13 Reasons Why Netflix Original Season 4 Review

Major Spoilers are included in this season review. Please read with caution.

After four seasons—49 episodes—of traumatic events, 13 Reasons Why finally concluded and allowed its characters to go free. The season began with a funeral scene, foreshadowing that one of the main characters will die by the end of this journey. The show was low-key banking on horror themes throughout the final season. There were vivid hallucinations—acting like literal ghosts—of Bryce Walker (Justin Prentice) and Monty (Timothy Granaderos) that haunted more than one character.

Other episodes were also horror-themed, like the camping trip episode and the school lockdown episode—which was all triggering and scary. Kids were terrified out of their minds during the “shooting drill”. This ended up leading to a riot against the police monitoring the school. Yes, there was a riot against the police. The writers had good timing when it came to showing the social issue of police brutality.

Everyone’s—especially Clay Jensen’s (Dylan Minette)—mental health wasn’t the greatest after that. Clay had mental breakdowns left and right throughout all ten episodes due to all the guilt he was carrying from the previous three seasons regarding the deaths of Bryce Walker, Monty, and Hannah Baker. Watching Clay go insane was uncomfortable and kind-of pointless, making the final season hard to watch at various times. I was having a hard time accepting this series had gone beyond the first season.

The worst part about the final season was the person who had died in the series finale. At the end of episode 9 in the middle of his senior prom, Justin Foley (Brandon Flynn) collapsed and was sent to the hospital. Throughout the series, Justin grew up in an abusive home, overcame his drug addiction, found a new family with Clay and his parents, got into college, and reunited with his ex-girlfriend Jessica Davis (Alisha Boe), only to have been killed by AIDS. This death seemed so unnecessary and unrealistic. The series finale—98 minutes long—was also a slow burn. Watching him get worse and then die in the hospital was the absolute worst.

Justin Foley was literally the only main character I was rooting for too in the final season, so I looked like a clown. I have a feeling a lot of y’all were feeling like clowns too. Overall, I’m glad this show finally ended. Like seriously, 13 Reasons Why inflicted so much trauma on their audience.