Season 1 Talk

[Guest]

The tat situation is a gripe of mine with the show.  It's not just Tony, it's Justin and Skye who are tatted to all hell.  I'm one state over and minors need a parent and birth cert. for tats, and the parent has to be there for everything.  I let my 17 year old get a nostril piercing a few months ago after her begging me for years (not septum, ick).  They won't even touch her without me there for something like changing her stud or back, until she's 18.  If I could re-do that decision I wouldn't do it.  What a pain, waiting for an hour in a piercing salon every time she needs any minor thing.  And it was over $100 (of her own money).  Jeez, we re-pierced her ears at home the other day with a $10 kit from Sally and it was a piece of cake.  Not that I'd pierce her nostril at home but it was ridiculous-- the cost and time suck.  

Maybe these kids' parents are all tattoo artists.  ; )

[laurakaye]

On 5/21/2017 at 4:51 PM, Chas411 said:

What's the story with Fonzie - the 35 year old high school student. I can't figure out where he fits into everything or why he keeps popping up everywhere Clay is.

 

Thank you.  I am 6 episodes in, and it's getting to the point where I start to chuckle every time he ends up in the same place as Clay, or sits broodingly brooding in his car watching Clay, or happens to turn up whenever Clay has a question, or needs a ride, or is seen talking to anyone else...at which point Tony will begin to speak in puzzles and riddles to a befuddled Clay.

This won't stop me from watching, however.  Clay and Hannah win this show for me.  It's hard to take my eyes off of them, especially any scene they have together.

[NetflixNewbie1985]

On 4/5/2017 at 8:16 AM, absnow54 said:

There was also a giant tree that they could have propped the sign up against. I understand Sherri was freaking out because she's underage and even if she wasn't legally drunk, there's zero tolerance for teens, but I don't think they really conveyed that, and that's unfortunate because it doesn't make her actions right, but it at least gives an otherwise smart and nice character motive. There was no reason why Sherri couldn't call it in and then want to take off before the cops showed up and I could see Hannah arguing that they should stay, but really, what were they going to do exactly? Direct traffic in the middle of the night? It was really shitty to leave a drunk Hannah behind like that though.

I don't think this was conveyed well either, and besides, the sign wasn't going to be fixed that night. To be honest, the entire accident with Jeff didn't sit well with me.  The location and the staging was off.

Sheri was overall a good person. I really liked her and Clay together. 

[NetflixNewbie1985]

On 4/6/2017 at 9:53 AM, Winston9-DT3 said:

These high school kids sure do have a lot of money and tattoos.  You need a parent's release for tats when you'ree under 18.  I can't imagine signing off on Jason's big chest/arm tats or Tony's neck ones.  Well, I wouldn't sign for any but I know parents that do for something small, tasteful and hidden.  

Dermablend didn't want to advertise on this? Have someone buy it from the Walplex. J/k but not really! 

The Monet's situation could go either way. While I am inclined to believe Hannah, there is a good possibility that Jessica and Alex were leaving her out and she felt they left emotionally. 

Edited May 29, 2017 by NetflixNewbie1985
Spelling

[NetflixNewbie1985]

Tyler was totally  wrong for what he did, but after what Clay did, I can't take him seriously anymore. He's just as bad as the bullies of Hannah. This might bite him in the butt.

[NetflixNewbie1985]

On 4/3/2017 at 10:02 AM, DittyDotDot said:

I don't think Ryan understood why she wouldn't want it published. Most writers write for the purpose of having others read their work, to Ryan he really thought it was a good poem and was giving her a chance to show how great it was to the world. I really don't think he had any malice in what he was doing, but at this point, a lot of Hannah's hurts are misunderstandings. She's assuming everyone's intentions were not pure at this point. I kinda took this episode to be where Hannah starts not being able to see other people's POV anymore. It's where she really starts to become isolated and alone.

You can tell he still doesn't get it. All he saw was a great poem from a blooming writer that he published. He wasn't right in what he did, and his hubris caused a lot of hurt feelings, but he wasn't using that to further soil her reputation. He doesn't see how he is on the same level as a Bryce, a Marcus,  or even a Zach.

On 4/20/2017 at 1:46 PM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

At this point in the show (episode 8), how many of the people on the tapes have shown even the slightest bit of remorse about what they did?

I think Alex did. Zach seems sorry, but doesn't know what to do now. .

[NetflixNewbie1985]

On 4/12/2017 at 9:36 AM, MV007 said:

For me, Zach not throwing away the note is a bit of a red herring.  Its distracting.  At the end of the day he stole those notes.  He found that letter Hannah wrote and he knew what she was going through.  I completely understand him not knowing how to deal.  But to stay silent is unacceptable.  He deserved this tape.  This seems small but when I think about it, if I were having these depressing thoughts and I reached out to someone and they just ignored me, it would be soul crushing.

I actually related to this tape because I was in a situation like this. Not stealing compliments, but I wrote a guy a letter of how low I was and things that happened to me.  I can say from personal experience, Zach truly could have been in a no win situation. If he had said something, Hannah would have said he embarrassed her. 

On 5/10/2017 at 4:17 PM, ghoulina said:

Yes, I do see it from her perspective as well. Which is why I said I understood why she wasn't trusting of him or his intentions. But I still found her reaction unnecessarily mean. MMV, but I didn't really see him as being pushy. I just feel like HANNAH wasn't really seeing other people's perspectives - how hard high school could be for many people, for many different reasons. That not everyone was out to get her. I guess that must have been a byproduct of depression, but I'm not sure the show is doing a good job showing that. Not for me, anyhow. 

That's true. Depression does narrow your field of vision and you only see your problems or your worthlessness.  So at that point it is easier to see the letdown and be affected by them. 

On 5/10/2017 at 4:38 PM, ghoulina said:

I think part of my problem is the tapes themselves. I've been depressed before (although, never suicidal) and even ordinary tasks were hard to accomplish on a daily basis. Putting the tapes and maps and instructions together seems like a GREAT deal of effort. Also, her attitude when narrating the tapes often comes off as too snarky and full of life, for me. I am interested in the outcome of the show, but they're not really selling the story for me. 

Yeah,  I've been depressed and suicidal. This was extremely thought out for a depressed . A friend of mine felt it almost came off as spiteful and cruel. Like revenge tapes.

[NetflixNewbie1985]

On 4/16/2017 at 9:21 AM, DittyDotDot said:

Yeah, his comment about transferring from a school where the students shot each other instead of pantsed them said to me he's just not in his wheelhouse at this school. I think he probably cares, but also probably thinks these kids don't have a clue how bad it could be, and probably thinks of them as drama queens. Which is not really a good thing for a counselor to think if he actually wants to be helpful.

That's exactly what I thought.  Well meaning,  but not in the right environment. 

On 4/14/2017 at 8:39 AM, Paloma said:

If I had read that poem out of the context of the show, I probably would not have thought it meant that the writer was suicidal. Poets or would-be poets use dramatic imagery and often write about dark themes, but most of them are not suicidal or even seriously depressed. If the school staff were paying attention, there were plenty of warning signs about Hannah and other students, but I don't think the poem could reasonably have been seen to be one of them--especially since her name wasn't on it.

I also think that Mr. Porter has really tried to reach out to some students, but they keep stonewalling and/or lying to him. There is only so much a counselor or other school staff can do to help without accurate information. 

Honestly,  I wouldn't have either.  I wrote for our high school magazine. I wrote a piece about a girl who dreamed to be one with the beauty of Acadia National Park, to feel the breeze grow stronger on my face, to feel the strength of the rocks rushing by, feel the flow of the ocean surround me. It was seen as "metaphoric grace" and "dark imagery at its finest". It wasn't seen as a plea for help.

On 4/12/2017 at 5:35 AM, Kalliste said:

I still don't understand why she did nothing. Both her and Justin knew what was happening and both did nothing at the time or afterwards. How could they let him get away with that? How could they not tell her?

I was hoping Clay would tell his Mum that the weed wasn't his and that she'd believe him and go back to the school and lawyer up on them. oh well.

Justin I can understand why. He's not wanting Jessica to live with the pain and trying to spare Bryce, who he feels he owes. 

[Cowboy]

On 5/6/2017 at 6:07 PM, SparklesBitch said:

My heart broke for Hannah over and over again, and when I knew exactly what would happen as soon as she stripped down and got into the hot tub, I had to pause the show, take a few deep breaths and walk around my apartment for a few minutes before I could watch it. The moment where she stops fighting and just goes limp....it shattered my heart. 

I understand completely how you felt before watching that. My heart has never hurt more than it did on the rape scene than from any show ive ever watched.  She is almost too good an actress to play in a scene like that. In my opinion, that scene was WAY too long.  I'm a 36 year old pretty manly and tough cowboy,  but i had to cover my ears and close my eyes, only managing to peek at the corner of the screen to check if it was over.  She made it look so realistic, i couldnt help but cry.  Not just a single tear.  I broke down.  It only took a second or two for me to see the complete devastation, helplessness, fear, agony, and finally the dead in her eyes.  If anyone needs more time than that to feel what she went through, might want to seek help.

     "13 Reasons Why" is the deepest and most plot heavy show or movie ive ever seen.  With a constant broken heart through the entire season, it bluntly sheds a lot of light on some very real, hurtful, and dangerous issues of high school life.  You never know where someones breaking point is or how much they went through before now.  Kids might think that what they are doing is small, but when thrown on top of an already big mountain of hurt, it can be devastating....even life threatening as we've seen.

There are a lot of lessons in this show.  But 1 lesson in particular i learn more and more every day.  Dont hide your feelings.  Good or bad.  We all have them and shouldnt be scared or embarrassed of any of them.  "I love you" are 3 of the most powerful words on earth when put together.  Dont hesitate on saying them to people.  You could make someone smile, brighten their whole day, week, month......life, and even in rare cases (such as Hannahs) they can save a life.  

In no way can i blame Clay, but i can see why he blames himself.  If at any point in time he told her how much he loved her she would still be around.  He did nothing wrong, but he now knows he had the power to change her life in a very special way.

Shortly into the season i had to check to see if this was based on a true story. Thank God it wasnt.  I would have turned it off and never watched again.  Way too powerful of a show. Its Hall of fame for me.

[Zam01]

18 hours ago, Cowboy said:

I understand completely how you felt before watching that. My heart has never hurt more than it did on the rape scene than from any show ive ever watched.  She is almost too good an actress to play in a scene like that. In my opinion, that scene was WAY too long.  I'm a 36 year old pretty manly and tough cowboy,  but i had to cover my ears and close my eyes, only managing to peek at the corner of the screen to check if it was over.  She made it look so realistic, i couldnt help but cry.  Not just a single tear.  I broke down.  It only took a second or two for me to see the complete devastation, helplessness, fear, agony, and finally the dead in her eyes.  If anyone needs more time than that to feel what she went through, might want to seek help.

     "13 Reasons Why" is the deepest and most plot heavy show or movie ive ever seen.  With a constant broken heart through the entire season, it bluntly sheds a lot of light on some very real, hurtful, and dangerous issues of high school life.  You never know where someones breaking point is or how much they went through before now.  Kids might think that what they are doing is small, but when thrown on top of an already big mountain of hurt, it can be devastating....even life threatening as we've seen.

There are a lot of lessons in this show.  But 1 lesson in particular i learn more and more every day.  Dont hide your feelings.  Good or bad.  We all have them and shouldnt be scared or embarrassed of any of them.  "I love you" are 3 of the most powerful words on earth when put together.  Dont hesitate on saying them to people.  You could make someone smile, brighten their whole day, week, month......life, and even in rare cases (such as Hannahs) they can save a life.  

In no way can i blame Clay, but i can see why he blames himself.  If at any point in time he told her how much he loved her she would still be around.  He did nothing wrong, but he now knows he had the power to change her life in a very special way.

Shortly into the season i had to check to see if this was based on a true story. Thank God it wasnt.  I would have turned it off and never watched again.  Way too powerful of a show. Its Hall of fame for me.

I totally agree with you. It's the most powerful and sad show I have ever seen. Katherine Langford (Hannah) plays here role perfect and I almost felt in love with here. It's was really heartbreaking to watch this show. After I finished the whole season I felt really depressed. 

[Zam01]

On 2017-5-11 at 5:56 AM, Last Time Lord said:

I don't think a single line of dialogue has crushed me as hard as "why didn't you tell me this when I was alive ?" did. 

I'm a 34 years old guy and I had never thought this show and especially this line would touch me so much. I was really heart breaking!

[ElectricBoogaloo]

20 hours ago, Cowboy said:

Shortly into the season i had to check to see if this was based on a true story. Thank God it wasnt.  I would have turned it off and never watched again.  Way too powerful of a show. Its Hall of fame for me.

While the characters are fictional, the things that they have done to each other are all too real. These things happen every day, from bullying to rape. For every tape that Hannah made, there are hundreds of stories of these things happening to real people.

[IrishPirate]

There was talk elsewhere about Hannah being an "unreliable narrator" and not just by her peers claiming she lied about events. All the adults at the school were portrayed as uniformly clueless--and yet at any given school, there's someone who is an ally, a safe person to talk to. That's a weakness in making the book into a series, I think. Characters aren't well fleshed out (and that was a problem in the book as well) but if we really only know what Hannah knows, then our information is incomplete.

I had a hard time with the present day storyline. Clay's initial injury never looked any better than the second day after it happened, yet there is time to file a lawsuit and get depositions? Even "Law and Order" doesn't work that fast.

As a former high school teacher, much of the story rang true, except I missed the pockets of places, like choir or drama club, where teens have a chance to express emotions and learn to listen to others.

[truthaboutluv]

10 hours ago, IrishPirate said:

I had a hard time with the present day storyline. Clay's initial injury never looked any better than the second day after it happened, yet there is time to file a lawsuit and get depositions? Even "Law and Order" doesn't work that fast.

I may be wrong but I think by the time the series starts, when Clay receives the tape, Hannah's family had already filed their lawsuit.  There were scenes of the Principal talking about it and the students were all discussing the possibility of the police questioning them. It's also why the group of students who were on the tape were even more paranoid about Clay talking after he got the tapes. 

 

10 hours ago, IrishPirate said:

Characters aren't well fleshed out (and that was a problem in the book as well) but if we really only know what Hannah knows, then our information is incomplete.

YMMV but Hannah's being an unreliable narrator was a bit exaggerated in my opinion. The biggest alternate points in her version of things was Zach showing that he in fact kept the note, while Hannah remembered him throwing it away and then Jessica saying that it was Hannah who stopped coming to the coffee shop where she, Hannah and Alex hung out. But all of the major things Hannah talks about weren't denied by others. 

Only Courtney and I think maybe Marcus tried to play the Hannah was just a crazy drama queen who was a liar but the series made it clear, by showing them in real time, after Hannah's death, that they were both manipulative assholes with zero empathy for anyone. But Justin did not deny lying about what happened between him and Hannah and he confirmed Bryce's raping Jessica to Jessica. Sherry admitted she hit the pole, Zach didn't deny stealing the notes, Marcus didn't deny what he did to Hannah at the restaurant and Zach was there so he would know if Hannah was lying or exaggerating, we know creepy ass Tyler really was stalking her and Clay got Bryce to admit he raped her.

So in the grand scheme of all of that, is Hannah's mis-remembering Zach throwing a note and who stopped coming to the coffee shop first really make her an unreliable narrator? The truth is yes, the human memory will not always remember every minute detail exactly as it was but we do tend to remember major things that affected us significantly.

Edited June 6, 2017 by truthaboutluv

[IrishPirate]

"Unreliable Narrator" more for her skewed perception of other people's ability to be helpful at any given time rather than how she remembered events. 

I may have to watch this again to understand the timing. When Clay took Courtney to the cemetery, Hannah's grave looked maybe a week old.

[jhlipton]

I think it's pretty obvious at this point that gorm-faced Clay is going to be the subject of the last tape.  A year and a half after the first tape, right?

On 4/9/2017 at 10:03 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I really hope that in every episode, someone different is going to tell Clay he's a dumbass for not being finished listening to the tapes yet. Loved that Alex said he listened to all of them in one night the first time and then he listened to them all a second time. Get cracking, Clay!

From a meta point of view, Clay can't listen to all the tapes at once, because then he wouldn't be a voyeur in the present day.

On 4/17/2017 at 11:02 AM, MV007 said:

I think with this being tape 2, the expectation is that things get worse and that these first few incidents have a spiraling effect

The tapes start at the beginning of the kids' sophomore year and ends around 4 or 5 months into their junior year, so we have almost a year and a half before things spiral so much that Hannah can't go on.

ETA:

On 4/9/2017 at 10:03 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

As usual, the gender double standards appeared again. Hannah gets reprimanded by the teacher for getting out of her seat to throw away the list being passed around the class, but the boy who gets out of his seat to retrieve the list from the trash a few seconds later? Not a word from the teachers.

I'm not saying this didn't happen, but if Hannah is an unreliable narrator, Clay is even more so.  He's telling us that not one of the faculty or staff noted anything we see, including the graffiti in the restroom; not one student (including the "goody two-shoes that every school has) said anything about the photo or the note; not one saw Hannah's reaction after the picture and the note were passed around?  I'm not sure I buy it.  We only have Clay's word as to what happened and how everyone really reacted.

Edited June 7, 2017 by jhlipton

[Cowboy]

On 6/5/2017 at 8:04 PM, IrishPirate said:

I had a hard time with the present day storyline. Clay's initial injury never looked any better than the second day after it happened, yet there is time to file a lawsuit and get depositions? Even "Law and Order" doesn't work that fast.

    There are certain things you just gotta overlook when watching a tv show.  Instead of flashing the words "3 months earlier" or "3 months later" every time the date jumped back and forth from now and then, the produc-ers decided to make the band aid as a time marker instead.  Its less of a distraction.  So the injury had to last thru the season. 

[Chas411]

Glad Justin finally manned up and ratted Bryce out. Pity he let it go so far. Pity they all did. Completely agree with the above ranking of characters from bad to worse.

[Chas411]

Loved the show although disappointed that we didn't get a final glimpse of Clay looking at Hannah's ghost in the school halls or something like that. It's probably corny to wish for but their relationship made the show for me  so I was sad we didn't get a final meaningful look or scene between them. The ending with him, Tony, Tony's bf and Skye just didn't feel right to me.

Disappointed with how the Bryce storyline wrapped up. Nobody stood up to him in the end really besides Clay.

Did Justin leave town? I feel sorry for him that his mother is awful but not enough to car what happens to him or want to see him again. The kid is scum. Had Bryce done that to any girl bar the one that he was dating and seemed to be into I don't think he'd have cared at all. His tears when Jessica told him to fuck off reminded me of when Bryce pushed him out of her bedroom and he just lay there sobbing instead of doing anything. Judging from Bryces party in the hot tub his guilt over Jessica seemed to subside until the tapes went public.

I was glad Clay acknowledged Hannah should have done more for Jessica also. I still think Jessica was a mean girl though and her overall treatment of Hannah sucked.

What was the point of the scene where Zack is shooting hoops in the gym and calls Alex?

Final question why was everyone protecting Bryce?

[jhlipton]

On 5/1/2017 at 4:53 AM, Vella said:

The whole plan of busting the stalker that devolved into getting drunk and making out felt ridiculous.  Was the plan always to leave the shades open, window ajar, two girls giggling and talking at a sleepover as a way to bait the stalker? Did the drinking just get out of hand and make the girls forget what the original plan was or did they never even get that far in the 'plan' to begin with? It was confusing.

Couple of things I found interesting. The school's lack of involvement in just about anything from the graffiti on the bathroom walls to allowing male students to wear a costume of 'muff diving' and the principal openly stating the school didn't have a bullying problem speaks to how uninvolved and hands off the faculty was when it came to students behavior and treatment of each other.

This is where I figured there was more PLOT!!! than story and quit.  The girls had the window closed but had to get drunk, play "truth or dare" and wind up kissing semi-clothed in front of a window just for PLOT!!!!

Second, I don't buy "Staff or not allowed in student restrooms".  BS.  They needed to have the graffiti for PLOT!!!! and came up with the clumsiest excuse for why they didn't know what was there.

Feh. Show, I am done with you.

[MV007]

On 6/11/2017 at 0:54 AM, jhlipton said:

Second, I don't buy "Staff or not allowed in student restrooms".  BS.  They needed to have the graffiti for PLOT!!!! and came up with the clumsiest excuse for why they didn't know what was there.

I don't think Graffiti being there for plot reasons is all that egregious.  In the end everything is there for plot.  They're telling a story after all.  And graffiti in a high school bathroom as absolutely common place.  And I think this was just further proof of how terrible this administration is that they let it get that out of control.  I didn't have a hard time believing that was possible.

[DittyDotDot]

13 minutes ago, MV007 said:

I don't think Graffiti being there for plot reasons is all that egregious.  In the end everything is there for plot.  They're telling a story after all.  And graffiti in a high school bathroom as absolutely common place.  And I think this was just further proof of how terrible this administration is that they let it get that out of control.  I didn't have a hard time believing that was possible.

Yeah, while I rolled my eyes at the idea that staff wouldn't have been aware of this--I mean, someone had to clean those bathrooms--it was very minor in the overall impression that the faculty was really asleep at the wheel at this school.  

Edited June 12, 2017 by DittyDotDot

[Inquiry]

On 5/11/2017 at 0:22 PM, ghoulina said:

Or were there earlier clues that he was really bothered? Because, to me, they just seemed like regular bros. The not turning him in, okay....but I'd think he'd really try to keep his distance. That he couldn't stomach being around the guy. 

Just off the top of my head, in the episode where Alex tried to drown himself, Bryce was "play-housing" with Justin and called him a bitch. And Justin immediately goes on the offensive, pushing him to the ground, and telling him "he's not his bitch, bitch." I can't remember the exact episode number though. I only remember the scene so well because I thought Justin's reaction was a little over the top. At the time, Justin's response just seemed like further evidence of his anger/larger issues and maybe even being a threat. In hindsight, his response seems to be a lot of bottled up emotion/feelings surfacing (hell, Justin was probably thinking of that night and what he permitted when Bryce called him his bitch). Unfortunately, a lot of the episodes have blended together for me, so I don't know exactly how early this was in the overall story. 

Quote

If so, what made her START coming out of denial? 

At first, it seems like Jessica was being gaslighted by Justin. He told her a lie she desperately wanted to believe. It was only when evidence started to pile up (I think Justin not wanting to sleep with her set off alarm bells, as did the episode where Alex questions to the group whether Hannah was lying because she didn't lie about him) that ran counter to that narrative did Jessica start getting more suspicious.  

Edited June 14, 2017 by Inquiry

[Cowboy]

On 6/8/2017 at 5:09 PM, Chas411 said:

Loved the show although disappointed that we didn't get a final glimpse of Clay looking at Hannah's ghost in the school halls or something like that. It's probably corny to wish for but their relationship made the show for me  so I was sad we didn't get a final meaningful look or scene between them. The ending with him, Tony, Tony's bf and Skye just didn't feel right to me.

Disappointed with how the Bryce storyline wrapped up. Nobody stood up to him in the end really besides Clay.

Did Justin leave town? I feel sorry for him that his mother is awful but not enough to car what happens to him or want to see him again. The kid is scum. Had Bryce done that to any girl bar the one that he was dating and seemed to be into I don't think he'd have cared at all. His tears when Jessica told him to fuck off reminded me of when Bryce pushed him out of her bedroom and he just lay there sobbing instead of doing anything. Judging from Bryces party in the hot tub his guilt over Jessica seemed to subside until the tapes went public.

I was glad Clay acknowledged Hannah should have done more for Jessica also. I still think Jessica was a mean girl though and her overall treatment of Hannah sucked.

What was the point of the scene where Zack is shooting hoops in the gym and calls Alex?

Final question why was everyone protecting Bryce?

There are many questions we were left with that are unanswered.  I'm wondering all those same things.  We are all gonna have to wait to get our answers though.  Luckily they are already in progress working on season 2.  It might take a bit of time though because there was never a sequel to the book.  so they have their own writers working on this one.  the original author is not writing. 

[Chas411]

See that's the thing - I'm not interested in a season two. I preferred it as ended which is why I'd have preferred that they just wrap it up properly instead of drawing it all out. 

[truthaboutluv]

1 hour ago, Chas411 said:

See that's the thing - I'm not interested in a season two. I preferred it as ended which is why I'd have preferred that they just wrap it up properly instead of drawing it all out. 

YMMV but even without a Season 2, I would have been fine with how the series ended. I liked that everything wasn't tied up neatly into a little bow because to be fair, the book didn't do that either. Clay did more in the series than he did in the book. In the book, he just listened to the tapes all in one night and left them for the next girl on the list and in essence was done with it. The book ends on him calling out to Skye, who he hadn't spoken to in awhile. I assumed that was to indicate that he couldn't save Hannah but there was someone else clearly showing signs of crying out that he could try to save while she was still alive. But basically that means we didn't know what happened to any of the other people Hannah mentioned on the tapes. 

So for me, I was fine with the series ending on us not knowing exactly where Justin went to and what exactly would happen to Bryce. At least in the series Clay took it to Mr. Porter, who was last on the list and added the tape of Bryce admitting what he did. Essentially leaving it up to the adults to now decide if they were going to protect their ass or do the right thing. And as for everyone protecting Bryce, I didn't get that impression. I thought the kids on the tapes were all trying to protect themselves. They all knew they weren't going to go to the authorities because they were all too chicken shit to do so and too worried about themselves. Let's remember that when they felt the walls closing in, when they all met at the coffee house, they strongly entertained Tyler's suggestion of throwing Bryce under the bus. Because as Tyler said, compared to Bryce's rape of not just Hannah but Jessica as well, who would really care about Alex's making some dumb list, Ryan stealing Hannah's poem, etc. 

Their fear was about Clay because one, Clay had nothing to lose going public with the tapes because Hannah absolves him of any responsibility on the tapes. And two, he wasn't friends with any of them and had no interest or reason to protect any of them. Only Courtney kept suggesting that Bryce may actually be innocent of what Hannah accused him of but that was obviously, in my opinion, because Courtney would rather insist, even in death, that Hannah was just a crazy, delusional drama queen than face the fact that she, Courtney, was a deeply-closeted lesbian. Admitting the stuff on the tapes about Bryce was true would, in her mind, mean admitting the stuff about her was also true. The only other person who was maybe "protecting" Bryce was Justin but again, I think that was a combination of protecting himself from Jessica finding out that he stood outside a room while his best friend raped her and did nothing and lied about it and two, a misplaced sense of loyalty to Bryce because Bryce's rich family helped him out many times with his crappy home life. 

[gunderda]

On 4/21/2017 at 8:58 PM, scribe95 said:

So I decided Clay's head injury was specifically so we could automatically know what was past vs. present tense. And it helped a lot. 

I actually got REALLY confused during one episode because I thought he had the cut on his forehead for 6 months lol  

[Adira]

This episode really bothered me.  I don't understand how Hannah could have witnessed what happened to Jessica, not done anything about it (either during or after), and then dedicated her SECOND TAPE to blaming Jessica for her death!  Yes, Jessica was a shitty friend and did some shitty things to Hannah in the beginning, but what she was did was NOTHING compared to what happened to Jessica (partly because of Hannah's own inaction).

[gunderda]

I don't want a season two.  I think it will become too unrealistic.  

This school has a kid die in a car accident, a kid commit suicide and then one shot himself in the head all within months of each other.  And a 2nd season might have a school shooting on top of it?  Yes these things can happen and probably do often, BUT not all in one school.   I think it will lose its purpose if they continue on.  

I don't think we need to know how things end with everyone.  

[ghoulina]

I agree. I really don't see a point to another season. 

[MV007]

I can't remember how the tapes started.  But are we jumping to conclusions by saying the tapes blame the kids for her suicide?  I can't remember if Hannah explicitly says something like that.  Or is it more, this is the story of how I got here.  These are the shitty things that happened to me that brought me to this dark place?

[DittyDotDot]

8 minutes ago, MV007 said:

I can't remember how the tapes started.  But are we jumping to conclusions by saying the tapes blame the kids for her suicide?  I can't remember if Hannah explicitly says something like that.  Or is it more, this is the story of how I got here.  These are the shitty things that happened to me that brought me to this dark place?

That was my take on the whole thing. 

[BigDave]

Late to the party, but I just binged watch this with my wife. My thoughts might be similar to those mentioned.

- I thought Hannah was a bit cruel to include Clay in the tapes, or at least draw it out so long. I get that she wanted him to listen to everything that happened to her so that by the time he got to his own tape he'd be able to understand why she reacted like that in the bedroom scene. I just felt like it came off insensitive to the one guy who treated her right. Especially since she yelled at him to get out of the room repeatedly. He is not a mind reader who could understand what she was going through. If I was in his spot, I would have left the room too, and also held resentment the next time I saw her.

- I was more bummed about Jeff's death than Hannah's. Maybe because Hannah's death was inevitable, but Jeff was a true friend to Clay, along with Tony. It was weird that Jeff was only in the flashbacks and not in real time. Then when it was explained, it made sense.

- The suicide scene was brutal, but I'm glad they did it like that. A lot of the story did seem to romanticize suicide, so showing how one actually looks and feels (gruesome) probably helped in dispelling that.

- There will be copycat suicides in real life. I'm almost positive of that. As brutal as the suicide scene was, there will be teens who like the revenge aspect of it. Unavoidable.

- The depiction of high school was spot on. I'm in my 30's so it's been a while, but the only difference between that HS and mine was technology changes (cell phones, social media). High school sucks and kids are cruel. 

- Selena Gomez already said there will be a season 2, I believe. Without Hannah's character being the focal point, it will be difficult to maintain the magic they had in season 1, but I'm intrigued by it.

- The actress who played Hannah is incredible. Great acting on her part and she is going to be a big star in my opinion.

Overall I enjoyed the series. It is one that I still think about days after finishing it. Very real topic and I thought they did a good job with it, minus a flaw here or there.

[jacksgirl]

Late to the party, just started watching. Am I intrigued, but another 9 epis may be too much. No way in hell  Hannah's mom would be wearing any clothes ( she was in sweats) with the school name on them. She hates that place, she would have burned them.

[Eeksquire]

Quote

She hates that place, she would have burned them.

I assumed they were Hannah's and that's why she was wearing them - to feel closer to Hannah.

[jojojo]

It was hard to watch, and at that point, I wasn't sure how I feel about all I see. Justin is kinda getting away with everything, and he has no inner restrictions at all. But the worst thing w/ such people is when they got really scared. It's the moment when all the crazy stuff begins. 

[kirkola]

On 6/6/2017 at 10:54 PM, jhlipton said:

I think it's pretty obvious at this point that gorm-faced Clay is going to be the subject of the last tape.  A year and a half after the first tape, right?

From a meta point of view, Clay can't listen to all the tapes at once, because then he wouldn't be a voyeur in the present day.

The tapes start at the beginning of the kids' sophomore year and ends around 4 or 5 months into their junior year, so we have almost a year and a half before things spiral so much that Hannah can't go on.

ETA:

I'm not saying this didn't happen, but if Hannah is an unreliable narrator, Clay is even more so.  He's telling us that not one of the faculty or staff noted anything we see, including the graffiti in the restroom; not one student (including the "goody two-shoes that every school has) said anything about the photo or the note; not one saw Hannah's reaction after the picture and the note were passed around?  I'm not sure I buy it.  We only have Clay's word as to what happened and how everyone really reacted.

My high school experience (very late 80's, very early 90s) was one where the school staff ignored the graffiti, the notes and photos, the creepy things boys did to girls in the hallway, the rumors, etc.  A few teachers tried to be "in the loop", like the teacher who's daughter was in my grade, but more often than not, it was merely a sympathetic shoulder and a "boys will be boys" mentality.  Administration was more concerned with truancy, drugs, and weapons.  And we had a pretty decent relationship with our faculty.  They were decent people that we mostly liked and respected--our principal was invited to our senior skip day events. 

[kilda]

depends if the tattooist is reputable and follows the law.  My daughter just graduated a couple years ago and had tons of friends with tattoos in high school.  Many of them done by somebody "on the side," or out of a van, not in an official shop.  There were definitely kids as tatted up as Tony is.  Since he's alluded to not living in a good neighborhood, I can easily believe there are people around he could get a tattoo from.

[Lunula]

Okay, so after Hannah drops off her work uniform/cuts her hair, there is a scene with her making out with someone - is that Clay? We rewound that a few times and it looks like him, but that scene seems to just get dropped in with no explanation and no pickup later in the episode.

[Thrifty]

Just started in on the second episode.  So far, Hannah seems like kind of a sarcastic, manipulative, meanie and I'm finding myself kinda glad that she's dead.

Edited July 22, 2017 by Thrifty

[Thrifty]

In the third episode.  This is tough to watch.  It's just so cheesy and melodramatic.  I really dislike the dead girl, and kinda want to go dance on her grave.  There were several other girls on that stupid list, and they all somehow managed to not commit suicide.

 

I have little sympathy for teenagers.  It's gotta be tough to live a life where you don't have to worry about finding a job, or making money to pay the rent, food, medical care, auto payments, etc.,

On 4/10/2017 at 8:30 AM, Winston9-DT3 said:

Can someone who finished it say if the pace picks up?  I can't imagine 10 more hours of what the last 3 have been.  Clay dragging his heels and being freaked out, high schoolers bullying and Hannah being quippy... I don't think I can do 10 more if something doesn't change.  

Kinda feeling the same way.  I'm about to go find a plot synopsis. 

[GreekGeek]

On 7/22/2017 at 8:32 AM, Thrifty said:

Just started in on the second episode.  So far, Hannah seems like kind of a sarcastic, manipulative, meanie and I'm finding myself kinda glad that she's dead.

While I'm not glad a teenager is dead (even a fictional one), I'd have to agree that Hannah doesn't seem all that sympathetic so far. (But I suppose it's more realistic than making her a goody-goody.) I'm thinking that the use of sarcastic banter as the main form of communication makes it much harder to let someone know "I'm in pain."

I'll probably keep watching, but I hate the whole "adults are useless" trope. At least in this story thus far, peers seem pretty useless too.

[Thrifty]

I mean, one of Hannah's earliest scenes had her and Jessica making fun of the blonde guy (I forget his name).  She seems like the kind of person who, if she hadn't been the victim of bullying, would have been an enthusiastic perpetrator.

[GreekGeek]

I am getting really confused about who has the tapes and how much they've heard. How many copies are there? It would have been more effective if each episode had been shot from a different character's POV, instead of showing the whole thing from mopey Clay's perspective. It doesn't help that we get dreams and imaginings (Mrs. Baker strangling Clay) as well as flashbacks.

[DittyDotDot]

36 minutes ago, GreekGeek said:

I am getting really confused about who has the tapes and how much they've heard. How many copies are there?

There's only one copy of the tapes--well, there's the threat copy, but only one set gets passed around. Basically, there's one person for each tape. Hannah sent the tapes to Justin, who is tape one, with the instructions to listen and pass the whole set on to the next person. There is also the threat that she had a second set of tapes held by a friend with instructions to send them to the police if her instructions weren't followed. So, Clay isn't the first person to hear the tapes, but he's the only one listening to them throughout the series.

[GreekGeek]

On 4/15/2017 at 1:33 PM, Clanstarling said:

That one threw me a little bit. So I tried to see if I could think of who we'd seen in the past but not the present - but given that the shifts are not only past and present - but mixed with a few hallucinations and "I shoulda's", I couldn't narrow it down. The person I thought it was (not saying who) had a serious scene in the present in a later episode, so I was wrong about that one.

I'm glad other people are stumped also by this reference to a second death. But why is no one talking about the other person or worrying about suicide clusters? Or was the other death not a suicide? I'm getting a weird Sixth Sense feeling about Tony, the way he always seems to appear out of nowhere to talk to Clay, except that I'm sure we've seen him interact with others in the present.

I suppose there will be a showdown in court between Clay's mom and Hannah's. I can understand Clay's downplaying his relationship with Hannah to his parents, but why would he say things that help his mom defend the school? 

[GreekGeek]

I got spoiled about the "other" death by reading one of those "what will happen in Season 2?" columns. To be honest, I could barely remember who Jeff was, so I don't blame viewers who didn't register that he only appeared in flashbacks. It did smack of plot contrivance that apart from one cryptic remark from the principal, nobody talked about him and we never saw Clay thinking about him up to this point. 

[GreekGeek]

I felt seriously annoyed with Tony for taking Clay on that rock climbing excursion. I gather it was supposed to be some kind of character building lesson on facing fears and not taking the easy way, but it felt like another instance of toxic masculinity--shaming a guy into doing something dangerous.

[GreekGeek]

There was one almost throwaway moment that really grabbed my attention in the midst of everything else: that girl in the "relationships" class talking about being fat shamed, and that wiseass "Pratters" telling her that the solution was not being fat. People called him an idiot, but it did get me thinking about what that overweight girl must have put up with from her classmates, and how much nastiness is going on in addition to what we see. The characters with substantial roles are all conventionally attractive, even the "losers" like Tyler. Imagine being in this environment and unusually tall (girls) or short (boys) or fat or skinny (Clay gets taunted for being skinny, but he isn't particularly), or with bad skin or some other physical defect. No one even wears glasses!

[MV007]

On 7/22/2017 at 0:25 PM, Thrifty said:

In the third episode.  This is tough to watch.  It's just so cheesy and melodramatic.  I really dislike the dead girl, and kinda want to go dance on her grave.  There were several other girls on that stupid list, and they all somehow managed to not commit suicide.

 

I have little sympathy for teenagers.  It's gotta be tough to live a life where you don't have to worry about finding a job, or making money to pay the rent, food, medical care, auto payments, etc.,

Kinda feeling the same way.  I'm about to go find a plot synopsis. 

I don't think she committed suicide because she was on the list.  It was a moment that contributed in her downward spiral.  This was her telling her story.