During our recent surprise week-long break with no power, I binge watched the entire third season of 13 Reasons Why directed by Brian Yorkey. I did so against my better judgement because I wasn’t very fond of the first two seasons due to just how unrealistic it is that sophomores in high school could pull off half the things they do. Though, I was pleasantly surprised by this season. It revolves around the interrogations surrounding the death of Bryce Walker, the shows main antagonist the first two seasons. This morphes the show into something of a who-dun-it and as unexpected as it was, I enjoyed it.
Each of the thirteen episodes consists of a combination of flashbacks and present day merged together to reveal just enough to make you think you know who it is, only to debunk it within the last few minutes and turn the spotlight onto someone else. This thrilling anticipation kept me on the edge of my seat just waiting to find out which of the 13 flawed main characters went through with the act. I also liked the smooth transitions between the two by way of color. The flash-back’s in the show before the night of homecoming where Bryce is killed are vibrant while the present day’s are edited with low saturation. I find this choice interesting because it implies that even though they all thought he was the source of their problems, everything only got worse after he was gone.
This leads me to another unusual aspect to this season, which was that they made Bryce into someone you could almost feel bad for. In previous seasons he was portrayed as a cold-hearted, vile teenager but in this one you see him working to become a new person and redeem his wrongs. That paired with the untimely death of his character begin to blur the lines of good and evil and make you question whether or not someone can truly change after committing such horrible acts. You can really feel his vulnerability throughout the episodes in choices like shot angle. Like whenever his dissappointed mother is talking to him or even when he is being killed and lying on the ground with nothing to protect himself against someone he presumed to be his friend. I found this whole twist to be very refreshing since it didn’t go the easy route of just adding onto reasons to hate him.
Overall, I was very pleasantly surprised by this season, and after hearing there is going to be a fourth season, I plan to give it a watch. 13 Reasons Why lands on a Be Reel Scale rating of: good-good.
I agree that the third season was a good one. Though compared to the others, not as good. I believe it was a good choice to make Bryce seem more 'human' with his whole redemption blended in with he plot. But they went a little too far into it, making it obvious they want you to feel bad for him. or at least just 'understand' him. I liked it for the mystery but it was done poorly, Good Bad.
ReplyDeleteI have to say this wasn't my favorite season. I really enjoyed the first season because I read the book before the show came out. So watching the first season was a better more enhanced version of what I've read. After that it gets kind of weird once Hannah dies but I liked how it was like real life. Once someone makes the decision to end their life that's it they are really gone. And you know in movie magic I kept thinking that she would come back but she was really gone. So it was good I just like the first season the best and I kind of wished they stopped after that.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with that statement that in the third season that Bryce became a character that you can sympathies with, although he wasn't fully forgiven because each character had a motive to possibly kill Bryce, but Bryce wasn't the only character you truly sympathies with.
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