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.

Justin Foley: 13 Reasons...Episode 1

    

Episode 1 introduces many of the characters, including the two main characters, Hannah Baker and Clay Jensen.  The episode opens with a close-up of Hannah Baker's locker, ensconced by notes and pictures, and with Hannah's voice introducing herself and the show.  From there, the show captures an interaction between Clay and Justin Foley.  Bouncing from one memory, to present reality, to another memory, and so on, the episode follows Clay as it introduces more characters including Hannah's parents, the school counselor, teachers, future subjects of the tapes, Clays relationship with Hannah, and so on until Clay reaches his front porch where the box of tapes await him.  After watching this episode a few times, I realize that the interaction Clay has with many of these characters consist of them "feeling Clay out" to see if he has listened to their tape yet. The box includes a map with the tapes.  The listener is given very specific instructions, complete with sites on the map to visit as they listen, all of it done old school style to keep technology from getting in the way.   As Clay opens the tapes, the audience is still unaware of what is happening.  Clay goes to his father to ask for a boom box, addressing the canyon of separation between the two generations.  When Clay first hears Hannah's voice on the tape, he is gripped with curiosity until he realizes that Hannah states that, if he is listening to the tape, he is one of the reasons why she is dead.  However, Clay is not the subject of Tape 1/Side 1.  Instead, it is Justin Foley.

Justin Foley is a football star and part of the "popular crowd."  Hannah and Justin spent a single night together where they shared nothing more than a kiss.  Unfortunately, Justin takes pictures of Hannah as she comes down a slide and captures a risky photo.  The next day, as all of Justin's friends are inquiring about his time with Hannah, Justin's best friend and constant caretaker, Bryce Walker, takes his phone and proceeds to send this picture to everyone in the school.  This is the beginning of the end.  From this one incident, all the others are set into motion.  At the end of the tape, Hannah claims that she is not done with Justin yet.  He has more than one tape.