13 Reasons Why: 9 Reasons It Ultimately Fails

5. Clay Is The Victim/Hero

Of all the people to feature on the tapes, Clay Jensen is the only one to actually be absolved of any blame by Hannah herself, even though he does come to question his role in her life and death. Dylan Minnette does a good job playing the stoic Clay, and is convincingly sympathetic and conflicted, but it's nonetheless an issue having his character serve as the series' protagonist.

He's the closest thing we have to an outright good guy in the show, and as such is positioned almost as a potential saviour of Hannah, and her suicide frames him as a figure of tragedy.

Because he gets the tapes at the beginning of the show, and then the following 13 episodes are about him (gradually) listening to them all, it becomes too much about him, and veers far too much into 'if boy had told girl he loved her, girl wouldn't have killed herself' territory.