13 Reasons Why

Clay Jensen finds a box filled with audio cassette tapes anonymously left on his front doorstep. He plays the first in his father's boombox and realizes they have been recorded by his recently deceased classmate Hannah Baker, before he accidentally drops and breaks the boombox when surprised by his mother. Clay steals his friend Tony's Walkman to continue listening. Clay listens to the first tape, in which Hannah begins to relate the experiences that led to her suicide. She starts by sharing the story of her first kiss, with Justin Foley, who goes on to inadvertently spread a salacious rumor that begins the sequence of events leading to her suicide. Clay is revealed, through numerous short flashbacks, to have been in love with Hannah and to have worked with her at the local movie theater. It is revealed in this episode that Hannah has put her friend Tony in charge of the tapes.

Hannah reminisces about her friendship with two other new students: Jessica, who moves frequently because her father is in the Air Force, and Alex, whom they met at a coffee shop. Jessica and Alex eventually begin a relationship and stop spending time with Hannah. When Alex breaks up with Jessica, she very publicly blames Hannah. In the present, Hannah's mother, Olivia, finds a note in her daughter's textbook that leads her to believe Hannah was being bullied. Clay asks Jessica about the tapes, which results in Bryce Walker's circle of peers meeting to discuss how Clay is listening to Hannah's recordings.

As Clay attempts to pursue a romantic relationship with Hannah, her relationships are threatened by a "best/worst list" made by Alex Standall, who has put a "target" on Hannah. In the present, Hannah's mother, Olivia Baker, seeks out the school principal about her suspicion of bullying and makes a disturbing discovery. In the midst of his investigation, Clay turns to Alex for answers, who not only feels regret for his actions on the tapes, but also warns Clay against trusting Tony, whom Clay later sees in a violent exchange with his brothers. As Justin tries to recuperate from his recent slump, Bryce strong-arms Clay and Alex into a drinking contest in an alleyway.

Hannah hears someone outside her window, and confesses to her friend, Courtney, that she has a stalker. Courtney offers to help her catch the offender in the act. While waiting for the stalker to arrive, they play an alcohol-fueled game of truth or dare that leads to the two of them kissing on Hannah's bed. The stalker, school photographer Tyler Down, takes a photo of the girls and sends it around the school. This effectively ends Courtney and Hannah's friendship as Courtney distances herself from Hannah to avoid being revealed as one of the people in the photograph. In the present, Clay goes to Hannah's house and talks to her mother, though is unable to admit how close he and Hannah were. He also confronts Tony about the incident with his brothers. Tony responds that "people have to make their own justice" and proves he has an extra set of tapes. Inspired by this, Clay takes a naked picture of Tyler and sends it around the school in revenge.

Courtney, afraid of her classmates finding out about her sexuality, spreads a rumor that the girls in the leaked photos are Hannah and Laura, an openly lesbian classmate. Courtney also adds to the rumor about Hannah and Justin, worsening Hannah's poor reputation. In the present, Clay takes Courtney to visit Hannah's grave. She leaves, not ready to face her involvement in the loss of her classmate or be more open about her sexuality. Tony arrives with Clay's bike and gives him a tape with the song he and Hannah danced to at the Winter Formal. Later, Justin, Zach and Alex force Clay into the car with them by stealing his bike and scare him into silence about the tapes by driving over the speed limit. They are pulled over by the police but face no consequences as the officer is revealed to be Alex's father. Clay denies knowing Hannah to his mother, who has been asked to represent the school in the lawsuit the Bakers are bringing.

Hannah's date on Valentine's Day with Marcus does not go as planned due to the rumors that she is promiscuous. In the present, Alex gets into a fight with Montgomery and they both must appear before the student honor board. Clay helps Sheri on an assignment, and they nearly hook up, but Sheri reveals she is only there because she is on the tapes and wants Clay to like her despite her role in Hannah's death.

After Hannah refuses to go out with Zach, he gets revenge by sabotaging her emotionally during a class project. Zach removes compliments from Hannah's box, affecting her self-confidence. In the present, Clay hears Zach's tape and keys his car in an act of revenge, but things turn out to be different than they appeared. Clay is now having both auditory and visual hallucinations of Hannah during the day, including seeing her dead body on the floor of the basketball court during a game and hearing her tape playing over the school's intercom system. He returns the tapes to Tony, unable to continue listening.

Hannah is touched by poetry recited by fellow student Ryan Shaver, and joins the Evergreen Poetry Club, a place where people write and perform their own poetry, and listen and critique others. Hannah presents some extremely revealing and confessional poetry at the poetry club after Ryan encourages her. Ryan betrays her by publishing the poem without her knowledge or consent in his school magazine. Almost everyone in school finds the poem hilarious, but Clay is both touched and disturbed by it, not realizing Hannah is the author. In the present day, Tony confides to Clay about the night of Hannah's death, and Clay takes back the tapes. Clay later gives the poem to Hannah's mother.

While hiding in Jessica's room during a party, Hannah witnesses Bryce Walker raping an unconscious and intoxicated Jessica. In the present, Marcus warns Clay the worst is yet to come and again attempts to scare him into silence about the tapes, this time by planting drugs in his backpack to get him suspended from school. Clay finally admits to his mother that he and Hannah were close. After getting suspicious legal advice from his mother, he goes to Justin's apartment to retrieve his bike and talk about getting justice for Jessica. Justin finally admits that what happened in the tapes is real, and claims it is better if Jessica does not know the truth.

After the party, Hannah gets a ride home from her classmate, cheerleader Sheri Holland. They have what appears to be a minor accident, knocking over a stop sign. While Hannah wants to call the police to report it, Sheri refuses to do so, because she is afraid she will get in trouble. While Hannah is on her way to find a phone to call the authorities, the downed stop sign causes a serious accident at that intersection, resulting in the death of Clay's friend Jeff Atkins, which was incorrectly considered a drunk driving accident. When Hannah tries to tell Clay about the stop sign, he pushes her away, thinking she is being unnecessarily dramatic. In the present, Jessica's behavior becomes more erratic. Clay finds out that Sheri is trying to make up for her mistake in her own way, and he tells Jeff's parents that Jeff was sober when he died.

With Tony's support, Clay finally listens to his tape and is overcome with guilt to the point of contemplating his own suicide because he feels he did not do enough to prevent Hannah's death. Tony manages to calm him down. Justin finds out Jessica is at Bryce's home. He confronts her there and admits that Bryce raped her on the night of the party, causing her to break up with him. Olivia Baker finds a list with the names of all the people on the tapes, although she does not know what the list means.

After accidentally losing her parents' store's earnings, a depressed Hannah stumbles upon a party being thrown by Bryce. The night ends in tragedy when she ends up alone with him, and he rapes her in his hot tub. This leads Hannah to create a list of people (the one that her mother found in the previous episode) who she feels were responsible for leading her to her current circumstances, which becomes the inspiration for the creation of the tapes. In the present, everyone on Hannah's list is subpoenaed to testify in the lawsuit between the Bakers and the school. The subjects of the tapes disagree over what to do. Tyler eventually suggests they pin everything on Bryce, but Alex refuses and says they should tell the truth. Sheri turns herself in. Clay goes to Bryce's house, on the pretext of buying marijuana, to confront him about the events of the night he raped Hannah. Clay provokes Bryce to attack him and is badly beaten. However, Clay has been secretly recording their conversation and gets Bryce to admit that he raped Hannah. An unknown teenager with a gunshot wound to the head is treated by paramedics.

Hannah begins to record the tapes and then visits Mr. Porter to tell him about her rape. Hannah secretly records the conversation, hoping he will help her. When he does not, she heads to a post office, and mails the tapes to Justin Foley, then she goes home and takes her own life by slitting her wrists. In the present, Clay gives Tony the tape of his conversation with Bryce to copy. He confronts Mr. Porter about meeting with Hannah on her last day. He also hands over the tapes, including the additional tape containing Bryce's confession. Clay tells Porter that he is the subject of the final tape. The depositions begin, Marcus and Courtney deny their involvement in Hannah's death as much as possible. Zach and Jessica admit their mistakes. Before his deposition, Tyler hides ammunition and guns in his room, and then reveals the existence of the tapes during his interview. Alex is revealed to have been the teenager with the gunshot wound; he is in critical condition at the hospital. Justin leaves town out of guilt, but not before telling Bryce about the tapes. Jessica finally tells her father about her rape. At school, Clay reaches out to Skye Miller, his former friend, to avoid repeating the same mistakes he made with Hannah.

Five months after the events of the first season, Hannah's trial moves to court. Tyler is the first to testify in the trial and does so truthfully. Skye and Clay are dating, but Clay starts to have hallucinations of Hannah. Mr. Porter confronts Bryce in the bathroom about raping Hannah. Jessica returns to school, as does Alex who survived his suicide attempt, but has lost much of his memory from before it, including the contents of Hannah's tapes. Tony is given the note Hannah left him the night she died, and is later seen burning it. Clay finds a Polaroid photograph in his locker, with a note saying "Hannah wasn't the only one".

Courtney reveals that she is a lesbian and had feelings for Hannah during her testimony. A group of protesters gather at the court to demand justice for Hannah, but Jessica and Alex are both threatened to avoid revealing anything incriminating when they testify. Skye and Clay fight over her suspicion that Clay is still in love with Hannah, and Skye is hospitalized soon after leaving Clay's house. Meanwhile, Tyler befriends a classmate named Cyrus.

Clay, riding home on his bicycle, is hit intentionally by a car, injuring him slightly. He visits Skye in hospital, but she breaks up with him. Clay and Alex try to encourage Jessica to reveal information about Bryce during her testimony, but she fails after seeing incriminating pictures of her stuck to the board in a classroom. Olivia asks her afterwards if she was the girl on the ninth tape, but Jessica does not answer. After discovering Jessica had been contacted by Justin, Clay finds him homeless in Oakland with Tony's help. With no other option, Clay lets Justin stay in his bedroom with him. Skye's parents move her to a psychiatric facility, and tell Clay not to contact her. Tyler meets the rest of Cyrus' friends while Bryce is asked to testify.

Marcus lies about what happened with Hannah the night they went out on Valentine's Day during his testimony (in order to protect his reputation) and briefly mentions Bryce, angering him. Cyrus and Tyler hear of Marcus' lies and prank him, going to a nearby field afterwards to shoot guns. Clay finds out that Justin has been taking heroin and he and Sheri help him onto the path to sobriety. Jessica shows the threatening note she was left before her testimony to Mr Porter. Alex continues to be frustrated about not being able to remember anything and asks Clay for the tapes, who sends them to him. Jessica and Alex skip school and share a kiss. Clay also finds a second Polaroid photograph in his locker, which shows Bryce having sex with an unconscious girl, alongside a note saying "he won't stop".

Tyler is confronted by Mr. Porter, who suspects he was behind the pictures of Jessica found in the classroom before her testimony, but he denies involvement. Ryan testifies and talks about Hannah's poems, saying they were written about Justin and that she and Justin maintained contact even after falling out. Afterwards, Olivia invites Ryan to help her decipher Hannah's poems for additional clues, but Ryan soon leaves after Olivia mentions missing pages in Hannah's journal, which Ryan had torn out. Clay realizes the Polaroid photos were taken at school and attempts to find out where. Chlöe meets with Bryce's parents and his mother notices bruises on her. Jessica attends her first group therapy session. Mr. Porter finds a brick thrown through his car window, with a threatening note attached; he later confronts Justin's mother and is arrested after a violent incident with her boyfriend.

Zach testifies and reveals that he and Hannah had a romantic relationship the summer before she died, but they kept it secret. After the testimony, Clay reacts angrily and confronts Zach, ignoring his apologies, while Bryce teases Zach about his relationship, prompting a small fight between them. Justin returns to school and talks to Jessica, but she asks him to leave. He then faints after seeing Bryce, and on his return to Clay's house, has to hide as someone breaks in, at which point Clay's parents find out he has been staying there, but allow it to continue.

During Clay's testimony, he is forced to reveal he and Hannah did drugs at a small party one night and spent the night together, and Clay ignored a comment Hannah made the next morning about wanting to die. Alex's birthday party is derailed after a number of arguments break out. When Clay leaves the birthday party, he finds a Polaroid photograph left on his car, with a note reading "The Clubhouse". After reading comments posted online about his testimony, Clay anonymously uploads Hannah's tapes to the Internet. Meanwhile, Bryce is seen having sex with Chlöe without getting proper consent.

After the release of the tapes, Bryce returns to school to find his locker vandalized and his "confession tape" Clay recorded being shared among students. After Marcus is blackmailed, he calls Bryce a rapist during a speech at a ceremony, in front of a large group of parents and students, in order to protect his own reputation. Clay finally contacts Skye again and meets with her at the psychiatric facility, but she tells him she is moving to a different state. Justin overdoses on heroin, but Alex saves his life – he then returns to his mother's home.

When testifying, Mr. Porter reveals that since Hannah's death he has come to believe that Hannah was raped by Bryce. He then emotionally apologizes to Hannah's mother for the part he played in her suicide. Justin steals money from his mother's boyfriend, and when confronted by his mother, leaves her some suggesting she leave too in order to escape the relationship. Bryce confronts and threatens Clay under the assumption that it was Clay who blackmailed Marcus into publicly accusing Bryce of rape. Later, Clay is violently beaten at school by four masked students. He is then approached by Cyrus who invites him to join him and Tyler in vandalizing the school that evening, but when he does, he sees a group of students entering a storage shed next to the baseball field, which he correctly guesses is the location of The Clubhouse. He texts Justin and they reconvene. Meanwhile, Olivia contacts a girl, Sarah, and her mother and asks them not to testify.

Tony is asked to testify, but chooses not to reveal that Hannah left him her tapes because he owed her a favor after she helped him evade arrest. During Sarah's testimony, she reveals Hannah was part of a trio of girls who bullied her at another high school. After an argument between Tyler and Mackenzie, his friendship with Cyrus breaks down. Offering marijuana, Sheri tempts some male students into taking her to The Clubhouse, where Bryce takes a picture of her and two other boys on a Polaroid camera, placing the photograph in a box filled with many others. She learns the code to unlock the door and shares it with Clay and Justin. During a baseball game, Zach confronts Bryce, tells him he knows Hannah was not lying, and quits the game. He goes to The Clubhouse to find Clay and Justin there, and hands Clay the box of Polaroid photographs taken in the Clubhouse, confessing that it was him who had given Clay the first three photographs. Clay reviews the photographs at home with Justin and Sheri, and they find a pair of photographs which show Bryce raping Chlöe. Clay also finds a picture of Hannah.

Bryce testifies and says that he and Hannah had a casual sexual relationship, and that she falsely accused him of rape after he brought an end to it. When Bryce returns to school, Justin approaches him and a fight breaks out, which evolves into a mass brawl. Jessica shows Chlöe the two pictures of Bryce and her in The Clubhouse, and Chlöe confesses that she posted the pictures of Jessica in the classroom before she testified. Olivia, her legal team, and Jessica ask Chlöe to testify, and she agrees, but on the stand she testifies that she remembers Bryce having sex with her and remembers consenting. The box of Polaroid photographs taken from The Clubhouse is stolen from Clay's car, and Alex is sent a package containing a gun and a threatening letter. Bryce's mother later asks him whether he was telling the truth in his testimony, and, after being pressed, he confesses to raping Hannah. Through a series of flashbacks, it is revealed that Bryce wanted a relationship with Hannah and was rejected himself. Clay becomes mentally tormented by hallucinations of Hannah, to the point where he contemplates both murdering Bryce and killing himself.

Justin receives a death threat before going to testify, but he tells of Bryce raping Jessica during his testimony nonetheless. After Alex realizes that Montgomery is responsible for intimidating people during the trial, Alex, Clay, Justin, Tony, Zach, and Scott confront Montgomery and he admits to stealing the box of Polaroid photos. However, after Montgomery takes Alex to a deserted location to retrieve them, he reveals he was lying and escapes. As a result, Jessica is encouraged by her friends to report her case of sexual assault to the police. After the Baker trial concludes and the jury find the school district not responsible for Hannah's death, both Bryce and Justin are arrested outside the courtroom for their involvement in Jessica's rape. Mr. Porter is fired after a performance review, and Tyler is placed on a diversion program after one of his social media posts reveals it was him who vandalized the school.