Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why came back with another ground-breaking season on Aug. 23. Season two left off with Clay holding the gun of his dearest friend, Tyler Down, in front of the school during the Spring Fling, and season three starts eight months after the incident.

In episode one, we are introduced to a new character named Ani Achola (played by Grace Saif), who we later find out is the narrator of this season. Ani is a very observant, well-rounded new girl that lives with “the” Bryce Walker. Since Ani’s mother is Bryce’s grandfather’s stay-at-home nurse, she discovers secrets that were buried in the Walker household. She reports these secrets to Clay to help crack the murder mystery of Bryce Walker.

While I was watching episode one, there were parts that were difficult to catch up on. Trying to figure out what happened in the past versus what was actually happening in the present was confusing for me, and I had no clue what was going on because of the  back and forth throughout the whole episode. However, I continued watching the show with the suspense and interrogations keeping me on my toes. I wanted to find out who killed Bryce and know why they did it. 

Clay and Ani had a whole list of suspects, including their friends, and while they were trying to solve the mystery, a flashback to what had actually happened between that particular suspect and Bryce would be shown, which helped me understand what was happening in the present. The directors also made it really clear as to what was the past and the present by changing the lighting of the flashbacks, which helps differentiate which is which.

One of Clay and Ani’s suspects, Tony Padilla (Christian Navarro), was questioned to murder Bryce because his car had been found in Bryce’s garage. We later find out in the flashback that the only reason Tony’s car was in Bryce’s garage was because Tony had sold his car to Bryce. When Clay and Ani were looking into Tony as a suspect, they found out Tony’s parents had been deported. Bryce found out about Tony’s family issue and offered to buy Tony’s car to help him pay for a lawyer. I was happy the producers and director decided to show problems happening in real life through this episode. Tony’s emotional family story broke my heart and showed us a glimpse of what is happening to thousands of families in the U.S. today.

Through Bryce’s actions towards Tony and his family, you can see that after the Hannah Baker trial, Bryce is trying his hardest to make amends with the people he hurt. Through the flashbacks of this season, you genuinely start to feel bad for him. He’s also gone through so much as a teenager. Even though there are no excuses for what he did, he was only trying to get clarity from everyone he hurt. Knowing that Bryce was trying to change throughout the season, I kept asking myself, did Bryce really deserve this ending?

Overall, season three was by far my favorite season. Not only did the suspense keep me on my toes, but it taught me a lot of lessons about today’s society that snapped me back to reality. The show contains a lot of sensitive content including suicide and rape, but in today’s dangerous society, we need to be able to talk about it, and know how to avoid it.