‘13 Reasons Why’ Is Heavy on Secrets – Who’s Hiding What Going Into Season 2?

As its first season unfolded, the most consistent dynamic about 13 Reasons Why has been secrets. Mostly, those secrets had been kept from our main character, Clay Jensen (Dylan Minnette), whose molasses-slow trip through the tapes meant that the events of the last year in the life of Hannah Baker (Katherine Langford) unfolded at a very episodic bit-by-bit pace. By the end of season 1, almost all the major players had either listened to the tapes or, in the case of Hannah’s parents, were about to listen to the tapes. So as far as the characters on the show are concerned, all the secrets are out.

But that doesn’t mean they don’t all have something to hide. If Hannah’s tapes go public, that could lead to legal, moral, and educational consequences for almost all of the people involved. As we get ready for Friday’s premiere of 13 Reasons Why season 2, let’s set the table with who’s hiding what.

The Open Books

These are the characters who, by the end of season 1, had decided for one reason or another that they did not give a damn if the revelations of the tapes came out.

• Clay Jensen: Clay’s the one who got let off easy by the tapes, having been the only subject about whom Hannah essentially absolved of his responsibility in her death. Not that he doesn’t blame himself for all the things he could’ve done differently. But after hearing all the awful/worse things that other people did — particularly Bryce — Clay is eager to have it all out in the open.
• Ryan Shaver: The worst thing he did to Hannah was publish her poem (anonymously) in the school’s literary magazine without asking. A shitty thing to do for sure, but — as Ryan repeatedly brought up during the regular League of Villains meetings they had last season — it paled in comparison to actual rape. Ryan never saw the need to protect Bryce and was consistently calling for the tapes to go public. Tough to imagine he changes his tune this year.
• Alex Standall: Alex circulated a list that ranked Hannah as having the Best Ass in school, which played into the bad reputation she was already getting. It also pretty much ended the coffee-shop friendship of Hannah/Jessica/Alex which left Hannah pretty much alone. Still, Alex was by far the person on the tapes who felt the worst about what he’d done and most wanted the group to come clean and atone. Whether that played into his self-inflicted gunshot at the end of the final episode of season 1 remains to be seen.
• Justin Foley: The most surprising member of this list, since Justin spent so much of season 1 threatening Clay and floating extreme solutions to shutting Clay up. But after he came to terms with what Bryce did to Jessica and confronted Bryce about it, Justin’s been behaving a lot more like Clay. He seems to be on the side of letting all the truths come out, though that would mean fessing up to spreading the rumor about Hannah that started her bad reputation to begin with.
• Tony Padilla: Tony was blessed with knowing everybody’s secrets but having none of his own in season 1. But how true was that? The season 2 trailer suggests Tony might actually have reasons to hide — and to act out in anger — after all.

The Good Reputations

• Courtney Crimsen: Courtney was probably the most infuriating member of the League of Villains last season, as she kept stubbornly insisting that Hannah was lying on the tapes even when even the likes of Justin and Jessica had waded out of denial. Courtney was still holding on to the lie that she’s not gay up until the depositions in the season finale, when she was confronted with the photo Tyler took of her and Hannah kissing. We’ll see if she continues to stonewall the truth in season 2.
• Marcus Cole: The golden boy of Liberty High might have the most to use if the truth about how he tried to feel up Hannah at the diner before berating her in public ever comes out. He’s got scholarships and acceptance letters to think of. Marcus was one of the few people to never waver about keeping the tapes secret.
• Zach Dempsey: Zach’s another golden boy, though his conscience seems to be plaguing him more than most. Zach’s the rare figure who Hannah was demonstrably wrong about — she rejected him for his jock associations and later mistook his crumpling of a letter she wrote him as discarding it, but he held onto it until present day — so the truth coming out would probably not hurt him too much, though his overprotective mom would surely freak out at the scandal.

The Guilty Renmant

• Bryce Walker: Bryce only learned about the existence of the tapes from Justin at the end of the season. He doesn’t yet know that Clay recorded his confession of raping Hannah. But if the tapes come out, there will be accusations that he raped two girls, and fewer and fewer of his “friends” appear likely to stand up for him.
• Sheri Holland: If the tapes go public, it will be revealed that Sheri drove after drinking, that she crashed her car into a stop sign, knocking it down, and that she and Hannah left the scene, after which point Jeff Atkins was involved in a crash at that same intersection and died. A death for which Sheri may well be legally responsible.
• Mr. Porter: Hannah recorded her unhelpful session with Mr. Porter, where he told her that it was probably best to try to “move past” Bryce raping her. Exposure of the tapes would expose Mr. Porter as the world’s worst guidance counselor.

The Wild Cards

• Jessica Davis: In the closing moments of season 1, it looks like Jessica is going to tell her dad something — we presume it’s that Bryce raped her, but we won’t know until season 2 resumes.
• Mr. and Mrs. Baker: Similarly, Hannah’s parents had just pressed play on the audio files Tony gave them as the season was ending. If they choose to make those tapes public, it could mean all sorts of things for their lawsuit against the school.
• Tyler Down: The biggest wild card at the end of season 1 was Tyler, who’s onslaught of rotten treatment at the hands of his classmates — the other kids implicated by the tapes wouldn’t even let him into their villainous roundtable chats — seems to have led him down a dark path, as we see him lording over a chest of guns and ammunition in the season finale.