Tape 5: Side A – Justin Foley part 2
Well up to this point we have seen Hannah’s life go from 0 to 100 from various interactions of the names of the list. The one thing I can say is that it may have been a possibly for Hannah to “save her soul” but then a sudden turn in the road can alter your fate forever. The next couple of tapes I will talk about all stem from a party that Jessica had at her house and for many individuals on the tapes that night changed their lives forever. Please be careful following along because Hannah kinda tells the story of the night of Jessica’s party in a weird order so I’ll try my best to be simple in my explaining. With that being said Justin Foley you thought you were done but nah son come back up it’s your tape once again. My my my my my my oh my…. Justin Foley just when you thought you were out you get pulled back in. This man fucked up so badly he ended up with TWO tapes.Even though this tape is deemed “Justin’s Tape” in reality this tape should be deemed “Justin, Bryce… and maybe Hannah’s Tape”.
To sum up Justin’s 2nd tape: after her situation with Clay in Jessica’s room (in which I will explain in a future entry) Clay leaves leaving Hannah in the room sitting hidden next to the bed thinking about what just happened. That’s when a drunk Jessica and semi-sober Justin comes in the room and lies on the bed with Hannah being hidden. Justin wants to have sex with Jessica but Jessica was too drunk and she passes out. Justin decides to leave the room to let Jessica sleep, Hannah tries to leave the room but that’s when Bryce comes and is outside the room with Justin. Bryce wants to have sex with Jessica but Justin tries to stop him. Bryce forcefully pushes Justin to the side to go have sex with Jessica and Justin for various reasons doesn’t try to stop him again. Hannah hides in the closet and witnesses Bryce raping a drunken Jessica that is too drunk to notice what’s happening. Once he finishes Bryce leaves, then Hannah then leaves the room traumatized at what she just witnessed. She decides to leave the party when she meets up with Sheri… and we’ll touch on that part on a later entry. To fully analyze this tape we have to see it from the two perspectives:
Justin’s perspective: this tape kinda puts perspective the relationship he has with Bryce. In the show it’s explicitly shown that Justin lives in a violent uncaring hostile type of environment with his parents not really caring about him. Bryce has been a good friend and a big brother to Justin throughout this time. So naturally Justin gives Bryce a ton of leeway of all matters no matter what because of loyalty. So at the party when the situation arose where Justin had to pick between protecting his girlfriend or letting his “big brother” have her way with her… as a difficult decision it was to make he originally made the right decision to stop Bryce. Unfortunately for Justin the fact that Bryce is bigger, stronger and tougher than him Bryce ended up getting his way and ultimately let his girlfriend down in the most tragic way and he has to forever live with that to eat him up inside. Now every time he looks at his “big brother” the only thing he sees is the man who raped his girlfriend and the only thing Justin thinks he can do it to pretend that it didn’t happen and to lie to Jessica about it.
Hannah’s perspective: despite everything bad that happened between Jessica and Hannah you know that Hannah wouldn’t wish anything bad like this to happen to her. Both in the show and more in-depth in the book Hannah explains the reasons why she couldn’t save Jessica was because: 1. Her ass was too drunk to form any kind of movement to even attempt to stop Bryce. 2. Even if she was sober she was frozen solid out of fear of witnessing a rape and being that close to it at that. I think most people criticize Hannah for “being frozen in fear” but let’s be honest this happens to everyone. People love to paint themselves in “If that was me I would have….” scenarios but when something goes down you either Fight or Flight and not everyone fights, some people naturally some come to fear and that’s just human nature. At least Hannah talked about it on the tapes to let everyone know what a piece of shit Bryce is and not act like nothing happened.
Overall this tape was a game changer and the stakes just get higher from this point on. It’s one thing when bad things are happening to Hannah but when something bad happened to someone else then this becomes a problem for more that one person. In a way for Hannah to talk about witnessing a rape on tapes that a group of people circulating to each other and none of them are reporting kinda make the “Baker’s Dozen” all accessories to a crime I believe… I may be wrong but I can see that fact being a focal point in the next season. As for Hannah she sees herself just as guilty for the rape as Justin for not stopping it and as Bryce for doing it. I don’t think Hannah sees herself as a good person anymore, she sees herself as a demon that causes only bad luck to herself and to those that are around her… something that becomes the main focal point of future tapes.
Fractured Mindframe 