This show man. I feel like it’s been on for longer than 3 seasons. I do also like that they start with a viewer warning to ensure viewers can get a sense of what they’re getting into since this show is hella dark.

So the new seasons starts with a new character. I can’t remember if she was in season 2, but the show jumps to 8 months after the spring dance where Tyler showed up with his gun. We learn that they got Tyler out of there and that clay took the gun and drive away. I so thought clay was going to get away with it.

Moving on, Ani is our new character and the first episode is narrated by her. Because she’s new she seems to have all the answers because she seems to know all the key players in this game.

At first I had no idea how she was connected to Bryce… I’m still not 100% sure, like I think her mother is the Walker’s cook, or at least I know she works for the Walkers. And they live in their house.

Now what’s kind of confusing is the fact that this episode moves through time a lot and sometimes we’re in the past and sometimes it’s 8 months later. Because 8 months later Clay is being arrested and taken out of school because shocker, Bryce has gone missing. At this point none of them really care, but none of them know anything.

I’m so skeptical of Zack though because he seems shady. I think he knows something because we learn that he was the one who called the cops at the dance and he’s lying about who attacked him, when Clay and Tony think they know Zack knows.

But of course, Ani has all the answers that she’s going to share with us.

One thing I truly like about Ani is the fact that she’s so outspoken and just says shit like it is. She reads people really quickly and assess situations really well.

What we learn in the second episode: a lot about Chloe, Bryce’s (now ex) girlfriend. So we find out that she got pregnant and she didn’t want Bryce to know, shocker there. No instead she confides in Zack, and the two become friends and he’s there for her… although I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a crush on her. He even goes with her to get her abortion.

That’s something this show does really well is shows the hard crap in life and really intensifies it. We see her throughout the procedure and you can see how scared she is, how venerable she feels my gosh it was so haunting and so well done.

We also learn that it was Bryce who attacked Zack at the football game. I think it’s because he knew about the baby, and the abortion and how Zack was with his girlfriend the entire time.

I think you can tell that Bryce’s mom had a feeling she knew Chloe was pregnant because we get a scene where she goes to visit her and his mother just talks about how all the men in her life are trash and her son isn’t any better… which felt like a threat, that she should abort the baby because if it’s a boy it’s going to be just like its father. Yikes.

This is also where we learn that Ani’s mum works for the Walkers as a live in nurse to Bryce’s grandfather. They live in the guest house, and I think the fact that Ani lives with Bryce has her twisted because she seems to think she sees the broken side of him and that deep down he’s a good guy. UHM WHAT? NO. Even his own mother doesn’t think that.

At the end of the episode we see that they pull Bryce’s dead bloated body out of the water, so he’s gone from missing to officially dead.

I like how Jessica fought and won for class president, she will definitely make a good one, and she has the best intentions.

I also want to touch on Tyler because he’s all kinds of messed up. After he was beat up, and I completely get it, after something that traumatic, how do you come back from that? Clay and Tony really have his back, Alex too, and you can see the progress he’s been making. But then he climbs a tower and it looks like he’s about to jump into the water, I really hope he doesn’t.

Also, he has this voicemail from Bryce about something, but we don’t have all the information yet. I feel like quite a few people have voicemails from Bryce, interesting.

So we know it wasn’t Jessica or Justin that killed Bryce as much as Clay and Ani so wanted to believe. When the two notice that Jess and Justin have been with each other a lot and they both have a motive to kill Bryce… like everyone on this show… the two follow them to a motel room.

I’m not sure how much I like Clay and Ani as these little detectives because they suck at it.

I also don’t know why Jessica confides in Ani… she’s hella two-faced. Ani is always talking about everyone being a liar… well she’s one to talk. Jess opens up to her about a guy who’s bad for her and Ani automatically thinks it’s Bryce and that she’s sleeping with Bryce. As someone watching the show, you can clearly see that the secret Jess and Justin are trying to keep is that they’re sleeping together, not that they killed Bryce.

So what if Jessica went to go see Bryce to tell him she was doing a lot better, so what if Justin went to see Bryce to tell him to stay the fuck away from Jessica, doesn’t seem like motive to me, but hey what do I know?!

On a side note, we learn that Tyler still has one of his guns… he didn’t give them all over to Clay and Tony, so I’m highly suspicious of Tyler… though he seems like a likely suspect and I can’t tell if the show wants us to believe it’s someone we would least expect or someone we would think, but over look because it’s so obvious.

Alright, so Tyler is off the table, and I actually believe it. At first I was like is this a ruse, but I believe it.

We all thought it was Tyler because then the news informs everyone that Bryce was shot… and Tyler has a gun. So we spend the episode following Tyler around, and Tyler is carrying his backpack around like he’s got the gun in it.

He laughs at Clay when he finds out and questions him, asking if he thought he was stupid. He has the gun because he wasn’t sure he was going to have to use it again. He tried to use it to kill himself by blowing his own head off, but he couldn’t pull through. Then he almost used it on Bryce because he also went to visit Bryce, with the gun. He claims that Bryce knows everything that goes on at the school so he must know what Monty did to him, but Bryce plays it off that he doesn’t. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bryce didn’t know what Monty did, but in the end Tyler doesn’t shoot Bryce, as much as he wanted to.

But this doesn’t satisfy Clay who in his haste to try and find the gun, finds photos on Tyler’s laptop of Bryce dead. Tyler says he has those photos because he’s the one who found Bryce after contemplating jumping, he was the one to find the body and call it in anonymously. Dear lord. This is why I believe it wasn’t Tyler.

Then it’s found out that Bryce wasn’t actually shot, but beaten to death and the police are now looking for a murder weapon… and they’re searching the river… the river where Tony dumped all of Tyler’s other guns. Well shit.

What the police do find are a bag full of what look like narcotics.

So they’re steroids and we find out that Bryce was dealing them to the jocks… but not just the jocks.

This is when the story opens up and holy crap what a clusterfuck.

The school then does a police check for lockers and the sports teams for steroids. Alex is freaking out… but why would Alex be freaking out, oh WELL!

Turns out he’s been taking steroids because he thinks no girl will like his skinny ass. After he couldn’t please Jessica he’s been pissed off about it so he started juicing up. At first he got it from a different guy on the team… Luke… and that’s what he tells Clay and Ani… but of course they go digging deeper because they can never be content with the first answer.

When they snoop Alex’s phone they find the purchases that he was making to Bryce, but they notice the price goes up, they also find purchases to a hooker. It’s the hooker that helps them figure out and makes Alex break about the truth.

Turns out he did start buying from Bryce… and it sort of became a friendship of sorts. The two start doing coke together and I guess what you would call hanging out. It isn’t until they go to rip apart Bryce’s dad’s home… and they get the wrong house and terrorize a little boy that Alex is out and truly realizes what an awful person Bryce is… that’s why the price for the juice goes up, he no longer gets the friends/family discount.

But after all of this, this doesn’t make Alex look any less guilty, if anything this makes him look more guilty of the crime.

I have to unpack Monty for a second. We know that he has problems at home, his father beats him so when he find out he’s gay, well it explains why he hates people so much. His father hates a lot of people, so it only makes sense that Monty does too. Beats it into him.

Another thing I want to touch on is Jessica’s group, Hands Off, they want to go and protest at Bryce’s funeral and Jessica isn’t okay with that. One girl in the group, I can’t remember her name, she’s a feisty one, she thinks Jessica is letting her rapist get away with what he did, and letting him win if she doesn’t protest, that she’s still the victim. But really, is protesting on a funeral the right way about going about this? I get that she’s angry, but it’s morally wrong to do that.

Oh, so they do it. The Hands Off group do it. Just as Bryce’s mom gives her speech about her son, protesters stand up from all over the room start chanting and yelling all sorts of bad things. It’s complete chaos.

I wonder what the repercussions are going to be.

So Ani finds Tony’s mustang in Bryce’s garage… why Ani was in the garage snooping is beyond me. That was never explained, but we do get why the car is there.

So when Clay goes to talk to Tony, he finds his house empty… his family gone. So Clay goes to Tony’s boyfriend. His boyfriend is reluctant to tell them anything, but in the end he breaks and tells them.

So the night that Tony was going to bring his boyfriend to meet his parents, they go over to find his house abandoned, but like they left in a hurry. It’s his uncle who tells him his family has been taken.

Then Tony finally tells the rest of the story, he too is reluctant to tell Clay the story too, but Clay says they’re friends, after everything with Hannah, and that’s when tony agrees that they are friends and they say I love you man to each other, oh it was so sweet.

Anyways, we find out that Tony’s family has been taken away, separated and that they could be deported, that’s when Tony needs money for a lawyer… and here enters Bryce. Seriously Bryce touched everyone in some fucking way Jesus.

Bryce goes to Tony to get his tail light fixed, while there he sees that Tony has his mustang for sale. Obviously Tony isn’t going to talk about why he needs to sell it, but Bryce makes one hell of an offer, and offer that Tony can’t refuse and so that’s how Bryce got the car.

I don’t think Tony killed Bryce, as much as Tony is a street kid, he’s such a lover and not a fighter so I don’t believe for one second it was Tony.

I also don’t believe it was Bryce’s father because even though his father is stupid and apparently hiding a 12 year old daughter, he wouldn’t kill his son. God the man is an ass. And OMG is Bryce’s grandfather a piece of work too… lord he has no respect for women and his so fucking arrogant. Blaaahhh.

So it’s Bryce’s father that gives the police video footage from outside his house, this is when we see Clay at Bryce’s house, pointing a gun at Bryce, then at himself.

So now we’re supposed to believe that Clay killed Bryce. I honestly don’t think he did it. Sure he’s got his reasons, but I don’t think he has it in him to do such a thing.

Watching his parents doubt him is so sad. Everyone doesn’t think Clay has it in him either… everyone but Ani.

Oh Ani is now changing her tune. My god the crap that comes out. So she kisses Clay for who knows what reason, to make it look like she likes Clay, even though she doesn’t because she truly likes Bryce. We see the two of them hangout and soon we find out they’ve had sex. Ani claims she doesn’t love Bryce, but she doesn’t make a very convincing case.

Now Ani is trying to put all the pieces together about where Clay was the night of the dance. When Clay finds Ani in his room after he’s heard all the rumours, since this is why he was pulled out of school in episode one, Ani looks frightened and Clay asks, what are you afraid of me? Like really Ani.

And when his friends say Clay could have killed Bryce before because of his jealousy towards Hannah, they don’t realize how jealous he feels towards Ani.

Also, now like in the past how Clay saw Hannah, he’s now seeing Bryce. Geez.

We’re spending a lot of time on Clay. Now they’ve brought in the councillor Mr. Porter back because they want to question some of the students about Clay. Make them say they think he could have done it… or that’s what Clay thinks at first.

It isn’t until he actually sits down with Mr. Porter that he finds out the truth. It turns out Mr. Porter only picked people he knew would defend Clay because he too thinks Clay is innocent.

It’s also through Ani that we learn Mr. Porter has been to the Walker household. She just doesn’t know why… it’s actually Clay who gets it out of Mr. Porter. Porter was actually counselling Bryce. Turns out Porter went back to school to become a therapist and he was only really interning to help Bryce, but the two of them were working together and Bryce looks like he was actually very forthcoming about everything. It even got him to open up and talk to his mom since their relationship has always been rocky.

At the end of the episode we find out that Porter knows that Monty could be a factor, and when Clay reaches out to him, Monty strikes back to look at Justin. It turns out that Justin has a secret of his own… why does Justin have Bryce’s meds?

I also want to touch on Tyler again because he finally tells someone (other than Bryce) what Monty did to him. My god, that actor who plays Tyler did such a heartbreaking performance because it was so moving.

So he tells Clay, and that’s when he tells Clay that he told Bryce, Bryce was furious and he told Tyler that things with Monty have been taken care of… but we don’t really know what that means.

Okay this show is taking too long to figure out who killed Bryce. 13 episodes is a lot because we’re still stuck on Clay, but now we’re going to revisit Justin again.

So Justin wasn’t really with Jess like we were told before. He’s not clean, like we thought before. Oh no, it turns out he’s been using oxy… which was what Clay found in his bag. It turns out he never really stopped. Turns out after everything was said and done that it was Bryce who gave him the oxy because he didn’t want Justin to die doing all the other drugs he was doing. Okay, that’s just great.

So now Clay doesn’t know if he can trust Justin. On top of this, it was Bryce who saved Justin when his “father” Seth comes back wanting money. It’s Bryce who pays him off.

This leads Ani and Clay, who are now back in action solving the mysteries, thinking Seth killed Bryce… and when they find Bryce’s watch it seems obvious… only it’s what Justin used to pay Seth for drugs. UGH THESE WEBS!

Then we end another episode with Clay picking up a phone call from Mrs. Baker of all people.

So Mrs. Baker is back in town and obviously she wants to talk to some of the people from Hannah’s life. She speaks with Jess, she speaks with Tony and of course she wants to talk to Clay.

But first, when she talks to Tony she finds out about his parents being deported and she knows it was the Walkers who hired a lawyer to look into Tony’s family. Now Tony is pissed, so he confronts Bryce, but Bryce has no idea… Bryce does figure it out and realizes that it was his family and he wants Tony to forgive him, but tony isn’t having any of it. He tries to give him his car back, but Tony says he’d rather have his family than his car. This leads down the road of Hannah, and he makes Bryce listen to the tapes because apparently Bryce never heard them after all this time.

This leads to Bryce wanting to make amends with Mrs. Baker, and he tries, but Mrs. Baker is having non of it.

It’s the night of the homecoming and Mrs. Baker leaves a really incriminating voicemail on Clay’s phone about how she wishes he was dead.

When Clay meets Mrs. Baker, neither one of them ask if the either did it, but then Clay and Justin get arrested, and the phone, which presumably has the voicemail still on it gets taken away.

I guess the voicemail is gone, but they’re still very deadset in it being Clay. Pinging his phone, which puts him in where Bryce’s body was found.

Clay tells Justin that the reason he was there (and the reason his search history is very strange) is because he writes fan fiction and he doesn’t want anyone to know. Why do I feel like that’s a lie?

We get backstory on Tyler again, he finally tells Jessica about Monty and she realizes that he’s more than just an ally to their hands off group, but a true member.

He tells her that he told Bryce, and Bryce did speak to Monty, telling Monty that he raped Tyler… which Monty comes back saying your going to teach me about rape. I am glad that Bryce said no, and I am glad to see he’s trying to change, or he was. All that to say Monty looks hella guilty right now.

Now we’re back to looking at Jessica because Bryce wanted to her to meet him… no idea if she did. What we do know is that she said before that she was with Justin, which we now know is a lie, but now her story is she was in bed.

And oh yeah, Clay asks Tony to make him disappear… that doesn’t look suspicious.

Can we just find out already without all these twisty turny plots? At first it was fun, now the webs are too tangled.

Okay so uhm, why did Zach think he killed Bryce? Why would he go through all that trouble of confessing if he knew going in that when he left him he was still alive?! Ugh. So exactly that, Zach meets Bryce our by the water, only to beat him up and break his legs… but Bryce was still conscious and clearly not in the water so I don’t get why Zach felt the need to confess? To make him feel better?

We know that Bryce asked Jessica to meet him, so when Bryce goes “what the fuck are you doing here?” We know it’s not her, I’m not sure who it could be. I honestly don’t think it’s Clay, but my next guess is Monty… but it could be any one of them, they all have a reason to want Bryce dead.

Speaking of Monty, it was good to watch him be arrested. He gets charged with raping Tyler. I’m proud of Tyler for coming forward and reporting it.

They have an assembly where they bring the two schools together, Liberty and Hillcrest and Jessica speaks up about rape culture. I love what she says because it’s true. She says that even if you don’t think your life have been touched by sexual assault you’re wrong, people suffer in silence and you could have no idea. This is when people use this as a safe space to stand up and declare they’re a survivor.

Okay, wow, what an ending… and they made it out so there’s probably going to be a fourth season. Why couldn’t they just leave it alone?

Anyways, before I get into that, holy hell I did not expect it to be Alex, then again Monty just felt too perfect. But the way they did it was great.

So the police bring in Ani again… although throughout the whole show Ani has been sitting with the sherif telling her tale. Someone she finds out that Monty died in his prison cell before going to see the sheriff so that way she was able to convince him that it was Monty.

Plus the gang put evidence in Monty’s locker to really incriminate him.

But while we’re being told this fictitious story, we see the real story play out.

It is Jessica who shows up to meet Bryce… with Alex. Jessica sneaks out with Alex, I think she originally wanted to go with Justin, but he was too busy buying drugs, so she took Alex. Bryce asks for help, and forgiveness. He gives Jessica a tape, yes he was being ironic and on purpose (later they all listen to that tape and listen to his apology).

But of course Bryce is Bryce and he thinks that Jessica has set him up, that’s why Zach came. And he tells Alex he was his friend once… and that’s when Alex says he was never his friend, he tries to help him up, but the pain in Bryce’s leg is too much and Bryce just goes off on everyone, which makes Alex super furious and so Alex pushes him into the water.

Wow, when you’re filled with that much hate for a person, it just all comes out.

We also see what happened to Monty, that night where he was supposed to follow Bryce and kill him, he actually went home with the guy he met at the party, Winston.

Winston knows Monty didn’t do it, and he tells Ani this… so I feel like next season Winston is going to come back and try to get justice for Monty.

I also have a feeling that the sherif who also happens to be Alex’s dad, knows that Monty didn’t do it, and I believe he knows it was Alex, but he’d rather have his son alive than dead and so he protects him. We also see his dad burn clothes so there’s that.

I do like that this season ends on a happier note, that the characters are all trying to get better, trying to move on from all of it. But then that last scene where a fisherman… who’s fishing on a river? Finds the guns they got rid of… so uhm I feel like if there is a next season it’s going to be about these guns and getting justice for Monty.

I honestly think this show should end here, but I have a strong feeling that’s not going to happen.

As for this season, it started strong, but the middle got annoying with the twists and turns and the mystery surrounding who done it got tiring, but the emotion was spot on and done really, really well. I think they hit on a lot of important topics and they didn’t try to sugar coat anything. Everything felt raw and emotional, and I like that kind of thing.

Overall, a good season.