![]() ![]() Porter names Bryce in his testimony as Hannah’s rapist, and given what happened at the ribbon-cutting in the last episode (for which Marcus is now suspended), the atmosphere in the school is starting to change. This episode, however, is a home run - at least when it comes to Porter and Hannah’s scenes. The other issues that the show attempts to address are obviously also important, but the number of balls in the air doesn’t necessarily lend itself to sufficient exploration of each topic. Hannah’s suicide, which is the driving force of the show, has become more and more secondary to the drama between the other characters, to the point that it’s started to feel like a means to an end. It’s a fundamental point that it feels like 13 Reasons Why has been skirting around, as well as one that isn’t getting enough emphasis. ![]() But somebody else out there is in that same pain, and he doesn’t want them to die, too. When she breaks the illusion, saying that it’s too late, that she’s already dead, Porter says that he knows. As he breaks down in tears on the stand, sobbing to the assembled court that he could have done more to help Hannah, he imagines stopping her, telling her that her rape wasn’t her fault and that men can actually control themselves (which somehow still seems to be a contentious point in our present climate). The most affecting scene is that pivotal last moment in which he lets Hannah walk out of his office feeling like she doesn’t have any other options. Each scene plays out twice - we see (or hear) what originally happened, and then we see what Porter wishes had happened. As he recounts the times that Hannah had tried to speak to him about what was troubling her, his memories shift into imagined alternate timelines. To put it in more subjective terms, this is the first episode to make me cry.Īs I’ve mentioned before, the trial structure is starting to grow stale, but Porter’s testimony veers into the kind of fabulist territory that’s previously only been reserved for Clay, and it gives the episode a much-needed boost. But no performance as of yet is as devastating as that of Derek Luke’s in this episode, as Porter’s guilt builds to a pitch he can’t ignore. It’s the most affecting episode of the season so far, if also a showcase for both the best and the worst that 13 Reasons Why has to offer.Īcross the board, the acting on the series is stellar. He’s been absent for a couple of episodes after, you know, physically threatening a student and then getting into a fistfight with another student’s de facto stepfather, but he’s back in the spotlight as “The Missing Page” places him on the stand. To be honest, I’d almost forgotten about Mr. ![]()
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