13 Reasons Why Season 4 Review: 7 Ups & 6 Downs

3. Forced Conflict

While all murder mysteries have to go through the whole 'we can't trust anyone... not even each other' dilemma in order to create some more suspense, 13 Reasons Why Season 4 struggles to enforce it simply because so much of the conflict leading up to it comes off as forced.

The fact that Clay and Ani make the decision not to tell anyone about Winston - and clearly watch him getting closer to both Tyler and Alex - is exhausting, the fact that characters behave out-of-character in one particular moment for no apparent reason other than to make us doubt them is incredibly contrived, and the fact that two people won't talk to each other about an issue because the story requires the hoop-jumping of third party interactions is ridiculously convoluted.

'We can't trust anyone' is certainly a trope, but used right it can be an effective one. None of this felt like it had been used right.