13 Reasons Why has prompted approximately a billion fan theories — but this one about Tony might take the cake. A roundup of theories from E! News highlighted a particularly intriguing idea about the vintage car loving, perfectly coiffed hair-having teenager. Could Tony be a teen angel?!?
While some were busy arguing over whether Tyler (Devin Druid) was the one who really shot Alex (Miles Heizer), others were staring at Christian Navarro's Tony and thinking: welp, he's definitely a ghost, right?
I totally get the thought process... even if the theory is easily debunkable. The truth is, there's a surprising amount of evidence that suggests Tony is not amongst the living — or, rather, is Clay's (Dylan Minnette) guardian angel.
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First, let's take a look at the obvious. Why, oh why, did Tony dress like he was playing Kenickie in a school production of Grease? I'm not merely talking about the universally beloved leather jacket: his entire aesthetic screams "Happy Days cosplay." The simplest explanation is that Tony was the ghost of a student who died in 1955, and is now doomed to roam the halls of Liberty High School, dishing out cryptic advice and taking students on death-defying rock climbing excursions. It's basically the plot of that TV movie Susie Q, with Tony playing Amy Jo Johnson's part.
Then there's Tony's actual role on the show — which is pretty much exactly that of a guardian angel. He's the keeper of Hannah's (Katherine Langford) tapes, and distributes them after her death. That just sounds like something an angel would do: help Hannah "move on" to another plane of existence by fulfilling her final wish.
Of course, despite this so-called evidence, there's also plenty to suggest Tony is a living, breathing human being with a flair for '50s fashion. Everyone in town acknowledges Tony, from Clay's terrible mom to Clay's terrible classmates. Tony even dates two characters on the show, and he's probably not swiping right on Tinder from a cushy cloud in heaven.
Still, there's definitely a version of this show where Tony is a guardian angel — and I would totally watch a 13 Reasons Why spin-off about that.