13 Reasons Why

Season 2 of 13 Reasons Why takes a dive in quality from the show’s first which, for all of its flaws, remains a moving tragedy and a potent conversation starter. ... Season 2 employs Polaroid pictures as the breadcrumbs propelling along its feeble mystery. Along the way it also leads us through Jessica’s journey as an assault survivor, indubitably the season’s strongest storyline.

Although the second season tries to directly address some of the complaints against the series (it more explicitly links self-harm to mental illness and acknowledges the dangers of glamorizing suicide), it can’t help but return to the over-the-top drama it so clearly loves.

13 takes the heat off itself with an over-packed second season that doesn't quite walk back the controversies of the first, but attempts to talk them back.

Season 2 is a worthy attempt at a do-over, if a flawed one. That’s until the final episode, when a plotline that’s been building over the past 12 episodes turns into a charged confrontation that undermines everything 13 Reasons Why has spent its second season doing.

The courtroom scenes are among the least convincing scenes in the series.

There’s nothing to push the narrative gas pedal in this first half of season two. You’re spending hours and hours watching characters wait for something to happen, for something shocking to come out of the trial. You’re waiting, too. ... This is a show that mostly succeeds at blurring the lines between protagonists and villains, to the point that we’re even forced to sit through the character assassination of Hannah in court and question what we thought we knew about her.

The Netflix teen drama’s second season is occasionally arresting, but wholly unnecessary.

This wallow in angst ends up being mostly insufferable. [28 May - 10 Jun 2018, p.17]