13 reasons why, season 3

SPOILER ALERT.

I have sort of a like/hate relationship with this show. On the one hand, it is engaging with mostly likable, sympathetic characters, and it attempts to address some important issues in a thoughtful and meaningful way. On the other hand, its good intentions are sabotaged by taking itself too seriously, being much more convoluted than necessary, and allowing political propaganda to infiltrate its plotline so that it seems preachy and agenda-driven.

I had many thoughts and observations as I watched the third season, and I wish I had taken notes so that I could remember them all. Maybe the easiest way to try and cover all that ground is go character by character, as it is largely a character study, and that’s the format of the show anyway.

The first huge problem was noticeable right from the start. This new character of Ani is brought in out of nowhere, but now suddenly we’re forced to listen to her nonstop ramblings, not only about how she’s suddenly an expert on everybody at Liberty High (and beyond), but also her philosophies about life, death, love, friendship, secrets, what a killer does or doesn’t look like, etc, etc, etc. Your first reaction is, “Who is this person, and why do we care about her?” And what’s really messed up is that this doesn’t change by the end of the series! At least it didn’t for me. All she did was butt into people’s lives and make them worse…except for Bryce. Her only real useful function is her role in Bryce’s life, and giving us that much-needed glimpse into his character, but I can’t help but think they could have found another way to do that. This girl was annoying and pretentious, and I wish she had not been in the show.

Some of the characters were throwaway characters this season. I really don’t remember much of Charlie from last season, and so this season, he’s just kind of around, and I don’t know why. Caleb is useless and boring; I liked Tony’s old boyfriend. Also, Cyrus had a substantial role last season, but was totally sidelined this season. The actor who plays him must have needed the paycheck to just stand around and not have a story. Zach also doesn’t have much of a story until the very end, other than honing in on Bryce’s former girlfriend. Chloe’s only purpose this season is to tell a pro-choice propaganda story about her tortured journey to an abortion clinic and being confronted by crazy Christians. As a pro-life Christian, I found this scene—and really the whole episode—somewhat insulting. And back to Zach for a moment, I just don’t buy the notion of him beating the crap out of Bryce and leaving him for dead, regardless of Bryce’s attack during the Homecoming game. It just doesn’t fit with his character. On a positive note, one nice addition to the cast was Winston, whose encounters with Monty reveal a great deal of insight into the latter character.

If anything, I would have enjoyed more exploration into Monty’s character. He was always just a bully before now, but here we see a little about his home life…and his homo life, however repressed it might be. Monty was just starting to break through his massive wall of issues when he was taken out…and then framed for murder. That’s not very nice. At least Bryce got more of a chance of redemption, albeit not by much. More on that later.

Justin’s story was the After School Special about drug addiction. It’s funny how judgmental people can get about addiction, which is really a sickness and not worthy of condemnation. “You’re using Oxy!” shouts the ever self-righteous Clay, as if Justin had committed high treason. A lot of people use Oxy, some of them even legitimately for pain. Why the stigma? In spite of that, it was interesting to see the intensity of Justin’s bond with Clay. I hadn’t realized they were so close. Based on some of the things they said to each other, one would expect Justin to cross over to Clay’s side of the bedroom, and cuddle with him through the night. I actually wish to have seen that!

Jessica may be my least favorite character this season (well, except for the angry man-hating Casey and her annoying “Take down the patriarchy!” rants). Running for student body president, she promises to eliminate boys’ sports. Well, in the first place, that would never happen (and she would never win on that platform) and in the second place, that affects many lives in a negative way. He stupid HO group’s decision to protest Bryce’s funeral makes them no better than Westboro Baptist. Her protest at the game led directly to the ruination of lives. But worst of all, out of all the characters who had a part in Bryce’s death, she’s the one I really believe would. I never want to downplay the serious and evil nature of rape. I hate it as much as anybody. But when the inability to forgive leads to murder, that doesn’t make for a character that I can continue to root for.

Like with Zach, I don’t buy Alex killing Bryce. I just don’t think it’s consistent with his character, even if he does have “’roid rage”. One minute he was trying to help Bryce and save his life; he had compassion and didn’t want to leave him there suffering. But Bryce says some justifiably angry words about Zach (and remember that just before the game, Bryce was hit with the bombshell of Chloe having been pregnant with Bryce’s kid and aborting the baby), and it’s into the water for Bryce! It makes no sense. And then he and Jessica just watch him drown. These are not the characters we’ve come to know from three seasons of this program. This is inconsistent. This is a case of the writers being stuck and trying to work out a plot that just doesn’t have any real logic to it. And what’s the deal with the steroids? Why did we have to have that Lesson of the Day, if we were going to be taught about the Evils of Drugs with Justin? I will admit that IF rampant steroid use among teens—even people who are not jocks—is a thing, I didn’t know about it. But let some other show preach that sermon; this one has enough baggage without it.

How timely and topical that the evil ICE swooped in and stole Tony’s family from him. Was this written by a CNN political pundit? I’m not saying this doesn’t happen, or that it isn’t tragic when it does, but it’s so obvious. The propaganda takes you out of the story. Politics poisons the well of creativity.

Clay was the same brooding, obsessive person he was in season 2. I really liked him in season 1. I liked his innocence. I guess you could say that this show is largely about a loss of innocence, but I would have welcomed some of that to remain a part of Clay’s character. This show is so humorless, but every once in a while, you get a very brief lighter moment, and it usually is centered around Clay and his social awkwardness, and more of that would have been welcome.

My favorite storyline this season was Tyler’s. After the finale of season 2, I thought that season 3 would be all about school shootings and that Tyler would be toast. (That may yet happen in season 4.) I was pleasantly surprised that it did not go in that direction. Here was a story that said someone could be saved. A person can heal. A person can change. Someone who thought he would always be a rejected outcast can have a wonderful group of friends who watch out for him. It was actually very touching, and half of my positive feelings about the show come from the way this story was told.

The other half comes from Bryce. How unexpected that the showrunners would choose to focus on Bryce and his humanity and his efforts to change for the better. To nearly every character in this show, Bryce is like the devil, the one who is blamed for everything bad that has happened to everyone else. He was the source of every vice, every trauma, every scar, and not to mention war, famine, and global warming. To be clear, he did monstrous things. But he was, in fact, not the devil. He was a human being who was very much a product of his upbringing, and when he realized the damage he had caused, he wanted to become a better man. This was a very interesting and gratifying story to watch. It’s unfortunate that Ani was necessary to tell this story. I liked Bryce this season. I truly cared about him.

Alex murdered Bryce, and Jessica was an accessory, and all the others in the “group” were obstructionists of justice. Oh, it’s sweet how this group bands together, but I would have preferred accountability, like they all said they wanted from Bryce. I feel as though the creators of this show would like us to give them all a pass. After all, they did go through so much. But I just can’t see any way that what they did was acceptable. If I trudge through season 4, it will be with the pained awareness that they got away with something horrible, and for that, I’m not even sure that I care about them anymore.

I also got very impatient with all the secrets and lies. If these people are supposed to be friends, why are they always lying to each other? Oh, it’s “to protect”. Right. Everybody’s keeping secrets, which is par for the course in mystery fiction, but with everything these people have shared, it’s impossible to believe that there would be so little trust. Well, maybe not impossible. Maybe just sad. And why are they all so quick to think the worst of each other? Oh yeah—because of all the secrecy and lies!

I hated the way the events played out on screen, in terms of the incredibly confusing narrative structure. We were always going back and forward in time, and within both timelines, it was very hard to tell the order of events. Did this thing here happen before that other thing? And how do the two events relate to each other? And switching the aspect ratio between flashback and present day didn’t help very much; half the time you didn’t even notice it had switched. (If we were all still watching the old square TVs, the difference would be more clear.)  

Lastly, for season 4, I suggest a title change. The title of the series was only relevant in season 1. And it was based on a novel. (I can’t help but wonder what that novelist thinks of the direction they’ve gone with it over the last two seasons.) It’s kind of like the sequel to I Know What You Did Last Summer should have been called I Still Know What You Did The Summer Before Last. (That’s not my quip, by the way; it may have been Ebert.) Perhaps for season 4, it should be 13+ More Ways to Exploit the Real and Imagined Horrors of Adolescence.

ELITE (or SPANISH TWINKS A GO-GO)

Warning: There may be spoilerish content here, but I’m not going to spill any of the bigger developments.

With season 2 rapidly approaching, I’m glad I spotted this Euroteen drama when I did; I can hardly wait to see what happens next. Elite (pardon my lack of accent marks in this article, as I don’t know how to employ them) is a Spanish version of tawdry adolescent dramas like Riverdale or 90210, except that it is a thousand times better. (Can we really say we’re surprised here? European vs American sensibilities?) It is also a very steamy, erotic program, more than the CW could get away with, and to be honest, it’s a bit of a shock to have teenage characters depicted in such a frank and, well, naked way. (One assumes that the actors are older than the characters they play, but they do have more liberal values about such things over there.) And one more thing worth noting: Every lead character in this series is beautiful, which is something I’ve never seen in my entire television- and movie-watching life. I kid you not. You really can’t avert your eyes.

So this is partly about class warfare on a teenage level. The elite are the families who send their kids to the top rated Las Encinas school, which looks like a big boxy office building more than a school. Another school, where the poor and ordinary folks go, has had a structural collapse that caused major injuries, and as an act of goodwill, three kids from that school were selected to attend Las Encinas:  Samuel is the most straight-laced, grounded, “normal” character in the show. He’s like a Brandon from 90210 or a Clay from 13 Reasons Why. When the series starts, you get the impression that this is his story, more than anyone else’s. That turns out not to be really true, but I think he may be the most relatable of the bunch. Christian is a cocky hedonist with a big mouth, which I think masks a deeper insecurity. And Nadia is a Muslim girl from a very traditional family. She seems stuck up at first, but as the series goes on, she is full of surprises.

The new kids are not accepted at first. Guzman is the school bully who really does believe he’s superior to these lower forms of life. (Incidentally, his dad owns the construction company that cut corners and caused the accident at the other school.) His girlfriend Lu is just as bad in her arrogance; she is a classic “mean girl”. Guzman’s sister Marina is one of the few people who are nice to the newcomers, but she is full of complexity of a sort that might make her more dangerous than the snobs.

Guzman has two best buds: Ander is an involuntary future tennis pro (pressured by his father). His secret is his love for his drug dealer, Omar, who happens to be Nadia’s brother. Polo is a conflicted bisexual who becomes discontented with his long-time relationship with girlfriend Carla, so they decide to add a third party to the mix. That third party is Christian. Things get complicated. Polo and Marina are the most complicated and troubled characters on the show, even more so than Nano, Samuel’s brother, who recently got out of prison and owes money to some thugs. If I would label anyone a villain in all this, it would be Nano. The brothers both fall for the same girl—Marina—and she falls for them right back. On TV as in life, these types of things tend not to turn out well.

There are several passionate relationships, and they are all fun to watch. Most of them are destroyed by episode 8. The sweetest relationship by far is Ander and Omar, and I don’t just say that as a gay man.

In addition to lots of sex, there is a ton of manipulation and blackmail going on here. On one level, these people seem to genuinely care for one another, and yet, they are not above threatening to ruin each other’s lives to get what they want. This isn’t only true about the spoiled rich kids. Nobody is immune to the desperate temptation to save themselves by screwing someone else. 

Like most teen dramas, this is rife with popular “issues”—class, drugs, HIV, homophobia, Islamophobia, teen pregnancy, abortion, coming out, and of course the constant struggle to establish your own identity against whatever your parents have in mind for you. But what’s refreshing about Elite is that the writing is such as to not seem at all preachy or condescending. It treats its characters—and its audience—with respect, and allows them to think for themselves. Are these kids in over their heads in their effort to grow up too soon? Of course. But that is the life of teenagers these days. They lack the maturity to do the things that they do, but they don’t care. It’s like diving into a pool when you don’t know how to swim.

I care about these characters, and that’s the strength of the show. As Janet Jackson sang, “They’re living in a world they didn’t make, paying for a lot of adult’s mistakes, living in a world where grownups break the rules.” They’re deep-down decent, but they do terrible things. They’re despicable, but they’re not trying to be. They are doing the best they can. This is the teenage world. If these characters were real, I’d pray for them.