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"#### This post contains spoilers for *13 Reasons Why* season three.\n+++dropcap\n\nIn its third season, *13 Reasons Why* was, shall we say, a lot. There were murders, deportations, a dizzying number of drugs, and even more secrets coming out into the open—well, mostly. What began as a relatively confined story about one teenage girl’s suicide has ballooned into a haunting examination of the teenage condition, presented through a hyperdramatic filter. This 13-hour season was a twisty ride that left in its wake several loose threads—questions that the Netflix drama’s [fourth and final season](https://people.com/tv/13-reasons-why-renewed-fourth-final-season/) will have to answer. The biggest mystery is whether Clay Jensen (**Dylan Minnette**) and his friends will actually get away with lying to the police about who killed Bryce Walker (**Justin Prentice**)—but these five dangling threads will also play a role.\n\n+++\n\n### Will Season Four Be All About Monty?\nBryce’s murder investigation comes to a close with police blaming the wrong person—because Clay’s friends framed him.\n\nThe actual details of Bryce’s death are complicated: Zach Dempsey (**Ross Butler**) beat Bryce to a bloody pulp on the docks after the Liberty High School homecoming game. Jessica Davis (**Alisha Boe**) and Alex Standall (**Miles Heizer**) found Bryce later that night; though Alex at first reluctantly attempted to help him, he then thought about all the people he loved whom Bryce had hurt and, seemingly without thinking, threw Bryce into the river. Panic-stricken, he and Jess watched the injured Bryce as he drowned. In the end, it was Montgomery de la Cruz (**Timothy Granaderos**) who posthumously got the blame for Bryce’s death—though at least one person knows that the story Clay’s friends told the police to implicate Monty was a lie.\n\nMonty, who is closeted, was actually having sex with one of Bryce’s Hillcrest classmates, Winston Williams, as Bryce was being murdered; he later went to prison for sexually assaulting Tyler Down (**Devin Druid**). As Bryce’s murder investigation was closing, Clay’s friend Ani (**Grace Saif**) found out Monty had been beaten to death in prison. So she and the rest of Clay’s friends pinned Bryce’s murder on him. Winston confronted Ani about the lie at the end of this season—and if this show’s patterns hold true next season, it seems likely we haven’t heard the last from him (or Monty) just yet.\n\n### What Will the Fisherman Do With Tyler’s Guns?\nWhen Clay and Tony Padilla (**Christian Navarro**) covered up Tyler’s plans to commit a mass shooting at their school’s Spring Fling, they dumped all of Tyler’s guns in the river—and at the end of this season, a fisherman found them in the water. It’s unclear whether Clay and Tony had the foresight to wipe any fingerprints off the guns—or if their serial numbers might trace back to Tyler and his family. But either way, the stash seems bound to haunt these troubled teens when the series returns.\n\n### Can Justin and Jessica Make It as a Couple?\nThe romantic relationship between Justin and Jessica might be one of the show’s most complicated. The series appears to have somewhat softened its stance when it comes to the extent to which Justin “let” Bryce rape Jessica at a party years ago—but regardless, it’s been an understandably fraught facet of their relationship, especially as Jessica leads the school’s rape survivor activist group. At the end of this season, Justin revealed to the school that he himself was a sexual assault survivor; as he later told Jessica, one of his mother’s drug-addicted boyfriends molested him as a child. He was also assaulted multiple times when he did sex work while living on the streets. Justin is still working through his heroin addiction as well.\n\nJessica is undeniably courageous, and her reclamation of her body and sexuality was one of this season’s high points—but after what happened with Bryce, she remains somewhat fragile. Season 4 will have to continue to explore the complicated wrinkles in her relationship with Justin, and ultimately decide whether Justin and Jessica’s love for one another is enough to overcome the trauma they’ve both endured.\n\n### Will Tony’s Family Ever Return to the U.S.?\nTony’s family apparently got deported after Bryce’s father alerted authorities to their immigration status, though Tony and his little sister, Graciella, were both born in the U.S. Tony sent Graciella to live with their uncle and aunt in Arizona, and at the end of the season, he and his boyfriend, Caleb, video-chatted with Tony’s family. Earlier in the season, Tony was set on reuniting his family, and it’s unclear if he still plans to do so. It seems unlikely that Tony will be content to have his sister living so far away, and his parents even further—but it’s hard to say what he can do to rectify the situation. Still, this is *13 Reasons Why,* so it seems very likely that he’s going to try.\n\n### What’s Next for Alex?\nAlex, like pretty much all of his classmates, has been through a lot in three seasons. Wracked with guilt over all that Hannah revealed in her tapes in season one, Alex attempted suicide. He survived, but sustained brain injuries that affected his memory and muscle coordination. This season, Alex is insecure about his body, particularly after his breakup with Jessica—so he asks Zach to help him learn to lift weights, and uses steroids to boost his performance. Going into season four, Alex’s father, Deputy Standall, is aware of his son’s role in Bryce’s murder, as well as his drug use. Still, Deputy Standall seems content to, as Ani put it in her testimony, “let the dead bury the dead,” and lay the blame for Bryce’s death on the already-deceased Monty.\n\nDeputy Standall burned what looked like the clothing Alex was wearing on the night of Bryce’s death, but whether he will confront Alex about any of this remains to be seen. As the season came to a close, he told Alex that when he first found him after the suicide attempt, he wished he had been the one with a bullet in his head instead of his son. He later offered an emotional Thanksgiving prayer: “Father, please bless and keep safe our children,” he said. “All of our children. Their world is darker than ours. Father forgive us for what we’ve done to make it that way.”\n\nAlex faces a lot of challenges in the season to come—to name a few, he will likely struggle with keeping away from steroids, dealing with guilt over his role in Bryce’s death, and suppressing any anxiety he might have that the police could find out the truth about what happened. (As of right now, Alex has no idea that his father knows he was a culprit.) At least he has one thing working in his favor: He was finally able to mend things with Jessica in the end. And if there’s one thing *13 Reasons Why* clearly believes in, it’s the redemptive power of friendships.\n\n### More Great Stories from *Vanity Fair*\n— How intimacy coordinators [are changing Hollywood sex scenes](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/08/intimacy-coordinators-screen-actors-guild?inline)\\\n— *The Crown*’s Helena Bonham Carter on her “scary” [encounter with Princess Margaret](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/08/helena-bonham-carter-princess-margaret-encounter?inline)\\\n— The Trump-baiting Anthony Scaramucci [interview that roiled the president](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/08/anthony-scaramucci-interview-trump?inline)\\\n— What happens when [you try to be the next *Game of Thrones*](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/08/carnival-row-cara-delevingne-orlando-bloom-amazon-review?inline)\\\n— Why are teens flocking to [Jake Gyllenhaal’s Broadway show?](https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2019/08/jake-gyllenhaal-teen-fans-broadway-sea-wall-a-life?inline)\\\n— From the Archive: Keanu Reeves, [young and restless](https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/share/f2cd9db8-0d0a-4ee0-a5e1-deb619442a33)\n\nLooking for more? [Sign up](https://www.vanityfair.com/newsletters) for our daily Hollywood newsletter and never miss a story.\n\n"
<https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/08/13-reasons-why-season-3-recap-season-4-predictions-monty-alex-bryce>