On Friday, Netflix dropped the 10-episode fourth year of its hit teen drama 13 Reasons Why, but will it be renewed for a Season 5? Observing the season premiere fans started asking when and if the next season should be expected by them to drop. Unfortunately for fans of this show, Season 4 indicated the time Netflix will be taking them in the halls of Liberty High School.
After originally debuting on the streamer back in 2017, Netflix announced in August of 2019, just ahead of the Season 3 premiere, the series could be finishing with Season 4. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly ahead of the latest season premiere, founder Brian Yorkey revealed that he decided to make 13 Reasons Why”a four-season story” while filming Season 2. Yorkey explained that he was”always a tiny bit suspicious of high school shows that go past four seasons since high school is four decades long.” He added that”it felt like bringing these characters to their graduation and also to scattering to their next things felt just like the logical ending point.”
Although the ending was said to be due to a creative choice, it came after decades of controversy and surmounting calls to cancel the series. A version of Jay Asher’s young adult novel of the identical name, the series’ debut season focused on high school students wake Hannah Baker’s suicide and the 13 tapes she abandoned for ending her life, explaining her motives. Since it drew backlash for its portrayal of suicide, together with many slamming the show for glorifying adolescent suicide, many studies linked the series to a rise in teen suicide in the months which followed its premiere.
In response to some of the backlash, Netflix revealed that after speaking with specialists, it’d decided to remove the suicide scene of Hannah. In its position, the series now shows Hannah considering her reflection in a mirror before it belongs to her death to her parents’ response. The show added a suicide warning before each episode.
The controversy, however, didn’t stop there, and the series sparked a further outcry from the subsequent seasons for featuring graphic sexual assaults and a thwarted faculty shooting. As a result, the Parents Television Council, on several occasions, invited Netflix to pull the show from its platform entirely. Netflix consistently stood by 13 Reasons Why. These four seasons of 13 Reasons Why are available for streaming on Netflix.