13 Reasons Why Season 2 isn't here to bring you peace
When Hannah Baker first came on Netflix last year to tell the story of her life — more importantly, how her life ended — almost everybody who listened in, impressed or not, was left stunned. In the most graphic details, the 17-year-old high-schooler described how she was bullied, molested, shamed, raped, and witnessed a rape; all the reasons which drove her to take her life.
Based on a novel of the same name by author Jay Asher, Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why did not make many people happy with its blatant picturisation of rape and suicide. Critics accused the showmakers of “glamourising suicide” and Hannah Baker of killing herself to get revenge.
Nonetheless, viewers came back asking for more, and a little more than a year later, 13 Reasons Why Season 2 was released (this weekend).
This time, more than the haters, 13 Reasons Why fans seem disappointed with the story it had to tell. And in our disappointment over the fictional story, we are missing the bigger picture.
The other side
So what happens? In a nutshell, Hannah Baker’s parents sue the school for negligence, she gets dragged through the mud by the defence attorney, while the people from Hannah’s “tapes” continue to deal with the aftermath of her suicide.
As a story that began with Hannah Baker, 13 Reasons Why Season 2 has very little of her, which seems to be bothering many dedicated viewers. But that was a good call by the showmakers. Instead of stretching out the dead girl’s story, it delves head first into the lives of those who are still alive, mostly the people from Hannah's tapes: their crisis, their conscience, and their side of the story.
In each episode, one person from Hannah’s tapes reveals something about Hannah that we didn’t quite see from her angle, throwing the situation under a whole new light of scrutiny. We see Hannah Baker as a bully, as someone judgemental, spiteful, as a good friend, as gullible and misunderstood. With each account, Hannah becomes more than just a poster child of victimhood, and a bit more common.
Criticised for its approach towards suicide and bullying, 13 Reasons Why this season opens itself to further judgement by indulging in other disturbing student-related issues, such as gun violence, campus culture, sexual violence, etc.
To say it handles these issues with perfection would be an exaggeration. It does, however, kick the lid off an otherwise avoided conversation with least sugarcoating.
The answers
What 13 Reasons Why Season 2 does most restlessly is put itself on the stand for the criticism that it fielded after its first season, about having “glamourised” suicide and vengeance, and being unfit for adolescents and those with mental health issues.
While some of these responses come forth as only half-baked and least convincing, what drives the effort home is the way it handles misogyny. For example, when Clay Jenson, otherwise a sweet boy, wonders aloud why girls went to the infamous “Clubhouse” with the sexually abusive jocks in the first place, or when he gets schooled for commenting on an allegedly raped girl, “But she looks like she having fun?”
My favourite is when Justin Foley calmly smacks slut shamers down for calling him a “stud” for having multiple sexual partners and Hannah Baker a “slut” for kissing more than one boy.
While the show deserves no brownie points for acknowledging critics, it does make a point by sticking to its routine of graphic representation of questionable scenes. Despite being slammed widely for its picturisations of rape in Season 1, Season 2 brings yet another scene of rape packed with vivid details. Viewers have commented on how the horror of this scene made them look away. And it is true. But as horrid as Tyler Down’s sexual assault scene, or those of Jessica’s and Hannah were, their details knock into you the reality of it: this is what rape looks like, some people go through it for real. What are we going to do about it?
Closure
That depends on how masochistic you are.
13 Reasons Why Season 2 does not bring you ironed-out solace. And if you are in it for “justice”, bring a sack to carry your disappointments in. The conventional way of closure, by the standards of a fictional show, should’ve been seeing the culprit get adequately punished, and Hannah’s parents get justice. But you’re denied that. Personally, I believe it could not have gone better.
It was one of the most haunting scenes of this season when Jessica takes the stand to talk about her rape. Her monologue is followed by several other female characters of the show take her place and share their sexual assault experiences, looking straight ahead at you through the camera, dissolving the line between fiction and real life.
You are left stunned at this point, wondering if those were made-up stories or real sexual assault the actors suffered. You are mesmerised, haunted, and have been worked up to the edge for a big finish. And then you’re told the rapist is walking away with a three-month sentence. Jessica and the other women in the courtroom can be seen screaming at the judge, and if you’re least attached to the show, you’re most likely screaming too.
Again, I say, there couldn’t have been better end than this. Because, remember Brock Turner? The Stanford University student who raped an unconscious girl and was jailed for three months for it?
Instead of numbing you into a sense of fantasy-laced justice, 13 Reasons Why Season 2 slaps you with a reality check: this injustice is happening for real, deal with it. The show would’ve been just fine had it shown some amount of justice being served, but by bringing you what can only be described as tough love, it leaves you angry. As a society that’s dealing with a severe crisis of gender-based violence, that’s what we need to be.
The closest we come to a decent closure is when Clay talks Tyler out a mass shooting and averts a disaster. Here’s where the season ends on a cliffhanger, giving us the dimmest hope of a better overall closure in future seasons.
More than once, 13 Reasons Why Season 2 slips out of its clock of a fictional story and gets under your skin like a nightmare, especially for anybody who has suffered sexual assault, bullying, or mental health issues. It doesn’t leave you happy, or even contented.
So, how does it fare?
In one word, jarring. And that’s the best way a show with a message like this could have gone.
Also read: 20 years on, how I imagine the world looks to Harry Potter