Despite any controversy, 13 Reasons Why is a wildly successful young adult drama hosted by Netflix. They just aired their third season and will wrap up the series with their fourth and final season in a year or two. Whether fans believe the show is harmful or helpful, no one can deny its fearlessness. While the drama and its bold tackling of serious topics bring in a lot of people, the countless details and mysteries woven into this series of secrets help keep people coming back.
But does everyone notice all the intricacies of the set designs and writing plans? Here are 10 hidden details fans missed in 13 Reasons Why.
Bedroom Decor
13 Reasons Why spends so much time focusing on the psychology of the kids at Liberty High that sometimes it lacks space to express their personalities, including likes and dislikes. Because of this, the set designers put a lot of time in reflecting the character in each bedroom fans see.
Of course, Clay, the main character, shows off his love of comics, robots, and music throughout his room. However, Alex also has band posters that change each season and several guitars. Justin’s walls show off a love for action movies and the Raiders. Even Hannah exhibits a love for YA novels with every Hunger Games book on her shelf.
Ani’s Hannah Line
While Ani is the all-new narrator and student for season 3, she does have some intense similarities with a certain other narrator. Hannah and Ani may have different interests—Ani loves science, Hannah is more poetic—but they have a very similar narrative voice. So much so that they both have alarmingly similar narration lines.
When Hannah introduces her tapes, she tells the listeners to “sit back” and “get a snack.” When Ani commits to her own narration, she says that whoever’s listening should “get comfortable, because this might take a while.” Very similar, semi-sarcastic sentiments, right? Wouldn’t be surprised if the writers did that on purpose to endear fans to Ani early on. After all, they liked Hannah, so if she sounds like her, they’d like her too, right?
A Fan Of Taylor Swift
By now, most people know that 13 Reasons Why has a pretty famous producer in Selena Gomez. Many fans also know that, especially during the initial season of the show, that Selena and Taylor Swift were very close friends. That, of course, meant that Selena had to sneak in her most recent album cover (1989) into the halls of Liberty High.
Though the set designers weren’t too obvious about it, it can clearly be seen on a school bulletin board during a few scenes. If Selena wanted to honor her friend, that’s one neat way to do it. Also, it gave keen-eyed fans something to brag about catching to all their friends.
Underage Tattoos
Another way that 13 Reasons Why chose to add details about their characters personalities was in tattoos. The obvious examples are Justin Foley, Skye Miller, and Tony Padilla, all known for some serious ink. However, Alex, Bryce, and Monty are all seen sporting tattoos, too. It’s already a serious fan endeavor to spot every single tattoo and determine which ones are real or not, but there’s also another level to it.
After all, not all fans seem to be noticing that this is a lot of serious tattoos for a bunch of under-18 kids, right?
Also, the fact that some of these kids definitely wouldn’t be able to afford that much ink. The body art in this show really has a lot of questions and details that not everyone notices.
Tape Timestamps
A minor but important detail in 13 Reasons Why has to do with the season 1 recordings. It’s a very subtle visual, one that’s easy to notice unless someone’s looking for it: the timestamps on the recordings are set in the future, past when 13 Reasons Why season 1 debuted. The show premiered in March, but all the recording are set in November.
After some digging, the creators of this show put this detail in to show to viewers that there is still time to make a difference. They want people to see this show as a dangerous possibility, not an inevitable hurt. With the timestamps, they want to encourage people to be better for the future.
Same Taste in Music
While Hannah and Clay bond over work, movies, and school, they have more similarities than they even know. If they ever spent much time in each other’s bedrooms, they’d learn they had a very similar taste in music. They even possibly went to the same concert. Both Hannah and Clay have an Arcade Fire Reflektour poster on their walls.
One, this just helps prove the part of season 1 where both Clay and Hannah suspect they’d be good together. However, it shows one of the serious flaws between them: their poor communication. If they only talked about what they thought and felt, they could have been together, but it didn’t work that way between them. Fans can really learn a lot from noticing this small detail.
Zach’s Pier Phone Call
In the first episode of season 3, a lot of the students end up in ominous and suspicious scenes after Bryce is declared missing. The most suspicious is Zach, calling Bryce, panicked, surrounded by concrete. While the next episode focuses on him and Chloe, it doesn’t explain the phone call.
It’s easy, with all the high drama, to completely forget about the call. However, for detail-oriented fans with great memories, they can connect that phone call to the penultimate episode, where Zach beats up Bryce on the pier for hurting Chloe and breaking his leg. Zach came back to the concrete pier to see if Bryce was still there and, when he wasn’t, calls him, panicked. Gives more context between Zach and the ending, doesn’t it? Only for the ones who noticed, of course.
Hannah’s Attraction To Mike And Ike
This detail is a pretty easy one to miss considering it spans two different seasons. In season 1, fans find out that Clay really likes Mike and Ike’s candy. Neat, whatever. A season later, though, the show also shows that Zach really likes the candy, too, always ordering it whenever he visited Hannah at work.
Considering these two guys were the more serious love interests that Hannah had before losing her life, that’s quite the coincidence. Apparently, she has a thing for guys who like Mike and Ike’s. Maybe it just says that Zach and Clay have more in common than they’d ever think. Only pro fans notice that kind of thing, though.
Tyler’s Inspiration
While fans saw Tyler’s dangerous turn towards violence coming a mile away, there is more going on behind the scenes. For the eagle-eyed fan with some history knowledge, they’d know that Tyler’s season 1 finale gun reveal has more meaning. They set designers created his collection to look very similar to that of the Columbine shooters’ collection.
Moreover, in the story, he almost shoots up the school dance on the same day as Columbine: April 20th. Only fans with a good eye for detail would catch on to the very deliberate inspiration for Tyler’s storyline.
Nancy and Sid
This detail was in people’s faces, yet also kind of subtle in its own way. When Justin is on the run, he sends Jessica postcards under the name Sid, telling her that he loves her. The show makes it clear that this is a reference to their couples’ costume from the year before, Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. He’s using the name to give her notes and information. Ultimately, knowing this leads Clay and Tony to find him.
However, the more complicated detail people might not notice or realize is that Sid and Nancy fell apart due to drug abuse and sexual and domestic violence. That sounds familiar to some season 2 Justin/Jessica turmoil, doesn’t it? Only the cleverest researchers with a good eye would notice that.
