TV Review: 13 Reasons Why, Season 4

This was TV show #14/20 (#19 overall) that I watched for my 20 for 2020 Challenge. Season 4 was released on Netflix on June 5, 2020. There may be brief spoilers for Seasons 1-3, since this is a review of Season 4. There will be an in-depth spoiler section for Season 4 included in this review, but I will let you know when we get there.

I really didn't like this show. I never really liked the show, even in Season 1, but I just continued watching it anyway. Once I start watching a show, it's really hard for me to stop watching it. I'll most likely just stick it out and really push myself through it until the end. It may also just be because I read the book that I'm forcing my way through it. I really liked the book and was excited for the show when it came out. I'm just really glad this show is over.

This show was never the best, but Season 4 was probably my least favorite of them all. This season was just completely random and all over the place. I just couldn't get past the bad story line. I don't think I can get too much into it without spoilers, so just know that there will be a long discussion about this in the spoiler section. The show also ends without resolving most of the story lines, which is also really frustrating.

One thing that I do really like about the show is the cast and the characters. I do really like the main squad. I think Season 3 might have been my personal favorite season, and that might have been because the squad was really tight-knit and really had each others backs. This season, everyone was fighting or had just drifted apart, so I think this was one reason why I didn't like this season as much. In the last moments of the show, I really did get those feelings of "Oh I'm going to miss this show." Something about this show did feel kind of comforting and familiar to me, and I think it was the actors and their characters that really made me keep coming back.

One random thing I wanted to mention. I did like Charlie. I think he was a good addition this season. I also liked Winston, as a "villain" this season. I also really liked the brief Andrew McCarthy cameo.

Another thing that I did like, was that there were actually a few moments in the show that were actually pretty funny to me (these were actual attempts at being funny - it wasn't just me making fun of the show).

***SPOILER DISCUSSION***

I really didn't like what they did with Justin. His death and illness came out of nowhere and felt so unrealistic to me. This had nothing to do with the story line of the season or the show in general, and they spent the entire last episode just focusing on that instead of closing any of the established story lines. Justin was one of my favorite characters, and I definitely would have been emotionally affected by his death, but this was so out of nowhere that I refused to fall victim to this emotional manipulation. It felt like they just forced this in to distract from how they had no possible way of tying up all the ridiculous loose ends. The conflicts just magically went away after Justin died. All of the people that were on to the squad for crafting this whole lie about Bryce/Monty, all just forgot about it in the last episode (Sheriff Diaz, Winston, Diego etc.).

I also didn't like the whole story line with Clay going crazy. It was kind of all over the place. Clay already had visions of dead characters in previous seasons (like Hannah in Season 2), so this felt like a re-hash of an old story line. Also his crazy outbursts, with him flailing a gun around in public (this happened multiple times) or blowing up a car with a Molotov, he was completely let off the hook with no repercussions. It was so unrealistic, and Clay's obvious mental health issues were just ignored in the end.

To go into more detail about the squad falling apart... I think Season 3 was my favorite because the squad was all covering for each other so that no one would get caught for killing Bryce, and they all really had to stick together. For some reason, this season the gang had all drifted apart. Justin and Jessica were broken up for most of the season, Clay was breaking down, Ani was barely in this season, Alex wasn't really friends with Jessica either, Zach is completely spiraling. It was just sad to see how much the squad had drifted apart. I liked it better when they were all working together, since the characters were my favorite thing about the show.

I also just didn't really agree with some of the political themes they were trying to push this season, or rather, I didn't agree with the way they portrayed those themes. Especially regarding the walk-out and school security. For one example, it was a little over the top for me with the confrontation between Diego and the security guard. The way they portrayed this scene, was just such a caricature. To recap what happened: the guard went after Diego instead of Justin, when they both were involved in the fight, and then the guard called Diego a Mexican even after he corrected that he was Dominican. Then the guard says some blatantly racist thing like "whatever, you're all criminals," something along those lines, and then pulls out a gun on him. It was just so ridiculous and over the top to push this police brutality/racism message, and it was just annoying to me. It made me feel like they underestimate their audience so much that they feel that they have to make things so obvious. This whole walk-out episode was just extremely ridiculous. And the whole theme of security and surveillance in general just didn't land for me. The kids were all against the security guards and metal detectors from the very beginning before they even exhibited any corrupt/racist behaviors. I don't know why they would fight against that from the very beginning after everything they've been through. One of their friends tried to bring guns into the school dance and shoot everyone... And school shootings are such a huge thing across the entire country. I would think that they would be glad for having the extra security measures but okay. And Clay (though we didn't know it was Clay at the time) was there graffiti-ing the school and vandalizing stuff. But yet these kids want to say that the school shouldn't have metal detectors and security cameras? Okay, whatever. And since they were complaining about these things from the very beginning I just could not take their stance seriously. It just made me think of them as whiny, entitled kids. Another example of this, is that they're doing a first aid class at the high school and Clay makes a scene about it and says something like "Why are we learning how to do this? We should be stopping kids from getting shot in the first place." 1) What's wrong with learning first aid? That's a good skill to have and 2) You and all your friends have been complaining about the measures that they are taking to prevent kids from getting shot (e.g. metal detectors, security guards and security cameras). Also the school shooting re-enactment was just ridiculous. I don't believe for a second that after everything this school has gone through, that the administration (no matter how dumb or corrupt they may be), would organize this shooting drill to happen. It was just another plot line for them to use towards their theme of teenage anarchist rebellion against guards, authority and surveillance. Not to mention, this school shooting drill felt like a complete waste of an episode, because I had a feeling that it was a drill the whole time, so I didn't really care about all the emotional rollercoaster of it all.

I did like the final scene with Tony and Clay. I really like those two characters and their friendship. I like how it ended like it started. I also liked how they looped it back to Hannah and the tapes.

***END OF SPOILERS DISCUSSION***

I didn't really like this season, or the show in general. I like the characters but that's about it. I'd give this show a 3/10. Have you watched this show? Be sure to let me know your thoughts down below.