13 Reasons Why

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13 Reasons Why
How about instead of watching it, you only look at the 13 reasons why this sucks...
Genre: Teen drama • mystery • psychological thriller • coming of age Running Time: 49-98 minutes Country: United States Release Date: March 31, 2017 - June 5, 2020 Network(s): Netflix Created by: Brian Yorkey Distributed by: July Moon Productions Kicked to the Curb Productions That Kid Ed Productions Anonymous Content Paramount Television Studios Starring: Dylan Minnette Katherine Langford Christian Navarro Alisha Boe Brandon Flynn Justin Prentice Miles Heizer Ross Butler Devin Druid Amy Hargreaves Derek Luke Kate Walsh Brian d'Arcy James Grace Saif Brenda Strong Timothy Granaderos Mark Pellegrino Tyler Barnhardnt Jan Luis Castellanos Deaken Bluman Gary Sinise Seasons: 4 Episodes: 49

13 Reasons Why is an American teen drama television series developed for Netflix by Brian Yorkey, based on the 2007 novel Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher. The series revolves around high school student Clay Jensen and the aftermath of the suicide of fellow student Hannah Baker. Before her death, she leaves behind a box of cassette tapes in which she details the reasons why she chose to end her life as well as the people she believes are responsible for her death.

13+ Reasons Why It Sucks

Overall

1. The show takes itself too seriously; it is constantly trying to be a serious show dealing with tough topics, but often does them terribly and also often lacks the serious theme to be this because it is ultimately just another teen drama with tough subjects thrown into the plot without being properly addressed.
2. The show is not really about anything in particular since the first season contains the entire plot of Thirteen Reasons Why, the novel the show is based on, and thus the second, third, and fourth seasons are unrelated to the source material and are rather unnecessary. By the third season, the show has almost no relation to Hannah Baker or suicide in general, thus making the title pointless. The show not being about a particular issue might not be an issue if it was not intended to be based on the novel and, in general, was not advertised to be a show about suicide and what causes it as opposed to anything else, but instead, it is a show called 13 Reasons Why with 49 episodes, the second half of which are barely even related to those 13 reasons.
3. The show is also often unrealistic. Particularly in the second, third, and fourth seasons, the show is ridiculously violent for a show about a high school. The unbelievable amount of gun violence and gun usage, beatings, and even rape are good examples of unrealistic violence. Police chases are also unrealistically common in the show.
4. Several unlikable and/or poorly-written characters:
   1. Hannah Baker, the character who commits suicide, is an extremely unlikable character, to the point where the viewer has no reason to even feel for her. She is known to be selfish, entitled, and demeaning. She abuses Clay, the main protagonist, constantly pushes him away, and does not even apologize. To add insult to injury, Clay did nothing wrong. Note that while her book counterpart is not perfect in any way, she is still likable and sympathetic for being an innocent girl who got abused by many people. Worse still, in this series, her book counterpart's flaws are exaggerated to the point of being completely obvious and taking away her likable traits.
      • All she wanted to do was to make the people who caused her to commit suicide feel bad by including their names on the tapes.
   2. Clay Jenson, while not outright unlikable, is rather idiotic and overly trusting at times, as he has done things such as confronting Tyler when he is about to shoot up the school as opposed to calling the police.
   3. Skye Miller is a poorly written character. She is Clay's bipolar ex-girlfriend, and this ends up being her entire character.
   4. Ani is an annoying know-it-all; if she can read the characters' minds or is God herself. She makes all of the characters look like they are nothing but supporting characters and that she is the main protagonist of the series, thus making her a complete Mary Sue. Anyone could easily remove her from the series, and it would not affect the plot even the slightest. She was never around for the first two seasons and yet acts like she knows everything and everyone. She also had sex with Bryce despite knowing he was a rapist and raped Jessica.
   5. Bryce Walker is unlikable for fairly obvious reasons, having raped Jessica and Hannah, repeatedly denying said accusations, breaking Zack's leg, murdering someone, being partially responsible for Hannah's suicide, and in general being a horrible person. Despite this, as an antagonist, he does work fairly well in the first two seasons. However, in the third season, they try to redeem him in spite of everything he has done and try to claim that the world will not let him change despite him continuing to do horrible things, such as threatening a young child.
   6. Monty has a similar problem to Bryce. He has done horrible things, such as raping Tyler with a mop, and yet the show tries to redeem him in the third season with a similar "sad backstory" trope.
   7. Nora Walker, the mother of Bryce, is somewhat unlikable due to her hatred of her own son. Yes, Bryce has done horrible things, but she, as the mother, should take more responsibility for this. By no means are his actions completely her fault, but she should still, like a mother, have some level of hope and encouragement for her own son.
   8. There are also other unlikable characters, such as Marcus, Seth, and Coach Rick.[clarification needed]
5. Very graphic, disturbing, and even triggering scenes that wouldn't look out of place in an exploitation movie, so much so that Netflix had to issue trigger warnings before the start of some episodes. Here are some examples:
   1. The suicide scene is incredibly graphic and problematic. See S1#4.3 for more information.
   2. The infamous bathroom rape scene in season 2, in which a character gets sexually assaulted with a mop.
6. The three seasons after the first were very unnecessary since the show was originally based on one book only.
   • Because of these other seasons, the show has no direct plot to it anymore and the title has become pointless and therefore misleading.
7. The introduction and the theme song are rather uplifting for a show that is supposed to be about such dark topics.

Season 1

1. The season poorly depicts suicide for various reasons:
   1. It fails to understand why suicide happens. It implies that suicide is caused simply by bad experiences when in reality, those who commit suicide often suffer from symptoms such as depression and other mental illnesses. As a result, the show makes it seem like suicide is a rational decision as opposed to an action committed by a person with mental issues.
      • It is worth noting that Hannah is implied to have depression, however, the show still clearly implies that Hannah's experiences are the true cause of her suicide.
   2. The season fails to note the finality of suicide by having the suicidal character continue to be present throughout the show through flashbacks and the tapes. This means that the impact of her death is largely lost, and fails to note that those who die by suicide do not get to experience the aftermath of their death.
   3. The season depicts Hannah's suicide as an effective revenge plot that almost exclusively results in justice and good outcomes. Not only is this unrealistic, it is a bad message since it primarily shows the positives of suicide and thus can potentially encourage suicide.
   4. The season blames other people for Hannah's suicide. Again, this is ignorant of mental issues causing suicide, and is also in general ignorant of the fact that she was still the one who killed herself. Furthermore, the actual "reason why" people commit suicide in real life is usually because the suicidal person did not get treatment for their mental disorders.
   5. The season suggests that suicide can simply be prevented by kindness. This is again ignorant of the mental aspects of suicide, as suicide cannot simply be saved by kindness, but by support and encouragement to seek help, generally professional help.
   6. The season depicts various actions committed against Hannah by the people on the tapes as significantly and equally contributing to her suicide. This is despite the fact that these actions are very obviously not equivalent, with Bryce having a tape due to him committing the horrendous crime of raping Hannah while Ryan has a tape for publishing a private poem written by her against her wishes, and Zach has a tape empties her compliment jar and seemingly ignoring and scrunching up a note by her explaining why she needs the compliments, the latter of which Zach is revealed to have not even done. Hannah even admits that Clay does not deserve a tape and is not on the list and is only included as an important part of the story; however, he still feels guilt for his actions.
2. The season practically encourages suicide due to its issues:
   1. As said in #1.3, suicide is presented as an effective revenge plot and as something that results in justice.
   2. The season does not really directly discourage suicide, and as mentioned in #1.4, blames others for suicide, and as such if anything only presents suicide as something bad for those "responsible" for their suicide instead of something bad for the person who commits suicide in question.
   3. The depiction of how Hannah kills herself is graphic, raw, and very messy. It is shown in fantastic detail. The blood gushing, which way to cut, how much water in the bathtub – all presented as what is a "how to" video on suicide to be followed.
      • Netflix responded to criticism in 2019 by cutting the suicide scene from the first season, but it was too little, too late: the show had already done the damage. What's even worse is that the aforementioned suicide scene is still intact.
   4. The season even increased suicide rates due to its poor depiction of suicide and its failure to properly discourage it.
3. The adults in the season, when it comes to seeking help from them regarding suicidal thoughts, are either ignored or poorly depicted:
   1. While they are said to be focused on economic issues, Hannah's parents are never shown or properly implied to be ignorant or useless regarding helping Hannah, and yet the show ignores them when it comes to Hannah seeking help.
   2. Mr. Porter is a poor depiction of school counselors and mental health professionals. He is depicted as ignorant and useless, which gives audiences the false impression that school counselors and mental health professionals are like this and should not be used to seek help. This is both false and a bad message to teenagers struggling.
4. Hannah makes no attempt to deal with the situations she faces, nor does she try to give them comeuppance any other way. Although she does eventually talk to Mr. Porter at the end of the season after being raped (which ends badly), she still let it get this bad and has also practically made her decision when talking to Mr. Porter. The only comeuppance anyone gets is her committing suicide.
   • It is worth mentioning that this would not be such a problem if she were a particularly shy character who would be in this kind of situation, but she is quite open for much of the season, and thus this does not fit with her character.
5. The season supports the idea that no one can be trusted. Throughout the first season, Hannah is betrayed by everyone close to her, sending the message that the world is a cruel place with terrible people who will always betray you. This is, again, false and a bad message.

Season 2

1. The acting is unenthusiastic, and the actors seem tired and uninterested.
2. The tape structure in season 1, the introduction of the show, which involves a tape appearing with the episode number to indicate what tape and episode it is, is replaced with the polaroid structure, which involves a polaroid with the episode number appearing in the introduction. This structure feels forced and also does not work since Clay does not get a Polaroid every episode.
3. Clay's visions of Hannah are ridiculous and supernatural compared to the rest of the show. It could be okay if Clay's visions were said or implied to be his imagination or Clay was said or implied to have schizophrenia, but the show does not make this clear; if anything, it makes it clear that it does not want it to be taken this way.
4. The music choices are often questionable:
   1. Many uplifting pop songs are played after dark moments.
   2. There is a cringe moment in the show where Clay is thinking about Hannah while trying to have sex with his girlfriend, and "Somebody Else" by the 1975 plays while this is happening.
5. There are way too many sex scenes in the season, which is also nonsensical for the show's serious tone.
6. Many of the character arcs are bad:
   1. Alex's arc is not very good. He is recovering from his suicide, and he is hypocritically told by other characters that him committing suicide is selfish, despite the fact that many of them are defending Hannah, another suicidal character's status as a victim.
      • There is a scene part of Alex's arc where Alex is in a fight with Zach and randomly gets an erection. This scene is supposed to be somewhat humorous but is also supposed to be an emotional part of a recovery, and overall it is hard to take seriously.
   2. Tyler's arc is terrible:
      1. Tyler, who is hated for what he did to Hannah, befriends an edgy "punk" student named Cyrus, whose character is generic and poorly developed.
      2. They prank Ryan as well as various other students who they feel did not do Hannah justice on their testimony, despite the fact that Ryan was fairly reasonable in his testimony.
      3. He crushes on Cyrus' sister Mackenzie and goes on a date with her. He ends up getting too excited and ejaculates in his pants. Because of this, Tyler gets embarrassed and bails on Mackenzie. He afterward tries to impress other punk students by claiming that he bailed on Mackenzie because she was boring. Tyler and Cyrus have a falling out, and so Tyler posts images of him and Tyler vandalizing the school, and he is revealed to have set the baseball field on fire. This already ridiculous series of events continues into the final episode.
7. There are various new flashbacks that show events that were not mentioned on the tapes. While it is true that it makes sense that Hannah may accidentally, or for complicated reasons, leave things out in the tapes, the things left out in the tapes are rather major. Here are some examples of significant information left out on the tapes:
   1. Hannah had an entire relationship with Zach. There is an attempt by the show to justify this, suggesting that Hannah wanted to keep it between them, but the entire point of the tapes were to expose everyone and show who they truly are.
   2. Hannah had a good friendship with Bryce.
   3. Hannah's mother is portrayed as abusive and discouraging in this season despite initially being caring. She is even said to be one of the reasons why Hannah ends her life. This makes it even more questionable as to why she did not mention this in the tapes.
   4. Hannah's father had an affair, and Hannah found out about it, but never told her mother. This is also said to be another reason why she ends her life, and yet it is also unjustifiably not mentioned in the tapes.
8. The box of Polaroids could have been used as evidence, and if they had used it, the show could have ended there, but of course, it is stolen and destroyed because clearly that wouldn't be enough for 13 episodes.
9. Speaking of above, the entire season is forcibly stretched out into 13 episodes.
10. In "Smile, Bitches!", a new character, Sarah, is introduced as a girl from another school who was bullied by Hannah and her friends and thus has a testimony in court. Despite this, she lacks relevance, as she is seemingly just used to undermine Hannah's portrayal as a victim for no good reason and is not actually related to whether or not the school failed to protect Hannah from the things that happened to her. This is another part of the story used to stretch the season out into 13 episodes.
11. In "Bryce and Chloe," Clay goes to Bryce's house to shoot him while being mentally tormented by his visions of Hannah before then putting the gun towards his head. After this serious moment is resolved, Clay is just taken home with no consequences or questions about his mentality.
12. At the end of the season, the court rules in favour of the school and argues that they did not fail to protect Hannah. The season wants the viewer to think of this conclusion as unjust, and yet, it fails to convince them for various reasons:
    1. The students do have examples of the negative school environment, and yet, they rarely mention or give examples of it in court, which makes it a lot harder to present evidence of the school's failure to protect students from these dangerous situations.
    2. The season constantly portrays the school as bad, but it does not realize the fact that being "bad" and "evil" is not an argument for someone to be sued or prosecuted.
    3. The season does not make it clear, and more importantly, there is no evidence that the school has knowledge of the social and behavioral issues occurring, especially when most of them happen in secret and often outside of school.
13. The final episode, "Bye," is terrible for various reasons:
    1. It is one hour and 10 minutes long for no good reason.
    2. The closure of the Hannah visions arc ends with the Hannah "ghost" leaving at Hannah's funeral, as if that is a reasonable conclusion to this poorly-written arc.
    3. Tyler is sexually assaulted with a mop by Monty. Not only is this scene unnecessarily graphic as mentioned in O#4, but it also only exists and is so graphic that the viewer can feel sympathy for Tyler when he attempts to shoot up the school.
    4. At the end of the season, The "I'm pregnant" cliche is used, as Chloe is revealed to be pregnant with Bryce's child.
    5. At the end of the episode, Tyler attempts to commit a school shooting at the school dance. When the students are notified, they plan to call the police, but Clay objects because "his life will be over" if they do, and instead confronts him when he appears. Tyler does agree not to commit the shooting, but Clay ends up taking responsibility for what Tyler did out of sympathy for no good reason.
       • Keep in mind that this is still part of a sequence of events that started with Tyler ejaculating in his pants on a date. Tyler's ejaculation in his pants ended up causing a sequence of events that led to him attempting to shoot up the school. If he had not done this or had not made such a big deal out of it, none of this would have happened.

Season 3

1. The season is about the murder of Bryce Walker, the show's main antagonist, and is an attempt at redeeming him despite all the horrible things he has done. This already flawed idea is executed terribly, especially due to Bryce continuing to do bad things throughout the season, as mentioned in O#1.5.
2. The third season introduces a new character/narrator named Ani, who was previously irrelevant to the story and is unnecessary. She is also unlikable as mentioned above.
3. It also switches genres from drama to mystery with the death of Bryce Walker and the characters trying to find out who killed him, and it doesn't even talk about suicide at all. Not even Hannah is mentioned.
4. As a result of Tyler's ridiculous actions at the end of the previous season, the characters help cover for him by dumping the bag of guns into the sea and covering up everything he has done. Instead of giving him the mental help he needs, they simply make sure he is never given the chance to kill anyone again. Tyler is redeemed, and thus, the show continues to promote the idea that confronting a shooter is a good idea.
5. Alex is revealed to be the person who really murdered Bryce, and yet, the main characters (including Ani) agree to frame Monty for Bryce's murder. This means that Alex gets away with murder and the show expects us to be okay with it.
   • To make matters worse, Monty is killed in his jail cell not long after being imprisoned. This means that the main characters are not only responsible for framing him and ruining his life but also for ending his life, and yet they feel very little sympathy. Yes, Monty was, like Bryce, an unlikable character, but given that they attempted to redeem Bryce after everything and tried to make you feel sympathy for him, it is not really fair for them to treat Monty so harshly when he did less horrible things and arguably to a lesser extent.
     • It is worth mentioning that they do attempt to portray Monty as a more grey and complicated character with a sad backstory as well, but the impact of this is far from significant.

Season 4

1. This season turns the show into a psychological thriller of sorts, showing another unfaithful genre change.
2. The plot of the season mainly involves the aftermath of the framing of Monty and the fears that someone could challenge Monty's prosecution. It involves a mystery in which an unknown character knows the truth about who killed Bryce and is intentionally tormenting Clay by leaving the Bryce tapes playing in his apartment, pestering him online, spray painting on school walls about how Monty was framed, breaking into Clay's locker, and sending mass emails from his account. After eight episodes of this, it is revealed that Clay himself did it, he is dealing with an identity disorder that causes him to do things because of his inner torment and then not remember doing it afterward. This is a lazy and unrealistic conclusion to this mystery.
3. Similar to the second season, there are unrealistic visions of deceased characters that are often described as "ghosts" due to their poor depiction. There are now more ghosts and characters besides Clay start to have these visions.
4. In one scene, when Clay is looking around campus, he follows a drunk girl to her bed. A vision of Bryce then appears and encourages Clay to "have his way with her." It is not clear what this scene was trying to show, and a presumption would be that it is trying to say that everyone is a creep like Bruce deep inside (which is not true in any way).
5. Justin is randomly revealed to have AIDS towards the end of the season, which is caused by his behaviors in the second season, apparently involving him having sex with men for money. He ends up dying from AIDS in the final episode, and this is painted as a bittersweet ending for some reason.
6. Jessica's arc is terrible, as it involves her being in another love triangle, this time with Justin and a new character named Diego. She purposely manipulates Justin to make him jealous in a way that makes her come off as incredibly unlikable.
7. Alex is dealing with the guilt of murdering Bryce in the previous season, and he even wants to confess at points, but his father, a police officer who is abusing his power to protect his son, insists that he should stay silent. He eventually feels better about himself and stops feeling guilty. In conclusion, this show seems to support the idea that murdering bad people and framing the murder on another bad person is okay.
8. Winston is Monty's boyfriend who returns after Monty's death and knows that there is more to the story than what has been said. However, after he finds out the truth, he does not care anymore, which is just ridiculous.
9. Zach is flanderized in this season, as he becomes an unstable person who ends up becoming violent and intends to assault a prostitute he hired on prom night.
10. The terrible episode "Thursday," which involves a school lockdown due to a school shooting which is later revealed to be a drill. The episode is an unrealistic and overdramatic depiction of these drills, as well as in general, an episode filled with unrealistic scenes, including one where Clay grabs a police officer's gun and starts screaming before being knocked out and taken to a mental hospital.
11. The grand finale, "Graduation," was just terrible:
    1. It starts with Justin randomly dying of AIDS, as mentioned above.
    2. After Justin is revealed to have AIDS, Clay has an emotional breakdown, and he then rushes to the police station, yelling that he has a gun, as a suicide by cop attempt. Due to the people at the police station knowing him, however, he is simply sent home with no consequences.
    3. After all of this drama, the rest of the episode ends happily and it ends up being a generic graduation episode, and all of the characters (except for Justin) get what they want despite their actions. The show ending on a positive note is not only ignorant of the events at the start of the episode but is also ignoring the fact that this show is meant to look at tough issues in society, and this ending is not faithful to the initial dark tone of the novel and the first season.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The soundtrack is surprisingly good, with several good songs in it:
   1. "Bored" by Billie Eilish
   2. "Lovely" by Billie Eilish and Khalid
   3. "Back to You" by Selena Gomez
   4. "Mess Is Mine" by Vance Joy
2. Surprisingly good visuals in all seasons, even if the supernatural visions for Clay are plain ridiculous and out of place.
3. Clay, Zach, Jessica, Mr. Porter, and Hannah's parents are likable characters.[clarification needed]
   • Additionally, Winston Williams (who debuted in season 3) is also a likable character.
4. The book itself, the series is based on, is solid due to the most accurate and serious portrayal of suicide and how Hannah Baker's hardships have caused her to commit suicide. If only the series had taken the book's message of suicide seriously, it would have been a good one.
5. Good acting from many of the actors and actresses.

Reception

Overall

13 Reasons Why was initially well-received by critics, but the reception became more negative as the show went on, and audience reception was generally mixed-to-negative even in season one. Overall, the show has a critic review of 35% and an audience review of 56% on Rotten Tomatoes. On Metacritic, the show has a metascore of 60 out of 100, indicating "mixed or average reviews," while having a user score of 6.5/10, meaning "generally favourable reviews." The show has a 7.5/10 on IMDb.

Audiences, on the other hand, typically saw the show as unrealistic, both in its poor depiction of mental illness and in its unrealistic portrayal of high school events. Cynicide, in particular, saw the show (particularly its second, third, and fourth season) as a poor depiction of American high schools.

Season 1

The first season of 13 Reasons Why received an overall mixed-to-positive reception. It received positive reviews from critics and audiences alike, who praised the acting, directing, story, visuals, themes, improvements upon its source material, and mature approach to the dark and adult subject matter. It is the highest-rated season of the show and is often considered the only good season. On Rotten Tomatoes, the first season has a "certified fresh" critic rating of 77%. The site's critics' consensus states "13 Reasons Why complements its bestselling source material with a gripping look at adolescent grief whose narrative maturity belies its YA milieu." On Metacritic, the season received a metascore of 76 out of 100, both indicating "generally favorable reviews."

Despite the positive reception, the show was a topic of concern among mental health professionals and teenagers who commit suicide or get suicidal thoughts. In fact, the show was also accused of "glorifying suicide" as the suicide rates in the United States increased the following month, and people began associating the release of the season with the increase in suicide rates.

The audience reception was more mixed. The show received an audience rating of 80% on Rotten Tomatoes, while on Metacritic, the show received a user score of 7.6/10, indicating "generally favourable reviews.". Season 1 episodes received generally favourable reviews on IMDb, with the last three episodes of the season having ratings of 9 or higher, and the season 1 finale, "Tape 7, Side A," was the top-rated episode of the entire series at 9.2/10. However, various YouTube reviewers criticised the show. YouTube channel TopTenz called the season, and the show as a whole, "bad for society" and gave several reasons for why this is, mainly involving its poor depiction of suicide and the poor depiction of characters and their responsibilities. Several other YouTubers, such as the Right Opinion, Pengwins, Kati Morton, Alex Meyers, and JacylnGlenn similarly criticised the season for its poor depiction of suicide and mental illness as well as its failure to show the consequences of suicide.

Following the success of its first season, the show was renewed for a second season.

Season 2

The second season, however, had an overall mixed-to-negative reception. It received negative reviews from critics, who praised the acting but criticized the poor execution of its topics and the lack of necessity of the season. On Rotten Tomatoes, the season has a critic rating of 28%. The site's critics' consensus states "By deviating from its source material, 13 Reasons Why can better explore its tenderly crafted characters; unfortunately, in the process, it loses track of what made the show so gripping in the first place." On Metacritic, the season received a metascore of 49 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews."

The audience reception was mixed-to-negative. The season received an audience rating of 52% on Rotten Tomatoes. On Metacritic, it received a user rating of 5.3/10, indicating "mixed or average reviews." However, on IMDb, Season 2 episodes received generally positive reviews. Regardless, YouTube reviewers were much more critical. The Right Opinion criticised it for its contradiction of the first season, its unrealism, and its failure to convince him that the court ruling as a whole was unjustified. Taylor J. Williams criticised the acting, the plot, the characters, and the ending. I Hate Everything criticised the acting, the characters, the dialogue, the presentation, the acting, the social commentary, the depiction of mental illness, the use of filler, and its overly depressing subject matter with little-to-no happy element to it.

Season 3

The third season received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics and audiences, who criticized the lack of necessity and talk about suicide and poor execution of its topics, including the rape of Tyler in the final episode of the previous season, the new character of Ani, the sympathetic redemption of Bryce, and genre-changing from drama to mystery, and the conclusion. However, some of its technical aspects and acting were still praised.

The show received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the season received a critic rating of 11%. The site's critics' consensus states "13 Reasons Why attempts to break away from its first two seasons only to become a melodramatic mess of a murder mystery." On Metacritic, the season received a metascore of 23 out of 100 based on 4 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews."

Audience reception was mixed-to-negative. It received an audience rating of 42% on Rotten Tomatoes. On Metacritic, it received a user score of 4.2/10. On IMDb, Season 3 episodes received mixed-to-positive reviews. I Hate Everything criticised the season for its unlikable characters, its failure to redeem Bryce properly, and its continued poor execution of topics and unrealism. Alex Meyers criticised the season for its plot and some of its characters (including Ani).

Season 4

The fourth and final season received mixed-to-negative reviews overall, with criticism aimed at the poor execution of its topics, the writing, time jumps, and story, while the ending had a divided reception. However, some people considered it a slight improvement over the previous season and praised the acting, the brief return of Hannah Baker, and the technical aspects. On Rotten Tomatoes, the final season scores a critic rating of 25%. The site's critical consensus reads "13 Reasons Why closes with a chaotic final chapter that betrays what little dignity remained in the tragic lives of its central teens."

Audience reception was mixed-to-negative. It received a 51% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. On Metacritic, the season received a user score of 4.6/10, indicating "mixed or average reviews." On IMDb, Season 4 episodes received generally mixed reviews. "Senior Camping Trip," the fourth episode of the season, is the lowest-rated episode of the series at 5.1/10. YouTube reviewers were much more critical. I Hate Everything criticised the show's characters, unsatisfying ending, ridiculous plots, and continued poor depiction of serious subjects. Alex Meyers similarly criticised the plots and the unsatisfying ending, as well as the general poor message of the show.

Trivia

• The show spawned the "Welcome to your tape" meme.
• There is a BTS documentary series titled Beyond the Reasons. The first, second, and third seasons of the show were released respectively along with the show's first, second, and third seasons. The series shows how the creators dealt with scenes dealing with suicide and sexual assault.
• The character of Ani was the most hated character in the show. The character received so much backlash that Grace Saif, the actress who portrayed her, was forced to quit social media.

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