Em's 13 Reasons Season 2 Deep Dive
It's finally here, 13 Reasons Why season 2!! If you’ve forgotten what happened in Season 1, check out our series.
Hannah left the tapes because she didn’t want it to happen again.
We're doing THIS series because we want you guys to know how to support each other in the face of the stuff Hannah went through.
Caught up? Awesome. Spoilers ahoy!
This season, the tapes are old news - Hannah’s mum is going ahead with her plans to sue the school for allowing a culture of bullying and harassment. Instead of Hannah speaking for herself, all the characters tell their side to the jury, with a lawyer who twists their words and questions their reality.
It’s uber ironic that the trial is basically a “how to” guide for victim-blaming - leaving Hannah’s family and friends even more traumatised and confused.
This whole series is basically about how women and girls are put on trial when they share someone abused them. This is a sad truth and we think this is a great opportunity to see this ugliness in all it’s forms and call it for what it is, total BS.
Also, there is some good stuff in amongst all the stuff that had us yelling at our iPads. So here we go, with the good, the bad, aaaand the ugliest.
THE GOOD
Be yoself
So last season we were pretty down on Courtney, but this season we’re YASSSSing this Queen!!!! Courtney is DONE with all this victim-blaming and finally tells everyone that she loves the ladies. Courtney is SO happy when she’s introducing her new girlfriend to everyone at the dance, it was a rare moment of pure joy in this toxic season.
Get through it, together
We looooved seeing Jess come to life when she got up the courage to go along to a support group and meet other survivors, like HELP’s Youth Group. Sometimes it’s just nice to be with people who “get it”, and to realise that you’re not alone.
It's also great to see that Jess is healing over time - even cuddling up to Alex at the school dance. Just like anyone else, sometimes you have good days and sometimes you have bad days, but it's SO awesome that Jess has loving people around her to support her. YASSS Jess!
How to be a BFF after someone’s been abused
There’s some GREAT examples of how to just be there for someone who’s recovering from abuse. It’s all about just BEING there and respecting their boundaries.
High five to Jess’s dad who asks if she wants him to tuck her in when she says she thinks she’ll be able to stay in her room that night, and then stays with her half the night. And good work Alex for backing off and saying it’s fine for them not to kiss again when she has flashbacks. Gold stars all around!
That bad poet from last season finally says something that isn’t cringey
“The story was so loud that it finally was all she could hear and she started to believe it” – YES THAT IS BASICALLY OUR LIFE AS GIRLS, POET GUY, NAILED IT
THE BAD
13 Ways To Slut Shame
Ugh, this season should basically be renamed “13 Ways To Slut Shame”.
First up is Tyler, who for some reason you’re meant to feel sorry for even though he is a giant creepety-creep, let’s be real here. Yes he gets hard-core bullied, which no one deserves, but there’s also a reason he has no friends – he’s a pervert, he’s vindictive, and oh yeh, HE HAS A MASSIVE STOCKPILE OF WEAPONS. He is not a good guy.
Ahem. Anyways.
It comes out during the trial that Tyler saw Hannah taking (gasp) sexy photos of herself. And you know what? Hannah was in the privacy of her own room, somewhere she felt safe to explore her own sexuality. Tyler was the gross creepy stalker outside her window.
The lawyer then says what’s possibly the worst line of the entire series: “Don’t you think that in some way she was responsible for everything that came after then?”
OH HELL NO, NO ONE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR PICS BEING SHARED, YOU SCUMBAG.
Clay also gets amongst all the slut-shaming, saying he doesn’t know if he even wants to testify because “I’ve learned so many things about Hannah I never knew before”, and he’s also outraged that she got with Zac “just a month” before him – implying that Hannah was used goods or something.
WTF Clay?!??!?! Justin FOLEY of all people has to talk sense into him, basically saying that Hannah was awesome and that Clay is being a giant slut-shaming dick. Represent Justin, represent.
THE UGLY
“She wanted it”
It’s super heart-breaking seeing the contrast between Jess and Bryce. Jess has missed out on 5 months of school because of Bryce’s assault. Like SO many guys, he’s had zero repercussions for what he did even though literally all of his friends/enablers know about it. He’s spread rumours that Jess lied about being raped because she felt guilty about cheating on Justin.
Guys lying about a girl “wanting it” or “just regretting it the day after” is something that happens all.the.time. 99.99% of the time when a girl says she’s been raped, she’s telling the truth.
Be the friend we all deserve and have her back. Here’s what to say if a girl tells you she’s been sexually harmed.
It’s YOUR CHOICE who you tell about abuse - no one else's!
It was not acceptable that everyone kept pressuring Jess to tell the police or testify.
There are LOTS of reasons why you might not want to testify – you don’t feel safe, you don’t want the publicity, you don’t feel ready, you don’t want to be retriggered etc etc. It’s YOUR choice – not anyone else's!
Ultimately Jess says it made her feel stronger and more powerful to testify, but the thing is that it was on HER terms.
Also, Jess’s friend throws out a bunch of polaroids of girls being raped by the jocks. In the show, you get the feeling that you’re meant to be annoyed. But to be honest it seems fair enough if she didn’t want to have to deal with photos of HERSELF being out in the public for everyone to see.
The series has shown time and time again how badly they treat survivors in that school, so why put herself through it? You go, Glen Coco.
Staying in contact with someone who’s hurt you DOESN’T mean it didn't happen!
This message is TOXIC. It is actually common to stay in touch with someone who has hurt you. Abuse is confusing - 90% of the time you know the offender, so you literally can’t stay out of contact with them.
It might be an ex-boyfriend or a friend of a friend – it can be hard to get your head around and make sense of what happened to you, and it brings up lots of conflicting emotions.
The offender might try to manipulate you so they can get away with it, sending you apologetic messages.
Our society has fed us so many confusing messages that YOU might even feel guilty, so you might stay in contact because of that, or you might tell yourself you like them because that’s easier than admitting to yourself what really happened. Either way, just because you’re in contact doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, and it doesn’t give people an excuse not to believe you.
Just because Hannah stayed in touch with Justin DOESN’T mean that she wasn’t traumatised by what he did – he literally made her a target for harassment and abuse, and he wouldn’t be seen with her in public. Dick.head.
We deserve SO much better than a guy who won’t be seen in public with us! (Even if they look like Zach)
So it comes out during the trial that Zach and Hannah had a secret sexxxy summer romance! It’s pretty adorable – until school starts up again and Zach morphs back into a loser jock and won’t be seen in public with Hannah. Um, WTF?!? This is a thing that some guys do – they’ll get with you behind closed doors, but ignore you when they’re around their mates.
That is emotionally abusive and totally unacceptable. What would you tell a friend to do if some jerk was treating her like that? You deserve more than that, my Queens.
Also we just loved this quote from Jess on being a girl:
“People judge you for how you look. They judge you for what you hear about you. They put a label on you.
I feel like boys get to define themselves. Most boys don’t know what it’s like. Every single girls know what it’s like.”
BRYCE ONLY GETS 3 MONTHS PROBATION, SIGH
Enough said. Rape and sexual abuse will only keep happening if our society doesn’t take it seriously and letting criminals like Bryce suffer NO consequences. We need to stand together and keep fighting.
THE UGLIEST
During the season, we see a LOT of Tyler. Tyler is what happens when extreme bullying meets the toxic things boys are taught about being “men”. He struggles with rejection and tries to reassert his own power through violence.
He’s the kind of “nice guy” who whines about how all the cool guys get the girls when it should be HIM. This is some creepy entitled BS.
It’s been clear since Season 1 that he has a big fat nasty streak, when he takes revenge on Hannah for turning him down by sending out pics of her to the ENTIRE school.
Throughout the series, we see Tyler getting more and more confident as he makes friends with Emo Guy. Since it’s looking like the trial isn’t going to give true justice, Tyler’s been going rogue and dishing out his own version of justice, burning RAPIST on the baseball field and making pink bombs that blow up in people’s faces. He’s shooting guns, going from cans to animals.
This would all be kind of funny if you didn’t realise this all screams PSYCHOPATH, with his antics escalating and getting more and more dangerous.
And when he has a failed sexual experience with Emo Guy’s little sister (who is totally chill about it!!), Tyler goes into full douche-mode and is quick to lash out and blame HER.
Then it all comes to a head where Tyler is gang-raped. It’s hideous, humiliating, and painful to watch. It also feeds into his feeling that “justice” can only be achieved by him and him alone. So it’s not really a surprise when he comes to the school dance all geared up to kill everyone.
Tyler thinks he’s totally entitled to take innocent people’s lives because HE’S been hurt. It’s a gross and dangerous message. But it’s just a very extreme version of the awful things guys are taught – that when things don’t go their way, they’re entitled to take it out on other people. That it’s not THEIR fault, it’s everyone else’s.
Guys are taught to express their emotions as ANGER -whereas us girls are taught to blame OURSELVES. So we turn all that pain inwards - getting depressed, anxious, and doing things like self-harming.
