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In the first season of 13 Reasons Why, parents and their children lived in two distinct spheres. The kids knew what really happened to Hannah Baker; they knew how awful Liberty High can be. As of season 2, the adults are finally beginning to catch on. These parents have the Herculean task of supporting their children through wilds of Liberty High. Some do a much better job than than others.
Given the emphasis on parent-child relationships, season 2 could also be called, "13 Reasons Why: A Kaleidoscope of Home Lives." Each episode featured scenes in the main characters’ uniformly well-decorated homes (except Justin's — sorry Justin). We saw the environments that shaped characters like Alex, Jessica, and Clay: the band posters hanging on the wall, their reactions to their well-meaning (or enabling) parents, the cadence of their dinner conversations.
While the inclusion of parents is a positive, 13 Reasons Why had some glaring blind spots in its portrayal of home lives. Why don't we see Tony (Christian Navarro) and Sheri’s (Ajiona Alexus) families? Why don’t any parents, except for Cyrus’s father, send their kids to therapy? Weirdly, why are so many of the characters only children?
The show’s not perfect — and neither are its parents. Here is our playful ranking of these fictional characters’ parents from worst to best. We realize parenting is an impossibly difficult task, so no judgment to the real ones out there.
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