“You never know how something’s gonna hit someone.”
In a lot of ways, 13 Reasons Why is harder for me to watch as a grown man, and not someone the same age as the characters. This is arguably – if not obviously – the point, and it’s part of what makes the show so powerful. For a younger audience, it can teach a lot of lessons about bullying and shaming; that it manages to do so without hectoring or sermonizing is a minor miracle.
For older audiences, it gives a glimpse of what modern teens go through, and as I get older and crankier, it helps to humanize youth. Part of that is because the cast brings an adult maturity to their roles, but another, just as vital, part is that the writing is so damn solid (barring any time Hannah, Jessica, or Alex says “FML”).
“Tape 2, Side A” is all about Alex, and this works better than “Tape 1, Side B” because it means Alex effectively gets a prologue before his episode. The focus here isn’t as jarring as it was on Jessica, so it’s a smoother transition. We deal with the fallout from Alex’s gross, inappropriate list. We find out he didn’t start it, just added to it; when he says this he sounds remorseful but also defensive. He gave Hannah “best ass” and Jessica “worst ass,” because he was mad at Jessica for not having sex with him.
This effectively ended Hannah and Jessica’s friendship, and when Hannah started feeling suicidal, she had no one to turn to because Jessica was gone. This is, yes, remarkably shitty behavior on Alex’s part, but that’s one of the smartest moves on the show’s part: reminding us that even good people can do shitty things.
Clay is pretty oblivious about the problems presented by the list, too. He tries to spin it as a compliment, and in one of the episode’s best exchanges, Hannah tells him to imagine how he’d feel if a girl made that list and put him on it. “A girl wouldn’t make that list,” Clay responds. Hannah: “Exactly.”
I mentioned earlier that it was tough to watch this as an adult, but it might be even tougher as a man. (This isn’t about to devolve into some screed about how tough it is to be a straight, white, handsome man. Stick with me.) There are things that we never think about because they just wouldn’t happen to us. “Here’s the thing,” Hannah tells us, “you’ve never been a girl.” There’s a quite frankly horrifying scene where Hannah runs into Bryce at a convenience store; he grabs her ass, hard, and while she flares up in anger at him, by the time she leaves the store she’s completely broken down into tears. It’s a terrific shot, staged perfectly by director Helen Shaver(Vikings) and wonderfully acted by Katherine Langford, who allows us to see Hannah’s rage, humiliation, and grief.
It’s not just that Bryce grabbed her ass, it’s that it arguably wouldn’t have occurred to him to do so were it not for Alex putting her name on that list. Like the tapes themselves, one action leads inexorably to the next. And this isn’t even the first time this has happened – after the rumor about her and Justin having sex in the park, Hannah was treated as public property by seemingly the entire school, her life and her body as fair game. It’s startling to see someone with so much control and self-assurance be so quickly stripped of her agency, even it it’s just momentary. No one wants to be commoditized, or objectified, or reduced to a list of attributes.
What amazes me still about 13 Reasons Why is the dimensionality it affords to its characters. Justin and Bryce could easily have been stock bully types, but the show is uninterested in that. The easiest way to garner sympathy for your protagonist is to have everyone around them act constantly, unapologetically shitty (I call this Midnight in Paris Syndrome). But Justin is deeply wounded by his mom’s succession of disreputable boyfriends, and Bryce even tells Justin to treat Jessica right. Does that make what they do acceptable or tolerable? Of course not. No one is trying to make that argument. But with every episode, these characters feel more and more like people, which makes the ultimate outcome of their actions all the more horrific.
“Tape 2, Side A” might be the most effective episode of 13 Reasons Why yet, specifically because it didn’t rely too much on its framing device – although I do love how they’re developing that as well. Tony, so effortlessly cool, continues to show up seemingly when Clay needs him, which is an absurdist touch that works way better than it should. At the moment, he’s the most mysterious character on the show; Clay follows him to an industrial park where Tony and a few other guys are beating someone up, and later Tony shows up at the coffee shop with Hannah’s mother Olivia (Olivia’s presence is a great addition, because her haunted, grief-struck visage reminds us that no matter how Hannah evolves in the flashbacks, this story takes place in the present, where Hannah is very much dead).
13 Reasons Why is, at its core, a very dark show, about bullying and suicide. But it’s so well-acted, -directed, and -written that it’s oddly thrilling, and “Tape 2, Side A” is a great example of why.
A Few Thoughts
- It probably looks weird to talk about Hannah for almost the entire review and have no accompanying pictures of her. For whatever reason, this show is hard to find pictures for, so I typically take whatever I can get at the best resolution I can get it. All the pictures of Hannah I found during my search were either low-res or from another episode.
- “Meth Seth?” “Yeth.”
- Clay puking all over the dinner table was a rare belly laugh from this show.
- Clay and that football player talking about the overuse of the word “unique” reminded me of the great “Would that it were so simple” scene from Hail, Caesar!
- “Coach Patrick sent me to the library. He has the wrong John Wayne DVD for today.”
- Lots of kids at Liberty High have tattoos. Did you have kids like that in your high school? I did, they were the worst. One of my best friends got one our senior year. That’s right, Casey, I’m talking to you! I know you read this, bitch! (He doesn’t read this.)
- It’s really funny that Clay’s excuse for talking to anyone is that they’re working on a project, and Tyler sees right through it.
Final Score:
4.5/5
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