TV Corner

Let’s Talk About… 13 Reasons Why

Whimsically Meghan

Hi and welcome to another TV Tuesday! This week I’m going to be talking a little about 13 Reasons Why.

I’m trying to come up with how to even begin, now that I’ve finished I just feel empty and I have no idea why I decided to watch it in the first place.
So I have to say I finished watching this a few weeks ago at 1:30am on a Sunday night… Monday morning? Depends on how you look at it. I’m not going to lie the show left you wanting to watch more, it was very engrossing, but it also showed me how horrible teenagers can be to one another. Holy hell.
Like maybe I was oblivious to it all when I was in high school but I never felt like this went on. Maybe because I wasn’t part of the popular crowd, but damn.
What I do like about the show is that they show that actions have consequences and you can’t get away with everything. I don’t like the consequences being human lives, but at least these kids learn or try to learn that they can’t get away with everything.
So the show is about Hannah Baker, but it’s also about Clay Jensen too. Hannah has committed suicide and one day Clay finds a box of tapes on his front door. Those tapes are Hannah’s confession into why she killed herself. There are 13 tapes in total and for each tape is a reason, or a person behind the reason. 
We don’t find out until the 11th episode that Clay was tape 11, and everyone before him has listened to them and passed them on.
Only Clay is super slow at listening to them all. I swear it took me just as much time to watch this show as it took Clay to listen to those tapes. I think that’s part of the reason I had such a hard time continuing with the show. Clay took too long to get to each tape and it was excruciating, so I would put off watching it. I’m not going to lie it took me 2-3 months to watch, yes you read that right, 13 episodes took that long. At least I can say I made it through.
I also want to mention Tony real briefly before I jump into the episodes. I couldn’t figure him out. He was friends with Clay, but at the same time he wasn’t and he was just this mysterious person lurking in the shadows. He was a integral part of the show and I really liked his character but damn he confused me a lot. Ha!
So the first tape is about Justin Foley and he gets a tape for sharing to the school pictures of Hannah in a compromising position. I can understand why that would make you hate a person and most of the guys on the tapes are douchebags.
I’m not going to lie in the beginning I got so confused as to who was who. All the guys just seemed to look alike, especially Justin and Bryce, ugh Bryce.
Throughout the episodes we see the budding relationship that Clay has with Hannah since they worked together at the movie theatre. You can tell they both like each other, but they never followed through. 
Tape two is about Jessica Davis. Jessica’s tape has a little history to it. Because the two girls met when they were both the new girls at the school. Their guidance counselor put them together thinking they would be the best of friends. Well they start out as good friends always drinking their hot chocolate. Then they meet Alex a very bleach blonde guy who becomes their equal. Only its not equal for long because he and Jessica start to date and leave Hannah alone. When the two break up Jessica thinks it’s Hannah who ruined her relationship. That bitch slap was so sad, like damn. 
When we’re in the present Hannah’s mom is going crazy, and she’s looking for anything to find out why her daughter did what she did, and she finds a note that leads to her believing Hannah was bullied. She takes it to the school principle, but it doesn’t go in her favour.
Tape three is about Alex. He gets a tape for putting Hannah’s ass on the best ass list at school. A list he created. He does that to make Jessica jealous and so he could be more popular. Well then Alex, shame on you. I like Alex he’s a good kid, a little misguided at times but for the most part he’s a really good kid.
Clay is still getting through these tapes and when he confronts Alex about the tapes, he tells Clay to stay away from Tony.
Tape four is about Tyler Down. Now Tyler is the school photographer. And his tape is about stalking Hannah and taking pictures of her. But the real reason is for stalking her house and taking pictures of her and Courtney Crimsen kissing. 
So Courtney thinks she’s gay, with having two gay dads as parents she doesn’t want people to think that’s why she’s gay, so she’s stuck in the closet.
Hannah reveals to Courtney that she has a stalker so Courtney goes over to help catch them, but in the end the two get kinda drunk and end up taking their tops off and kissing, Tyler takes that as his opportunity to shine and take photos. And he makes sure everyone at school sees these photos, of course.

 Tyler is a scumbag, just why would you do that? So everyone now everyone who has listened to the tapes already has taken a shot at Tyler’s window with a rock because on the tapes Hannah suggests to do it. Clay isn’t sure he wants to do that, instead he takes a naked picture of Tyler and sends it to all of the school as payback.
When the photo of Hannah and Courtney leaks this leads to the end of Hannah and Courtney’s friendship because like I said Courtney is still in the closet and doesn’t want anyone to know. I really dislike Courtney. She thinks she’s better than everyone else and just acts like a jerk to everyone.
So is anyone surprised that she’s the next tape? I wasn’t.
Although Hannah’s reason for giving her a tape is because Courtney exposed Hannah in the photo so that Courtney could avoid being one of the one of the girls in the photo. Courtney is shallow. She tells everyone it’s Hannah and Laura in the photo; Laura is an openly lesbian, but it doesn’t stop there as she talks about Hannah and Justin just to make things worse. What a shitty person.
In the present Clay takes Courtney to Hannah’s grave, but Courtney is having none of it, she doesn’t want to deal with the guilt she’s feeling. She clearly doesn’t want to take ownership of anything.
When she leaves, Tony shows up, and gives him his bike, which was stolen by the popular boys (who are all on the tapes), and a cassette with a song that he and Hannah danced to at the winter formal. This is how we find out that Tony and Hannah were friends.
Later that night Clay is forced into a car with the boys, and they scare him into keeping quite about the tapes because Clay really thinks people, especially Hannah’s parents need to know about them. When they get pulled over for careless driving, they get away with it because the cop is Alex’s father.
Tape six is about Marcus Cole. One of the popular boys. He gets a tape because he humiliated Hannah in public on their One Dollar Valentine’s date.
This is also where some of the tapes start getting a little ridiculous.
So Valentine’s Day is approaching the school has this algorithm to put together people for a date. It gives you five choices and most people go with their first match. Marcus gets Hannah as his, I can’t remember who Hannah gets I know Clay is on the list. So Marcus asks her out and reluctantly she says yes. They go to this dinner, although he doesn’t come alone. Well first he comes late, then with all of his buddies. When he tries to feel her up, and she says no he gets mad because she was supposed to be easy. Ugh, what a pig. He deserves the tape.

Then back in the present there is a lot of tension building up with these tapes. So much so that when Alex almost gets hit by a kid named Montgomery Alex starts a fight. This leads to them both appearing before student council. Well guess who’s on the council… everyone on the tapes pretty much.
Tape seven is about Zach Dempsey. He gets a tape for stealing her positive notes. This one is a big stretch. Like I know Zach is a guy who doesn’t take responsibility and everyone hands things to him on a silver platter, like he doesn’t have to work for anything. He’s a little rich boy.
So in their communication class (how fitting) the teacher has decided to give everyone an envelope to act as like a mailbox where students can write positive notes to each other. When Hannah doesn’t want to go out with Zach he takes her notes from her mailbox to make it look like she had none.
In the present Clay starts to go crazy. He’s seeing hallucinations seeing Hannah dead on the floor, hearing her tapes over the PA at school. He’s going insane.
During a school basketball game he decides he’s going to go out to Zach’s car and scratches “WHY ME?” onto it.
This leads to some legal disputes between the two families and since Clay’s mother is a lawyer that helps him out.
Then we reach tape eight which is dedicated to Ryan Shaver someone we haven’t met yet. So Ryan is a student who runs a poetry magazine in the school.

The two meet at a poetry reading and Hannah likes his stuff. They become fast friends and when she writes something really good he wants to publish it, only Hannah thinks it’s too personal. So what does Ryan do, he steals the page and publishes it anyways. When Hannah finds out she’s devastated and thus leads to being reason number eight.

In the present we learn about Tony and the night Hannah died. Hannah had reached out to him, and he ignored her, by the time he realizes something is wrong it’s too late.
As we reach the later episodes is when things really start to ramp up because those middle episodes were kinda mediocre.
So Hannah finds herself at a party when she’s hiding in Jessica’s room she witnesses Bryce Walker rape Jessica who is unconscious and drunk. You would think that tape nine would be Bryce but it’s actually Justin again. This time for letting Bryce to rape his girlfriend. Because you see Justin put Jessica in her room because of the condition she was in and fuckin Bryce doesn’t care he throws Justin out of the room and Justin doesn’t really put up a fight. It’s just so disturbing.
Back in the present Clay talks to Justin because he’s found out that Jessica doesn’t know what happens that night. He tells Justin that he needs to tell her the truth. Well while in a yelling match the truth comes out and man, yet another ugly scene.
 After that whole rape scene Hannah is beyond ready to go home and the only one sober enough to get her there is Sheri. Now Sheri has been weird to me. Like she’s been trying to get close with Clay and I had no idea why, I guess she just liked him and when we find out she has a tape and is part of the whole mess well that throws everything through a loop. I don’t know, I had a feeling she would be a part of it all I just didn’t know how, well here at tape ten we find out.
Tape ten is dedicated to Sheri. So Sheri drives Hannah home, or well part way until she hits a stop sign causing it to fall over. Hannah says she needs to call the cops, but Sheri doesn’t want to. She doesn’t want to be caught drinking and driving so she drives away.
Later that night because there was no stop sign a series accident occurs; one dealing with another student, Jeff Atkins. I was actually so sad when this happened. I liked Jeff, we didn’t get a lot of him but it was nice to see that Clay had a friend. And Jeff was always nice to him.
And then we finally, finally get to Clay’s tape. Reason eleven: for leaving Hannah alone, even though she said she wanted him to go.
It was one of those things that girls do when they want to be alone but really they want you there to comfort them, it was exactly that. It was Hannah calling out for help. We find out that she out Clay on the tapes, not because he did anything wrong, but because she wanted him to know the full story because she really liked him.
I couldn’t possibly imagine listening to a tape by someone who really liked you, but they were dead and you were listening to those reasons. It’s completely insane, I don’t think I’d be able to do it. He’s obviously filled with guilt for leaving her when she needed him.
In the present Hannah’s mom finds the list she made for the tapes, her mom just doesn’t know what the list means.
Then it’s the biggest reason of them all, tape twelve belongs to non other than Bryce Walker.
So she has a really crappy day, she looses a lot of money that she was supposed to deposit for her parents for their pharmacy and obviously they are beyond furious because they are already struggling to come up with them money as it is.
So that night she finds a party that is hosted by Bryce, while in the hot tub he joins her. Now you thought he was bad for raping Jessica, well doesn’t he do again with Hannah. I hate how she doesn’t say anything, but at the same time it’s like what do you say, how do you get out of this situation? She’s already depressed as it is, this was the cherry on top, and uhhh I can’t.
It reminded me of the movie Speak with Kristin Stewart. The two had very similar shots, and dealt with the same thing.
In the present when Clay finds out about this of course he’s pissed. So what does he do, he goes to visit Bryce and pretends to buy weed, while doing so he confronts him about raping Hannah, when things get out of hand, we do find out that he records the conversation. Good on you Clay!
 Back to the list of names, they are all subpoenaed for a lawsuit between the Baker’s and the school.
We also see Tyler in his dark room grabbing photos of the students on the tapes, and then all of a sudden there’s a teen with a gunshot wound to the head. We learn that Alex shot himself in the head, but did he really? Did Tyler shoot him? Because we also see him putting a gun away. And we see him rip his photo off the line. I don’t like that they left that part unfinished.
In the last episode Clay gives the confession to Tony, super irrelevant but we learn that Tony is gay in a previous episode, which I was starting to question when I kept seeing him with that guy. I have nothing against that, but I did think it was nice to see diversity.
As we reach the last tape, we’re thrust into the present… or can we call it the future. Anyone else think it’s weird that the trial tapes are filmed on November 10, 2017, which hasn’t even happened yet.
I also only realized my second watch of the final episode is that Bryce doesn’t know about the tapes because he’s tape 12 one after Clay. Dammmnnn. It’s like everyone is in on a secret.
This leads us to tape 13, Mr. Porter, for not listening and turning a blind eye to her.
Then back to the past, Hannah goes to visit the guidance counselor, Mr. Porter. She tries to tell him about what happened, but he doesn’t really listen to her. He’s really all over the place because his phone keeps going off. She recognizes that he doesn’t want to talk about it, and when he assumes that she consented to sex, she gets mad; even though she didn’t say anything he says maybe she consented and then changed her mind. Ugh. I wouldn’t want to talk to this guy either.
And in the present Clay goes to visit Mr. Porter and tells him what he did wasn’t enough. We find out that it’s that day Hannah went to guidance is the day she killed herself. Clay is so adamant about him being wrong, about the way he treated the situation. It’s Clay who tells Mr. Porter who it was. He tells him everything, and tells her what her last moments are like.
Oh god watching her do it, I thought I was going to be sick. Then when her parents found her, I completely lost it. I could never imagine being the one to find someone like that, especially their child. It’s so depressing.
Afterwards, it’s Clay who gives the tapes to Mr. Porter.
Then it’s Tony who gives the tapes in a USB form to her parents.
Then during an interview with Tyler he talks about the tapes and they ask where they are and tells them that Clay had them the last he knew. Well Clay’s mother the lawyer is present and is shocked to find her son knows about any of this, and I think Hannah’s mother is a little shocked too.
And when Bryce wants to know how Clay knew about the night at the party, Justin tells him and you can tell Bryce is scared. But Justin just walks away from Bryce like he should.
On top of all the tapes we get to see Clay living out his life which was really nice to see. As much as the tapes really consumed his life he was still able to go to school and live his life.
So I was doing some reading on the series and I always thought it was weird that Clay had the scar on his head from his bike the entire show, you’d think that would heal. Apparently the creators and writers did that on purpose so that we could distinguish between the two Clays the past and the present. I guess that’s a good, smart way of doing it because it did get confusing what was in the past to the present at times.
The show does kinda end open ended, but I feel like we get closure for Hannah. There’s supposed to be a season 2, and part of me can see why, but another part is like why do we need more misery in our lives? So I guess we’ll see what happens.

9 thoughts on “Let’s Talk About… 13 Reasons Why”

  2. It was really hard to watch, but I think I ended up liking it. I’ll be tuning in for Season 2. (Though I was truly bummed about Jeff. He was (other than Clay) the only truly kind character in the show.

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  4. I started this show and stopped at episode 3, so I’m glad I got to read this recap! I had no idea things got so bad, w the lesbian scenes, the rape, the counselor, so sad and twisted! I feel like she could have prevented a lot of things she went to by not going to parties and finding good wholesome friends, but instead it sounds like she kept talking to people that were mean and going to places that causes her trouble. But it’s cool to see the perspective of her. I will have to finish off the show. I wonder what they’ll do the next season on!

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