that brings us to today's topic,  this is a countdown that I have wanted  to do for some time as both seasons of Tangled: The Series/Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure is filled with very sad moments and since I could not narrow it down,   I asked on Twitter and the Kingdom of Corona Discord for some sad moments from  the show and at the end of the day,   I had twenty moments.   Therefore, I created a poll for people to vote on and it received over fifty votes.  And there was a 4-way tie for the last two spots on the list, so I had to set up another poll but the two frontrunners there ended up in yet another tie.  So,  I ranked them and added points to determine.   Keep in mind, there were over 20 moments for people to choose from and because of that,  I'll be including the two moments that just barely missed the list as Honorable Mentions and I might go over the moments that received votes but not enough to make the list.  

Honorable Mentions

Pascal's Sacrifice - Queen for a Day (3 Votes) 

Something I find fascinating is that both of our Honorable Mentions involve Pascal and the first one here and this moment is perhaps one of the more tragic as it tricks the audience into thinking that Pascal is going to die.  Yes, you can say this is a Disney Channel show but honestly, I would not put it past the show to do that.   For some context,  a giant storm hits Corona in this episode and as the Disney Wiki explains here.

...Pascal, with tears and a smile, unties himself and jumps down. Rapunzel cries out to Pascal as he successfully pulls the stone out and the gears start to move again.

What this shows to me is how Pascal realizes that the importance of the kingdom outweighs his life at this moment and if he can do anything to help the kingdom and more importantly his best friend, he's going to do it even if it means giving up his life.   This is certainly a tragic moment to be sure and this was perhaps the first hint of the show would wreck the audience's heart. 



Pascal's Backstory - Pascal's Story (3 Votes)







Now,  Pascal's Story is set before Queen for a Day and the opening sequence shows adorable Baby Pascal but his adorability cannot protect him.

As we learn that Pascal and his mother are on the run from a snake and well... only one of them makes it out alive as Pascal is the next in the longest line of Disney characters with a dead mother.  I do believe that this shows how dark the show was willing to get but I think that Pascal's Sacrifice is a bit sadder as we also got to see how Little Rapunzel and Baby Pascal came together and became a family in this flashback.  So, there was a light of hope for the little guy at this moment. 

I appreciate the heaviness of this moment and it also shows that in bad times, people can come together and find new love and support. 



Now, onto the main list. 



6.  The Tower Is Destroyed - The Quest for Varian (4 Votes)

Now,  I have gone on record before stating that I have mixed emotions regarding the Tower and I went over my Moral Quandary with the Tower in a post a couple summers back and the show in its first season destroying the tower was perhaps the most shocking thing that was done related to a piece of iconography from the movie.  This moment fills me with mixed feelings as it frees the writers from not being so tied to the show and in the story, it is a way of Rapunzel being set free from her past but as she even states in the episode, this was her home for the first 18 years of her life.   I think the sadness at least for me is twofold,  we see Rapunzel lose her first home, even if it was her prison for so long but also the tower was one of the first things that fans saw when they watched the movie starts and just like the Floating Lights, the tower is always associated with the Tangled franchise. 

Think of it this way,  imagine if Beast's Castle had been destroyed in one of the direct-to-video sequels and was never rebuilt or if this same thing happened to Eric's Castle in The Little Mermaid TV show and was never repaired, that's how hard losing the tower felt.   As I said, it was smart from a story perspective to have the black rocks, the big focus of the series and the things that brought Rapunzel's hair back destroy the tower as that's the past and the story needs to move forward but it still stung to lose it.


5.  Waiting In The Wings - Rapunzel and The Great Tree  (6 Votes)






As I'll explain with the moment in the third spot, this is technically a villain song (Sadly)  Season 2 of the show took a darker turn perhaps because it had shown the audience that it wasn't afraid to break their hearts.  This song comes from the episode that was meant to be the midseason finale, Rapunzel and The Great Tree.  We had seen that Cassandra, Rapunzel's best friend had been starting to feel tense and overshadowed by Rapunzel and while it appeared that things were good,  Cass pours out her heart here as she yearns for a chance to shine but she's never gotten the chance to because she is just the friend and protector to Rapunzel.  She never gets to have her moment to prove her worth.   Now, there's an interesting moment where we see these visions of what Cassandra wishes she could have as her dream is to be Captain of the Royal Guards like her dad but she put that on the line to help Rapunzel.

The two things that help to sell this moment is that season 2 had been leading to this moment and Eden Espinosa's singing as it's just so heart-wrenching.



4. Rapunzel Compares Her Father To Mother Gothel - The Alchemist Returns (7 Votes)

I am so glad that this moment made the list as it is perhaps one of the most impactful moments from the show's first season.  After Rapunzel discovers that her father, King Frederic had been lying to her all season about the black rocks and Frederic states that he was only doing it to protect his daughter.  And this is where the heartbreak comes in as Rapunzel delivers this line.

You know, you are not the first person to lie to me and tell me I am not ready for the real world.

Rapunzel comparing her father to her captor is heartbreaking because she's not wrong.   In many regards, Frederic and Gothel aren't that dissimilar, they both lied to Rapunzel and that caused Rapunzel to turn on them both.  Now, Rapunzel was able to reconcile with her father but the audience can just feel the pain in Rapunzel as she does this and for Frederic to be compared to the woman that took his daughter away from him is so harrowing but he deserved it.   Just look at Rapunzel's face here.

 












This moment is so perfect for how honest and raw it is with these two family members.




3. Cassandra's Betrayal - Destinies Collide (8 Votes) 





Yeah,  to get the full effect of this moment, I'm gonna have do some backtracking to earlier episodes from season 2.  First,  at the end of the episode, Rapunzeltopia,  we see Cassandra walk out of a door from an inn that they were staying during a 3-part arc as the inn is destroyed and she looks different. 

Then at the end of the episode right before the finale, Eugene is given a warning that one of Rapunzel's Party will turn against her and he assumes that it's gonna be Cass.

And this was Eugene's big fear throughout the second season finale but as our heroes reached the end of the journey and made it to their destination, The Dark Kingdom, we were led to believe that everything was going to be fine and that it may have been Eugene accidentally betraying the one he loves as he was reunited with his father in this episode.   And as we learn, Rapunzel has to connect to the Moonstone that is at the center of the Dark Kingdom but that doesn't happen as well, just watch.






And that's how season 2 ended.   There are two things that make this moment heartbreaking, the first being that this is the second time that Rapunzel has had a friend turn against her in two seasons with Varian turning on her last season as she wasn't able to help him save his father but this one leaves a larger impact as Cassandra has been part of the cast since the first episode of the series and the audience had always been led to believe that Cassandra would always care for Rapunzel.  Which makes this ling sting all the more.

I tried to warn you, Rapunzel. You have to be careful who you trust.

Which brings me to something that broken me with the character since this episode aired,  Cassandra is featured prominently on merchandise for the show whether it be books, comics, a Christmas ornament or a Lego set. 

And I get it that it's just merchandise but it felt as though, Cass was being sold as a new character that we could trust and the thing that makes her different from other twist villains that Disney has done recently is that we got to know Cassandra and see her relationship with Rapunzel grow over two seasons.  Now,  this moment didn't come out of nowhere because as I stated season 2 had shown the tenseness growing between Rapunzel and Cass.   So, in a way, it was inevitable that this was going to happen but there was a sliver of hope that we were wrong but alas that was not the case. 


2.  Everything I Thought I Ever Knew - Destinies Collide (9 Votes)






Consider this line from the movie.

For the record, I like Eugene Fitzherbert much better than Flynn Rider.

One of the best aspects of the show is how Eugene has accepted his old name again and is willing to go by it as that is who he truly was and Flynn Rider was just a mask or so he thought.    As when our gang reaches The Dark Kingdom, Eugene is reunited with his father, the King of the Dark Kingdom. (voiced in a subdued and nuanced performance by Bruce Campbell).  So, Eugene finally gets his big solo number as he questions if every part of his life was a lie.  And no disrespect to  Shazam but this was my favorite Zachary Levi performance of the year as Levi in Eugene's first solo number really gets to highlight a side of this character that we don't often get to see.  The vulnerable side,  consider that Eugene hides his pain behind his wit, sarcasm, and bravado.    At this moment, Eugene lets his guard down and is honest with the emotions that he's asking.   As for so long, he has been a thief and that has been the only life he's known but to all the sudden find out that your father is not only alive but you are a prince is a lot for anyone  to take it and I appreciate the honesty here with Eugene as he questions his life.  Perhaps, the line that hits me the hardest is this one.

All my sweetest memories were castles made of sand

This is heartbreaking because it ties back into how Eugene seems to think that his time as Eugene with Rapunzel such as the Floating Lights don't matter because Eugene may not be who he truly is.  We will have to see the rest of this plays out in the final season but we do get to see Eugene reunite with his father and bond and that Rapunzel is excited that he has a family and she loves him no matter what. 




1. Quirin Gets Trapped  - Queen for a Day (12 Votes)

I'm not shocked that this moment got the most votes as I listed it as Varian's Dad Gets Trapped and Varian is a fan-favorite character that so many people that want to protect and hope for redemption.  One of the biggest themes of the first season, as inspired by Chris Sonnenburg's (Tangled showrunner) relationship with his own daughter, was that of father/child relationships and as I talked about in my review for the season one finale, we saw three different father/child relationships and Quirin getting trapped in one of his son's experiments and that is what that fan-favorite character down the path of villainy or at least started him down this path.    Quirin was the only family that Varian had and they didn't have the best relationship but he would do anything to please the only family member he left and now he lost that relationship.   It's quite heartbreaking and we can see that with the reprise of Varian's song, Let Me Make You Proud, that this situation spurns Varian even further to do anything to save his father.







And these last two lines sum up how bad this has affected Varian and he's all but gone dark at this moment.

Anybody who stands or has stood in my path, they are going to pay
They...will...pay

Perhaps dark isn't the right word but rather, he's broken but that is what makes Varian a sympathetic villain and this moment is but just one of many as to come with his character during the first season. 



There you have it, the Top 6 Saddest Moments from Tangled: The Series/Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure.    Thanks to everyone that voted and I was quite pleased with where the moments landed, I'm not sure how similar my list would have been if I didn't let people vote but that is the fun of it.   Now, I want to keep going with Tangled articles but I wish to do something a bit lighter, so we are going to review a lighter episode from season two, the next time A Look at Disney Gets Tangled as I look at the episode...


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