I happened to be on Twitter last night when Netflix posted about them officially changing the ending to season one of 13 Reasons Why and I was really taken back. I want to say upfront that I fully believe that creators should be able to do things like this at anytime because it's ultimately theirs and not ours but that doesn't mean that opinions shouldn't be out there. As an example: I defended the final season of Game of Thrones and feel that the people who called the writing "trash" and the ones who signed that goddamn petition were entitled assholes but they had the right to do such things.
So I want to talk about my feelings on this series as a whole a bit first so you can hopefully get where I'm coming from. I thought the first season of 13 Reasons Why was one of the most important shows I'd ever seen. They showed how treating people a certain way can lead to things like suicide and the effect that can have on both sides. Yeah they went above and beyond to show the graphic nature of rape and suicide but I feel that was necessary in the same way that the HBO show Euphoria is showing that kind of stuff. Being in high school now can be a fucked up place and can mess people up for the rest of their lives. The same can be said about season two and the ending of that season teasing a school shooting. That's a real issue in this fucked up world and trying to see both sides is important because if you don't know why these people are doing these things then they will never stop! So I really liked both seasons and am looking forward to the third season...or at least I was.
So if you aren't aware of what I'm talking about with the title then let's talk about it a second. Near the ending of the final episode of season one Hannah commits suicide. The way it was originally aired they took their time and showed her run warm bath water, contemplate it, and they showed her cut her arms vertically and submerge them in the water. It was about a 3 minute scene that was incredibly hard to watch. We knew from the beginning of the first episode that she had committed suicide but actually seeing it in that graphic of a way was unlike anything I had ever seen. Since it was so graphic there were a lot of people saying that it was too much and they never should've put that in there and it was unnecessary. There was a message before the episode saying that a suicide scene was in the episode which I had ever seen before. So what the showrunners/Netflix have decided to do in 2019 is to edit those 3 plus minutes out of that episode. I checked last night and they are gone. They said they got a lot of requests to do so and they consulted medical/phycological professionals and they suggested to remove it as well. So that's what's happened!
Now this is strictly just my opinion about all this but I hate this decision! I'm normally the person that will defend the artists wanting to alter their work but I can't get behind this. The entire show is centered around how you treat people and the consequences for treating people a certain way and they took away the real visualization of that. Yes it was a very graphic scene but it was needed and it took so much guts to put that kind of a scene in a show like that. I understand that it triggered some that have gone through suicide attempts or people that have dealt with things like that with loved ones but that doesn't change the fact that it was needed. Most people will go their entire life and not see anything like that and will have the idea that all that kind of stuff is overly dramatic. Not in a "I don't believe it happened" kind of way but in a not understanding how a scene like that looks. It was done perfectly in that scene and they have taken that realism away by removing it. It would be like at the end of Avengers:Endgame cutting away from Thanos being dusted, or not showing Tony Montana die at the end of Scarface. Those are iconic moments and the movie wouldn't be the same without them and I feel this series feels different now. Plus, most people that watch that show have already seen it at this point.
I might be overreacting since it just happened but as it stands now I feel this is a horrible decision and I'm not looking forward to season three as much. Of course I'm gonna watch, cause I'm a sucker and I have a thing for Selena Gomez and I have to support her, but I fear that if they go down a road like that again they will go a different direction and not be all in with it. Maybe I'm wrong but we'll see I guess. I just wanted to give my quick thoughts on this since it just happened.
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