13 Reasons Why: Final Thoughts

                I am not sure how I really feel about them showing the suicide.  I do believe that showing her parents find her, the devastation they portray, the breaking down of their spirit they reveal throughout the entire show, the backlash they receive, the business they lose because the community can’t handle looking at them, those are important scenes to show.  In the end, Mrs. Baker gets her answers.  That is the truth that she needed to be able to move on.  I do not believe this show glorifies suicide.  I believe it shows every dark moment that leads to the decisions, and every dark moment that follows.  I believe it reveals so many important issues that students deal with today.  I believe it reveals the most heartbreaking destruction of the people that are left behind.  I believe that Alex’s suicide and the portrayal of his demise are a reality of what happens to people when they go through something like this.

                I think my favorite part of the ending is when Jessica finally reaches out to her father and tells him what happened to her, when she washes away the shame, when she decides to stop destroying herself.  The most heartbreaking, other than the rapes, was hearing the principle tell Mr. Porter that Alex Standall shot himself in the head, watching him be riddled with guilt more and more as the show went on, watching him die inside over one stupid decision, watching him take the weight of Hannah’s death on himself.  I remember when I final got alone after Daniel Janes killed himself.  I knew the gospel, but I never shared it with him, not even once.  I never even mentioned the name of Jesus to him.  By the time Daniel had died, I had fallen away, gotten worse.  When I finally got home and the house was empty, all I could think of was Daniel standing before God and being condemned to hell.  I saw him fall into the pit as he cursed God and pleaded with him at the same time, and I wailed.  I literally wailed.  I was consumed with grief and guilt.  I know that is not how all of us responded to his death, but that is how I responded.  I thought that, if I had just witnessed to him one time, if I hadn’t fallen away and gotten to the point that sharing the gospel was a tragedy, I could have saved his life.  After 15 years, I know that I am not responsible for Daniel’s death, but for the first few years, I would go to the hotel we stayed at the night before his funeral, or I would go to the grave and apologize.  It took me a long time to forgive myself.

                If you are reading this, and you are contemplating suicide, I pray you will stop and think about the people you are leaving behind.  I know that you may feel like no one will care.  You may think that everyone will be just fine.  Even if someone does care, they will be okay soon.  I promise you, more people care than you think.  There will be at least one person that will carry that heartache with them for the rest of their lives, however long that may be.  If you cannot live for yourself, at least live for them.  Choose resilience.  Choose hope.  Choose to keep fighting, even if you feel like you don’t have the strength to fight anymore.  You are stronger than you give yourself credit for.  I have experienced so much tragedy, so much trauma.  If I can get up every day and keep fighting for those that I love, then so can you.  If you need or want someone to talk to, please leave a comment and I will get back to you with a way for us to communicate.  You are not alone!

“The cross we carry is never so heavy as the chains from which we were freed.”   --J. A. Lacy

Mr. Porter: 13 Reasons...Episode 13

                The man that has eluded the responsibility for his inactions throughout the entire show finally comes to his tape.  The kids begin testifying.  Clay is finished with the tapes.  It is time to pass them on to the last person.

                Hannah describes her process as she makes the tapes.  She started with 12.  Hannah says, “I started with Justin, and then Jessica, who each broke my heart.  Alex, Tyler, Courtney, Marcus, who each helped to destroy my reputation.  On through Zach and Ryan, who broke my spirit.  Through tape number 12, Bryce Walker, who broke my soul.  But a funny thing happened when I finished number 12.  I felt something shift.  I had poured it all out, and for a minute, just a minute, I felt like maybe I could beat this.  I decided to give life one more chance, but this time I was asking for help because I know I can’t do it alone.  I know that now.”  Hannah put everything she had left onto one person.  Did he ever really have a chance?

                Hannah went to see Mr. Porter, the school counselor.  As Hannah begins telling Mr. Porter how desperately she needs everything to stop, including life, he responds the same way he did with Tyler.  He seems to be trying to help.  I think he really did, but somewhere, he turns what they are feeling around on them, holding them responsible for what has happened, where they have ended up.  Clay goes to see Mr. Porter to give him the tapes.  Before he hands them over, he confronts Mr. Porter.  As typical with rape victims, Hannah is unsure whether it really was rape.  They tend to blame themselves, so Hannah could not say, without a doubt, that it was rape.  Hannah asked him to promise her that he would go to jail, he tells her that if she cannot prove that he raped her, she can just move on.  That’s what I said, he told her to move on, and then he let her walk away.  Hannah had been recording the entire conversation with him.  Her last attempt at life, in her eyes, failed.  The next scenes of the episode reveal her last day in this life.  They show her fill the tub, open the razor blades, get in the water, and then cut her wrists.  They show the whole brutal moment, the hesitation and contemplation, the moment she got up the courage, if you can call it that, and then every bloody and painful moment of the blade slicing her veins open.  Then, it shows her fade away as the blood-stained water pours into the floor.  They show the moment her mother walks in, then her father, the whole time Clay is telling Mr. Porter it is his fault.  Then, after Mr. Porter tells Clay there is no way of knowing why Hannah did what she did, Clay pulls out the tapes, and tells him that he is tape number 13.

Bryce Walker: 13 Reasons...Episode 12

                As the kids are subpoenaed to testify about Hannah’s suicide, Bryce tries to reach out to Justin and the kids contemplate telling the truth.  To me, none of that is relevant.  Instead, my mind is drawn to that one moment. 
              Hannah happens upon a small party at Bryce’s house.  There are a few people in the hot tub.  They convince Hannah to jump in.  After a while, Hannah is left in the hot tub alone.  As she sits there, trying to relax, Bryce jumps in.  As Bryce starts to make his move, Hannah tries to get out, but Bryce won’t let her.  Instead, he turns her around, and he rapes her.  That’s right, Bryce raped Hannah.  As he had his way with her, she died inside.  Hannah says there are two kinds of death.  One is the natural way your body runs out.  The other is to die a little bit at a time until it is too late.  After everything that had happened, after the entire school slut shamed her, after the boys in the school took a piece of her innocence at a time, Hannah lost her virginity being raped by the guy everyone treated like a god.  If that was all that happened in the episode, I would have turned it off and never watched the last one.  Oddly, it reminds me of the gospel.  If Jesus dying on the cross was the end of the story, then there is no hope.  But He rose, and all is not lost.  In the show, Hannah did not rise from the dead.  Instead, Clay found justice.  See, he hid a tape recorder in his backpack.  Since Marcus had set him up to get caught with weed in his backpack before, Clay used that to his advantage.  He went to Bryce’s house under the pretense of buying weed.  Then, he confronted Bryce about the rape, got beat up, and then got the confession.  When you think that is the best part, it gets better.  Courtney tells her fathers the truth.  Sheri turns herself in to the cops.  Jessica dumps out all her alcohol and then takes a very hot and long shower to clean all the guilt off.  It begins to feel like there is going to be a happy ending, until someone decides to follow Hannah’s example.

Clay Jensen: 13 Reasons...Episode 11

                 This is the episode we have all been waiting for.  After so much suspense, so much bonding with Clay Jensen’s character, we need to know what he did to Hannah.  As Clay and Tony sit on the swings at the park, Tony warns Clay that his tape is next.  He offers to sit with him while he listens.  Clay hesitates because he is afraid.  He asks Tony repeatedly if he killed Hannah Baker.  Tony tries to avoid the question, but Clay asks again.  “Did I kill Hannah Baker?”  Tony shakes his head yes.

                Hannah surprises her listeners by saying that, even though this is Clay’s tape, the blame is on her.  As the tape goes on, Clay is shocked at a statement that Hannah makes and tells Tony that she isn’t telling the truth.  Tony responds, “She is telling her truth.”  When Clay asks Tony why he has to be there, Tony says, “Because I don’t know what your truth is or what you are going to do when you find out hers.”  So, what really happened?  Everything that has already happened came crashing down on Hannah when Clay finally makes his move.  She had already been too hurt.  She had already been traumatized.  At this point, even a healthy relationship was traumatizing for her.  All the moments that left her feeling objectified were transferred onto Clay in that moment.  So, Clay’s tape is not Hannah’s way of telling him how he killed her, it is Hannah’s way of apologizing to him.  Clay was the one person that could have saved her, but she was too afraid to let him.  She was too afraid to hope.

                Throughout the episode, Jessica spends time with Bryce to provoke Justin into telling her the truth about Bryce raping her.  She had been getting bits and pieces of that night, that moment.  She knew the truth, but Justin kept telling her it was not true, so she forced his hand.  In the end, he broke.  He finally tells her the truth.  It was the only way she would have ever been able to heal anyway.  Otherwise, it would have destroyed her.  Believe me, I know.  The truth will truly set you free. 

Sherri Holland: 13 Reasons...Episode 10

After Hannah leaves the room where Jessica is raped, she gets a ride from Sherri Holland.  Sherri is the captain of the cheerleading team, the sweet girl, the girl I never expected to be on the tapes.  What does she do?  She does the wrong thing.  She makes a mistake, and then she ignores it, or tries to.  Sherri takes Hannah home, but as she looks for her cell phone while driving, Sherri hits a stop sign.  Hannah tries to get Sherri to call the police, but Sherri insists that she can’t do that because her father will be angry.  When Hannah fights back, Sherri leaves Hannah on the side of the road.  While Hannah looks for a phone to inform the police that the stop sign is down, there is an accident and someone dies. 

This brings up a couple of issues.  First, Sherri had been drinking, but assumed that since she could do a cartwheel she could drive.  Second, she was more concerned with her cell phone than she was the road.  Even I have almost wrecked when my phone went off while I was driving.  Once, my boys were in the car with me.  Sherri wasn’t as lucky as I was, if you believe in luck.  Sherri spends many afternoons with the couple that hit Jeff in that accident.  She tried to make up for it, but she still held on to her secret.  She claimed that it was her own, but the truth belonged to so many others.

Jeff was a good friend to Clay.  After Clay tutored him and helped him pass a class, Jeff decided he wanted to help Clay with girls.  He continuously encouraged Clay to work on his relationship with Hannah.  Jeff seemed like a good guy.  His car was full of empty beer bottles so everyone assumed he was drunk.  Even if Jeff wasn’t drunk, he had been drinking that night.  I don’t know how many kids died in car crashes when I went to high school.  Each year, at least four kids died.  We had fender benders constantly from Patrick Henry High School to the middle of Ashland, VA.  That stretch would be packed with cars after school every day.  Many of us were already getting high as we left the parking lot.  This story is so typical, a kid leaving a party insisting they are sober, but they die anyway.

Justin Foley Part 2: 13 Reasons...Episode 9

                This episode is hard to watch.  It makes your stomach turn and leaves a lump in your throat the size of a mountain.  What could happen that would make Hannah give two tapes to Justin Foley?  Bryce Walker happened.  Justin and Bryce are close.  With Justin’s terrible home life, Bryce has been a solid ground to stand on. 

                When summer break is over, Clay gets to the tape of Jessica’s party, the one they have been talking about, the one they have tried to keep him from hearing.  What Justin told Jessica is that he and Jessica hooked up and then passed out.  No big deal, right?  That is not the story Hannah tells.  According to Hannah, Jess and Justin start to hook up, but Jess is so wasted that she passes out, so Justin leaves her to sleep instead.  That is the right thing to do.  Unfortunately, Bryce is in the hallway, also wasted.  Justin tries to shut the door and get Bryce to walk away, but Bryce has other plans.  He wants Jessica.  This is where your stomach turns.  Jessica is so drunk that she is passed out.  She is completely non-functional.  Justin understands that this is a good time to walk away, but Bryce?  Bryce decides this is a good time to take advantage of the situation and how he has been there for Justin for so long.  He flings Justin out of his way and on to the ground, and then he walks through the door.  Little did he know, Hannah was in the room hiding because Jessica and Justin busted in while she was on the floor crying.  Bryce rapes Jessica.  Bryce rapes Jessica.  Yes, Bryce rapes Jessica.  I guess this scene hurts me so deeply because I identify with her.  I, too, have been raped while unconscious.  At 11 years old, 12 years old, 13 years old, until my dad finally showed up and whisked me away to safety.  In the show, on this night, no one showed up for Jessica.  They are graphic about the scene.  I had to turn away.  I am sure most people do when it comes up.  This is all I can say about this episode.

Ryan Shaver: 13 Reasons...Episode 8

               As Clay struggles with the loss of Hannah and everything that goes along with the tapes, Tony tries to encourage him by climbing a small mountain with him.  When they accomplish the feat, Tony finally explains how he knows what Hannah wanted with the tapes and why he has been close to her parents.  The night Hannah died, she reached out to Tony.  Since Hannah was very emotional, Tony hadn’t wanted to deal with her drama that night.  He waited for her to leave and then went to get the tapes she left on the porch.  As Tony listened to the first tape, he realized what she was doing but, by the time he got to her house, she was already gone.  He explains in detail how the rescue workers handled her body with such disgrace.  They didn’t even realize how insensitive they were being.  This scene gripped me.  Listening to the horror of what transpired the moments before and after Hannah’s death is beyond sad, it is pitiful.  The one person that Hannah had to turn to ignored her because he couldn’t handle how dramatic she was.  I identify with that because many females that have experienced that much trauma tend to be dramatic about it.  For many of us, drama is in our nature anyway.  We can be high strung, emotional, and overly sensitive.  This is not news.  Most of us already know this.  That night, Tony just couldn’t handle it.

                Ryan Shaver is the school magazine editor.  When he meets Hannah at the library’s poem reading, they hit it off and he begins helping her write her feelings.  This would have been a great outlet for Hannah and would have strengthened her resilience greatly, had Ryan not betrayed her and posted it in the school magazine.  Even though Ryan posted the poem anonymously, most the school knew that Hannah was the author.  Since the same people that had done all those terrible things to her had no sense of what she was saying, they assumed the racy poem was just about intimacy.  However, Hannah was really calling them on their ignorance.  I am posting the poem below because I think it reveals the truth that Hannah tried so desperately to get people to understand…her innocence that was butchered by the lack of everyone else’s.

"Today I am wearing lacy black underwear for the sole purpose of knowing I am wearing them, and underneath that, I am absolutely naked. And I’ve got skin. Miles and miles of skin; I’ve got skin to cover all my thoughts like saran wrap that you can see through to what leftovers are inside from the night before. And despite what you might think, my skin is not rough; nor is it bullet proof. My skin is soft, and smooth, and easily scarred. But that doesn’t matter, right? You don’t care about how soft my skin is. You just want to hear about what my fingers do in the dark. But what if all they do is crack open windows so I can see lightening through the clouds?  What if all they crave is a jungle gym to climb for a taste of fresher air? What if all they reach for is a notebook or a hand to hold? But that’s not the story you want. You are licking your lips and baring your teeth. Just once I would like to be the direction someone else is going. I don’t need to be the water in the well. I don’t need to be the well. But I’d like to not be the ground anymore. I’d like to not be the thing people dig their hands in anymore. Some girls know all the lyrics to each other’s songs. They find harmonies in their laughter. Their linked elbows echo in tune. What if I can’t hum on key? What if my melodies are the ones nobody hears? Some people can recognize a tree, a front yard, and know they’ve made it home. How many circles can I walk in before I give up looking? How long before I’m lost for good. It must be possible to swim in the ocean of the one you love without drowning. It must be possible to swim without becoming water yourself. But I keep swallowing what I thought was air. I keep finding stones tied to my feet." - Hannah Baker, 13 Reasons Why

Zach Dempsey: 13 Reasons...Episode 7

                As Hannah begins to fall into a deep depression, she cries out for help.  In a communications class, a teacher creates a complement assignment.  There was a bag for everyone in the class.  Clay would put a picture of a bunny in Hannah’s bag on a regular basis.  She didn’t know who it was, but it was important to her.  When Hannah turns Zach Dempsey down because she was afraid to let him in, he begins taking her bunnies and compliments.  She writes Zach a letter explaining to him that she is breaking down and that the bunnies and compliments are important to her.  She needed them.  Still, Zach continued to take them, and said nothing about the letter.  Hannah said that she was drowning, and that no one would throw her a line.  Zach was a good guy, he really liked Hannah.  He just didn’t know how to take no for an answer because, “No,” isn’t something he was used to hearing.  Hannah and Zach could have been a cute couple, but by the time Zach got up the courage to try, Hannah was already too hurt and afraid.

                In the present, Clay begins breaking down as well.  He hallucinates about people blaming him for her death.   He keys Zach’s car.  He lashes out in the hallway about how terrible the kids treat each other.  When he realizes that the tapes are killing him, he tries to give the tapes back to Tony.  He tells Tony that he was beginning to understand why Hannah did what she did.  He says it as if he understands how messed up that is.  He realizes that Hannah just couldn’t handle the things that happened to her, and that some of it didn’t even happen at all.

                If you have actually read any of my posts, it is pretty clear that my world is crashing down around me.  Not just now, but it has been for practically my whole life.  From the time I was a very little girl, I have been sexually assaulted, as Hannah was.  However, I did not have a healthy family or loving home life.  In fact, much of my sexual abuse was at home.  One traumatizing moment after another, I have had to wade through all the garbage with nowhere to turn.  So, why is it that I am still here, but Hannah was not?  Resilience, the answer is resilience.  By the time my resilience was beginning to break down, I found hope.  I found Jesus.  Even though my life is difficult right now, even though I have PTSD and my mind is breaking, even though kids at the school have done things to hurt my feelings, even though I have few friends there, I have hope in Jesus.  The world and the ruler of this world have been trying to destroy me my entire life, but they have been unsuccessful.  Have there been times when I was weak?  Have there been times when I fell apart momentarily?  Of course, I mean, I have PTSD, but even though I have been pressed on every side, I have not been crushed or destroyed.  Hannah could have handled everything that was thrown at her, but she gave up because she didn’t know how.  Although this is just a TV show, Daniel Janes was not, nor are any of the other people that decide that the only way out is through suicide.  There is hope.  There is a way.

Marcus Cole: 13 Reasons...Episode 6

                Hypocrisy.  Marcus Cole is supposed to be the good guy.  He is the president of the class, he volunteers, he is in line for the valedictorian of his graduating class, and he is on the honor board.  Still, Marcus is the subject of this tape.  What does he do?  He sexually assaults Hannah at a restaurant, and then verbally attacks her when she doesn’t comply. 

                The episode opens with Alex starting a fight with Monty.  Although he winds up on the losing end, he still started the fight.  Since the fight was in front of the school rather than on school property, they leave the decision to the honor board.  Since many of the members of the board are subjects of the tapes, they let Alex off with a warning.  As Alex fights for discipline and threatens to expose the truth, it becomes evident that neither Alex, nor the members of the board are talking about the current topic.  Alex accepts the blame for Hannah’s death, the board members refuse to accept the blame, and Clay considers the idea that maybe the blame falls on all of them.  The truth is, if each of them had not done terrible things to Hannah, she may not have committed suicide, but I do not believe that makes it their fault.  Hannah made a choice.  We all have a choice.  Does the show glorify her or her choice?  No, it simply discusses the issues, and forces the audience to look inside themselves and talk about it.  This is my opinion.  What is yours?

Courtney Crimson: 13 Reasons...Episode 5

                 Episode 5…The episode opens with a traumatic scene in which Hannah begs Clay to do something as she stands on the dance floor with blood coming from her wrists.  As he freezes in fear, unsure of what he can do or how he can stop her, Courtney comes from behind and stabs her in the back.  This is the essence of this episode, Courtney throwing Hannah under the bus to shield her from the backlash of the photo Tyler posted.

                Courtney Crimson.  Courtney is an adopted Asian girl who has two gay dads.  She has lived with this stigma her entire life, so she is afraid.  She is afraid because she believes that she is also gay. Courtney seems like the perfect girl.  She is intelligent, pretty, popular, and just so nice.  As I mentioned in the introductory post, even the people that seem to be incredible prove to be just as guilty as the rest of us.  No one is good, not even one.  As a Christian, I am not supposed to say things that encourage homosexuality.  As a human being, I sympathize with the homosexual community.  In the past, they have been shunned, oppressed, and abused.  I believe wholeheartedly that homosexual acts and thoughts are sinful, but so is getting drunk.  Yet, getting drunk is glorified in schools all over the country.  There is grace for every sin but one, denying Christ unto death.  It is also true that God does not expect us to shun the lost.  If a man claims that he is saved by the blood of the Lamb, then we are to have nothing to do with him if he is unrepentant, but if we do the same with the lost, who would we interact with?  All the lost openly commit sin that Christians are not even supposed to talk about.  We are to be in the world, but not of the world.  I am a Christian, and I care about the homosexual community.  I can care about you even if I disagree with your lifestyle.  You can care about me even if you disagree with my lifestyle.  Still, there are people around us that are terrified of who they are.  Well, let me tell you, some days, I am terrified of who I am.  We all need Jesus.  If someone tells you that they are good and they are not in need of repentance, they are liars and the truth is not in them.  If you are gay, never let a person who claims Christ make you feel like you are any less than they are.  If they are doing that to you, they probably aren’t Christians anyway.

                As all the kids on the tapes ban together to try to stop Clay from doing something that will expose them all, Tyler is shunned and abused.  When he goes to see the counselor about the trauma, it is evident that the counselor is out of touch and unaware of the emotional pain that Tyler is feeling.  Where can kids go when they need someone to talk to, someone that will understand?  The hard part is, with the developmental stage they are in, they often do not know how to engage in these conversations themselves.  So, how do we help them?

Tyler Down: 13 Reasons...Episode 4

               Clay opens his bedroom window and begins to climb out, Jessica brushes her wet hair, Justin smokes his bong, Alex cries as he clings to his guitar, and Clay jumps out of his window all while Hannah contemplates the idea of stalking.  Why?  Hannah takes the listener to the window of her very own stalker.  She records her racing heartbeat as she stands outside his window.  Clay pictures her there as he stands in the very same spot.  Marcus walks up to him and explains that he and the others all threw a rock through the window as he tries to convince Clay to quit listening to the tapes.  Marcus claims that Hannah just wanted attention and that no one deserves what she was doing to them, no one except the subject of tape 3, side A, Tyler Down.

                After Clay passes up another opportunity to kiss Hannah out of fear, Hannah hears the camera click for the first time.  Then, the click continued, following her, until she was frozen in fear.  In the present, Hannah’s mother cries out to her husband that she has to know why Hannah is gone.  Clay’s father helps him nurse his first hangover as he explains that he has rescued him from his mother’s sentencing.  The parents attend a suicide awareness meeting led by the school counselor that is interrupted by Hannah’s mother.  Again, she brings up the bathroom walls as she blames the children of the parents present at the meeting for Hannah’s death.  Bryce and the gang brag and hate on Clay for his drunken adventure.  The school principle and counselor look at the bathroom walls and decide to have them painted.  The show’s traditional back and forth scenes reveal bits and pieces leaving the audience with a whiplash of interactions.

                In the past, Hannah finally reveals her stalker fear to a classmate.  The two work together as they devise a plan to catch the stalker as Clay confronts him in the present.  Of all the things done to Hannah at this point, none of them were illegal.  Tyler crossed the line, and everyone that listened to the tapes hated and punished him for it. 

                I am taken back by the ruin of Hannah’s mother.  As Clay gets himself caught in her devastation, the reality of her desperation becomes so clear.  It reminds me of how all of us were left after Daniel Janes committed suicide.  Some of us blamed others, some of us blamed ourselves, but the division was heartbreaking.  Daniel’s mother blamed all his friends.  She almost didn’t allow us to go to his funeral.  She needed someone to blame, just like Hannah’s mom.  Like Hannah, Daniel never left a note.  He called Mike to tell him he loved him.  He took me to a river bank for a long talk.  Those were his notes.  Those were his goodbyes. 

                Hannah and Courtney Crimson devise a plan to set the stalker up.  The two get drunk and Courtney ends up making a move on Hannah.  When Hannah realizes the stalker is watching, she uses a light to expose him and save herself from Courtney.  The two realize that the stalker is Tyler, and Courtney freaks out.  Unlike Hannah, Courtney is devastated by the experience because she realizes that she is gay.  In an attempt to shield herself from the backlash of the picture Tyler sends to the school, she throws Hannah under the bus.

                The episode ends with Clay posting a picture of a naked Tyler through the window to the entire school.  When Tony texts him to ask what he is doing, Clay replies, “Making my own justice.”

Alex Standall: 13 Reasons...Episode 3

               The Butterfly Effect…if a butterfly flaps its wings in just the right direction, at just the right time, it can cause a hurricane on the other side of the world.  The chaos theory…a tiny change in a big system can affect everything.  Open episode 3.  Justin’s broken mother is revealed, as is her abusive boyfriend, when Jess is looking for him.  Seth, the guy at Justin’s house, the one that threatened him, seems to be the reason for Justin’s demise.  Bryce is taking close care of Justin as he wakes Justin up from the couch at his house.  He gives Justin a pep talk, reminding him that he can count on him as long as Justin keeps him clean.  Bryce, the rich jock that has it all together while everyone around him is falling apart, continuously takes care of his friend.

                Marcus tries to recruit Clay to help put up suicide awareness posters when Hannah reveals the subject of tape 2, side B, Alex Standall.  As Hannah discusses the idea that she is just a little girl that gets upset over trivial things, she claims that the little things matter.   A meeting between Hannah’s mother and the school principle reveal that Hannah went from being overly excited and happy to being moody and withdrawn when she was at home.  This suggests an emotional disorder.  Then, her mother finds profanity in the school bathroom.  As she seeks blame for Hannah’s death, she finds something that is in school bathrooms all over the country.  The other students seem unaffected by the profanity. 

                Although Justin is not the subject of this tape, the show takes the time to reveal quite a bit about him.  The episode reveals that Justin has lived with his mother and a string of step-fathers who may have been abusive.  As Justin's story is narrated by the principle and counselor of the school’s dialogue, the scene shows Justin walking around Bryce’s house and looking at all the family photos, trophies, and love displayed throughout the home.  Jess walks in to Justin breaking down in tears.  From what I have learned about trauma and resilience in my Dev Psych class, I believe these two subjects are the background for this scene.  Hannah had two loving parents and a healthy home life, but went through some traumatic experiences in her social life.  Justin also has issues in his social life, but his home life was filled with one trauma after another.  In my own personal life, I have experienced some of the same traumas that Hannah faced, as well as many of the traumas that Justin faced.  Yet, I did not resort to suicide or blaming the world for my unhappiness.  Instead, I drowned my pain in drugs and alcohol, as did Justin.  Scenes like this are why I believe that the show tries to expose every side of every story.  The show gives the audience a full understanding of situations like this that transpire all over the world, and shows us how to look for the people whose resilience is lacking.  The empty locker, the mood swings at home and with Clay, the haircut, these are signs that the person is fading away.  We can call it a butterfly that causes a hurricane, or we can understand that some people can handle these situations with resilience, and some people cannot.  Hannah could not handle the butterfly, or the hurricane. 

The butterfly rants about suicide awareness posters and being a jerk.  Again, Hannah considers whether she is overreacting, but Alex never went through the stigma he placed on her, the eyes walking down the hall, the whispers in the bathroom.  As Angie Romero brags about her placement on the list, a profound lesson, social learning theory, is presented in a class.  What does this mean?  It means that we learn by observing the behavior of those around us.  Although the show suggests that the scene is drawing attention to the list and the string of events that follow, I believe there is an underlying lesson here as well.  The audience can learn from the reactions that each character displays to each of the incidents.  An interaction between Clay and Tony ends with Tony explaining that, “Hannah got hurt.  It happens.  You never really know what’s gonna hit how.  You really don’t know what’s going on in someone else’s life.”  This is the point, right? 

                The rest of the episode focuses on how Alex accepts the blame for Hannah’s death.  He explains why he put Hannah and Jessica on the list, and how that decision lead to all the events afterward.  Then, Bryce’s true colors are revealed when he grabs Hannah’s…she tells Alex that he put a target on her and made it open season on Hannah Baker.  The hurricane.  Alex begins to disintegrate, even quitting the jazz band, throughout the rest of the episode, and he and Clay get drunk in a 40-drinking competition encouraged by Bryce, Justin, and the rest of the gang.  Clay watches Tony and his brothers beating a kid up, throws up on his parents’ dinner, and changes tapes.  As Bryce and the gang hang out playing video games, Alex walks out to the pool and crumbles in, making you wonder if he will come back up.  He does, barely.  Hannah reveals that the next tape requires you to do something very wrong.  Clay clips the recorder to his hip and climbs out the window as Hannah says, “Be careful, and don’t get caught.”  Close episode 3.

                I believe that this is one of the most important episodes of the series.  The social and psychological questions and theories that the episode discusses calls the audience to contemplate each concept.  If they take the time to present each of these concepts, the idea that Hannah just lacked resilience, the idea that we never know what is going to hit how, then how can we say that the show is glorifying suicide, vengeance, or Hannah Baker.  Understanding that each member of the audience is going to experience the show differently, and bringing that to attention, is part of the art revealed.  It is powerful and beautiful.  Suicide is real.  It has impacted my life and many others.  Those of us left behind struggle, each in our own way, to recover from the most devastating blow we have ever taken.  It hits you in the gut, and takes your breathe away.  It paralyzes you.  It leaves you wondering if the other people left in the wake are going to be okay, or if they are going to follow suit.  This show represents the reality of suicide in every way.  If it scares you, good, it should.

13 Reason Why Scared the Shit Out of Me -- And it Should Scare You Too!

Jessica Davis: 13 Reasons...Episode 2

Episode 2 opens with Hannah speaking to the listener.  She conjectures why they could be on the tapes.  Were they cruel, a contributor, or just a bystander.  She goes on to tell the listener she believes they know exactly what part they played, and she is still dead.   The eerie thought ends in a silence that captures the curiosity of the audience.  As Clay goes on with this new day, Hannah continues with a warning, the listener is not alone.  There are others.  As the community attempts to promote suicide awareness, Clay’s parents, especially his mother, come up with ways to shield him from the backlash of all that has transpired.  Still, Clay, as well as the rest of the audience, is anticipating the name of the subject of this tape.  Who is it?  Is it Clay?  No, the star of the show is Jessica Davis, Hannah’s former best friend.

                Jessica Davis is introduced looking and acting like a hot mess as she bursts through a classroom asking questions about Justin, ending with, “What you listening to Clay?”  Another flashback takes the audience to the day Hannah and Jessica meet.  The, then, school counselor introduces them to assign them as friends since they are both new to the school.  Although the situation is less than desirable, the girls make the best of it and hit it off immediately.  The image Jessica has when she and Hannah first meet and the present-day Jessica seem like two different people.  The contrast is devastating.  Typical of the scheme of the show, they bounce from past to present and so forth as Hannah discusses she and Jessica’s friendship, and Jessica freaks out in the present.  In the past, Hannah and Jess meet regularly at Monet’s, a popular coffee shop, where they meet Alex Standall.  The duo becomes the trio.  The trio remedy the chaos in their lives with two hot chocolates and, “whatever the hell Alex is drinking.”  Then, Alex trades up, Jessica falls off, and they all go their separate ways, or did they?  Instead, the trio becomes a duo again when Jess and Alex fall in love, leaving Hannah behind. 

                Amid the story of Hannah, Jess, and Alex, the show reveals a side of Hannah that explains the difference between her and other victims of trauma.  Outside of the movie theater they both work at, Hannah and Clay have a conversation where she asks him if he thinks she will ever be as pretty as Jessica.  Clay seems astounded since he believes she is beautiful.  He stumbles over his words until all he can get out is that Hannah is special.  Although Clay is just nervous and confused, Hannah is offended, revealing her lack of resilience.  It is scenes like this one that show the reality of who Hannah is, and prove that the show is not glorifying her or what she has done in any way.  Also, in the very next scene, the show depicts the glorification of the jock star, and the absurdity of it all.

                As the show goes on, Hannah reveals the next traumatizing incident in her life, the list.  As Jess misinterprets what is going on due to circumstances not yet revealed, she blames Hannah for something that she is a victim of, calls her a slut, slaps her, and walks away.  Is Hannah lying?  The present, and wrecked, Jess tries to convince Clay that he cannot believe everything he hears.  Then, revealing the disarray that Justin has become as well, Justin’s friends, Bryce Walker, Zach Dempsey, and Marcus Cole tell Justin that Jess is looking for him and that she looks like a mess, to which Justin replies, “Yeah, she has for a while now.”  Eventually, Jess finds Justin at Bryce’s house, and freaks out on him.  In the midst of the argument, Jess accuses Justin of not telling her something, a foreshadow of the reason for her demise.

                As the episode comes to a close, Tony’s relationship with Hannah’s parents is revealed as her mother reaches out to him after finding the list.  Clay is confounded as he witnesses Tony being embraced by the tearful mother of Hannah Baker.  End scene, credits roll.