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precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames
1. 13 Reasons Why is a Netflix Original
2. based on the novel of the same name,
3. (which I have not read).
4. It is a show concerning the suicide of a high school girl,
5. and the legacy she left behind.
6. Most tangibly this takes the form of
7. the Tapes
8. A series of cassettes which she left behind,
9. intending for key people to hear them.
10. The show follows
11. one such person,
12. as he struggles to unravel and comprehend
13. the truth of this horrible tragedy.

This show relies heavily on twists and turns, so use the Netflix Spoiler Policy by denoting which episode you have finished up to before you discuss, example:

Episode 3

So that's who killed Laura Palmer!

Discuss.

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X-O
Apr 28, 2002

Long Live The King!

I'm 3 episodes in and decided to start taking it slower. No more back to back episodes. Maybe one a day. It's a great show so far. Dylan Minette and Katherine Langford are really good in the lead roles.

Also yes, you may see that it's present day and the girl used cassettes to leave her message, but there's actually a reason for that and it is addressed pretty much immediately. Is it a gimmick? Sure. But it makes sense in the narrative.

Eezee
Apr 3, 2011

My double chin turned out to be a huge cyst
Yeah, I can't binge this one. It's a bit too heavy for me to watch more than one or two episodes in a sitting. It also doesn't help that I don't find any of the characters very likeable, but that is probably just me. They are well written, but I can't even bring myself to like Hannah all that much.

Propaganda Machine
Jan 2, 2005

Truthiness!
Heavier than Black Mirror? I can stomach an episode of that once a month or so.

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames
Just finished 7, and noticed it was directed by Gregg Arraki, drat.

Also I'm thinking Tony is a Tyler Durden or something

Toaster Beef
Jan 23, 2007

that's not nature's way
I've been recommending this hard to everybody I can, with the caveat that the first episode is markedly worse than the rest of the show. It ramps up significantly, and by the end it's maybe some of the most gripping and disturbing television I've watched in a long time.

X-O
Apr 28, 2002

Long Live The King!

Toaster Beef posted:

I've been recommending this hard to everybody I can, with the caveat that the first episode is markedly worse than the rest of the show. It ramps up significantly, and by the end it's maybe some of the most gripping and disturbing television I've watched in a long time.

Again I'm not nearly as far as most people but I think the first episode is great exactly because it starts off in the way it does. What I've seen so far there's a clear progression of plot and tone together in a way that a lot of shows sometimes try and don't pull off. The show feels one way and then something is revealed and it turns that around and then something else is revealed and you feel it building and start to snowball. Almost like Hannah probably felt herself, which is another genius use of the episodic format and the tape gimmick.

JakeP
Apr 27, 2003

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Lipstick Apathy
I binged this last night. It gets pretty loving heavy, and holy poo poo some of the scenes in the later episodes are dark, I had to look away from my screen. I am surprised how much I enjoyed watching this, while at the same time being completely uncomfortable.

Toaster Beef
Jan 23, 2007

that's not nature's way

X-O posted:

Again I'm not nearly as far as most people but I think the first episode is great exactly because it starts off in the way it does. What I've seen so far there's a clear progression of plot and tone together in a way that a lot of shows sometimes try and don't pull off. The show feels one way and then something is revealed and it turns that around and then something else is revealed and you feel it building and start to snowball. Almost like Hannah probably felt herself, which is another genius use of the episodic format and the tape gimmick.

I can definitely see where the intent was to give the first episode a different feel and gradually move into much harder topics. For me, it's just a matter of the writing and tone being a little cringe worthy for that first hour. The dialogue in particular. Maybe that's the point, maybe not. I'm glad I stuck with it, either way, because what comes later is incredible and horrifying.

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames
I thought I'd finish Episode 11 and call it a night.

Uh... nope! No sleep for me! :tviv:

Junkfist
Oct 7, 2004

FRIEND?
Sanctimonious Life is Strange quirky cringe dialogue. Mystical Minorities. Villainous Letterman-Jacket crew with occasional wayfarers. Main character blinks into empty space and tells dumb surface lies for 80% of his performance.

I'm glad she's dead.

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames
That's a pretty good review of episode 1, what did you think of the rest?

Junkfist
Oct 7, 2004

FRIEND?
It got worse and worse for me.

Retro elements of cassette tapes and 80s song covers from the eras of the How Do You Do Fellow Kids writers sung with earthy vocals were sprinkled throughout. Main Guy became Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day Off sans humor or the conviction to wreck the fancy red car he gets continually guilted into riding around in. Dead Girl was like an experimental clone of Rachel McAdams that was accidentally contaminated by a potato. Both the nature of her problems and the central antagonist got funneled more and more towards the most predictable, unambiguous climax it possibly could.

With the show continually telling us through latino yoda and main guy, the arbiters of Wisdom and Righteousness respectively, that they and the people on the tapes and the school and the students and society and practically anyone else besides the person who killed herself killed Dead Girl, the only discernible lesson in the end is that if you're a sad brown-haired white girl the bravest thing you can do is martyr yourself with a suicidal spoken word art project to make the world a better place, get everybody to care about you, and make everyone understand...I guess.

All in all I thought it was worse than "The OA" which really says something but to each their own.

Toaster Beef
Jan 23, 2007

that's not nature's way
I agree with some parts of that and disagree with others. The show does have flaws, and they aren't insignificant: Tony trends dangerously close to "magical negro" territory, the show's tone and dialogue are difficult to get through sometimes (though this is mostly weighted toward the beginning of the season, I think), and some characters—I'm thinking of Alex in particular, here—will bounce between personalities several times in the span of one conversation (hey, teenagers do tend to do that, but it's handled oddly here).

That said, I think the show goes out of its way to demonstrate a few things contrary to your take:

- Hannah is not at all blameless. She actively pushed people away, she was witness to a rape she did nothing to stop or report, and she carried all the same basic personality flaws of any teenager having a difficult time in high school.
- Her suicide and the tapes that follow it aren't treated as brave. The suicide itself is depicted as grotesquely and ingloriously as it possibly could have been. Hannah doesn't just cut into her wrist and stare stone-faced into nothing, she feels every bit of those slices—and reacts accordingly. I could see the argument being made that the tapes are treated as a worthwhile act of martyrdom, but I also think there's enough of Hannah recognizing her own failures to make an equally strong argument the tapes are less about martyrdom and more about balancing the scales.

Mind, I can totally understand why the show would rub someone the wrong way. Like I said, it has flaws. I found those flaws acceptable in light of the show's accomplishments (honest, unflinching depictions of rape and suicide are few and far between, especially in shows geared toward teens/ young adults), but that's not going to fly for everybody.

Edit: Also we apparently agree on The OA being pure garbage, so there's that.

Toaster Beef fucked around with this message at 13:17 on Apr 3, 2017

Numberwang
Sep 2, 2016
Tony was the worst part by a wide margin. And they didn't need to make Bryce a cartoon villain. But for every thing they got wrong, they got ten things right. Which is amazing for a teen drama.

Alex seemed the most realistic to me. He just adapts to whatever is nearest to him and goes with the flow. It seems like they set him up to be the new "Hannah" for next season, assuming there will be a 2nd...

Shimrra Jamaane
Aug 10, 2007

Obscure to all except those well-versed in Yuuzhan Vong lore.
I've seen a lot of gory movies and poo poo but I don't think I've ever been as disturbed by a scene like I was whenit showed every single little brutal detail of Hannah killing herself/ I binged through the series in 2 days and that is still sitting with me.

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames
Yeah the last two episodes are very hard to watch. I'm still processing it. I will agree that I don't think Hannah was meant to be entirely sympathetic or vindicated.

Toaster Beef
Jan 23, 2007

that's not nature's way

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

I've seen a lot of gory movies and poo poo but I don't think I've ever been as disturbed by a scene like I was whenit showed every single little brutal detail of Hannah killing herself/ I binged through the series in 2 days and that is still sitting with me.

It seems silly to say that simply depicting something realistically (or as close to realistically as we ever see in this sort of thing) is "brilliant," but the way the show handles rape and suicide is (in my opinion, anyway) brilliant. It forces you, as the viewer, to stomach some of the ugliest acts imaginable—or choose to look away, putting you in the same shoes as everyone else who looked the other way.

It's brutal to watch, but it's a decision they didn't make lightly, and I can't applaud them enough for it.

Edit: Also, with regard to Bryce being depicted as a cartoon villain (spoilers):

I can see where you're coming from, but I don't agree. He's portrayed as gregarious, generous, playful, friendly—and a monster. Because that's what so many predators are. A cartoon villain, you'd recognize from a mile away. A predator like Bryce, you don't recognize until it's too late.

Toaster Beef fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Apr 3, 2017

Shimrra Jamaane
Aug 10, 2007

Obscure to all except those well-versed in Yuuzhan Vong lore.

precision posted:

Yeah the last two episodes are very hard to watch. I'm still processing it. I will agree that I don't think Hannah was meant to be entirely sympathetic or vindicated.

The half hour behind the scenes special outright says that Hannah did some things wrong.

Junkfist
Oct 7, 2004

FRIEND?
Beyond all the small stuff that made this show a fun but cringey hatewatch that I felt nothing substantial for, there is one aspect that really got on my nerves.

Ostensibly this central question of the show is: Why did this girl commit suicide and what role did bullying play in it? We can agree that it has a social message. There are a lot themes you could explore there on the nature of bullying...who's bullying and why are they bullying? How can it affect different people in different ways? How does what might not even feel like bullying to some feel like bullying to others? Do some people think bullying is normal or part of growing up or even healthy? Do people who bully know they're bullying or do they think they're just joking around, maybe even somehow think they're trying to be inclusive and inviting with the bullying? Is there a misunderstanding or a lack of communication that's a problem? There's usually a sense of pervasiveness or tacit social permission to do it and encourage it so that everyone conforms to a norm, where a bunch of small things have a snowballing effect that leads someone to have an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and depression so that suicide seems like the only way out. Once the suicide happens, there's a lot of guilt and confusion and no easy answers or place to put the blame, so the fallout generally leads to more questions and more soul-searching. Lots of nuance, lots of grey area, no easy answers.

In Hannah's case, I guess there's a lot under the surface and it's not all that clear for most people that it's even a problem. She's made up with most of the people who wronged her. Sure she might not sit with them, but they don't ostracize her, they hang out with her at parties, some even apologize to her. But then there's that small incident where SHE'S RAPED. SHE'S VIOLENTLY AND FORCEFULLY RAPED IN A HOT TUB. She also witnesses rape. She also gets involved in the most convoluted manslaughter and manslaughter cover-up I've ever seen on a show, ok, fine, but even those instances don't really compare to A BRUTAL PHYSICAL RAPE THAT LEAVES HER VISIBLY BRUISED WHILE SHE WALKS HOME IN WET, RUINED CLOTHING. This is not bullying. Rape is not Bullying. The Hutus did not Bully the Tutsis. There's not a lot of questions about guilt or culpability or who's responsible for what in a RAPE, especially in this case considering the person who raped is the cookie-cutter blue-blood levels of rich jock psychopath with resting rape face. Is hyper-charged 80's Villain Template Bryce going to ponder whether the nature and form of his RAPING might hurt Hannah's feelings? Will he wonder during future rapes if he should've done something different? I'm uncertain.

That's a problem, because now we're talking about something else instead of what we've been talking about for the whole season. Like, Hannah, the other things didn't exactly lead you to this driving moment for wanting to commit suicide. You could've made one tape. I don't even get how the others are relevant now?

As to the issue of Hannah being blameless or having blame, I don't really care. Her being Not Perfect or Having Done Some Things Wrong is a pretty low bar for writing a character. The question is whether or not she could be trusted or has her own erroneous interpretation of events and for all the lipservice tiny car man gave about Hannah speaking "her" truth the only instance the show has her misremembering an event is Asian Jock not dropping the note. That's it. Not exactly Rashomon. Everything else is confirmed. Nothing else is disputed or questioned. Certainly not by Main Guy, who continues championing Hannah right up through the climactic speak-truth-to-power moment by pushing the box of tapes forwards as if they're 10 little stone tablets which...I guess is all about rape culture now???

Anyway final scene before credits reveals that the main character has become Final Fantasy XV DLC, so I look forward to getting S2 on the PS4.

Junkfist fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Apr 3, 2017

Toaster Beef
Jan 23, 2007

that's not nature's way
I think it's made pretty clear that while Hannah getting raped is one massive piece of what finally pushes her over the edge, it's not at all the sole reason for her actually going through with suicide. She even says she's willing to give life another chance, but is ultimately let down by The Worst Counselor in the Known Universe. The bullying that left her with no support system was—in part—responsible for the mindset that led her to Bryce's hot tub. Of course the rape is the most severe thing that happened to her, but the point isn't "here's the most severe thing that happened to me," the point is "here's everything that happened to me, and why it all has some role to play in what I decided to do." It's not really possible for us to say what would have happened if getting raped was the only thing that happened to her, but the tapes make the case that she could have survived if she felt she had absolutely anybody to turn to.

As for her not being blameless, it matters because that's a big part of the whole 'martyrdom' thing. She's to blame for some of the circumstances surrounding her suicide—she readily admits as much—and that's the sort of thing that undercuts being a martyr. The show's not trying to make her one.

That's how I see it, anyway. I don't think you're being unreasonable, I think we just read the show differently.

-Blackadder-
Jan 2, 2007

Game....Blouses.
I wasn't really feeling this show either, if I'm being honest, and in addition to the other criticisms made, one thing that irked me was that there's an often overlooked but colossal mental illness factor in someone committing suicide and this show didn't seem interested in addressing that at all.

Shimrra Jamaane
Aug 10, 2007

Obscure to all except those well-versed in Yuuzhan Vong lore.
Thinking on it for a bit I will acquiesce that Hannah's rape was unnecessary and was in some ways a disservice to the overall story. It's such a specifically awful and traumatic event that it overshadows all of the other more subtle events the build her up to be prone to suicide. If it were up to me the rape wouldn't have happened. I think it would have been better if the final 'little' thing that finally tipped her over the edge was based around her families financial problems. Perhaps it became clear that they are totally hosed financially and Hannah shoulders the blame of having a massive college bill hanging over and that, combined with all of the other things that happened to and around her, finally makes he decide that the world would be better off without her in it. It would in effect make her own family the 12th Reason Why instead of Bryce which I feel would have been more interesting. And then the final plea for help with the counselor remains the 13th but since the rape isn't a thing it makes the guy look like less of a total colossal moron.

So yeah, that's my gripe with the end of the series I guess. Also Tyler is going to shoot up the school and kill everyone so none of this is going to matter in the end.

Toaster Beef
Jan 23, 2007

that's not nature's way
I just don't see it that way, I guess. To me, while Hannah's rape is obviously the most severe of the wrongs perpetrated against her by miles and miles, it's also something the show wants us to understand she would not have killed herself over if she had any kind of support system. That support system is ripped out from under her systematically over the course of the season, and her last grasp at it (the counselor) goes absolutely nowhere. She even gives the school at large a chance as she's walking out. Prior to that, it also serves as a cautionary tale: Look at the situation that befell this otherwise smart, strong person after she was beaten down by a bunch of seemingly minor, unrelated events.

I initially viewed it in kind of the same way a few folks here have, but came around to the notion that it was, narratively, the right call.

(Also I'm sorry it seems like I'm hovering over this thread, but nobody else I know has watched this whole fuckin thing yet and I need to talk about it)

Toaster Beef fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Apr 3, 2017

Junkfist
Oct 7, 2004

FRIEND?
What lack of a support system? I'm not seeing this. She has nasty points in her relationships with characters but lo and behold they all seem to make up with her and shoot the poo poo at parties. She's not isolated at all. They chant her name in celebration whenever she shows up, they play stupid suck and blow games with her, they apologize to her, they don't ignore her or constantly torment her. She doesn't have any serious problems with her supportive parents. Main Boy is only slightly cagey with her after her freak-out and after the auto-accident, but still friendly and conversational. Am I supposed to believe she was bullied into relaxing in a hot tub with pizza and so everything that happens afterwards is collectively their fault? It's genuinely bizarre. The show doesn't even explore that element of suicidal people having a wildly negative perception of themselves that's distorted, everyone's reaction to the tapes is to treat them like gospel.

This is further complicated by the fact that everyone's problem with her is somehow because she's so desirable and wonderful. Her poetry, her rear end, her photogenic appearance, they want to date her, they want to gently caress her, they want to steal her complements from a paper bag...

I felt like there was no strong push-back on Hannah, it was all about getting "Justice" for her somehow being forced to kill herself with lawsuits and sleuthing and combating the wicked cabal of conspiracies that sought to thwart the TRUTH coming out in exactly the way she prescribed fuuuuuucking christ.

Junkfist
Oct 7, 2004

FRIEND?
Season 2 opener, they finally got that headstone:

Toaster Beef
Jan 23, 2007

that's not nature's way
... I can't tell if you're trolling, didn't pay attention while watching (which would be understandable if you hated it as much as you appear to have), or did pay attention but decided to let your distaste for the show color every interaction you watched—because some of what you're saying makes sense, but some of it is just straight-up misinterpretation of the show to the extent that it comes off as intentional.

You didn't like it, I did, that's fine.

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames

Junkfist posted:

everyone's reaction to the tapes is to treat them like gospel.

Well that's just demonstrably untrue. Also could you maybe use spoiler tags, the show has only been available for 2 days.

Junkfist
Oct 7, 2004

FRIEND?
Well they lie that she's lying as a way cover to each other, sure, but act like it's a huge exposé on them. The only contradictory piece of evidence is a note that may or may not have been dropped on the ground. That's it.

The ending has our hero characters dropping off the tapes and the thumbdrive like they're the final word.

Toaster Beef
Jan 23, 2007

that's not nature's way

Junkfist posted:

Well they lie that she's lying as a way cover to each other, sure, but act like it's a huge exposé on them. The only contradictory piece of evidence is a note that may or may not have been dropped on the ground. That's it.

The ending has our hero characters dropping off the tapes and the thumbdrive like they're the final word.

Considering they all have heard the tapes already and thus know—with the exception of one of them, who has reason to not be sure—what Hannah said was, in fact, almost entirely true, they don't have much reason to treat them as anything but true.

Shimrra Jamaane
Aug 10, 2007

Obscure to all except those well-versed in Yuuzhan Vong lore.

Junkfist posted:

Season 2 opener, they finally got that headstone:



oh lord I almost just burst a gut laughing.

Junkfist
Oct 7, 2004

FRIEND?

Toaster Beef posted:

Considering they all have heard the tapes already and thus know—with the exception of one of them, who has reason to not be sure—what Hannah said was, in fact, almost entirely true, they don't have much reason to treat them as anything but true.

??? Yes, Hannah told the unvarnished truth and was a reliable narrator save a piece of paper that drops on a floor, that's the problem. An earlier poster mentioned suicides being tied to mental illness and while I wouldn't put it exactly like that, if you're a suicidal teenager you're probably not thinking straight. The way you perceive things, recount things, or events or people or motivations are hosed up because you're severely depressed. Your mechanism for rational thought is no doubt screwed and you're seeing your interactions reflected in a funhouse mirror or yourself with some sort of dysmorphia...except apparently Hannah WAS spot on and clear-headed in her recollection and analysis that led her to killing herself. She was so spot on that the show treated her words like a dangerous hidden truth.

Which unfortunately prompts the question: If she's so right and clear-headed and damning in her summation of events, what room does that give the show to tell us what she did was wrong?

That's why I don't like it. It keeps hammering that it's someone else's fault.

Of course by the time we get to the end you could say it dodges this question entirely by painting Hannah not as someone who's depressed from being bullied, but a severe trauma victim sooooooo like...again, I'm lost with this show.

Shimrra Jamaane
Aug 10, 2007

Obscure to all except those well-versed in Yuuzhan Vong lore.
I really liked Hannah's mom's reaction to when she sees Hannah dead in the tub. I expected some cliched horror movie shriek but instead her mind basically breaks and goes into denial.

Fuuuuck that whole scene is really sitting with me still a day later. It's just so loving sad.

PantsBandit
Oct 26, 2007

it is both a monkey and a boombox
Wow, I was expecting this to have a way bigger thread. I've been completely addicted to this show since it came out, on ep 10 now. It reminds me of a really good 90s movie

JBP
Feb 16, 2017

You've got to know, to understand,
Baby, take me by my hand,
I'll lead you to the promised land.
I'm getting through the series and I'm up to the episode that has a content warning at the start (might be episode 10 I can't remember) and I just have to say that I can't loving stand any of the characters, particularly Hannah and that Tony kid (primarily because of how they're written).

The tone of the tapes is becoming increasingly idiotic and the whole show is like an off-kilter mashup of Pretty Little Liars, Gossip Girl and Sudden Impact.

Edit: I did like one character, Zach. He is the only character in the show that has come across as a real human so far.

JBP fucked around with this message at 07:55 on Apr 4, 2017

Toaster Beef
Jan 23, 2007

that's not nature's way

Junkfist posted:

??? Yes, Hannah told the unvarnished truth and was a reliable narrator save a piece of paper that drops on a floor, that's the problem. An earlier poster mentioned suicides being tied to mental illness and while I wouldn't put it exactly like that, if you're a suicidal teenager you're probably not thinking straight. The way you perceive things, recount things, or events or people or motivations are hosed up because you're severely depressed. Your mechanism for rational thought is no doubt screwed and you're seeing your interactions reflected in a funhouse mirror or yourself with some sort of dysmorphia...except apparently Hannah WAS spot on and clear-headed in her recollection and analysis that led her to killing herself. She was so spot on that the show treated her words like a dangerous hidden truth.

Which unfortunately prompts the question: If she's so right and clear-headed and damning in her summation of events, what room does that give the show to tell us what she did was wrong?

That's why I don't like it. It keeps hammering that it's someone else's fault.

Of course by the time we get to the end you could say it dodges this question entirely by painting Hannah not as someone who's depressed from being bullied, but a severe trauma victim sooooooo like...again, I'm lost with this show.

All right, thanks for clarifying where you're at with this. Sorry I was misunderstanding.

While the show does touch on depression, you're right in saying it doesn't go out of its way to show that Hannah's thought process was warped by it. Where I think they pick up the room to make the case for her decision being wrong goes back to what I said earlier about her not being portrayed as blameless, but I do think the writers could have done more to show that suicide typically isn't the act of a rational mind.

Loutre
Jan 14, 2004

✓COMFY
✓CLASSY
✓HORNY
✓PEPSI
One hundred percent agree that her getting raped really diminished a lot of the previous tapes. Zach may as well have contributed nothing to her suicide at all when you compare it her getting loving raped. I half expected the counselor to up the ante after that by actually being some kind of villain, rather than tragically inept.

Still loved the show though. Watching it all in 2 days was a huge mistake. Especially the graphic scenes towards the end. Ugh :smith:

Also are they seriously hinting at a season 2 with Tyler kitting up like that? A season about a mass shooting would be a fitting tonal followup, but I'd rather it be a total reboot and maybe a new show altogether.

Oh and one other thing:
did they really do flashfowards twice? Once at the rock climbing and once at the end with her coming back from Bryce's? Really weird thing to include for a few seconds at random. Unless it was my TV?

Loutre fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Apr 4, 2017

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames
They actually put in two hooks for a season 2:

Tyler's gun collection, but also at the end we hear "Alex has shot himself, he's in critical condition"

Loutre
Jan 14, 2004

✓COMFY
✓CLASSY
✓HORNY
✓PEPSI

precision posted:

They actually put in two hooks for a season 2:

Tyler's gun collection, but also at the end we hear "Alex has shot himself, he's in critical condition"

I guess, but I didn't really see that one as a hook. we've seen plenty of his life already. But you're right, a second season around Tyler would inevitably also be about Alex to some extent. Plus some of the other characters basically absent from the finale.

Ultimately as much as I like the show I can't imagine how they'd actually frame season 2. Another set of tapes by someone we've already seen would be really dumb.

Speaking of which, I guess she made 2 sets of tapes, and mailed one to Justin/gave the other to Tony? I didn't think about the copies.

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PantsBandit
Oct 26, 2007

it is both a monkey and a boombox
Ok I watched the finale last night (ended up staying up until 3 am to do it too which made today a little dicey) and I would easily say 13 Reasons Why is one of Netflix's most impressive shows.

First off, the acting was great. I thought the actor who portrayed Clay had ups and downs in his performance but he had a really difficult role to fill and overall knocked it out of the park. Jessica and Justin also grew on me more and more as the season progressed. Justin in particular had some really powerful scenes near the end and ended up becoming one of my favorite characters.

I loved how Hannah and the tapes weren't portrayed as being this righteous thing. Hannah wasn't a martyr, she was just a kid who found each of her support systems disintegrating one after another. It's not even clear whether the tapes themselves did more harm or good. Hannah wanted to expose the cruelty of her peers and the school as a whole, but in creating the tapes she led to more bullying, more death, more pain. I guess to summarize, the show wasn't about Clay getting revenge for a lost love. it was about him trying to find some way to act upon the pain of a loss to improve things but finding that the world doesn't work that way. The school, the students, Clay, the "13" (well, 11 really) are all searching for a way to "fix" things and coming up short.

I get people's criticisms of a couple elements, but I loved this entire show and found it to be incredibly powerful and affecting.

PantsBandit fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Apr 5, 2017

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