Ryan, a gay student at Liberty and one of Hannah’s friends, reads some of Hannah’s poems aloud in court. But frankly, those important conversations don’t need a trigger like this-particularly since the show may trigger a whole bunch of other risky behaviors along the way.Įpisode Reviews “Episode 5: The Chalk Machine” That’s more than a little troubling, given that 13 Reasons Why is unquestionably targeted toward teens.ġ3 Reasons Why may indeed open some doors to conversation. (They’re all rated TV-MA, it should be noted.)
Language can be truly abysmal, too: Each episode would be, unquestionably, rated R if it made its way to movie houses. And when high schoolers engage (or try to engage) in “old-fashioned” heterosexual sex, parents seem often to be unconcerned or even downright supportive.Īnd while parents are largely supportive figures here, they still do little to stem the tide of disrespect and outright lies that come from their children. When we get into consensual relationships, a curious number of them are of the same-sex variety. No episode is complete without several allusions to sexual assault. Sex is at the center of this show as much as suicide is. And while the show might indeed inspire some teens to talk about their own problems with parents, professionals or others, it could very well influence others to explore dark pathways they hadn’t traveled before.īut even if we were able to set aside the show’s sometimes despairing tone and grave philosophical issues, we’d still be sounding plenty of alarms here. Trigger warnings or not, the second season of 13 Reasons Why deals with some incredibly difficult issues. Some parents accused 13 Reasons of actually inspiring their own children to kill or attempt to kill themselves.įor its second season, Netflix has tried to address some of those concerns, posting trigger warnings at the beginning of some episodes and offering a bevy of services, from discussion guides to crisis hotline numbers and addresses.īut while all those may be welcome additions, they hardly ameliorate concerns with the show itself. Mental health professionals took issue with how these grave problems were addressed on screen: Even as the show’s creators (including executive producer Selena Gomez) argued it was designed to create conversation and, thus, prevent suicide, some accused it of feeding suicidal tendencies-from Hannah’s accusatory tapes to the graphic depiction of the suicide itself.
Based on Jay Asher’s book Thirteen Reasons Why, the season dealt with timely, terrible teen issues, ranging from bullying and cutting to sexual assault and, of course, suicide.īut along with the buzz came controversy-a lot of it.
Last year, the first season of 13 Reasons Why exploded into a bona fide cultural phenomenon for Netflix, launching a thousand think pieces and becoming one of the streaming service’s most-binged shows. “If that’s true, why am I here?” School Spirits “You don’t care about me anymore?” she asks Clay. But that, we know, is a bold-faced lie: Hannah literally haunts him-even striking up conversations when the moment seems right. Once one of Hannah’s best so-so friends and would-be beau, Clay claims not even to think about the dead girl anymore.
But now, in death, she’s somehow more influential-more alive, perhaps-than ever. She may have been bullied and marginalized when she was alive. If the first season was all about Hannah speaking from beyond the grave via old-school cassette tapes, this season it’s the students’ turn, with each one divulging their guilt, lies, hurt and recriminations under oath, so help them God.Īnd while the school has banned all talk of suicide on school grounds, what happened to Hannah can’t be forgotten or-in some cases-forgiven. Every day, another student is dragged to the court’s witness stand, unveiling the raw, sometimes bitter truth of Hannah’s descent into despair … and revealing uncomfortable truths about themselves in the process. But that’s pretty much impossible, now that Hannah’s mother, Olivia, is suing the school for not doing enough to save her daughter. Many at Liberty, particularly the folks who run the school, would rather forget all about Hannah. But the pretty high school student’s tragic tale continues to haunt the halls of Liberty High … in more ways than one. It’s been months since Hannah Baker killed herself.