13 Reasons Why is this year’s television phenomenon. Discussed, dissected and debated widely across newspaper publications and online forums, the show has garnered an opinion from practically everyone imaginable. Teen suicide is not exactly a new concept around which to build a television show. The tragedy of suicide has been on explored screen for years in shows as One Tree Hill and Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the past, but recently it’s gotten even more exposure.
Maybe the advent of social media is an explanation for the sudden explosion of opinion and discourse on 13 Reasons Why, the discussion of which has led to memes in rather questionable taste, culminating seemingly trivial scenarios with the line “Welcome to your tape” in reference to the tapes left by the television show’s lead.
In case you’re still in the dark when it comes to the premise of the most talked-about show currently in Netflix’s lineup, allow me to fill in the blanks for you. 13 Reasons Why follows the story of Clay Jensen, a high school student who receives a package in the mail with seven tapes inside it. To say the tapes are troubling would be an understatement; they contain what essentially amounts to a suicide note from Hannah Baker, a classmate of Clay who had killed herself a matter of weeks earlier. The tapes detail the 13 people whose actions have culminated in her taking her own life; sickeningly for Clay, he is one of them.
Some mental health experts have accused the show – which is executive produced by none other than Selena Gomez – of romanticising suicide, or at the very least is treading a fine line with its rather eerie depiction of the act itself. However none of this has served to abate the vast swathes of the public who’ve watched the show obsessively over the last couple of weeks, and in spite of the outcry from some media and public commentators – or perhaps, in part, because of it – the show will be renewed for a second season. What’s more, the first teaser trailer is already here.
The second season will reportedly pick up after Hannah Baker’s death, and the format will follow the show’s characters’ long road toward reconciliation and recovery. Despite the criticism the show has garnered from some, the first season was reviewed favourably in general by critics and has accrued an astonishing following online, making it by far and away the most discussed show on Netflix so far this year. Check out the first sneak peak of season two:
Their story isn't over. Season 2 of #13ReasonsWhy is coming.
Posted by 13 Reasons Why on Sonntag, 7. Mai 2017
If you’re thinking that the first look doesn’t give a whole lot away, I am in total accordance with you, but it does serve to set the eerie scene for season two in a calm-before-the-storm manner, and has certainly piqued my interest over what is to come.
It is thought that the new season will be 13 episodes long and is set to debut at some point in 2018. The show is an adaptation of Jay Asher’s 2007 novel, directed by the Oscar winner Tom McCarthy.
