13 Reasons Why returned to Netflix on June 5th with Season 4 of the series. This is the final season, which means that fans had high expectations. Were they met? Well, according to Rotten Tomatoes, season 4 was a bit of a flop with a whopping 14% critic score. However, fans seemed to have enjoyed it a little more, giving it a 61% audience score.
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The series is originally an adaptation of Jay Asher's novel, Thirteen Reasons Why, published in 2007. It was not a very happy book, from which a series was born ten years later.
As a reminder, the series deals with the suicide of a high school student. Her classmate, Clay, discovers a box mysteriously addressed to him, in which he finds recordings from the late Hannah Baker. In the tapes, the young woman implicates some of her high school classmates. Clay is then reluctantly drawn into uncovering the reasons why Hannah took her own life.
This series is particularly difficult since it deals with school bullying, rape, and violence, and the suicide scene was deleted by Netflix after a heated debate.
A study also highlighted an increase in suicides, presumably related to the release of the series. Its results were published in the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry journal. It presumed an increase in the suicide rate among American adolescents following the release of 13 Reasons Why.
A difficult shoot
Some viewers may have had a difficult time watching the series, but they weren't the only ones - the cast also suffered during the shoot.
Apparently the first season was particularly trying. Actress Katherine Langford, who plays Hannah Baker, said:
For me, the last three episodes of season one were particularly tough.
The rest of the film crew also suffered the same fate, so much so that therapy dogs had to be made available to the cast to help boost the actors' morale.
Katherine Langford explains that she also had to play the piano between scenes to ease her mind.
