In episode 1 the lines are serviceable but the actors say them in a really plastic way. The characters social IQ also seems to change from scene to scene, with Justin being the worst offender. Moving away from the pilot, the dialogue tries to be clever across the entire season but isn’t and also rhymes during serious moments. There are also numerous scenes that are overwritten. In terms of story I think it’s pretty repetitive cause the narrative structure itself makes it repetitive.
We are listening to tapes of people who wronged the dead girl, Hannah so we know at some point something is gonna go wrong and they won’t be friends anymore. One might say “it’s about the journey, not the destination” but the writing isn’t good enough for me to enjoy the journey knowing the endpoint. And because of the way it’s told, the program spoils itself multiple times. We see the picture of Hannah and Courtney kissing beforehand so the entire lead up is boring and I was just waiting for them to kiss so we can move on. Jeff’s death is spoiled as well, since I and I think everyone else knew he had died before Clay found him.
Jeff was also one of the only purely likable characters on the show and should’ve got way more screen time. At one point we get shots of Justin and Jesse kissing to make it seem like Justin may have raped her while she was drunk. Then the big reveal is…Justin only stepped out of the way to allow her to be raped. He does come to his senses and try to stop Byrce but even after hearing his explanation I still think him letting Bryce in there is insanely cruel. It’d be much more understandable if Justin got distracted while drunk then left her alone in there and Byrce snuck in.
One thing I will give the show credit for is being the only thing besides Synedoche New York to make me feel truly hopeless. But it’s supposed to be an anti-suicide show so that’s probably actually a bad thing. But but I do see how people like this season, however I do not cause of the writing and most of the characters.
I appreciate the show’s attempt to make complicated characters but they all need more likability pumped in. And while I feel bad for Hannah, and I like her and Clay’s interactions, I don’t like Hannah herself. I can understand her attitude on the tapes but she wasn’t exactly always fun to be around before the bad shit happened. Clay was trying to be supportive here so her shitting on him and men in general Is pretty annoying. And her leaving Clay a tape to say plot twist you were a good thing in my life but you didn’t chase after me after I told you to leave so now I’m dead is super fucked up.
And of course Clay blames himself for her being impossible. Not only does he have to hear about her excursions with other dudes but he spends most of the season in a state of overwhelming anxiety wondering what he’d done when…he didn’t do anything. At the critical moment he did exactly what he should’ve done. In fact Clay stayed and tried to talk to her way longer than I would’ve. She does this “come chase me” shit again with therapist man and you can’t push people away and expect them to chase you that’s extremely unhealthy.
And during that same scene she seems more concerned with recording the tape then actually getting help. The guidance counselor, Mr. Porter, also talks to her in a very coarse and almost accusatory way and I get that they are trying to prove a point about it being tough for people to come forward about sex stuff. But he acts differently in that conversation than he acted all season and you shouldn’t have to make a character act out of character to prove a point.
If he’s going to be that guy, then have him be that rude coarse guy all season. The show also stretches out Clay and Hannah’s friends/more than friends relationship to the point where it’s really annoying. It also succeeds in spoiling itself once again by showing us bits and pieces of Clay and Hannah kissing, removing all the tension of will they won’t they, we know they will. At the end of the season, Alex’s suicide attempt is treated like a bad day at school. We get the news that he shot himself, then it cuts to Clay who seemingly moved on five seconds after passing on the tapes, and then the season abruptly ends with no sense of finality to it like they ran out of money or something.
A few footnotes before we move on, this zoom is bizarre. It’s like when I zoom in on shit to be whimsical but it’s the actual show and it reminds me of Stuckmann’s short film. I get what they are going for, Byrce raped Jessica and now they are in the same vehicle tense oh oh but the zoom makes it unintentionally funny.
In episode 1 the lines are serviceable but the actors say them in a really plastic way. The characters social IQ also seems to change from scene to scene, with Justin being the worst offender. Moving away from the pilot, the dialogue tries to be clever across the entire season but isn’t and also rhymes during serious moments. There are also numerous scenes that are overwritten. In terms of story I think it’s pretty repetitive cause the narrative structure itself makes it repetitive.
We are listening to tapes of people who wronged the dead girl, Hannah so we know at some point something is gonna go wrong and they won’t be friends anymore. One might say “it’s about the journey, not the destination” but the writing isn’t good enough for me to enjoy the journey knowing the endpoint. And because of the way it’s told, the program spoils itself multiple times. We see the picture of Hannah and Courtney kissing beforehand so the entire lead up is boring and I was just waiting for them to kiss so we can move on. Jeff’s death is spoiled as well, since I and I think everyone else knew he had died before Clay found him.
Jeff was also one of the only purely likable characters on the show and should’ve got way more screen time. At one point we get shots of Justin and Jesse kissing to make it seem like Justin may have raped her while she was drunk. Then the big reveal is…Justin only stepped out of the way to allow her to be raped. He does come to his senses and try to stop Byrce but even after hearing his explanation I still think him letting Bryce in there is insanely cruel. It’d be much more understandable if Justin got distracted while drunk then left her alone in there and Byrce snuck in.
One thing I will give the show credit for is being the only thing besides Synedoche New York to make me feel truly hopeless. But it’s supposed to be an anti-suicide show so that’s probably actually a bad thing. But but I do see how people like this season, however I do not cause of the writing and most of the characters.
I appreciate the show’s attempt to make complicated characters but they all need more likability pumped in. And while I feel bad for Hannah, and I like her and Clay’s interactions, I don’t like Hannah herself. I can understand her attitude on the tapes but she wasn’t exactly always fun to be around before the bad shit happened. Clay was trying to be supportive here so her shitting on him and men in general Is pretty annoying. And her leaving Clay a tape to say plot twist you were a good thing in my life but you didn’t chase after me after I told you to leave so now I’m dead is super fucked up.
And of course Clay blames himself for her being impossible. Not only does he have to hear about her excursions with other dudes but he spends most of the season in a state of overwhelming anxiety wondering what he’d done when…he didn’t do anything. At the critical moment he did exactly what he should’ve done. In fact Clay stayed and tried to talk to her way longer than I would’ve. She does this “come chase me” shit again with therapist man and you can’t push people away and expect them to chase you that’s extremely unhealthy.
And during that same scene she seems more concerned with recording the tape then actually getting help. The guidance counselor, Mr. Porter, also talks to her in a very coarse and almost accusatory way and I get that they are trying to prove a point about it being tough for people to come forward about sex stuff. But he acts differently in that conversation than he acted all season and you shouldn’t have to make a character act out of character to prove a point.
If he’s going to be that guy, then have him be that rude coarse guy all season. The show also stretches out Clay and Hannah’s friends/more than friends relationship to the point where it’s really annoying. It also succeeds in spoiling itself once again by showing us bits and pieces of Clay and Hannah kissing, removing all the tension of will they won’t they, we know they will. At the end of the season, Alex’s suicide attempt is treated like a bad day at school. We get the news that he shot himself, then it cuts to Clay who seemingly moved on five seconds after passing on the tapes, and then the season abruptly ends with no sense of finality to it like they ran out of money or something.
A few footnotes before we move on, this zoom is bizarre. It’s like when I zoom in on shit to be whimsical but it’s the actual show and it reminds me of Stuckmann’s short film. I get what they are going for, Byrce raped Jessica and now they are in the same vehicle tense oh oh but the zoom makes it unintentionally funny.
I also gotta call shennanigans on the program here, for context they are discussing a hot list where Hanna won best ass. Girls at my school 100 percent made that list. I remember cause I got 4 tally marks out of 5 and this girl walked by the board and erased one cause she didn’t like me, I’m not mad.
Multiple characters mention Hannah being beautiful and it’s such a tragedy she passed, it makes me wonder what would happen if an ugly guy died, would the tapes just be thrown away? It’s real depressing to think about. Anyway, Let’s move on the next installment. Season 2 feels like unneeded DLC for season 1. The good moments from part 2 could’ve been easily rolled into part 1 and the trial could’ve taken place without all these new stories that make the tapes make little to no sense.
Zach having a tape that focuses on the note that happened before their relationship doesn’t make sense since she clearly forgave him for that. I’m cool with her keeping the relationship a secret but Zach should’ve just not had a tape. Justin having a tape despite the fact that he apologized to her repeatedly and they kept texting doesn’t make much sense either. There’s also some weird shit going on with Justin in general. He makes these comments like “Hey Alex, when people saw your hair, they said you were a loser but not me bro, I’m a good guy.” I think as a character, he’s the best testament to the bad writing cause they give him a tragic backstory, lots of regret, is trying to be better, and I still don’t like him.
Probably cause the show is overtly telling me over and over again that I should like him, which is a bummer Cause if I did like him, the rescue mission and him returning to school would be pretty badass moments. The season heavily foreshadows a school shooting but the actual confrontation lasts about 5 minutes and has no consequences. It would’ve been great if Clay would’ve talked to Tyler, Tyler was not going to do it, then Tony’s car coming up spooked him and he fired the gun.
In the real show, Clay stands there holding a machine gun with the police rapidly approaching and it made me want to yell at the tv. Speaking of Clay, he no longer feels like the main character in his own show, and the program sets up the straw man of Hannah’s a slut, then knocks it down. Hannah’s definitely not a slut but her having continuous sex with Zach does make her and Clay’s almost relationship seem less important in hindsight.
This season does contain my 2nd favorite piece of dialogue from the whole show, with Hannah accusing Alex of trying to have sex with his own girlfriend. This comes during a conversation where she is openly jealous of Alex and Jessica’s relationship even though she never made a move to try to get with Alex like she did with Justin. Alex responds appropriately telling Jessica that she’s jealous and then later says that he shouldn’t have said that but he was completely right, she was jealous and a little bit obsessive. I appreciate that the show acknowledges that Hannah wasn’t perfect and I’ve already said this once, but it’s really annoying to see people blame themselves for her being emotionally unstable cause she’s dead. And now I’d like to play you my favorite line from season 2. If you have to get a character to say something really stupid to get another character to react to it.
It’s still really stupid. This season also tells us that Hannah with tears in her eyes told Clay that she might wanna die And even coming off Molly I don’t think Clay would’ve let that go and I’m not sure why the series is trying to put more blame on him. Maybe they realized he did nothing wrong in season 1 and wanted to justify him feeling so guility, I don’t know. It should also be said that the overwhelming darkness is gone, so my favorite thing about the series no longer exists. But the scene where everyone dances with Clay does warm my cold heart, let’s discuss Season 3. I’m gonna start off by recapping the plot of the season.
Bryce Walker, cereal rapist, has been murdered and the gang has to find out who dun it. Jessica starts re-dating Justin cause he makes her feel safe. Clay’s new crush, Ani, who isn’t annoying at all, chooses Bryce over him, she’s also afraid of Clay at one point, then they start dating at the end of the season. Montogomery has sex with a man then beats him up cause he’s struggling with his sexuality, think we’ve all been there. They see each other again and the guy is initially afraid of him but then fucks him and defends him after the good guys frame him for murder.
They also take turns supervising an attempted school shooter. That’s not a made up plot, that’s all true, and I am once again suing Netflix. I understand people have toxic romantic and non romantic relationships but everything I listed is so insane that you can’t take it seriously. The program makes an honest attempt to humanize Byrce Walker, self-described serial rapist, while also trying to be a 2019 post me too show.
So you go from scenes where Byrce is being a fun teddy bear to show serial rapists are people too #NotAllRapists To scenes where Jessica is trying to ban male sports from the school because in her opinion, male sports = rape. And she’s doing this while dating a male sportsman who let her get raped. I love how these activist types never push for additional sex ed classes or reading materials about consent, it’s always the most extreme option like protesting a funeral.
Another thing I enjoy is this….I guess stand in for a feminist twitter user telling Jessica, a rape victim that she’s not handling her sexual assault the right way. She also yells at Tyler for disagreeing with her because apparently any level of disagreement means you’re not a real ally, even though Tyler got johnson’d in the bathroom. But she apologizes later and he gets a nice photo of her so it’s all good haha xd.
Despite Jessica’s own words “I don’t want to be just a sexual assault victim” that is her entire character at this point. As far as the success of the attempt to redeem Bryce, “if it’s against her will then that’s the thrill” Walker, it doesn’t work. When you’re doing a storyline that has never been done before you should stop at some point and ponder why it’s never been done before. And sometimes a person is just too far gone. Most of the time Bryce is still a cocky asshole with a few moments of vulnerability or clarity here or there but it’s nowhere near enough.
If he had simply cheated on a bunch of girls or been a shitty person then yeah the arc probably could’ve worked. He could probably even still be the reason Hannah killed herself and found some path of redemption. But he went out of his way to injure Zach this season and his final moments were spent talking about how he was gonna get him back.
I think a fitting end for Byrce would be he goes to Hillcrest thinking he’s gonna run shit. Then he gets there and everyone bullies him and the last we see of him is just a shot of him at a table alone cause that’s what he deserves, his three month jail sentence is completely fucked. The season 1 issue returns of characters being smart one second and dumb the next.
Justin casually uses the word transitively and Monty notices that Justin has shaving cream but uses an electric razor so he must be doing something bad, even though monty normally has a sub negative 1000 IQ. He has a pretty good post gay sex quote though. In season 4, Jessica cements herself as one of the most unlikable characters ever by telling a group of men what it is to be a man. She refuses to get patted down after setting off a metal detector and is still allowed in Then the principal praises her for being stunning and brave and apologizes to her. She openly admits to manipulating Diego, even though Diego is, like most of the characters, an unlikable asshole himself so I’m not that mad about it.
The season also does a mini-redo of the Byrce storyline and tells us that Monty was a good person deep down, he simply let his anger get the best of him when he molested someone in the bathroom. And I think Bojack addressed this talking point pretty well. They also re-do the school shooting thing and I’ve never been so blue balled in my life.
They had a tense situation with good music, characters thinking they were gonna die, a horrific atmosphere. Then it turns out it’s a drill and we’ve been pump faked yet again. If a school pulled this in real life there would be so much backlash and it would’ve been more realistic if there had been a shooting.
Clay’s reaction is exactly how I feel watching this shit. Winston manages to kill any sympathy I had for him by using what Zach told him when he was scared for his life to continue his quote unquote investigation. And I love how he drops the whole thing cause he and Alex dated for a week.
I mean Alex is cute but he’s not that cute. I do hate that he ended up with Charlie William Bartholomew Carnegie the 2nd since he has the personality of a wet towel. However, let’s go back to Zach.
My man had a decent relationship with Hannah. Star athlete. Helped Alex with his rehabilitation in more ways than one. Helped Clay bring down Byrce and get laid.
And and brought a hooker to a social engagement. Friendship ended with big papa Kavinsky, Zach is new Netflix best friend. The season starts off on an intriguing note with someone’s funeral but I lost all interest when I found out it was Justin…. If you haven’t watched the show you might think I’m joking but he actually dies from full blown Aids.
Then ghost Bryce appears to tell Jessica she might be POZitive as well. One of the big reveals of this season is that Clay has been disassociating but then he hangs out with his friends from earlier seasons….then apparently it’s fine. I didn’t realize how much I missed Ryan Shaver until he re-appeared but I think it’s mostly cause the characters that have been introduced since then have been so horrible. It really is a trip to look back at Season 1, which I still don’t think was very well made but it did have a whiff of magic to it or atleast some scenes that stuck with me. Then look at parts of seasons 3 and 4 and it makes me sad cause I feel like there was a lot of wasted potential.
I also wish the series would’ve tackled more issues like eating disorders and actually discouraged toxic relationships. Instead of going down the predictable men r bad mmmkay rabbit hole. As far as the internet’s relationship with mental health, I feel like most people just bring it up when they want to make excuses or try to act like their mistakes aren’t their fault And when someone does need help they don’t get it. Our leaders certainly don’t care and have said so on the record. If you want a better show that deals in mental health, you should watch the aforementioned Bojack Horseman.
I’mma go play Doom I think my next post will be a last of us 2 playthrough or a post on game grumps, I’m not really sure, but either way I’ll see you then, later.