Breaking Down the '13 Reasons Why' Ending
Warning: Spoilers for 13 Reasons Why, season 2 follow.
When the second season of 13 Reasons Why was confirmed last year, some wondered, well-why? The first thirteen episodes of the Netflix drama-based on a book by Jay Asher-told a smart, dark, and challenging story that felt completely self-contained, with protagonist Hannah Baker’s suicide tapes providing a clear structure that seemed to leave little room for continuation. Season 2, which was released on May 18, did work, exploring several characters’ experiences of trauma and recovery while adding shades of grey to Hannah’s story. But its finale faltered, squandering a lot of dramatic build for the sake of a cliffhanger.
"Bye" is an episode of two halves, bringing Hannah’s (Katherine Langford) story to a bittersweet and cathartic endpoint, while simultaneously introducing a new potential tragedy through tormented school outcast Tyler Down (Devin Druid), who finally attempts the long-threatened school shooting that’s been looming over the show since his arsenal of weapons was introduced last season. These storylines sat uneasily beside each other and finally dovetailed into a muddled final twenty minutes at Liberty High's Spring Fling.
A quick summary of events leading up to the dance: Bryce is sentenced to just three months’ probation for raping Jessica (Alisha Boe), a bleak but realistic outcome for a privileged white athlete from a powerful family. Meanwhile, Justin (Brandon Flynn) gets six months for his role as an accessory, which is ludicrous but, as he notes, not surprising. In more positive news, the Jensens have decided to adopt Justin, to avoid his becoming a ward of the state since his mom is still AWOL.
Things aren’t perfect, but they’re getting better, and despite the outcome Jessica says she feels stronger after testifying against Bryce (Justin Prentice). A belated funeral and wake are held for Hannah, and Clay (Dylan Minnette) gives an emotional eulogy that finally seems to exorcise Ghost Hannah from his life. (When season 3 inevitably happens, will the writers find another way to keep Katherine Langford around, though?) With the trial now wrapped up and her divorce finalized, Mrs Baker is moving to New York in honor of Hannah's dream; before she goes, she gives Clay a heartbreaking written list of Hannah's "reasons why not." She had only come up with 11, but Clay was two of them. In one of many lines that feels like a direct response to the controversy around season 1, Mrs Baker reminds him: "There are always more reasons why not."
But through all of this, a sense of dread is building. Having been sent to a behavorial rehabilitation program for vandalizing the baseball field, Tyler returns to school seemingly reformed, but his new calm mindset doesn't last. He's accosted in the school bathroom by Monty and a handful of other nameless jocks, who are furious with Tyler for getting their season cancelled, and hold him down while Monty assaults him with the handle of a mop. It’s a horrifying, graphic, and arguably misjudged scene which has already drawn intensely mixed responses; male sexual assault is so rarely depicted, in this show and on television more generally, that using it as a plot device to spur the victim into a shooting spree is really troubling.
So Tyler is pushed over the edge he’s been on for months; while everybody else is bonding and dancing and healing at the Spring Fling, he’s loading up his assault rifle. There’s a deliberately stark contrast drawn between him, stewing alone in his pain and trauma, and the other kids, who are helping each other through theirs: When Lord Huron’s "The Night We Met" starts playing at the dance, Clay sinks into a spontaneous state of catatonic depression and Tony races over to hug him, followed by the entire teenage gang.
At the dance itself, Jessica’s itinerary is mind-bogglingly packed: In the space of what appears to be about an hour, she shares an adorable dance and kiss with Alex (Miles Heizer), who is now officially her boyfriend. She takes part in the emotional group embrace with Clay. She also abruptly rekindles her relationship with Justin and has sex with him in the locker room, unaware that he’s still on heroin. And she goes to the bathroom, only to be confronted by Chloe (Anne Winters), who tells her that she’s pregnant with Bryce’s baby.
Mackenzie gets a text from Tyler, giving her a heads-up that he’s about to carry out a mass shooting, and she alerts everybody. Zach wants to call the cops, but Clay insists that Tyler’s life will be over if they do that, and tells everybody to barricade themselves inside while he goes to find Tony (Christian Navarro). It’s deeply unclear at this point what Clay’s plan is, but he intercepts Tyler outside the school and begs him not to go through with the shooting. “I don’t want you to die,” he tells him, pointing out that there’s only one way this scenario ends for Tyler. Finally, he succeeds in talking Tyler down, and takes the gun from him just as Tony rolls up in his car. The plan becomes clear-Tony, as good a friend as ever, is supposed to be Tyler's getaway car. He whisks Tyler away moments before the cops arrive. Justin eloquently declares: “This is fucked up, right?”
It's a strange conclusion-an anticlimactic consequence of the show writing itself into a corner with Tyler's guns in the first season. But, of course, it's hard to imagine any version of an onscreen school shooting that wouldn't feel grossly insensitive; even without such a scene, the show's L.A. premiere was cancelled in the wake of the shooting at Santa Fe High School in Texas. Season 1 was criticized for presenting suicide as Hannah's only option, and it would have been disastrous for season 2 to present gun violence as Tyler's; Hannah made a horrifyingly sad decision, and Tyler was released from doing the same at the last moment. While Clay and Tony intercepting his destruction wasn't the most elegant or dramatically effective ending, it was a hopeful one, and that, at least, feels important.
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