Review: How '13 Reasons Why' Season 2 Fails Hannah
This post contains spoilers about 13 Reasons Why season two.
Let’s get this out of the way before we talk about anything else: there was no good reason to bring 13 Reasons Why back for a second season. The show’s first season was the target of repeated criticism, and for good reason. That season depicted sexual assault and other violent encounters without proper content warnings. It also glorified suicide to such an extent that it was difficult to write about the ways in which it glorified suicide without, in turn, glorifying suicide - and inspired multiple real-life copycat suicides.
But the aspect of season one I found most hardest to watch (especially as someone who’s struggled with depression and suicidal ideation since I was younger than Hannah) was the show’s lack of empathy toward Hannah. Rather than cultivating compassion for her as a person who lived and died in great pain, 13 Reasons Why’s first season framed her as a villain - someone who sought revenge against her bullies and irrevocably harmed her innocent friends and family in the process. Ultimately, 13 Reasons chose to frame Hannah’s death something she did to people. That’s… off.
Despite those qualms, I resolved to give season two a try, and my hopes were briefly raised in the first episode. Hannah’s mother insists on going ahead with a lawsuit against the school district for failing to protect her daughter, rejecting a settlement offer because it would’ve required her to sign a non-disclosure agreement that would forbid her to speak publicly about the case. “Hannah’s story needs to be told,” Mrs. Baker insists. “Yes!” I thought. Here was a chance for the series to show Hannah in a more complete, compassionate light.
Spoiler: it doesn’t.
To be fair, the second season does give us some additional insight into why Hannah was suffering, most notably through stories shared by Mrs. Baker and through Hannah’s own poetry. And it explores new dimensions of Hannah’s backstory, but spends a troubling amount of time exploring the darker side of her past actions, including testimony at her trial that confirms she’d bullied others in the past and suggests that at one point, she’d been relatively friendly with Bryce, the series’ villainous rapist. (Side note: while the show does explore issues of consent in a more complex way in this season than it did in the first, it undercuts that discussion by making Bryce and his gang of jock friends mafia-grade villains, rather than actual teenage boys.)
But mostly throughout the second season, we see Hannah through Clay’s eyes. Most of her screen time is made up of conversations Clay has with a version of Hannah that only he can see and hear. Unless the intention of the series is to present Hannah as a literal ghost (and on the off-chance that it is, that’s an entirely separate essay), we aren’t really seeing Hannah at all in those scenes. She’s a mirror of Clay’s internal life. By focusing so much on Clay’s visions of Hannah, the series continues to assert that Hannah mattered because she mattered to Clay, not because she was a human being deserving of love, care, and compassion. The ways in which Clay obsesses over this imagined version of Hannah don’t humanize her; they do the opposite and turn Hannah into an abstract idea. Hannah is a figment of Clay’s imagination, and frequently, what Clay’s imagining makes him very, very angry. At one point, he lashes out at his vision of Hannah, telling her, “You killed yourself, and you didn’t fucking care… You did an evil thing.”
A couple of episodes later, Clay regrets speaking to Hannah so harshly. He apologizes to Hannah - and, again, it’s worth repeating here that Hannah is a figment of his imagination - and she responds, “You didn’t say anything I didn’t deserve.” By that logic, Clay implies that telling Hannah that suicide is an evil act was fair - justifiable, even. What message does that send to people who suffer in the same ways that Hannah did? How are people who’ve lost loved ones to suicide supposed to feel when they hear the implication that their loved ones did an evil thing? On what planet is this a compassionate or responsible treatment of mental illness?
By reducing Hannah to Clay’s imagining of her, Clay’s suffering becomes the focal point of 13 Reasons Why’s second season, just as it was in the first season. On the surface, that’s not necessarily a problematic framework for the season, but television is already pretty saturated with accounts of white dudes’ suffering, and 13 Reasons misses multiple opportunities to break out of that mold. But what’s more troubling is that Clay’s response to Hannah’s death is highly dysfunctional. The PSA that opens the second season features the show’s cast encouraging teenage viewers to speak with a trusted adult if they’re struggling with depression or troubled by the show’s subject matter. But then it turns around and depicts Clay’s stubborn refusal to reach out to the adults around him - or really to anyone else in his life - about how he’s feeling.
The series misses an opportunity to show what healthy grieving might look like for Clay, and in doing so, introduces a whole slew of potentially triggering content. Season two relies on violent imagery for shock and storytelling value in the same way season one relied on graphic footage of sexual assault and Hannah’s death, and Clay’s storyline is no exception. He winds up pulling a gun on Hannah’s rapist, which is not only a chilling example of toxic masculinity, but a glaringly insensitive storyline to (inadequately) tackle in a post-Parkland America.
Clay does hit a point of semi-healthy catharsis in the show’s final episode, speaking about her life at the (belated) memorial service her parents organize. He talks about letting Hannah go, and later breaks down at the school dance as Lord Huron's “The Night We Met” plays. It’s a beautiful song, but the lyrics of the chorus are troubling, considering the circumstances: “I had all and then most of you/Some and now none of you.” Talking about Hannah as something to be let go of - and reinforcing that later with song lyrics that imply that Hannah was something he “had” - only further serves to mythologize her. You don't “have” people. You know and love them, but we aren't given enough of Hannah to know and love across 13 Reasons Why’s second season.
I agree with 13 Reasons Why’s thesis that Hannah’s story needed to be told. Maybe Clay’s did, too. But ultimately, this season fails them both.
If you or someone you know needs help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). The Crisis Text Line is also available; text REASON to 741741. You can find additional support, services, and resources at 13ReasonsWhy.info.
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