13 Reasons Why Season Two available to own on DVD this Tuesday. While not as good as the first season, the show still presents an important message to young people and manages to entertain in the process.
“This season picks up in the aftermath of Hannah’s death and the start of our characters’ complicated journeys toward healing and recovery. Liberty High prepares to go on trial, but someone will stop at nothing to keep the truth surrounding Hannah’s death concealed. A series of ominous Polaroids lead Clay and his classmates to the discovery that Hannah wasn’t the only one to suffer at the hands of Liberty’s elite. When the whole truth is exposed, no one is spared the consequences.”
The first season of 13 Reasons Why was a heartbreaking exploration of suicide and how it affects people differently. Based on a book by Jay Asher, themes of bullying and rape are featuring prominently as the narrative structure of the series is one of the most unique I’ve ever seen, with each episode featuring a new audio cassette that tells Hannah’s story about a particular person, one of her reasonings for committing suicide, as Clay listens and relives the moments, always looking for ways to get justice for her.
The second season picks up several months after the events of the first, with a lot changing in the lives of the people affected by this tragedy. On everyone’s minds is the upcoming trial that Hannah’s parents have filed against the school that they hope will prove their gross negligence in preventing bullying and ignoring the signs their daughter needed help. Clay has tried to move on with his life but is still finding it extremely difficult, being reminded of Hannah everywhere he looks. Despite him obtaining a confession from Bryce to raping Hannah, his parents have all but shielded him from any consequences and without further proof may get away with it. That is, until Clay begins to receive Polaroid pictures of Bryce having sex with unconscious girls with a note on the back telling him there are others. While Clay tries to figure out the location in the picture and who is sending them, students that are being called to testify are receiving threatening letters to keep their mouths shut. The mystery of the Polaroids and who is behind these threats is one of the main drives of the story this time around, focusing a lot heavier on the horrific act of rape and the psychological effects of survivors.
While the second season still tells a very poignant story about the culture of High School and what teens may face on a daily basis, it isn’t nearly as powerful as the first season, not due to subject matter by any means, but mostly by stylistic and narrative choices that simply can’t live up to the previous. As the first season ended the same way the book did, the writers now have their own direction to take as season 2 goes beyond the source material. One of their questionable choices was to decide they would add on bits of sequences we didn’t see from scenes in the first season, thus changing our entire interpretation of a certain event or person. This changes a lot in the story in which the intention of the author was to portray these kids as bullies in different shapes and forms, as you don’t have to physically abuse someone for it to be bullying. Whether they decided to add scenes in making some of them seem more sympathetic and lessen the audience blame based on popularity with the audiences I’m not sure, but there are added sequences that really don’t fit. They contradict the first season, change bullies into sympathetic characters, and fundamentally change who Hannah was by giving her all these secret relationships that negate some of the reasons she lists as the 13 reasons why. Case in point: she starts seeing Justin again, her first reason on her tapes and the only one who shows up twice on them. It seems she forgives him after he continues to profusely apologize for the picture of her getting around school. It’s little things like this that make the production of the show seem so far off from the fantastic first season and really disappointed me this time around.
The courtroom writing made about zero sense, as did Clay’s sequences with Hannah’s ghost or memory, or whatever you want to call it. As the first season handles Clay and Hannah perfectly, there really was no where else to go if you wanted Clay to question all these secretive relationships and choices Hannah made that he didn’t know about. Making him seem schizophrenic clearly wasn’t the answer. Despite some of the questionable story choices they decided to take, there were parts of this season I really found quite enjoyable. It still does have an important and poignant story to tell, but does it in a more obvious entertainment type of way. Things change to ensure there can be another season, and for me that detracted from the overall message.
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This set is only available on DVD, giving you a 720p picture. Although it doesn’t have quite the same following as Stranger Things or some of Netflix’s bigger shows, it did seem to be fairly popular, so the decision to not include it on Blu-Ray is puzzling to me. For people wanting access to the show without reliable internet I suppose this is the only option. However, Netflix presents this show in Dolby Vision on its streaming service, so why you’d want to watch it any way but that given the choice is beyond me. Watch this on Netflix.
