'13 Reasons Why' Season 4 Preview: Will Clay and his friends go to prison for framing Monty?
After digging into the mysterious suicide of Hannah Baker (Katherine Langford), bringing her rapist Bryce Walker Justin Prentice) to faux-justice and framing Bryce's friend Monty de la Cruz (Timothy Granaderos) for his murder to keep Alex Standall's (Miles Heizer)secret buried, Clay Jensen (Dylan Minette) has more to worry now.
The reason? Remember that really attractive guy Monty hooked up with and later beat up? Yeah, him. Called Winston (Deaken Bluman), he appeared right at the end of Season 3 once again, to tell Ani Achola (Grace Saif) that despite whatever he did, Monty was a person. And that's exactly what Winston plans on doing in the upcoming Season 4: justice for Monty.
The trailer for the fourth and final season opens with Clay and his nemesis-turned-adopted brother Justin Foley (Brandon Flynn) walking into the school hall to find the janitor wiping something off the main door. The words in red and all caps are a dramatic reminder of the recent past, as it reads "Monty was framed". There's also text below it that the janitor seemed to have scrubbed off, but no matter how hard the core group of friends try, they can't seem to immerse the past the way Alex did with Bryce's body after shooting him in the head.
Soon Winston appears and all the drama unfolds, with Ani telling Clay he doesn't have any proof and Clay cracking the code: that's exactly why he's at Liberty High. To get proof. Thus, with the premise for the final installment set, the question that really lingers is whether Clay and his friends will be able to get out of this mess or not. If the trailer is any proof, Clay spirals as Jess Kuross's voice croons his song 'Spiraling' in the background of the trailer. From anxiety attacks to his closest allies losing their faith in him once again, Clay goes straight to therapy as nightmares about getting incarcerated become more frequent in his sleep.
But Clay is not the only one affected; Justin and his girlfriend Jessica Davis (Alisha Boe) also keep hallucinating menacing apparitions of Monty and Bryce every now and then, and the trailer goes on to leave us extremely worried for people like Alex and Tyler Down (Devin Druid) who have already snapped before. While Alex shot himself in the head at the end of Season 1 for the way he contributed to Hannah's suicide, Tyler was raped with a mop in the school bathroom by Monty and had subsequently almost shot the entire school at their senior prom by the end of Season 2.
The fact that Winston is teaming up with the remaining jocks to seek justice for Monty only intensifies our worries for Alex and Tyler. The two have been victims of the school jocks' bullying in the past and now that they have led to the death of not just one, but two of their own, one can only imagine the wrath they will unleash on Clay and his friends.
However, what raises the biggest concern about the expected downfall of Clay and his friends' elaborate and dark web of lies are snippets of his therapy sessions. As his anxiety causes him to spiral, Clay's therapist keeps deducing he is keeping secrets far darker than his self can contain. The therapist repeatedly asks Clay to let go of these secrets and by the looks of it, he is quite on the brink of caving in for the sake of his own sanity.
We saw Clay holding on to his past with Hannah for two years in a row, and while he has matured significantly since then, how long will he keep it bottled up is the question. And with this being the final season and Clay's class graduating, it looks like a trip to the prison or at least therapy for life is inevitable considering what these kids have been through.
'13 Reasons Why' Season 4 premieres on Friday, June 5, on Netflix.