Summary: A funeral service is finally held for Hannah. Bryce gets away with 3 months probation and Justin gets 6. Clay's family adopts Justin. Tyler returns from his program a changed and better man. Monty sodomizes Tyler with a broomstick. Everyone goes to the school dance to get past everything. Tyler arrives with intent to shoot up the school and the police are called. Clay talks to Tyler and talks him out of killing people.
The Good: The funeral service was a good way to say farewell to Hannah forever. It was a good way to give Clay some closure and was a pretty solid scene, especially compared to some of the other scenes. I also liked the reasons why not scene. Olivia and Clay's farewell was good as well and didn't feel too hamfisted. The Bad: This was not a good episode at all and was a bad finale. The most egregious mistake here was the Tyler rape scene. This show has consistently shown an inability to hold itself back and here it shows a vicious, unpleasing scene to us without holding anything back with the sole motivation to disgust us and make us feel "sympathy". That's really unnecessary and it's going several steps over the line. It wasn't alright when "Game of Thrones" did it, so I'm certainly not giving it a pass here. The rest of Tyler's story is absolutely awful too. His transformation was so ridiculous that I actually laughed when I first saw him, thinking it was a joke. It's so ridiculous to think that Tyler changed so abruptly to the point where he isn't even the same character anymore. I mean the change in him reminds me of that episode of "SpongeBob" where SpongeBob decides to transform into a "normal" guy (hi, how are ya). The fact that I can compare this drama which takes itself seriously to a cartoon like "SpongeBob" is a total embarrassment. Worse yet is his decision to shoot up the school. Everything suggested that Tyler would just kill himself, especially seeing how he transformed to a more forgiving person. But the show has no consistency and can't even keep Tyler consistent to his transformation by just deciding to have him attempt to shoot up the school. And how do they stop him? Clay goes out to talk to him. What? This is such a stupid development, and Clay is a massive fool for doing this. The worst part is the fact that the show suggests that if somebody is threatening to shoot up a school, the way to fix it is to talk to them. No! If this was realistic, Clay would walk out to talk to Tyler and would immediately get shot and killed. The fact that his plan actually worked was so stupid. Worse yet was that awful cliff-hanger. Am I supposed to feel scared for Clay since he will now get in trouble with cops? Well I really don't care because all the evidence will point to it being Tyler, so I'm not at all scared. Also, what kind of closure does the scene give to the season? Absolutely none. It's badly written and gives me no sense of satisfaction now that the season is over, and I have no reason to want to check out season 3. Honestly I most definitely won't be watching it anyways. This wouldn't be a massive problem for the episode if the rest of the episode provided closure and a satisfying ending. But it didn't at all, and many of the other scenes were bad. Bryce's storyline ended really badly. After everything he gets three months probation, so we don't even get the satisfaction of knowing he got what he deserved, making me question why this season even existed if it wasn't going to be about Bryce getting what he deserved. The storyline was fixated around Jessica in court finally speaking out about her rape but the scene wasn't even that good. Of course Jessica has been crying about the rape in just about every episode too which makes the scene feel less special as it was just more of the same that we have seen, only this time Jessica is talking to officials. The Clay and Justin storyline wasn't good either. As I stated last episode, I don't care for their relationship so the scene where Justin got adopted completely fell flat of any kind of emotion. Furthermore, Justin is also apparently still on drugs and still in love with Jessica, showing that in the end he didn't change at all. That's bad for a character who essentially went through a redemptive arc this season. So much of this episode was unsatisfying. The polaroids were taken by Nina apparently which is easily the most unsatisfying thing ever, and doesn't feel the least bit earned. A lot of storyline just dead-ended and went nowhere. Alex's distress with being broken lead nowhere. Zach being angry went nowhere. Monty attacking everyone went nowhere. Olivia wanting to change the school went nowhere as she is just going to New York now. there are so many more storylines too that I can't be bothered to list, but it's really bad that there are so many loose ends here. One last thing I didn't like was Clay crying when "The Night We Met" played. That scene felt forced to get some emotion out and didn't work at all. Realistically, I would love scenes like these, but they would have to be subtle and carried by the actor in the scene. Unfortunately, this scene was over-dramatized and that ruined every little bit of emotion that the scene could have had. I'll say it again, this show has no restraint. The Unknown: Where will Justin's continued drug abuse lead? What will come of him and Jessica still being in love? A love triangle? As if I didn't need more reasons to stop watching this show. What happens to Clay now that he has the gun and Tyler is gone? Who will take the fall for it? What will become of Chloe being pregnant? Best Moment: The funeral service was the best part. Character of the Episode: Clay. Conclusion: This was a bad finale with very little to satisfy me and some of the worst writing and lack of restraint that the season has seen. This did nothing to make me want to keep watching. I wish this show ended after the first season instead of becoming insufferable like this. The season as a whole sucked. Looking back at it, nothing was accomplished, the writing was worse than before and so many storylines just fizzled out without any sort of resolution. There is a special place in hell for seasons of television as badly executed as this one. Score: 35
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Summary: Justin testifies against Bryce but he isn't convincing. Eventually the school is held innocent. Jessica goes to the police instead with the help of everyone else, and both Bryce and Justin are arrested. Cyrus confesses to the school about the vandalisms and he and Tyler have a verbal spat. Cyrus is suspended and Tyler is forced to take a different program and isn't allowed to come back to school. Mr. Porter is fired. Monty is confronted by Alex but he doesn't have the polaroids.
The Good: I liked that the characters were well-defined enough for me to figure out who was int he opening scene without it being told. That scene did have big issues though (see: The Bad). I have enjoyed Mr. Porter's storyline a lot. He has finally been fired in this episode and I liked his final scene where he tries his best to help out the kids while the principal evidently doesn't care for it. I do like the subtle foreshadowing which seems to hint at a suicide from Tyler in the future. Justin on trial had some good emotional relevance and that made it very easily watchable. I like that Justin had to face his reality and reflect on everything he lost, as it added some emotion to his story, helping to make him more likeable overall. The Bad: The opening scene had really bad acting and writing. The kid actors weren't the least bit convincing and it felt like they were just doing bad impressions of Bryce and Justin instead of being child versions of them. I can never buy that Bryce or Justin behaved and talked the way they did in childhood like that. It was ridiculous. I hated that Clay's family drama lead nowhere just like many other storylines this season. It's disappointing. The worst part is that I feel like there will be more dropped storylines. Apparently the coach is aware of the clubhouse and that does answer some of my earlier complaints about his existence, but it makes it all the more ridiculous that the school isn't aware of this. Furthermore, revealing that the coach is technically on Bryce's side is huge but I doubt it will be treated as such. I don't expect that it will lead to any more story in the future, rendering it pointless. I found the court scenes to be weak again. The closing arguments didn't really reflect on each lawyer's central argument which I thought was stupid. These court scenes should have been done in more linear fashion, as the show's complex storytelling has removed a lot of the flow and emotional engagement. Furthermore, I thought that the story which was concocted around the truth surrounding Justin was really poorly done, and without any evidence it shouldn't have been anywhere near as damning as it was. Clay and Justin's relationship hasn't been good either. I can hardly buy that they are as close to each other as is portrayed, and I find it difficult to care about their relationship. The tie scene was ridiculous to me as well, like who doesn't know how to tie a tie if thy have worn it before? It felt like a bad attempt at a metaphor for how Justin is best friends with Clay now instead of Bryce. Tyler's story is awful. It is ridiculous that he would have thought "hey maybe if I put evidence of me and Cyrus vandalizing school property online, he will want to be friends again". Why would he think that would help? It's stupid and nonsensical, and behaviour like this makes these characters feel more like props than actual characters. Tyler also says some really troubling things here, so why would nobody try to send him to get some mental health? Surely the principal would be smart enough to avoid any other big incident at Liberty but he doesn't seem to care which is dumb. The Monty story was ridiculous. First, Alex with the gun is really bad. Monty should know he won't kill him, so the gun doesn't pose much of a threat, plus it only has a single bullet. What's worse is the fact that everyone gathers but then they leave Alex, the cripple who can easily be escaped from, alone to watch over Monty. How does everyone go along with this? It's easily some of the worst writing this season, and that's saying something. Monty's motivations to threaten everybody are also made unclear which is awful and makes his character feel like its forced for the sake of conflict. I hate the idea that the police don't have any suspicions and just arrest Bryce. Surely they will notice that Justin and Jessica's statements are different from in court. There are transcripts online about things like this! It's just a bad way of the show trying to make us feel happy that Bryce got what was coming to him. Also, the scenes there reminded me that Courtney and Ryan were in this show. They have done nothing all season and feel totally pointless. The Unknown: Who was following Clay and Justin? So is this the end of the Bryce and Justin storyline? Talk about underwhelming. If Monty doesn't have the polaroids, then who does? Best Moment: Justin in court was the most powerful stuff here. Character of the Episode: Justin. Conclusion: This episode concluded everything, but it ended with a real whimper as a lot of storylines were poorly written and underwhelming. This show has had a very disappointing second season and I can't say I'm looking forward to the finale. Score: 44 Summary: Bryce testifies that Hannah wanted a relationship with him which is not true and he is able to get away with it. A fight breaks out at school. Chloe nearly testifies against Bryce after she is shown the polaroid but she is unable to. The polaroids are stolen from Clay's car. Alex remembers that he actually witnessed Hannah's rape with Monty. Clay loses his mind and goes to kill Bryce. Justin meets with him in front of Bryce's house and tries to stop him.
The Good: Bryce at court is very well done. His character is so smooth and kind with his words, so much so that anyone who doesn't understand the context of the show would think that he's a genuinely good person. It's nicely executed and fits what we know of his character to be a good guy on the outside but a monster on the inside. The fight scene was hilarious and was probably the most I've enjoyed myself this season. Was it stupid? Yes absolutely. But it was fun which is something this show has been lacking and I certainly enjoyed myself seeing it. The reveal that Alex unknowingly witnessed Hannah's rape is pretty good because it adds a new level of depth to why Alex tried to kill himself. I really wish that we had learned this last season to add more emotion to what Alex did because it's a really good idea which I wish they did more with. The Bad: The opening scene perfectly exemplifies this show's filler problem. We didn't need to get a full scene of Bryce playing football. it added nothing to the show and existed solely to fill time. Another part of the episode which proves the show's reliance on filler are the flashbacks. They don't add anything to the story which we don't already know and also lack the necessary restraint to highlight Clay's struggle at believing Hannah would do all of this. The scenes add nothing and take a lot away, making them meaningless. Speaking of no restraint, the Jessica and Nina scenes are really bad. Both characters act stupid and make their blowout meaningless, just like so many other scenes this season, and it's not even written well. The dialogue is agonizingly bad and it's hard to care for any of their problems. I also hate how Nina just suddenly decides she is an awful person, which is really hard to believe or care about. Tyler's story is ridiculously annoying. It's clear that Mackenzie does like him and he likes her, so this situation should have very easily been resolved. Cyrus comes off as an unbelievable prick for turning on Tyler so quickly and this entire conflict feels like one of the most forced storylines on the show. A lot of moments in this episode felt pointless and meandering. The polaroids being stolen is not only annoying and frustrating because of someone somehow knowing exactly where to find them and how to get them, but also because it sends the story in circles as it removes the one aspect the show had which gave it some momentum. The fight scene was also pointless as it led to nothing and didn't end up causing anything important at all. Alex's reveal is good, but I don't see how it could advance the plot as it does nothing for the overall story and is just a small part of Alex's overall story. Clay's storyline isn't good either. It's the same story of Clay being driven insane that we saw last season and there isn't much new or unique about it. Thankfully Dylan Minnette is great though and he makes the story bearable to watch and somewhat compelling. Unfortunately his performance can't add anything new to this storylines. Chloe testifying was really bad. It's so hard to buy that she would suddenly become too afraid to testify against Bryce, especially because it's implied that she only did it because she didn't want to hurt Bryce. Why??? At least with Jessica it was because she didn't want to be hurt anymore but Chloe's reasoning is dumb on the next level and doesn't make any sense. Furthermore, it does nothing for the story and makes me wonderwhy this storyline even existed at all if it had no impact. Another bad scene was Bryce with his mom. You're telling me that this smooth villain decides to alienate his own mother because... why again? Oh right, we are given no reason other than bad writing to blame for Bryce choosing to alienate his mom and possibly condemn him even more. The Unknown: What will happen with the polaroids now? Who took them? Who fixed the clubhouse before Olivia and the others showed up? I find it impossible to believe that they had the time to clean it up. Best Moment: The fight scene, purely for enjoyment value. Character of the Episode: Bryce. Conclusion: This episode had fun moments but the stories being told are written really badly and do very little to interest me. I can't say I have any hope for the rest of this season and I don't expect that I will be watching the show after this season. Score: 50 Summary: Flashbacks show Hannah encourage Tony to start a relationship with Ryan. While they are out, a passerby shames them for being gay so Tony beats him up. Hannah hides him and covers his secret. In the present, Sarah reveals Hannah bullied her in the past. Tony is called up afterwards and speaks about why Hannah gave him the tapes. Sheri gets into the clubhouse to find a way in. She discovers a box full of polaroids. Clay breaks in and steals it but is busted by Zach. Zach reveals he was the one giving the polaroids. Tyler breaks things off with Mackenzie and Cyrus is angry at him.
The Good: I liked the clubhouse scenes for the most part. The place seems like a deadly location in school. I also really liked the polaroid reveal as it feels extremely important. Not only can it help incriminate Bryce but it can also help the Bakers win the lawsuit by providing evidence that some very bad things are happening on school property. It feels like a big deal and it makes the story more engaging as things kick into the next gear as the finale looms closer. The Bad: Unfortunately most of this was the usual weak stuff after two decent episodes. The clubhouse is weak because it's really hard to believe. It seems like a nasty place to hang out so I have issues with the fact that teenagers would hang out there. Additionally, I find it tough to believe that nobody has been caught heading out there by any school official. I find it dumb that the building exists too, as surely somebody would either tear it down or use it for something. I wasn't a fan of the way the Zach reveal played out. This was the big mystery of the season and is what was used as a hook and it ended up having an unsatisfying and stupid ending. Zach sent out the polaroids, but the reveal has no meaning or impact. It's just an "oh okay" moment which doesn't move the plot forwards at all. A total disappointment for a major mystery. Also, Zach's motivation for sending the pictures and not revealing things was really dumb. Seriously, he could have just sent the picture with Chloe's face revealed instead as it would have been much more useful for Clay. I find it hard to believe that Zach is that much of a coward, plus that has never been his character anyways and feels really forced. A lot of other stories had bad developments. Clay's story suffered hugely here. He had descended to anger in the previous few episodes but now he seems surprisingly calm and relaxed which has seemingly come out of nowhere. Jessica and Nina's falling out is really bad too. It comes pretty much out of nowhere and escalates way more than it logically should. Another weak falling out is the Tyler/Cyrus one which I can describe in the exact same way. It comes pretty much out of nowhere and escalates way more than it logically should. Only that one is worse because it's stemmed from Tyler being a total idiot and ruining a relationship with a girl he genuinely likes, in a way which feels forced and stupid. Tony's story doesn't work either. I had hoped to learn something new about him with these teases about his past, but it's exactly what you would expect as Tony has anger issues and it got him in trouble. That's it. It's anticlimactic and leaves me completely unfulfilled, and it doesn't even answer the question of why Tony's car got all scratched. Furthermore, the court scenes were very bad. Tony kept getting asked about his past, but I have no clue why anybody would care about his past as it has nothing to do with the case. It was just a forced way for Tony to "face himself" or whatever. Sarah's story was bad too. Her storyline had no depth and really didn't accomplish anything. Also I don't understand what good her testimony was. It doesn't help redeem the school at all, and really doesn't do anything other than hurt Hannah's character but Hannah isn't on trial here, so it doesn't matter. Furthermore, the story has no depth and it really feels like this storyline is only here to fill time. The Unknown: Who attacked the Baker pharmacy? Also why are there so many people who just attack others in this show? People in real life aren't this aggressive. What will Clay do now that he has all the polaroids? Is this the beginning of the end for Bryce? Was Nina's rape in the clubhouse? What's the significance of that? Why was Hannah in the clubhouse? Another intriguing twist in the story which will unfortunately make Hannah's suicide less plausible, just like everything else her character has done. Best Moment: I'll go with Sheri discovering the polaroids in the clubhouse. Character of the Episode: Tony. Conclusion: This was another weak episode. Stuff happened but it didn't really feel important and a lot of big reveals and developments ended up falling totally flat. Hopefully the quality can pick up again. Score: 48 Summary: Mr. Porter feels guilt for what happened with Hannah. He goes on trial and ends up helping Olivia in the case, taking responsibility for what happened to Hannah. Clay is set to the same class as Tyler and Cyrus and he joins them in vandalizing the baseball field. Clay finds the clubhouse. Chloe isn't sure that she trusts Bryce. Justin takes money from his mom but instead of leaving, he calls Clay to pick him up. Olivia begs Sarah not to testify.
The Good: This episode worked pretty well. There was good drama here and a lot of developments felt new and different, making this feel like an episode actually worth watching. A lot of the characters faced new dilemmas and I appreciated that. Porter's storyline was the definite highlight. His regret was really understandable and I thought that he did well to show how remorseful he felt through his actions before the trial. It was very evident that he was conflicted and that added another level of drama to the ensuing court scenes. Porter's trial was much more interesting than all the others because his role as a witness genuinely made sense and we were never sure what he would reveal on the stand, adding a new level of tension. It was exciting and also cathartic as Porter took responsibility for what happened to Hannah and essentially apologized for it in what was probably the season's most heartfelt scene so far (see: Best Moment). Of course the story was also anchored by a great performance from Derek Luke who poured his heart out into the character. The Clay storyline was actually pretty good as well and felt different. I like the fresh feeling of him joining Tyler and Cyrus who were getting pretty stale. Seeing them interact with new characters was nice and made sense for the story. I loved seeing them vandalize the baseball field, and I thought there was good continuity with Clay explaining his skill with spray paint after doing murals with Skye. The Bad: I didn't like the continuation of Bryce's story. He has always been a really smooth talker, yet he made the worst excuses ever to Chloe to explain what happened on the tapes. I feel like I should sympathize with Chloe too, but if she somehow doesn't realize Bryce isn't good for her after that, she's a pure idiot. I was disappointed that we didn't see the consequences for Marcus throwing Bryce under. We are told he was suspended but we didn't see it happen. Why was he suspended? I have no idea. It's unsatisfying for his story if we don't see what the conclusion is for Marcus. The ending with Justin confused me. Apparently Clay texted him to get him back, but Clay seemed to not even care about him. We never saw Clay text him ever so I was confused to learnt hat he actually did. Furthermore, it's an abrupt change of heart for Justin to want to go back and I don't feel that it was earned in any way. Lastly, I was confused by Clay picking up Justin. I had thought that he was going to check out the clubhouse but instead he picked up Justin. The scene was just put together really awkwardly. Speaking of awkward, Jessica's story ended up being really awkward. I was ready to put it in The Good for examining Jessica in a new way, but then we had the final scene with her father. The scene itself is likely fine, but the problem is that I have no idea what that scene meant. Was Jessica aware he was watching? Are they mad at each other? What was the issue? Was Jessica not ready to date? How does she know? I'm just really confused by what that all meant and it pretty much ruined the whole storyline. I'm also confused by how the principal got all the information on what Clay did. He shouldn't be aware of all that yet somehow he is. The Unknown: Who attacked Clay in the locker room and why? Also I love how nobody seemed to notice or care that Clay just got assaulted. How does Chloe feel about Bryce? Who is Sarah and why doesn't Olivia want her to testify? Who attacked Tony's car? Why? What did Tony do before? What happens at the clubhouse? What will Clay do now that he knows where it is? What was that memory that Alex seemed to experience? Best Moment: Mr. Porter breaking down in court was awesome. The acting was terrific and the scene was done really well. I loved the little extra scene of Mr. Porter playing out what he should have done for Hannah, which mirrored the scene from season 1 with Clay and was just as powerful. Had it been an original scene, it would have been even better. Character of the Episode: Mr. Porter. Conclusion: This was the best episode of the seasons. Mr. Porter's storyline added some genuine emotion and added a lot to the story. There were other pretty good developments, and while some things were flawed, I still think this was one of the show's better episodes. Score: 61 Summary: Marcus sells out Bryce to save himself. Clay is called by Skye and he goes to see her. She tells him she plans to leave. Justin gets high on heroin and nearly dies. Clay is angry and his parents find out. They all fight and Justin goes to his mom's house. The Bakers testify and it is revealed that Hannah knew about Andy's affair. Andy and Olivia have a falling out.
The Good: This episode started much better than the last few. We were treated to a wonderful single-shot scene at the high school as everyone dealt with the fallout of the tapes being leaked online by Clay. I really enjoyed seeing that scene, and I think it did a good job establishing how big of a deal it is that the tapes went online, especially since it was treated as such a flippant and unimportant move in the previous episode. I enjoyed seeing Bryce face the consequences of his confession being leaked online. I had totally forgotten that his confession would be leaked too, and it felt significant when it was briefly played over the school speakers. I loved that Bryce's parents arrived at school too and had to face everyone who were completely judging their son. Lastly, I enjoyed seeing Marcus sell Bryce out to save his own skin, something that the fits the character who has been established. The Bakers storyline was really good here and paid off of a lot of the build-up around their relationship. After the both of them testified, they finally matured enough to start looking in the mirror and realizing that they were more guilty for Hannah's suicide than they thought. I also love their differing views, as Andy is able to accept his role in Hannah's suicide, while Olivia is still too scared to believe that truth. It's pretty compelling, and I found their fight against each other to be really well done. Clay's family blowing up was also a long time coming. It had been built up over the last two seasons as they consistently failed to communicate, but now that everyone seems to be screwing up there is conflict happening. I'm interested to see here this storyline goes. The Bad: I am nervous that there won't be much development from Clay's storyline though. And I feel that way because of what happened to Alex in this episode. After being the primary focus in the last episode, he hasn't changed at all and his story has hardly developed. That's really bad after his outburst in the last episode was framed as a big deal. This lack of follow-up makes me nervous about the story surrounding Clay's family. Tyler's story hasn't been very good either. I don't care about what he's doing and I don't care about his relationship with Cyrus' sister. The show has failed to make his story compelling in every way. I wasn't happy to see Skye again. The actress is truly awful. Anyways, her return meant nothing for the story since it seems that she is just moving away now. I don't care at all for Clay's relationship with her so her scenes did absolutely nothing for me and just bored me out of my mind. I didn't like Jessica crying so much. Honestly I don't understand why she is so broken all the time. I mean she was raped and I understand that, but why does it affect her all the time? She doesn't even remember it happening! I can buy her being upset but to have her in tears every other scene is just annoying and tough to sympathize with. It honestly just feels like the writers lazily attempting to get an emotional reaction out of us. I also didn't care at all for Clay raging at Hannah's ghost because of how poor the story has been executed so far. I'm still trying to accept Hannah's ghost as a real thing, but it's hard to because it feels so oddly out of place in the show. There were a lot of little things which weren't executed well. Tony is acting unbelievably guilty around the single-eyed man, so much so that it feels almost comical. Alex also just barged into Clay's house to talk to him, which is unrealistic and highly illogical. Additionally, I may just have forgotten, but did Zach always have a sister? I didn't remember her existence at all, so it feels really dumb for her to suddenly pop into existence when it's convenient. The Unknown: So is Skye gone now? Time to celebrate! Will Bryce do something to get back at Marcus? That could be dangerous. What will happen now that Justin has gone back to his mom? What does he hope to accomplish by going back? Where is Mr. Porter? We haven't seen him for a while now. Best Moment: Andy and Olivia's fight was emotive and powerful. Stuff like this is why I think this show has serious potential. Character of the Episode: Olivia. Conclusion: This episode was a huge improvement over the last and had some genuinely good scenes but the show's abundance of flaws still holds it down. That being said, this was still the season's best episode so far. Score: 59 Summary: In flashbacks, Clay and Hannah go to one of Jeff's parties and get high on ecstasy. Hannah reveals she thinks about suicide sometimes as she comes down. In the present, Clay testifies for Hannah but it doesn't go well. Alex has a birthday party but he gets angry and snaps at everyone. Andy wants a divorce.
The Good: Alex's outburst was somewhat successful. I get what they were going for and it does change up the story in an interesting way. I'm curious to see where his story is going to go. The Bad: The rest of this sucked. The opening animated sequence was pretty bad and felt needlessly "artsy". The dialogue was bad, it blatantly tried to shove the show's themes down our throat without even a hint of subtlety and it wasn't even pleasing to watch. It was pretty much a total failure. It ties into the drug scene, but even that scene was bad as it served no purpose. Honestly, the drug story was really bad. Why was it included? How does it affect the story or the characters of Clay and Hannah? The answer is it doesn't. It's there to fill out content in an episode which is aimless and accomplishes nothing. There is no significance to Hannah saying she is suicidal when coming down. It doesn't even feel important since it seems viable that people would just say that when coming down. Furthermore, it does nothing for Clay. His character arc is the same old crap. He feels guilty. That's it and there is nothing interesting about any of it. The show needs to stop retreading the same storylines over and over. Hannah was depressed. We get it. Clay loved Hannah and feels guilty. We get it. Jessica is upset because she was raped. We get it. Alex is angry because his life sucks. We get it. Nobody likes Tyler. We get it. The show is repetitive and refuses to deepen its characters at all. If you take away everything I mentioned in this paragraph about Hannah, Clay, Jessica, Tyler and Alex, we have no way to characterize them. Who are they aside from that? They are boring and character-less. It's disappointing that after one and a half seasons these characters haven't accomplished anything. Thankfully Kate Walsh is enjoyable to watch, but I am sick of watching her be sad for Hannah. We see it at least once per episode and it's so repetitive to the point that it pisses me off. Kate Walsh is talented. Give her something else to do. Aside from repetition, we have very little to actually discuss from this episode. Clay's story is bad. The court scenes aren't even structured around blaming the school, and it instead feels like the whole point of Clay's testimony is to prove that he is responsible for Hannah's suicide. It feels like he is on trial instead. Furthermore, it's implied that only the opposition questioned Clay. Why? What was the purpose of having him if they aren't going to ask him questions? Additionally, Clay says the court went terribly, but that's hard to understand since we hardly saw any of it. Too much focus was on Alex's birthday instead. Speaking of which, Alex's outburst doesn't feel earned at all. What changed to make him so angry when he was fine a few episodes ago? I have no clue and I couldn't tell you. The plot demands that Alex has to be angry so he's angry. His rage towards Bryce at particular is so out-of-nowhere that it threw me off and actually made me laugh. Miles Heizer isn't good enough of an actor to make the weak dialogue work, making the scenes even worse. The final twist of Clay sharing the tapes didn't resonate much with me. Furthermore, his conversation with Ghost Hannah was really bad. It felt like the show tried to address the complaints that Hannah sent the tapes out for revenge, but they did a piss-poor job of proving that wrong. They needed to give her another proper motivation and they didn't do that. Her "wanting her story to be heard" is pretty weak and feels like it was hamfisted into the story. Even the little things were bad in this episode. The show's usual good cinematography wasn't present here, the dialogue was worse than usual and the execution of many scenes was just bad. Take the mystery building. The stupid overdramatic sound effect was used when Clay found the polaroid, ruining that scene. When Tony was talking to his boyfriend, there was no subtlety at all to Tony asking about the one-eyed guy. Anybody would figure out he knows that guy somehow. The Unknown: Was Tony responsible for the man who lost his eye? What was that text that Sheri mentioned? It's clear that Clay knows something about it. Best Moment: Alex's anger probably because at least it felt like that story was going somewhere. Character of the Episode: Alex. Conclusion: Repetition. That's one word to describe this episode and most of this show as a whole. This episode accomplished very little and pissed me off every other minute. The execution was unbelievably poor and this is easily the worst episode the show has ever put out. This show has fallen off a cliff. Score: 35 Summary: In flashbacks, Zach dated Hannah over the summer and they had sex but they split up after Zach doesn't want to be public with their relationship. In the present, Zach gets in arguments with Clay, Alex, Bryce and his mother about what he revealed in court. Justin and Jessica meet and she rejects him but still cares for him. Clay's parents discover Justin's presence and ultimately let him live with them.
The Good: I thought the overall Zach and Hannah story was really good and I enjoyed watching it. I actually bought into their romance through the few scenes they shared together and it seemed genuine. I thought that the reveal of their relationship was a big moment and it had fitting repercussions for Zach in the present and led to a really interesting change in character for him. The many arguments he got involved in were compelling and I was able to sympathize with him since he is one of the few likeable and properly fleshed out characters on the show. That made his descent into anger at the end of the episode feel very real and genuinely emotive to us. I sympathized with him, I bought into the fact that he did actually care for Hannah and I felt tense due to him having genuine friendships to lose, and that made this one of the most engaging storylines in this season. I did like Alex's outburst about how messed up he is now. Considering his situation, his character's rage makes more sense than anybody else's and so it made sense for him to be unreasonable and miserable. I thought the scene was pretty emotive, though the convenient boner was extremely clichéd. It also made Alex's storyline feel like filler since it had no bearing on the overall story. Other than that, I thought it worked. I like that we got to see Zach apologizing for being petty to Hannah. He was very clearly a good person so to see him be petty last season felt extremely out of character. This episode treated him much better. The Bad: Unfortunately the Zach/Hannah storyline fell apart at the final hurdle. Their break-up was awful and was treated so nonchalantly that it made me feel that they had hardly even cared for each other at all. They should have worked harder to stay together, especially considering how lonely both were and how happy they were together. With the big pay-off underdelivering, the storyline doesn't end up hitting the heights I wish it could hit. Furthermore, it makes little sense that Hannah wouldn't talk about this on the tapes. The court case is dragging on now. Nothing significant has happened and I'm pretty annoyed by the pacing. So much information has been given, but nothing has happened and as such I'm quickly getting less and less interested. To add on to that, I would really like to know where he opposing lawyers get their information. All of the witnesses are supporting Olivia, so how did the school lawyers learn about all these personal details? That's been a flaw throughout all of the season. The Justin storyline isn't good either. The sequence of him returning to school was edited poorly and felt extremely disjointed and overly dramatic. I still don't care about his relationship with Jessica, so everything they do completely fails to interest me. Additionally, Clay's parents discovering Justin's existence was completely anticlimactic, and like everything else involving Clay's parents, had no impact on the story at all. Everything involving Justin in this episode was just way too melodramatic with no resonance or importance. The last thing is that I really hate what has been done with Hannah this season. We are learning that she apparently had so many more friends than was established last season and that makes her suicide much less impactful. In the end, that means this season is completely ruining the impact of the first season by making Hannah's suicide seem less and less earned, which pretty much destroys her entire character arc. The worst part is that this is only being done to keep Katherine Langford on the show for another season and not to actually further Hannah's story. The Unknown: Why didn't Hannah and Zach fight harder to stay together? What was their relationship like afterwards? Who broke into Clay's house? Best Moment: Zach getting angry and assaulting the lockers with a baseball bat at the end was powerful and earned. Character of the Episode: Zach. Conclusion: While this was easily the most powerful storyline thus far, the episode had way too many flaws to be good. In the end I don't even think this was the best episode of the season because of the sheer number of flaws and how major they were. This season continues to disappoint. Score: 55 Summary: Ryan is asked to testify about Hannah's poems and reveals that she kept in touch with Justin after they broke up. Tony watches over Justin and allows him to go out for a walk. Justin is seen and word goes around that he is back. Mr. Porter confronts Justin's mom and beats up Seth before he is arrested. Alex listens to the tapes and also discovers that he has become impotent.
The Good: The strongest part of this episode in my opinion is the Clay and Justin storyline. Justin's situation is pretty relatable and it's good to see that he isn't happy being clammed in Clay's room all the time. Furthermore I think that the humour with their interactions was easily the funniest the show has been with some nice setpieces. The scenes with Tony and Justin were pretty good too and nicely gave us more about what happened to them in between seasons while not feeling too forced or inorganic. I do wish that there was a more emotional edge to it, but it's perfectly fine the way it is. I appreciate that the show is examining loneliness so much, it makes the show feel like it has a purpose. Loneliness is an easily relatable feeling and it allows us to connect more with the likes of Ryan and Olivia. Some of the side stories were decent. I like Clay's quest to find the room and Alex attempting to deal with impotency is an intriguing storyline which feels fresh and will likely lead to some good developments. The Bad: I hate that the show is seemingly making Hannah less lonely and depressed by revealing more about her. It ruins the effect of her suicide and also reinforces one of my biggest flaws in the first seasons regarding Hannah. I really wish that the show had developed more about her depression and loneliness in the last season. While I liked that the show is examining loneliness, I think it has been overdone too much. With almost every character affected by it, it loses its power and feels repetitive. I wasn't a fan of Mr. Porter fighting Seth. It was too forced and I didn't at all buy that Mr. Porter would just suddenly beat him up. Furthermore, why was he the only one arrested? Surely he would protest that Seth hit him first (which he actually did). This episode felt particularly bland. There wasn't much of anything in terms of big developments and the show's slow pacing is really beginning to drag on me. Without many talking points, this episode feels mostly like a waste of time which was just there to fill in the time. It's blatantly clear that the writers have nothing for Ryan in terms of overall story so that makes most of this episode feel like filler. The Unknown: Where is the room? Is it really in the school? What was the significance of Hannah's poems about intruders and the clubhouse? Best Moment: I'll go with the Clay and Justin humour setpiece because it was the only part that stood out. Character of the Episode: Ryan. Conclusion: There was nothing particularly good nor was it particularly bad. But what it was, was bland and fillerish. I really hope there is more substance in the next episode. Score: 53 Summary: Marcus has to testify but he lies and says that Hannah wanted to date Bryce. Tyler pranks Marcus for lying in court. Andy returns and gets in an argument with Olivia. Clay discovers that Justin has heroine and Tony sends Sheri to take care of him to get him out of the addiction. Alex gets Clay to send him the tapes so he can listen to them.
The Good: There was some good drama created from Marcus lying in court. I think it's a welcome development that opens up the possibilities for what could happen in these court scenes to affect the case. With the idea being planted in our heads that some of these kids can lie, it raises a lot more intrigue for other characters like Mr. Porter and Bryce for when they choose to testify. Furthermore, the lies added a lot to the high school storyline with people wanting to attack Marcus for lying, which is a realistic follow-up that raised the stakes of the story. I'm excited to see more about how he reacts, if he will redeem himself and just what he does next in general. I love that this episode added some depth to why Marcus did what he did to Hannah. I really wish we had gotten this last season as Marcus' character came off as wildly inconsistent in the last season. I appreciate that the writers gave him proper motives and a character arc to be explored. This is well set-up for some powerful storytelling down the lien as Marcus will likely have to do a lot to redeem himself for lying and trying to be somebody he's not, in an arc which should be similar to Sheri's from last season. I really like the Alex and Jessica relationship, much more than the Jessica and Justin relationship. While I don't really care for them as lovers, I think they have a strong friendship and it's easy to understand the bond that they have developed. I'm also pleased with Mr. Porter's story arc. While I really wish that we could see the immediate aftermath to him listening to the tapes and choosing what to do, I am fine with what we got. We can see that Mr. Porter has chosen to try to make a difference in whatever time he has left which is easy to sympathize with. No Skye in this episode. Good. The Bad: The problem with Marcus is that we don't know the hard-working and likable guy that he is supposed to be. The only part of him which has been explored is the person he isn't supposed to be, leading us to only being familiar with the bad parts of his character. This makes it so we have no chance of liking him, making his storyline not as interesting or emotional as it should be. I also don't like the idea that Marcus was called up as a witness without giving any idea of what he was going to say. Surely if Dennis wanted to bring him up, he would have made sure that Marcus would say something beneficial to his case. Andy inexplicably showing up was random and unsatisfying. His arrival felt forced and unnecessary, making me question why he was brought in anyways, other than just creating some cheap drama. Speaking of unsatisfying, the gun shooting also fell into that category. After all that build up last season with Tyler and the gun, this was the least interesting direction to go. There were some big issues here that have plagued this entire season which I haven't had a chance to talk about yet, so I'll discuss them now. For one, this vision of Hannah that Clay is seeing is terrible. She offers nothing to the plot and doesn't even make Clay any more interesting. She just feels forced into the story and I really don't like it. A few character arcs have been repetitive and poor. Alex's story hasn't gone anywhere in the past four episodes and I'm just thankful that he's finally listening to the tapes. Zach's story arc is also completely stagnant with nothing interesting happening with his duelling friendships with Bryce and Alex. These storylines haven't lived up to their potential at all. I think the way that Scott has been portrayed is really bad. He's being so obviously framed as a suspect that it's clear he isn't a suspect. I also don't like how Olivia's story for the past two seasons has only consisted of her being sad/angry about what happened to Hannah, and they continue to show this over and over again. It's powerful the first few times and Kate Walsh does a good job, but after a while it really drags on. This narration needs to go away now. It only just occurred to me that the narration is supposed to be what the witnesses are saying at court which is just really bad writing. It's pointlessly pretentious stuff. The Unknown: What was that memory that Alex had with the blood? Very interesting. Best Moment: I'll pick the actual moment that Marcus lied in court as it was dramatic and tense. Character of the Episode: Marcus. Conclusion: This episode had some good aspects and moments but it was another overall disappointing episode because of lots of familiar and some new flaws. Score: 56 Summary: Tyler and Cyrus become closer as friends. Clay visits Skye at the hospital but she doesn't want him there. She is moved to another facility. Jessica testifies at court and doesn't speak of Bryce's rape. Clay finds Justin homeless in the city and brings him to his house so he can live there until he can testify for Bryce's rape.
The Good: I enjoyed this much more than the last episode. Because of Jessica's emotions after all that has happened to her, this became much more resonant and memorable, even if it wasn't perfect (see: The Bad). Jessica's fear to talk to other people because of her problems as well as her guilt at not being strong enough to help Hannah are all very relatable and it makes her courtroom dilemma of choosing whether or not to tell the truth easy to understand and relate with. The episode also had a lot of really good tension in it. There was a lot of drama regarding whether Jessica would tell the truth about Bryce or not, and because of that, the episode was tense almost the entire time and had me engaged much more than the previous two episodes. The court scenes themselves also felt a lot more relevant. Discussing how Hannah chose not to inform the school because she couldn't trust them is an important topic, and it allows the courtroom scenes to feel much more realistic. The transition from Clay saying he will keep no more secrets into him hiding Justin in his house was genuinely funny and made me laugh. The humour in this episode was the best in the series overall which was good. The Bad: I wish that Jessica's character was explored in a more meaningful way. Too much time was spent producing tension and having a bunch of pretentious monologues of narration which didn't add much. I would have preferred a better look at her mental state and how her emotions are. The ending did a decent job and seeing a scene of her breaking down after the court was great, but I would have liked some more. The follow-up to Clay's storyline in this episode wasn't good. I still don't care at all about his relationship with Skye even if I can buy into the fact that he cares for her. They had no chemistry and I haven't seen enough of them to care. And what I have seen, I haven't liked. I thought that the follow-up was poor with Clay talking to Skye immediately only to be cut off afterwards. The storyline with his parents had bad follow-up too. Clay just tells them everything in a throwaway scene and everything he tells them is never mentioned again with the exception of him wanting a car. That's very poor and once more makes it so that Clay's relationship with his parents is explored in the same way with Clay keeping secrets and then talking to them about the secrets off screen. It's not satisfying. I also hated that the fallout of Clay getting Bryce's confession as shown off screen. A lot of time was spent on that storyline in the last season and to have it resolved off screen is stupid and once more kills all of the momentum the show had after the first season. I thought the search for Justin had some really contrived moments. The bribery that Clay had to do felt ridiculously forced and out of place in that scene. Moreover the cops arriving to catch Justin and Clay for "doing drugs" was stupid. They clearly weren't doing drugs for one, and also how did the cops show up so quickly. And why did the cops just give up without chasing them? The scene felt just forced in there for some pointless tension which they didn't even succeed in creating. Just overall bad filmmaking there. There were a few things I didn't like. I'm so sick of Olivia trying to talk to somebody only for them saying "I have to go". The show has relied on this way too much and it I just frustrating at this point. Also I don't like how Jessica just happened to bring in the pictures at the courtroom. Like where was she keeping them to grab them so easily and how were they not confiscated earlier? The Unknown: Who attacked Clay when he was biking? Was it the same person who has been sending all of the messages? Will Justin testify then? I'm sure he will, but the main question is when and what he will say. Why did Mr. Porter visit Bryce's mom? What does he have to say? Best Moment: My favourite moment was a scene which I haven't talked about at all yet. It was when Courtney returned to school and there was a very artful scene which focused on Courtney's paranoia that everyone is judging her even though nobody has addressed her. It was a great scene. Character of the Episode: Jessica. Conclusion: This was a better episode which had some great moments though it was still marred by flaws. Still much better than what the season has given us so far. Score: 58 Summary: Courtney is the next one to testify in court. She reveals she is a lesbian and that Hannah was innocent. Jessica is threatened to keep quiet. Alex tries to get a copy of the tapes so that he can listen to them again to remember. Skye and Clay have a fight and she leaves Clay's house. Skye is later hospitalized.
The Good: I think that the idea of having these side characters testify in court to close out their storylines is a very good idea. So far it's led to the most satisfying scenes in the seasons as it pays off of what was set up last season. This episode resolved the Courtney storyline which had long since run its course, so I'm thankful that we don't have to suffer through Courtney trying to secretively be lesbian anymore. The ending scream from Clay was a nice moment to show his frustration. I also thought it was pretty funny. The Bad: I thought this episode was really bad though. For one, the Clay and Skye storyline was an utter failure. They failed to make me care for their relationship, and as such the ending fell completely flat for me. The set-up to it was incredibly predictable as well and it features all of the lame melodrama that I had hoped would not be there. The specific scenes were pretty terrible as well. The awkward dinner was just ridiculous and it is unbelievable that Skye would feel up Clay at the dinner table in front of his parents. Even worse was the idea that Skye would have sex with Clay and ask about if he loves her afterwards. Why would she have sex first if something bothered her? Also, are we just supposed to forget that Clay's parents exist? They seem to be inept as they don't hear anything that is going on, and the show seems to completely ignore their existence. In general this was just really poorly written, cheesy and not at all powerful. This honestly reminded me of "Riverdale" which is never a good sign. The narration is already grating on me. I didn't like it last season which is when it actually had a purpose, being that Hannah was narrating for the tapes, and this is even worse. The narration adds nothing, is cheesy, and also manages to be extremely annoying. This show is trying too hard to be meaningful and ends up becoming pretentious instead. The courtroom scenes once more didn't make much sense. Once more, what the hell is the relevance of if Hannah was actually a lesbian? These courtroom scenes are grounded on pointless arguments which have no relevance to the case, which makes them extremely unsatisfying to watch, compared to actual courtroom drama, which I am a huge fan of. Just go watch "To Kill a Mockingbird" instead of this garbage. Mr. Porter has been really dull so far. His scenes are repetitive as they all seem to consist of him trying to help students who proceed to talk about how much they hate him and how useless he is. It gets old, and I've seen enough of these scenes for the season. The characters have gone through transformations off screen, which is disappointing and bad. They were already shallow enough last season, but now we see that they have gone through some interesting developments, but instead of showing them to us to gave it emotional impact, they are kept secret to instead allow for mystery and shock value when the truth will eventually be revealed. Emotion is always far better than mystery and shock value, making this a really disappointing decision. The Unknown: Who sent that noted to Jess? What happened to Andy? Where is he now? What happened to Sheri? Tony? Zach? They all seem to have gone through some petty major stuff which just wasn't shown. Best Moment: The final scream because it was at least funny to see Clay screaming in Hannah's face. Character of the Episode: Clay. Conclusion: This was bad. The writing was awful and it was pretty tough to watch at times. This was a major disappointment as season 2 seems to be a major step down for the show. Score: 47 Summary: Alex and Jessica return to school after extended absences and discover things aren't like they would have wanted due to rumours and new rules. Tyler testifies for the Hannah Baker case in court and reveals his history with Hannah. Clay and Skye are dating now but Clay is haunted by memories of Hannah. Mr. Porter puts his foot down to ensure Bryce doesn't do anything else.
The Good: Alex and Jessica got some pretty good stories here. I like that they have reconciled due to the both have them having to deal with being outside of school due to unfortunate circumstances. Their discoveries of things that trouble them (the rumours about Jessica and the suicide note) set up the season with intriguing storylines. I was happy to get more backstory on Tyler and Hannah's relationship. We got some good reasons for Tyler wanting to be closer with Hannah and he seems like much more of a real character instead of just some creepy guy who wouldn't exist in the real world. He also got some much-needed motivations for why he would stalk Hannah which made him more relatable in my eyes. This stuff would have also been welcomed in the last season and would have likely improved my opinion on it, as I often complained that the characters weren't getting the focus they needed. I really love how Olivia is still clueless about what she did wrong and that she thinks that calling Hannah pretty would have helped, when in reality Hannah just needed somebody to talk to. I love this idea because of how realistic it feels, because usually when we make mistakes we often don't realize what we were supposed to do to prevent them until being told by somebody else. The Bad: This was a very flawed episode though and it continues to reaffirm my suspicions that a second season won't add much for this show. First of all, the time-skip was a ridiculous decision. It adds some mystery based off of what we haven't seen in the time-skip, but it completely robs us of payoff from storylines which were set up last season. We don't get to see the tapes become common knowledge or the effects it had on the characters, making literal hours of set-up from the last season entirely meaningless. Furthermore, plotlines like Tyler and his guns, and Alex shooting himself become practically meaningless too as they aren't properly followed up on. Clay and Skye's relationship is very bad. I don't know enough about Skye to buy into this relationship and I have no clue what Clay would see in her to want to get over Hannah. It's hard to care at all about this relationship which seems destined to result in cheap melodrama with a will-they-won't-they story arc. I also thought that Skye was an idiot for not figuring out that Clay was being bothered by the Hannah trial at the end of the episode. And to add salt to wounds, her acting was intolerably bad during that scene. This show never had great acting to begin with, but that scene was particularly poor. Mr. Porter seems like an awkward character now that we have skipped his reaction to listening to Hannah's tapes. I don't know how he feels or how he reacted, so that makes his decisions to threaten Bryce and watch him perplexing to me, since I don't know how many other things Mr. Porter has already dealt with. The time-skip has essentially killed all of my interest in his character by skipping his interesting transformation into who he is now. The courtroom scenes were poorly done and felt very forced with the questions Tyler was being asked. I hope this doesn't become a trend moving forwards. I thought that comparing pictures of Hannah happy to her sadness was an idiotic idea. Anybody could realize that the situations were different and any lawyer would call out the school lawyer on bringing that up. It felt like a forced way to instill drama to the episode and to cut to Tyler's history with Hannah. Additionally I thought the school did a terrible job of recovering from the accusations. Last season the bathroom walls were supposed to be painted, yet in this episode there is once more a ton of writing on the stalls. Is the school seriously too inept to check the bathrooms for more writing? Additionally, the new rule that suicide can't be discussed is ridiculous. Talking is the best way to prevent anybody from committing suicide, so why outlaw that? A ridiculous idea. The season already feels repetitive. Once more Clay is dealing with being unable to deal with Hannah's guilt. Once more there is a mysterious plan between all of the side characters and secrets being kept. Once more we get scenes of Olivia being sad about Hannah. Once more there are accusations about Hannah lying. We need to tread some new ground here. The Unknown: Why wasn't Clay called to testify? Was Hannah really sexting or did Tyler misinterpret something? What was the meaning behind Alex's suicide note? Was there something else bothering him? Could it have to do with why he called Zach last season? How does Bryce learn about what happens in court? Does he have a spy of sorts? Where did the polaroid come from? Who put it in Clay's locker? Who else was raped by Bryce? Was it Chloe, his current girlfriend? What was the note Ryan gave to Tony? What is the darkroom? How is Clay talking to Hannah? Best Moment: Olivia not being able to comprehend what she did wrong was the most powerful moment for me. Character of the Episode: Tyler. Conclusion: This episode had some nice developments but it was overall disappointing with poor and repetitive storytelling. This season looks like it's going to be everything that I wished it wouldn't be. Score: 54 Summary: Flashbacks show Hannah's last day alive. She goes to talk to Mr. Porter to talk with him but she doesn't get much help. She commits suicide soon after. In the present, the students have their depositions. Tyler reveals the existence of the tapes. Clay goes to talk with Mr. Porter and gives him the tapes. He has also recorded Bryce's confession for tape 14. Justin tells Bryce about the tapes. Jessica tells her father about Bryce's rape. Alex shoots himself in the head and is in critical condition.
The Good: This was a solid finale for the show. There were tons of powerful moments throughout and the show made sure to focus on its primary theme and ensure that the viewers understood what the show was all about. I thought the flashbacks were well done for the most part. I was very happy to see that Hannah actually did look for some help before she died and that letting everything out when making the tapes gave her something of a will to live. That felt much more real than a lot of the other things in this show and it pleased me. The suicide scene itself was really well constructed. I can understand why some people would be appalled by the graphic depiction of suicide, but I feel that it was necessary for the show to demonstrate everything that Hannah did and emphasize how terrible it is. I'm treating this show as a form of entertainment instead of a PSA for suicide so I'm not bothered by the depiction of suicide, but it is easy to see why some would be bothered by this. I thought the scene was a good pay off for Hannah's story and it was a suitably depressing end for her story. I enjoyed Clay confronting Mr. Porter as well. I thought their conversation as really good an did an excellent job of putting over the idea that we could definitely do more good by paying more attention to others and being kinder to them since you will never know what they are thinking. I thought that Tyler was handled nicely as well. He seems to be getting more bitter and angry in every episode and I'm excited to see him reach his breaking point. It was also very logical for him to be the one to reveal the truth about the tapes. Nobody really cared about him and Tyler really has nothing to lose at this point in his life, so it made perfect sense for him to give up everybody's secret. The Bad: Overall this episode was similarly disappointing in the same way almost every other episode disappointed. There were too many writing flaws for this episode to truly be successful. While I enjoyed most of the flashbacks, I did not like Mr. Porter's conversation with Hannah very much. Don't get me wrong, I liked parts of it, like Mr. Porter refusing to pick up the phone and Hannah being scared to talk about the rape, but the overall package felt very weak. The biggest problem is how quickly Hannah gave up on Mr. Porter. She said absolutely nothing to him, so how was he supposed to help? If she really wanted to live, surely she would have said more before giving up. But apparently she didn't say more which feels like a big mistake. The most realistic way for this to go down would be if Mr. Porter actually didn't help her when she told him everything, but since she told him absolutely nothing, it's hard to feel like Mr. Porter let her down here, which is what I should be feeling. The best way to help somebody feeling depressed or suicidal is to talk to them, so the show should have been much more careful when portraying somebody trying to get help by talking to someone. Furthermore, Mr. Porter telling Hannah to move on was stupid and uncharacteristic of Mr. Porter to say. It's unfortunate that the writers had to take so many shortcuts in this storyline. Another nitpick is Clay. I could understand Hannah not talking to Clay because the last time they talked he was obviously very hurt. But then in this episode he was very obviously trying to rebuild his relationship with Hannah, so why not just talk to him instead of Mr. Porter? Or how about Tony, who was clearly still very kind and friendly to her? Tony doesn't work in this story. He is so rooted in the background that it's impossible to care about him. Here he makes a huge decision to give the Baker the tapes, yet the scene means nothing because I have no idea why he did that. That entire arc failed to deliver, and we don't even get the pay-off of the Bakers learning about why Hannah killed herself. It's just a cliff-hanger for next season (more on that later). Justin and Jessica are still terrible. Their scenes are getting repetitive fast and it's hard to buy that Justin cares so much about Jessica. Even though Jessica was raped, I still can't care at all about her which is a result of weak acting an character writing. I didn't like Courtney's deposition. Why did they show her that picture? What was that supposed to accomplish? How did it make it into evidence and not get questioned by the lawyers? Weak writing which was just used to create some weak drama for Courtney. I'm pretty displeased that very little was wrapped up with this episode. We had some powerful moments, but a lot of the characters didn't reach anything of a conclusion in their arcs and a lot of plot threads were left to be resolved next season. I really don't like that the show did that, especially since we spent 13 overly long episodes getting to this point. It hurts even more that we got very little resolution at the end and are left to tune in for another season o presumably 13 more episodes. The Unknown: What will Mr. Porter do with the tapes? Will he show them to others? Will he try to get Bryce arrested? Or will he do something else? What is Alex's fate? Is he going to die or will he survive? What was with the phone call to Zach beforehand? Is Tyler planning a school shooting now? Or is he just going after the students? Did he shoot Alex instead? Tyler did take Alex's picture down from his list of targets. What will the Bakers so with the tapes? Will they do something if Mr. Porter doesn't? Or could they end the lawsuit now? Best Moment: The suicide scene was the most powerful and chilling scene in the episode. Character of the Episode: Hannah. Conclusion: This episode was rather disappointing even if it was powerful. There was little resolution and writing flaws still took away from this. The season overall had a load of potential, but bad writing seems to have consistently damaged this show to the point where it has hit nowhere near the level I was hoping from it after the first episode. I will definitely watch season 2 with hopes of more resolution for the characters there, but I don't expect season 2 to suddenly fix the major problems the show has. This show feels like a lot of missed potential despite it being an easy watch which is fairly entertaining. Score: 58 Summary: In flashbacks, Hannah accidentally loses several hundred dollars. She isn't close with Clay anymore. In her depression, she goes to one of Bryce's party and he rapes her. She begins to work on the tapes. In the present, Jessica remains hostile towards Justin. The students all receive notice for subpoenas except Sheri. Clay talks with Bryce and accuses him of being a rapist. Bryce beats him up.
The Good: There was appropriate misery for Hannah here. With just one episode left in the season, we really had to understand why Hannah did what she did. While I think there is still a big problem here (see: The Bad), the rape at the hands of Bryce is a fitting moment to send Hannah over the edge to begin feeling suicidal. I did like getting some more background behind Justin's relationship with Bryce. It did feel pretty odd that he didn't cut ties with Bryce for being a rapist, but thankfully we were actually given a realistic reason why Justin couldn't turn on Bryce. He feels indebted to Bryce and wouldn't be comfortable repaying Bryce by turning him in and breaking their friendship. I wish we had characterization and character motivation on this level more often. I really enjoyed the group meeting in this episode. Usually those scenes have felt like bland filler and haven't been interesting, but with the impending subpoenas, this time the scene had a purpose and a sense of tension which made it gripping and interesting. The discussion felt more important and it was nice to see the clashing ideals of all of the characters as they tried to determine what the best option was for moving forward. The truth may seem like a sensible thing, but considering the situation, it's easy to understand the thought process of those who don't want to reveal the full truth. I really enjoyed Alex's final speech suggesting that they were all flawed people who did play a part in Hannah's suicide (see: Best Moment), but I feel like that scene also had a really worrying aspect about it too (also see: The Bad). There were some really good small scenes as well. I liked the Clay and Hannah interactions being really awkward after what happened at the party. It felt suitably sad and tragic. Sheri deciding to finally tell the truth was a nice moment as well, and continued to have her as one of the most likeable characters on the show. I also got a good laugh every time Ryan bluntly responded to Courtney's claims that Hannah lied. The Bad: The biggest problem I have here is that Hannah has never attempted to get help for her problems. I was hoping that the party would have been Hannah's lowest point and that the rest of the show would be her trying to find some help. Unfortunately, the how has seemingly ignored the aspect of a suicidal person attempting to get help for their condition which not only makes Hannah seem extremely unlikeable (more on that later) but also misses a VERY important point about suicide. While I enjoyed Alex's speech, it suggested that they were responsible for Hannah's death because they chose not to be friends with her. While that's partially true, and it's easy for them to think that way, it seems to suggest that Hannah had tried really hard to get help but they had refused to help her. But we know from the flashbacks, that it's completely false and that Hannah never really asked for help. That makes it even harder to buy into the idea of Hannah's suicide which is really poor. Hannah as a character is badly hurt by this development as well. The fact that Hannah didn't get help strongly implies that she actually did kill herself for attention which is the exact thing a show like this should have been doing everything to avoid. With the idea of the tapes being almost like Hannah getting revenge, this show needed to make a point to not make it seem like Hannah killed herself just to get back at the people who she thinks did her wrong. Unfortunately the show has not done that at all, and it makes Hannah seem like a really unsympathetic character which is not at all how I should feel towards a suicide victim. Katherine Langford has put on a hell of a performance as Hannah and it's a shame that the character she is playing seems really unlikeable. At this point the performance is the only real thing that is keeping me engaged in Hannah's story. Jessica remains annoying as well. Now she seems to remember everything about the rape and how painful it was. I'm not doubting that it hurts to be raped, but she suddenly seems to recall the feeling which is ridiculous seeing how she pretended for weeks like it never happened. This storyline has been handled really poorly at times and I wish it had been executed with better character writing. The problem with the students' scene is that a lot of them are still very shallow and I don't acre about them. Because of that, it's hard for me to get invested in what they want or what their ultimate fate will be. I wish that I had a better idea of who these characters are so I could care. But since I don't care, the whole story surrounding them has a good chance of falling flat. Tony and Brad's scene was hard to care about too. Brad has hardly been in the show and I don't buy into his scene with Tony. While it is nice to get a scene of Tony letting out how he feels, the scene missed out on being good in my opinion because it was hinging on a relationship I really can't be bothered to care about. In the end the scene felt like an unfortunate waste of time. It also doesn't help that Tony is still a shallow character who I know next to nothing about because the show has been so preoccupied with keeping him mysterious. Clay confronting Bryce was a total miss in my eyes. In one scene, Bryce turned into just a generic teenage villain while Clay did something seemingly out of character by confronting Bryce directly and getting him to admit to raping Hannah. There was also an extremely odd scene of him cheering afterwards. I presume that he recorded the entire conversation and that's why he is happy but why on Earth did the show not reveal he recorded it? It's a dumb attempt at shock value for the finale I presume and it left t Bryce scene feeling extremely awkward and unfulfilling. We should never be played by having a show leave a very important character motive in the dark for the sake of shock value. It ruins my emotional engagement. The Unknown: So did Clay record the conversation with Bryce? What does he plan to do with the tape? Why did Tyler buy a gun? Who does he want to shoot? Who was in the ambulance at the end? Was it Clay? The show seems to be suggesting that. Who shot him? Tyler? That would make a lot of sense but I feel like it's too obvious to be the answer. Best Moment: Alex's speech was really great and allowed us to really reflect on how guilty the entire group must be feeling after what happened to Hannah. It's true that had somebody remained close to her, she may still have been alive and it's nice to see somebody attempting to make that point. Character of the Episode: Alex. Conclusion: This episode was a solid continuation of the story. The show remains enjoyable but is still way too flawed, and the huge issue regarding Hannah really dragged down this episode for me. I had held out hope that the show would understand how to portray a suicide victim but I was let down here. Score: 56 Summary: In flashbacks, Clay and Hannah connect at Jessica's party and hook up but Hannah shoves Clay off after remembering her past. In the present, Clay listens to his tape and struggles through it, but he makes it through with Tony's help. Justin finds out Jessica is at Bryce's and tries to take her away. He reveals that Bryce raped her.
The Good: This episode was much better because the show felt like it had a purpose here and wasn't just filling time. There were always important scenes going on. Clay's story was a pretty good examination of how one can be afraid to face their past and always blame themselves for the tiniest of things even if it wasn't their fault. While there were some flaws in this approach (see: The Bad), it did send a powerful message about how people would react when a friend commits suicide. Dylan Minnette hasn't been fantastic in the role of Clay, but I felt he did a great job here. I thought the humour for once was very good. Usually the humour in this show doesn't come off particularly well, but there were a lot of funny moments here which successfully put a smile on my face. There was some smart dialogue which I thought worked very well. I enjoyed small things like Clay arriving early which fit his character, and Hannah bringing up the oddity of Clay's name. This episode was really hinged on us caring about Clay and Hannah's relationship, and thankfully that has been one of the show's strong points. Both characters have great chemistry and it's easy to see what they like in each other. Their scenes had some good power to them and the tragedy of Hannah's ultimate death gave the scenes a fitting sadness to them which also paid off by making us care about what Clay is going through in the present day storyline. There were some really good pay off scenes for the side storylines. I was very glad to see the rape of Jessica addressed and thankfully it has had immediate consequences as Jessica appears to have finally shut Justin out and there will likely be some tensions between Justin and Bryce now. I really like the reveal that the lawsuit will involve the kids now. It adds a lot of tension to the final 2 episodes (see: The Unknown) and really makes me anticipate whatever comes next. The Bad: Unfortunately the lawsuit story does circle around the stupid idea that the Bakers never found the page of names in all of Hannah's stuff. They were searching her room, so how on Earth did they not find that earlier? The rape story was held down because I really don't care about the characters involved which is a real shame. Had Justin and Jessica been more fleshed out and likeable, this could have been a really great storyline with a powerful conclusion. Instead it's a weak story with a decent pay off. The reasoning for Clay being on the tapes is awful and it unfortunately undercuts a lot of what was the show's most powerful episode. It's hard to buy that Hannah would put Clay on the tapes for this and possibly ruin his life without any thought for his well-being. Clearly Hannah cared about him, so it makes no sense why she would do this to him. This also feels far too much like a cop-out because the writers didn't know what reason to put Clay on the tapes for. Unfortunately the big moment of Hannah blowing off Clay didn't have the impact it should have. This is because it draws on us buying into how traumatized Hannah has been by the previous guys she had hopes for. But sadly the show failed at doing that and only ever told us that Hannah was hurt by this, without ever showing us. This was one of my biggest complaints earlier in the story and it's really damaged one of the show's biggest scenes now. That really goes to show how important it is to make us care early on instead of waiting for later. There were a couple of nitpicks for Clay's story too. The tension of Clay killing himself was non-existent. Of course he wasn't going to kill himself, so it really wasn't worth teasing that. The Clay and Skye argument was really petty too and almost felt like a fight between grade 3s. I felt that they should have been shown as more mature and it would also help to at least get a better idea of their relationship. The Unknown: Who will have to talk for the subpoenas? Presumably it will be everyone on the tapes. Will anybody reveal the existence of the tapes? What will they say about Hannah? Will the Bakers or the school learn any important new information? Will anything be said about Bryce? I'm very interested to see what happens. What is Skye's story and history? What is her purpose in this show? She still feels only like an extra character. Does Alex still love Jessica? There have been some awkward moments in the past which highlighted his affections for her, but does he still have those feelings? Or have the writers just forgotten? Perhaps he feels so guilty that he no longer feels that way. Best Moment: I really loved the vision Clay had of him actually comforting Hannah instead of leaving her. It was tragic and very emotional to watch and was a really nice take on how somebody with regrets would play out themselves not making a big mistake. Character of the Episode: Clay. Conclusion: This was a really great episode at times and had a lot of emotion to it, but unfortunately the sloppy nature of this show once more takes away from what could have been a tremendous episode. This ends up being simply good instead of being as great as I feel it could have been. Score: 63 Summary: In flashbacks, Hannah leaves the party with Sheri who runs over a stop sign but doesn't want to call the police about it. Later, Jeff drives and doesn't see the fallen stop sign and is killed in an accident. In the present, Clay confronts Sheri about what she did but while Sheri doesn't tell the truth to Jeff's parents, she is paying for her mistake in her own way. Clay tells the truth to Jeff's parents. Tony meets Clay and tells him the next tape is his.
The Good: Hannah is being handled much better in these later episodes. I'll have to leave the problems from the earlier episodes in the past and say that Katherine Langford's performance has made me buy that she has started really hating her life. Now that we are getting time to see Hannah on her own, we can get a good idea of how she is struggling to deal with the pain she carries with her while the show also makes us understand more about why she did what she did. Sheri's story was really good because she has been the most easy to like characters so far. She seemed genuinely upset about what she did and while she couldn't quite bring herself to reveal the truth, I was glad to see her doing something to attempt to make up for her fatal mistake. It makes her feel more human than most of the other characters on this show. Seeing Clay upset about Jeff's death was pretty powerful and helped to explain away a moment when he was probably more rude to Hannah than she could have been. It was good to see how he reacts to death considering that we never got to see his immediate reaction when he learned about Hannah's death. I enjoyed the ending as well. It was nice to see Tony coming to see Clay to help him get through his tape, and I like that Clay got nerves when he found out it was his tape next. It felt pretty real and also consistent with Clay's character who had a tough time getting through the tapes. The Bad: Justin and Jessica are still a problem. We got some development for them now but it's too little and too late for me to care at all about them. I also have to seriously question Jessica going to Bryce. I thought she had made the realization that she was raped last episode but apparently she either didn't, making that scene pointless, or she just chose to ignore it. Either way, her hanging out with Bryce was ridiculous and felt like the stupidest thing her character could have done. Jessica has quickly become the stupidest and most annoying character which I really don't like. I really should sympathize with her much more than I do. I thought Sheri abandoning Hannah right away was dumb. Their conversation was like 30 seconds long before Sheri just left Hannah on the side of the road. It felt dumb and out of character for her not to talk more to her and just leave her on her own like that. The scene also felt rushed which is odd considering that this episode was 10 minutes shorter than usual and could have easily gotten away with a little more time. The Unknown: What happened with Clay and Hannah at the party? Clearly it is what put Clay on the tapes, but if he doesn't know what it is, then what could it be? Was Jeff actually drunk or not? From what we know of him, I would say that he wasn't but I guess we will never know for sure. Best Moment: The ending was the most powerful moment for sure, and while I don't think Tony and Clay's relationship has been the best executed in the show, it has gotten a lot of screen time so it makes sense to put some focus back on them as Clay goes through this big moment. Character of the Episode: Sheri. Conclusion: This was another solid episode, and while it didn't do anything great, I thought it was an easy enough watch. Score: 60 Summary: In flashbacks, Hannah cuts her hair in an attempt for a fresh start but it fails. She goes to Jessica's party and meets Clay. At the party she witnesses Bryce rape Jessica and is too afraid to do anything. In the present, Clay tries to bring Bryce to justice. Marcus has had enough and gets Clay suspended by planting weed on him. Clay opens up a little to his mom and angrily goes to Tony to let out his frustrations.
The Good: I really liked the opening sequence. It really put us inside of Hannah's life in a way that nothing else in the show has done before and it lets us understand why she is feeling so much pain and loneliness. I wish the show would have more scenes like this. It was a good showing of Hannah trying to improve her life, but ultimately failing because of how much she has been suffering. This was the most real I think the show has been when portraying Hannah. I was happy that we got a new story for Hannah. While I don't think the party story was great, it was new and has added another big reason for Hannah to turn towards suicide. Witnessing a rape would be horrifying enough, but doing nothing and feeling guilty about it afterwards is a really interesting story and I really hope that the show explores how Hannah feels after doing nothing to help Jessica. I need more than Hannah's narration saying how she couldn't live with herself, I want to see it happen. I thought Clay's arc was solid again. It's nice to see him get angry because of what Bryce did and quickly begin to break down once again, leading into a pretty good final scene where Clay lets out his frustrations to Tony. I liked seeing him talking to his mom as well as he got to let out some of his feelings but obviously couldn't reveal everything. The scene wasn't spectacular but it was pretty solid. Also we got to see Justin and Clay finally having a proper talk, which was also solid but unspectacular. It was nice to get a better idea of Justin's morals though. I was happy to finally see the group do something to Clay by getting him suspended. It was much more effective of a threat than the stupid car driving scene from a few episodes ago. I also like Clay's reaction to getting drugs planted on him. By this point he's so miserable and just doesn't care so he doesn't bother explaining himself. The Bad: The Justin and Jessica relationship is still a total failure. We have no idea why they like each other, what keeps them together or who they even are as characters and that is awful. Because of this I just can't be bothered to care about if Jessica was raped or not, and I don't care about the effect this will have on their relationship. Jessica also seems to only now be questioning if she was actually raped which is insane. She should have been bothered by this from the very next day when she woke up, especially if she has actual memory of Bryce raping her instead of Justin. It's a really bad flaw which I wish could have been handled differently. It makes it feel like Jessica is only having problems with this when it's relevant to the story. This episode feels like it was bogged down by many of the same flaws the other episodes had. Poor dialogue, weak characterization, focusing on the wrong thing and wasting our time with a lot of filler. In the end, the episode was a bit difficult to get through, and if I wasn't invested in Clay's story or intrigued by Hannah's, I probably wouldn't care for this at all. The show needs to start improving now if it wants to have some kind of big impact at the end. The Unknown: Why was Hannah in the bedroom? It seems like we are getting that answer really soon. What is with the random clips of Clay running? Where is he going? When is this? Best Moment: Clay's anger towards Tony towards the end was the most powerful scene I suppose. Character of the Episode: I'll say Hannah for this one. Conclusion: This was a solid episode, but once more, it contained pretty much every big problem I've had with 13 Reasons Why as a whole. The episode was enjoyable though and had nice moments, but it's still being held back from being as good as it could be. Score: 58 Summary: In flashbacks, Hannah joins the poetry club and writes a poem which is then published by Ryan, humiliating Hannah. In the present, Tony takes Clay on a walk and reveals that he was there when Hannah died. Clay gets the tapes back and gives Hannah's poem to Olivia.
The Good: We have finally seen Hannah with her parents. It's really bad that the show took 8 episodes to show an example of what Hannah's life at home is like. You would think that would be one of the first things the show touches on. Better late than never though, and what we got was pretty good. We are clearly shown that while Hannah's parents were loving, they may not have ever given her the attention she looked for and were too busy arguing or dealing with their business to show much care for Hannah's life. Seeing Hannah come home clearly upset after deciding not to do poetry anymore, only for her parents to ignore it was pretty telling. I did like the Tony is gay reveal. It's nice to see diversity like that in the show. I was also amused that Clay was completely oblivious, which is one of his defining traits at this point. It made for a nice laugh and it was the most organic scene that Clay and Tony had this episode. This episode was very repetitive (see: The Bad), and I think it only really benefitted one scene. The show seems to show Clay come so close to making Hannah feel good over and over again, only for him to unintentionally mess it up at the very end every single time. I wonder if that's why he is on the tapes? That seems really harsh, but I'm sure that something major happened for Clay's tape, whenever it is. The Bad: The repetition was a huge problem for this episode, and it made so much of it feel like filler. It has been present in previous episodes, but those have usually had enough going on for me to not really be bothered by it. Furthermore I could always believe that things would be explored more in the next episode. But now we are 8 episodes in and there should not be any more filler. Yet this whole episode was pretty much filler. For the Hannah story we once more got to see a nice guy who wasn't actually so nice storyline which has gotten so bland over the past few episodes. We also saw Mr. Porter talking to somebody about Hannah for hat feels like the 100th time with no actual payoff. The group of kids met up again to say that Clay was a problem for what felt like the 1000th time and they still haven't done anything. And once more the Bakers came into a completely filler conflict which had no impact on their character arcs or the overall story and served to waste our time. Let's add in Justin and Jess being dislikeable with a stupid relationship which is impossible to carer about and we have a completely generic episode from the show which has everything I hate about it. The biggest problem I have with the filler is that it's wasting time the show could be spending trying to flesh out its characters. I've said the characters are extremely shallow and that still remains true, so the show chooses to just waste time instead of making me care. That's really annoying to see and is one of the biggest things preventing the show from being as good as I think it has potential to be. I would much rather take actual character development over a scene of Alex deciding to go to the Bakers store and doing absolutely nothing. The rock climbing story was dumb. It had no tension whatsoever and didn't really serve to make Tony and Clay bond more as friends so I'm left questioning its purpose. I also found it hard to buy into Clay's excitement after finishing the climb, and I honestly thought he was being sarcastic at first. Hannah's storyline had some big flaws as well. They completely reused the idea of having people laugh at Hannah after something was spread around the school from the first episode. I also found it ridiculous that everyone was reading the poem. Like seriously, who in the school actually reads things like that? Definitely not everybody. And nobody makes fun of poems like that. They would just gloss over it and move on, not actively laugh at the writer. The show continues to make everyone aside from Hannah seem like unrealistic assholes to make us sympathize with Hannah and it is getting more and more frustrating. It was hard to buy into Tony's sadness surrounding Hannah's death since we have seen them interact like maybe twice in the whole show. We can't just be told they are friends, it needs to be shown to us. The Unknown: What will the Bakers do with the poem from Clay? Best Moment: I'll pick Tony describing the day Hannah died because the sheer tragedy of the event made me feel some emotion for Tony having to see all of that. I just wish we knew more about his relationship with Hannah so that the scene would have had more emotion so I could consider it one of the best in the show. Character of the Episode: Tony. Conclusion: This was a poor episode. The show is treading water to make it to 13 episodes at this point and it's frustrating to get an episode where nothing is accomplished at all. The show has at least been decently entertaining in previous episodes which were weaker, but this episode did absolutely nothing for me. The show needs to get moving again so maybe it can end on a high note. Score: 45 Summary: In Flashbacks, Zach comforts Hannah after what happened with Marcus. the next day he wants to go out with her but she shoves him away. Zach gets upset and starts stealing compliments from Hannah's compliment bag. In the present, Clay struggles with hallucinations during the day and has an outburst during a basketball game. Clay scratches "Why Me?" onto Zach's car. Clay returns the tapes to Tony. While giving a tour to foreign exchange students, Clay has an outburst and rants about the state of the school.
The Good: Clay's storyline was excellent in this episode. The hallucinations were fantastic and helped put us into Clay's mind, which he is quickly losing control over. It adds some tension to the scenes since we know we can't even be sure if what we are seeing is actually happening while also making us question Clay's reliability of a protagonist and if he is going to remain trustworthy throughout the series. Dylan Minnette stood out in his episode after not really making a mark in previous episodes. He played the depressed and bitter Clay really well and conveyed the change in his character very well. I also like the little detail of Clay's scar getting worse to reflect his mental state, even if the makeup does look like crap. The ending of the episode was great. I was surprised by Clay giving up the tapes, but it makes a lot of sense for him to do that, seeing how they are quickly ruining his life. I'm sure the tapes will find their way back to him very soon, but I'm glad that the writers took the effort to show that Clay will do anything to try to escape how he is feeling right now. The ending scenes with Clay were excellent as he attempted a new positive outlook on everything now that he is free of the tapes, but he was unable to escape and ended up making a big scene with a powerful outburst. Hannah's story has really lacked for me so far (see: The Bad), but I still felt like there were some nice improvements here. I really liked the scene where she left a note in the class compliments bag but was forced to hear practically nobody really care about the message. This kind of scene was really needed from the show to emphasize Hannah's loneliness and how she felt like she had nothing and nobody. I suspect the rest of the seasons will have more scenes like this. At least I hope there are more. I am able to buy into Hannah's deteriorating state a little bit more in this episode due to Katherine Langford's great performance. We haven't seen Hannah on her own nearly enough in this show, so it's really up to the acting in these short scenes to make me care and for the most part, she did a great job. Zach was pretty good in this episode. I was more than pleased to see a character get more development and be likeable overall for once. I was glad that Zach always behaved kindly towards Hannah, and that the whole reasons he was on the tapes was just because Hannah was going through a really tough time and accidentally made an enemy. Zach keeping the note was a great touch to really emphasize that he is a good person and has some regrets about what happened. I also like that the show touched on Zach's loneliness as well, which I would have loved to see explored in more detail. The Bad: Once more, I feel like the person who hurt Hannah went out of character to do something. Zach stealing the compliments from Clay was just stupid and petty and felt like something from grade 5, not high school. It was seriously dumb and didn't fit the story at all. Zach logically should have just stopped talking to Hannah, but then she wouldn't have a reason to make a tape, so the writers had to put in something dumb to make up for it. Speaking of grade 3, the whole concept of a compliment bag in high school is ridiculous. Nobody would do that in real life. It's worse than the dollar valentines in the last episode. I feel like the whole conflict between Zach and Hannah was dumb. They know they both made some mistakes (Hannah especially), so why did they not just talk it out like sane people? Like seriously, why would Hannah make some stupid note instead of just confronting Zach and talking to him to tell him to stop? Also why did she lie about him crumpling up the note and throwing it to the ground? Are we supposed to somehow believe that she thought he did that but he didn't? If it's not that, then the show is having Hannah lie to get revenge on Zach which is EXACTLY what I said the show should be avoiding. Hannah as a whole is sort of failing as a character at the moment. Katherine Langford's performance is currently the only thing that is making me feel some sympathy for her. This entire situation was totally brought on by her. I could understand if she had just felt bad about this and blamed herself which led into her depression, but instead she blames Zach for literally getting mad because Hannah was mean to him when he tried to be nice and she embarrassed him in front of his friends. Why should we feel bad for Hannah here when she did something cruel and clearly doesn't own up to it? Hannah cannot be portrayed as unlikable in a show like this, yet that is exactly what happened here. We desperately need to see more about how Hannah feels on her own and how the situations around her drove her to take her own life. I had expected each tape to get worse and worse, but so far they have just been petty things which I can hardly buy brought her to this level of sadness. Of course the dialogue is still fairly poor. So is the relationship between Justin and Jessica which continues to make me question why they are even together anyways. The Unknown: What is Skye's role in the story? Is she on the tapes too? That doesn't make much sense seeing how she isn't communicating with anybody else, but she still needs some kind of purpose to be a part of the story. What is Mr. Porter going to tell Clay? Will Clay spill the beans on the tapes now? Will he get them back? How? Will Tony give them back or will something else happen? So could Hannah really be lying about what happened at Jessica's party? Since she lied here, it may be possible that she lied about other things. Best Moment: Clay's outburst at the end was gripping and powerful and it felt extremely real. Clay has been pushed to a breaking point here and it's been fascinating to see him slowly lose connection with himself and start doing irrational things. This was no exception and it provided what I think was the best scene in the show so far. Character of the Episode: Clay. Conclusion: This episode was powerful and had a great story revolving around Clay and even did a good job of developing a side character. Yet the show still keeps stumbling on stupid things and it's quite frustrating to see the potential for a great show being wasted through bad characterization of Hannah, poor dialogue and idiotic character decisions. This was still good, but by all means it should have been much better. Score: 61 Summary: In flashbacks, Marcus calls Hannah after getting matched with her for dollar valentines. Hannah initially likes him but Marcus completely embarrasses her on their date. In the present, Alex and Monty get in a fight and Monty is suspended while Alex is let off with a warning. Clay starts to hook up with Sheri but she reveals that she just wants Clay to not think poorly of her because she is on the tapes. A frustrated Clay tells her to leave.
The Good: I thought the fight storyline was really well done. The situation felt like a realistic position for a fight, and considering what we have seen from Alex, it fit his character to do something like confronting Monty for being stupid. The honour board meeting which followed was also really good and had some great storytelling which seemed to highlight the show's biggest moral question: who is responsible for the actions of others? I enjoyed the exploration of the topic, even if it was brief. Clay's character arc remains extremely interesting. He's becoming more open but as a result is also falling more into depression while doing so. The storyline with Sheri was pretty interesting and added even more reasons for Clay to continue his descent. I said it before, but I'll repeat it again; I think Clay's arc has been much better than Hannah's. It was nice to see a scene of Hannah on her own, dealing with things and apparently starting to have slightly suicidal thoughts. I wish the early parts of her story were told better, but if they start focusing on her emotions now, I still think her character arc can be turned into something really good. The Bad: The entire concept of dollar valentines was pretty stupid to me. I can hardly buy that the school would try something like that. Marcus' story was extremely dumb. He has come off as a pretty decent guy so far in the show, so to see him try to take advantage of Hannah felt horribly out of character and ridiculous. I think his character got by far the worst treatment out of any other characters who were focused on in the tapes. I hardly knew anything about him before, and that is still completely the same. The storyline surrounding Hannah's parents has gotten pretty repetitive. We just see them grieving episode after episode and then having a really basic conflict which is resolved by the episode's end. I don't think we need so much focus on their characters at the moment, and more needs to be done to characterize the high schoolers instead. Unfortunately that wasn't the only repetitive thing either. Hannah's story was yet another one about how guys can suck. It had very little substance to it and honestly I don't think the show would be any different without it. It was by far the weakest story thus far. The characters of Justin and Jessica are suffering the most from not receiving enough focus. They spend so much of their time arguing so it's extremely hard to care about or even buy into their relationship. Both characters come off as annoying assholes on their own as well so they have ended up being some of the series' worst aspects. Sheri's motives were ridiculous. If she wanted Clay to like her, why not talk to him about it instead of just pretending like she isn't even aware of the tapes? Her reasoning is shallow and stupid and makes me dislike her character as well. It would be nice to have other characters to like in this show. The Unknown: I'm still standing by my theory that Jeff died, hence the transition to Clay tutoring Jeff after looking sad for a few seconds. What is Skye's story? She seems to like Clay based off of her comments to him being with Sheri. Was the guy Tony talking to his boyfriend? I assume so, and I think that means that Tony actually wasn't following Clay there. That also raises the question of why he is following Clay. Also what are his secrets? Whose secret is it that he's keeping? Hannah's? Or somebody else? Best Moment: The honour board meeting was a pretty great scene in a weaker episode. Character of the Episode: Alex. Conclusion: This was the weakest episode of the series for e. Not a whole lot happened, there were few talking points and Hannah's story was definitely the most repetitive and empty it has been so far. Without the excellent Alex/Monty storyline, this episode would have been a complete failure. Score: 53 Summary: In flashbacks, Hannah works hard to get Courtney as a friend again. Hannah goes to a dance and connects with Clay but she leaves after Courtney spreads awful rumours about her. Clay takes Courtney to Hannah's grave in an attempt to make Courtney accept her role in Hannah's death. Courtney leaves frustrated. Justin, Alex and others take Clay into a car and threaten him to stop doing what he's doing. Clay's mom begins working with the school on the lawsuit.
The Good: I really enjoyed Clay's storyline in this episode. In a lot of ways, his descent into depression has been much more fascinating to watch than Hannah's descent to suicide. Unlike with Hannah, we get to see Clay on his own, so we can understand how everything is having its toll on him. We get to see his feeling down and depressed so we can relate with the struggle he is going through. This is what we need for Hannah as well because it can make for some really compelling television. The dance scenes were pretty good throughout. It was a nice little event that continued developing Clay and Hannah' relationship to really make us feel about what Clay lost when Hannah committed suicide. This episode was easily the most sad so far and it's scenes like these which made it that way. I really liked the way that Courtney spreading an awful rumour completely ruined another great moment for Hannah. These episodes seem to be patterned to have Hannah begin to have something only for her to lose it immediately after and I think the pattern largely works. I just want to see more of Hannah in between these patterns. I thought the scenes at Hannah's grave were pretty good. It was nice to get a better idea of what Clay was doing by making justice. It wasn't to prove anything to anyone, but instead he has selfish motives of wanting others to pay for what they took from him. It's a really sad story and a mature one which impressed me. I didn't expect this show to start exploring morally gray area as well as it did in this episode. Tony talking with Clay was great too and finally allowed the characters to just sit and talk about how they are feeling. I want more scenes like this from the show with the other characters to give me a better understanding of them too. Alex speeding and not stopping was pretty great. It continues to show that he has been very affected by the entire situation and seems to be slipping into suicidal tendencies himself. Now the question is if anyone is going to notice how far he is slipping. The Bad: The same flaws persist with this episode. The dialogue is really terrible at times and Hannah isn't as compelling as we expect her to be because we don't get a good look of how she is dealing with the awful things that are happening to her. One thing I really don't like about this show is how hateable everyone is. I like a few characters, but so many characters seem like downright awful people and that is pretty annoying. For this show to work, I need to understand these characters and be able to sympathize with them more than I actually do. The idea that Hannah tried to get a limo was dumb. I don't care what the situation is, I don't think any teenager actually tries that. I don't see how Justin having Alex drive a car fast is supposed to intimidate Clay. Everybody is in the car and he won't get in trouble I they are pulled over. How was that intimidating? And if they crash, everybody is screwed so I doubt they would do that. It was dumb and more frustrating because we still didn't get a concrete answer on why everyone hates Clay so much. Can they not just talk to him about things to try to make him understand instead of just threatening him? The Unknown: The principal mentioned losing 2 students. Who was the second? We were introduced to Jeff in the flashbacks but he is nowhere to be found in the present. Could he have died somehow as well? Apparently Hannah lied about Jessica's party. Is that true? What did she li about? Why would she lie? As I've mentioned before, I think it's a dumb idea to have Hannah lie so I hope the show handles the situation intelligently. How will Clay's mother working on the case with the school affect him? Will it create more reasons for him to talk about Hannah or the opposite? Best Moment: Clay talking with Tony was pretty powerful television. Character of the Episode: Clay for finally starting o captivate me. Conclusion: This was a good episode which delivered the most powerful stuff in the show so far. The show is still flawed but it seems like it may be starting to improve now which is a great sign. Score: 63 Summary: Flashbacks show that Hannah was being stalked by someone. She teams up with Courtney and discovers that it's Tyler but Tyler has taken some pictures. Hannah doesn't want to hang out with Tyler o he shares the pictures with the school. In the present, Clay speaks with Olivia (Mrs. Baker) about Hannah. The Bakers begin doing work on the lawsuit. Tyler reveals that he loved Hannah. Clay stalks Tyler and sends a naked picture of him around the school.
The Good: This was another solid hour with decent enough storytelling. The story is still satisfying and enjoyable to follow, even though it frustratingly seems to be settling for a lower level than it should be (see: The Bad). We learned some interesting details about Tyler here which led to him being basically shunned as an outcast by the group. It's interesting to see that Clay decided to throw Tyler under the bus, which seems to be exactly the kind of thing that people did which led to Hannah's suicide. The show is making an interesting statement with that final scene and I'm curious to see what the follow-up will be. I enjoyed Clay much more in this episode until the end. I loved the scene with him and Olivia and the editing which highlighted his fears of possibly revealing the tapes to her. It's a very real feeling and I'm glad that the show was able to creatively explore it for a little bit. I also really like that the show decided to include Clay having regrets about Hannah's suicide and the actions he took in the past. I commented on the last episode that Clay should have more of a reaction to Hannah's death, and I think this is a very good way to start doing that. I really liked Marcus' character. Though we aren't sure if we can trust what he says (see: The Unknown), I really did like his opinion on the tapes. I love that somebody decided to call out Hannah for doing something as awful as creating these tapes. It's a pretty messed up thing to do, and while I'm 99% sure the tapes are just used as a plot device for the show to explore the concept of suicide, I'm very happy that the characters in the show aren't treating it as a plot device and that they have their own opinions on the tapes. One strange thing about this show is how easy it is to watch. It's such a fascinating mystery to try to find out what drove Hannah to kill herself, and it's just as fascinating to find out how all the other characters have been affected by it. While the show doesn't always give us the highest quality, it's completely hooked me because I'm very interested to see more. I think it's a unique show because of that and I also believe this is the reason why the show became so popular because people just couldn't stop watching it once they had started. The Bad: This episode was the weakest so far in my opinion though with lots of flaws. For one, Tyler is extremely shallow and we know nothing of substance about him. Why is he so antisocial? Why does he take pictures? We don't know, and that's a problem since these are his motives we are talking about and we don't know what they are. The lawsuit story is extremely dull. While I think Hannah's parents are important characters, they certainly don't need this much focus, especially when the show is struggling to flesh out its main cast. The show can't afford to juggle so many characters, and the school lawsuit story is just adding far too much to the story. The show is making me worried about how they are portraying Hannah. At this point she should surely be feeling pretty sad and lonely because of what she's gone through, but I really don't feel that. I think this is because the show refuses to actually show us how Hannah is doing when she's alone. Instead all we get to learn about how Hannah really feels is the stupid narration which I still feel is the show's worst element. If we are to care about what's happening to Hannah we need to be shown what's happening not be told about what's happening. If the show doesn't start examining the effects that all these things are having on Hannah, there may be some big problems down the road. Clay "making his own justice" was stupid. It felt completely out of character for him to do that, and it's a huge problem when I don't understand why the protagonist makes a crucial decision. The show seems to imply that it's to get even with Tony or something like that but that makes no sense. The ending was just stupid. I'm also quickly getting annoyed by all the drama from the other students who keep talking about Clay being a big problem. Why? If you don't tell us why, I don't care and it quickly becomes a waste of my time. Apparently Clay is "dead" after he sent the picture of Tyler. WHY? It makes no sense and I really need to understand why these students are after Clay so much. The Unknown: What's the point of the second set of tapes? Why did Hannah make them? Also why isn't Tony on the tapes? If he isn't on the tapes, how does he know about them? So it's basically been confirmed that Bryce isn't aware of the tapes, so I presume he isn't on them which is a bit of a surprise seeing how much of an ass he has been so far. Also what are the goals of the students who are after Clay? We need an explanation immediately. Best Moment: Tough to choose, but I'll go with Clay's fears that Olivia would blame him for Hannah's death. Character of the Episode: Clay. Conclusion: This episode had more solid progression, but the show is being too vague and mysterious and it's taking away from the significance of a lot of the drama. On top of that, the show isn't focusing on the stories which really matter and it's starting to hurt the quality. This episode was still really enjoyable but it's easily the weakest so far because of all its flaws. Score: 55 Summary: In flashbacks, Alex creates his list to get back at Jessica for not having sex with him and Hannah is bullied about having the "best ass". In the present, Clay speaks with Alex who is feeling extremely guilty about Hannah's suicide. Clay is forced by Bryce and friends to buy a bottle of liquor and chug it.
The Good: Alex's character was really good in this episode. Though we don't know much about how he was before (see: The Bad), we can very clearly see how Alex has changed for the worse after Hannah's suicide. This episode does a great job of exploring how depressed he has become in a bunch of effective scenes like his talk with Clay, the ending where he emptily plays video games before jumping into a pool and when he quits the jazz band because it's "pointless". So far the show hasn't really examined the guilt of the people who Hannah believes to be responsible since both Jessica and Justin have been very unlikable about the whole situation, so that makes it feel very refreshing to see Alex act like a decent human being who feels bad about what happened. Clay and Hannah's relationship remains one of the best parts of the show. They have good chemistry together and are pretty fun to watch, so I think their scenes work pretty nicely together. I'm definitely very interested to see what happens between them. The store scene where Bryce gropes Hannah was done pretty well I thought. While it feels like it was overdramatized (see: The Bad), it serves as a very effective way to continue Hannah's downfall which is bound to only get worse after each episode. It was good to get some basic backstory on Justin as well. He was pretty shallow so far, so it's nice to get a hint that there is more to him than what meets the eye. It seems that his parents are utter garbage, which does help humanize him a bit. As a side note, I really like that the Coach is looking out for Justin and seems to genuinely care about him. In a show about suicide, it's important to establish that there are lots of decent people who care about the main characters' well-being. The Bad: I'm starting to have a bit of a problem with Clay as the series moves on. Apparently he was much closer to Hannah than it initially seems, so in that regard it's pretty weak that he doesn't have more struggles trying to move on like Alex does. Hannah's narration is really hurting the show more than it's helping. It leaves no room for subtlety and it feels so dramatic that it honestly completely ruins the emotional resonance of smaller moments. Hannah crying while leaving the store could have been powerful, but instead it felt completely empty to me due to Hannah's over-dramatic narration. Having Hannah narrate while sounding completely unlikable and overdramatic really only serves to make me dislike her character which is absolutely not what I should be feeling for a girl who committed suicide. Hannah's paranoid trip through the school with Alex's list flying around was really poorly done. The show could have gotten creative with its cinematography to heighten Hannah's paranoia, but nope, instead it relies on Hannah's crappy narration once more to weaken the impact of a scene. I also found it pretty ridiculous that the students were passing around Alex's list in paper. Seriously? Nobody does that anymore (they use phones) and teachers would stop it from continuing anyways. I wish that the character focus was better in each episode. I feel like too much time is spent on rather unimportant stuff, like Clay drinking, when it really shouldn't be. I would find these episodes more compelling if they focused on a specific character and actually explored that character. Like this episode was fixed around Alex, yet I don't know a whole lot about him. I would have loved to get a better idea of his story so I could at least sympathize with him a little more and understand why he did what he did. But instead we get nothing about who Alex was and we need to care about who he is in the present. This works somewhat for Alex since his guilt makes me sympathize with him, but it's completely failed with both Jess and Justin who are almost insufferable to me at this point. Alex making his list was dumb as well. We get a half-baked explanation on why he did it which isn't good enough. To add to my last point, we really needed to see what drove Alex to making that list so we could sympathize with him more for making the mistake he did. But we don't get to see what was going through his head, so it leaves us to dislike him a little bit as well which isn't good. Apparently he loved Jessica, so he broke up with her because she didn't want to have sex yet?? Seriously?! That is an awful thing to do which doesn't fit Alex's character at all, so we desperately needed some more insight on why he did that, but we just don't get it. The Unknown: From the look of things, Bryce and Tyler both never got the tapes, since they don't seem aware of their existence. Interesting. Where are Tony's allegiances? Whose side is he on? Why was he beating somebody up in an abandoned location? What was that for? Why does Alex not trust Tony? Why do Justin and all the others seem to be after Clay? What is their purpose? Why? What is Clay going to do? What happened at Jessica's party which was very important? What is Clay doing now which is illegal? Best Moment: Alex's outburst at Monet's was excellent. It felt like an earned moment which really highlighted Alex's guilt and how he feels that if people had been better, including himself, Hannah could have been saved. It felt like a very real outburst from a troubled teenager who had recently lost a friend. This was my favourite scene in the show so far. Character of the Episode: Alex. Conclusion: This episode was another solid instalment, though it was more uneven than the others. It had the best and the worst of the show, which makes it a bit of a mixed bag. Score: 60 Summary: In flashbacks, Hannah become friends with Jessica and Alex and hang out to drink hot chocolate. Then Jess and Alex stop coming and Hannah learns that they are now dating. Alex makes a list and breaks up with Jess, causing Jess and Hannah to have a falling out. In the present, Clay tries to meet with Justin who is staying at Bryce's and smoking. Jess tells Clay that Hannah is a liar. Tony is revealed to be in contact with Hannah's parents.
The Good: The Hannah, Jessica and Alex storyline is a pretty good main focus for this episode. Their friend group is an excellent portrayal of the kind of casual, and quirky groups which sometimes exist in high schools. While the "FML" thing seems a bit much, I did enjoy the idea of their friendship and the falling out was suitably sad to watch. It's fitting as an early conflict which started Hannah on the road towards her suicide, and I'm definitely interested to see Hannah's character slowly devolve through the course of the series. At the moment her character seems a bit shallow, but I'm sure that she will be developed more as we go through the show and get more insight into her mental state. The other characters are also pretty shallow at the moment, but the show has definitely started to flesh them out. Right now the show is fascinatingly showing us the many different ways these teenagers are dealing with the gilt of feeling responsible for Hannah's death. Justin smokes, Clay remains a recluse, Jess is in denial that she is at all responsible and Alex looks absolutely miserable. It's nice to see such a broad look at how people react to suicides and the guilt they feel when they know the person who actually killed themselves. I'm interested to learn more about these characters which is a very good thing. I like that Clay's parents are noticing that something is bothering him. After all, why wouldn't they? It makes sense that they are trying to take steps to get him to talk. It also appears that Clay has a history with depression. I'm assuming that might play out a little in the story which should be another interesting storyline to watch. The Bad: Hannah's narration is becoming annoying unfortunately. It's way too heavy-handed and just doesn't sound like something we would hear from a suicidal girl. It's being used more to make the show stylish ad to deliver exposition than it is to be consistent with what Hannah's character should be like. The dialogue in this show has been really poor sometimes. The office scene with Hannah and Jess in particular stands out and is just extremely awkward. It's so hard to believe that 2 girls would talk like that and become friends. The dialogu3 problem is present for most of the episode, as it often feels far too wordy and unrealistic, especially when we are talking about teenagers who really should be using more slang than they actually are. At least it's much better than "Riverdale" though. I thought Jess and Hannah's fight was overly dramatic and escalated far too quickly. It was pretty annoying and did nothing to make me like Jess as a character, though that may have been the point. The Unknown: Who else has had the tapes before Clay? I presume that he's one of the last people, if not the last person with the tapes. Why is Clay on attendance alerts? What did Justin tell Mr. Porter? Is the school becoming aware about the existence of the tapes? Why did Marcus and Zach try to pick up Clay? I assume they were on the tapes too. What was the point of that scene? What are their current motives? How s Tony involved with all of this? Why is Tony in contact with Hannah's parents? He seems like a really trusted friend. What are his motives? What will he tell Hannah's parents? Why did Alex make that list? Did he even make it? What is "there" in the tapes, which Justin and Jess reference? Can we actually trust Hannah? Jess says that she lied, so is that true? It's very risky to have Hannah lying especially since she committed suicide and it really wouldn't put a good look on suicide victims as characters, so the show really should avoid going down that route. Best Moment: Not much stood out, but I suppose the best part would be seeing Alex for the first time in the present. He seemed like a totally different person and felt like a real example of somebody who is suffering from somebody else committing suicide. Character of the Episode: I'll give this one to Alex who I think stood out the most in his limited screen time. Conclusion: This was another solid episode which continued the mystery of what lead Hannah to taking her own life. The show is beginning to expand and seems to be consistently decent at the very least, despite the notably weak dialogue. Score: 62 |
Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
February 2024
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