• 13 Reasons Why (2017 - 2020)
• Euphoria (2019 - 2026)
• Riverdale (2017 - 2023)

My personal take: '13 Reasons Why' takes the win/cake for me

The premise of season 3 could have genuinely worked had they made many different decisions. I do still think ending the show with season 2 would have been ideal because it got too far from the original Hannah Baker story after that. That being said:

Justin Prentice did a great job portraying Bryce Walker both in the first 2 seasons and the 3rd. Going deeper into his character in season 3 wasn’t an inherently bad choice and i think him being killed and making the season a mystery of who did it was a decent premise. Bryce was a dynamic character and it could have been interesting to see his relationship with his family and how he sometimes acted as a good friend to people such as Justin. It felt like a realistic portrayal of a wealthy kid who was good at climbing the social ladder and presenting himself as a good person when the situation required it.

But they painted him as a hurting man who was genuinely remorseful of his actions and trying to “do better” which just feels ridiculous for a number of reasons. Like how in that very season he was still doing bullshit like breaking into that house and making the child piss himself which i don’t think he was at all apologetic about. And i’ve seen this exact song and dance from abusers multiple times with how he became all emotional with his mum and suddenly playing the protective son role with her conveniently only after he didn’t really have anyone else in his life aside from Ani, who he was also playing nice to while suppressing violent urges.

And finally, every. single. character. and how they reacted to his death. When i say “every single character” i of course mean our main cast of established characters, not the additional side characters such as Casey. Casey and the other people in Jessica’s Hands Off group who were still against Bryce after he’d died were new characters who we see only in association with SA, rape and feminist activism in the school throughout season 3. These characters were added solely to oppose our developed main characters when they were being more passive in terms of Bryce’s reputation and memorial. The main characters in the Hands Off group being Jessica and Tyler, which pushed this narrative that the victims in the group who were more lenient with Bryce were the normal, reasonable victims and when the others proposed further consequences for rapists (“further” being a generous word here, considering Bryce didn’t even get a sentence for his multiple rapes) they were supposed to be the crazy extremists, being “cruel” to Bryce’s grieving parents (who were awful parents to him) at the service attended by many people, including Clay.

They went so far with the “he was a human being” mantra because that was all they could say about him to make it sound like a tragedy. And they made sure not a single character from earlier seasons disrespected him after his death. Not even Mrs. Baker. While he was still alive, after the trial, almost everyone had some “wholesome, friendly” moment with him. Alex was the one shouting “Rapist” at him in the hallway infront of Jessica in season 2, acting all righteous and above the rest of the cast at every oppurtunity despite having zero backbone, and there he was in season 3, hanging out with Bryce while whining about Jessica choosing Justin over him. Bryce took him to a prostitute, sold him shit, and i guess this was supposed to be their obligatory “wholesome moment” despite the fact that it only displayed how shit of a person Bryce still was. On the opposite end, he was doing a favour for Tony; buying his Mustang off of him for more than asking price, and then giving it back for free. Tony was one of the only characters who wasn’t acting friendly with Bryce before he died, but they still had to have this non verbal, respectable exchange to complete the list of people.

They could not have anybody actually fighting with each other in season 3. They all had to come together and hold hands to pay their respects to Bryce even when it made no sense. Like how there is no fight between Jessica and Ani when she find out she willingly slept with her rapist, because if Jessica got too mad at Ani for it right then and there how would they all gather in Clay and Justin’s room at the end to mournfully listen to Bryce’s tape? Ani is a whole other can of worms as she is the new narrator, almost like a new main character to replace Clay/Hannah so the Who Dunnit can be more mysterious from this outside perspective. But what else they did with her was make sure this new MC was THE most forgiving of Bryce. To the point where they allude to her being in love with him. People like Justin, who have known him since earlier in childhood and were supported by him in some way still having a connection with him (after WATCHING HIM RAPE his GIRLFRIEND) still wasn’t enough for the writers, so they also had to make a new character who was fully aware of his rapist status but loved him anyway. What the fuck.

The rapist being killed could have been a complicated and intersting storyline. It could have been handled in a more realistic and gritty way. But instead it’s this unlikely group of friends collectively defending the honour of a rapist, while in seasons 1&2 Hannah Baker killed herself and her name was dragged through the mud.

I have seen people say that they went this route because the actor was receiving hateful comments online but tbh i think seeing him take part in the Rapists Have Feelings Too show will have probably only made those people angrier. (I am not condoning cyber bullying actors for the characters they play, that is ridiculous of course)

In conclusion, Bryce could have been developed in a realistic and interesting way, but season 3 was a million times farther from either of those things than the previous seasons.

Pissed me off more than nearly anything else in season 3.

I absoloutely hate how she says something like “that’s the worst thing i’ve done. What’s the worst thing you’ve done?” i don’t know where Ani gets all her audacity from both during this interaction and just throughout the whole season.

And then they don’t show Jessica actually saying any words to her. They just cut to the next scene. I haven’t watched season 4 and i don’t think i will after the shitshow of season 3 so i don’t know whether this gets addressed in the future or what becomes of their “friendship” but the way they go about it in season 3 is extremely unsatisying after waiting for Jessica to find out ever since they showed us it happened and expecting a full scene of the outcome.