13 Reasons Why Review: 10 Ups & 9 Downs From ALL 4 Seasons

3. Making Clay The Protagonist

While there's no denying that 13 Reasons Why is very much an ensemble show, if you had to choose a protagonist it would obviously be Clay Jensen.

Here's the problem though: Clay works better when we aren't telling his story.

Clay became something of a detective across all four seasons whenever he was attempting to get to the bottom of whatever was deemed that year's respective mystery - learning from his own (and everyone else's) mistakes along the way. But everytime the attention fell on him, things got very, very bleak.

The film and TV mediums have shown us that, sometimes, the troubled characters are the best. But 13 Reasons Why should have verged a little more in the ensemble direction it consistently flirted with because - not only are most of them rich, troubled characters - the writers fed Clay's overwhelmingly nihilistic view to such an extent that it dragged much of Seasons 2, 3 and 4 down.

Again, Clay is a great character when explored right, and whenever he was working with someone else and ultimately applying the lessons he learned to himself, he excelled. But once the show learned too far in his direction, things got murky.

Clay grieving the loss of Hannah and leading his friends to a better tomorrow? That's a Clay we can get behind. But the other Clay? He made the show very hard to watch at times - and considering this is a show with a reputation for being hard to watch, that's really saying something.