Tape 6: Side B – Bryce Walker
While we talked about how Clay was the most innocent person on this tape and in this story on the last entry we are about to get very dark on this entry. To counteract Clay’s ray of sunshine we need a character to be a complete asshole bastard to be the overall villain and that person’s name is Bryce Walker. Both in the book Bryce is build up as a bully jock that blatantly mistreat women and gets away with it because he’s from a very wealthy family. You know the type of wealthy I’m talking about… any story/show/movie that involves high school/college kids there is always the one that is the rich asshole that NOBODY likes yet people hang around him because he/she always throws the best kick ass parties every week because they are ballin’ like that. It’s probably safe the say that Bryce has committed the worst thing on the tapes…. He’s a rapist and he’s raped on more than one occasion on Hannah’s tapes so this man has no redeeming qualities about him.
To sum up Bryce’s tape: Hannah walks around the neighborhood at night to clear her head when she hears a party going on. Curious she walks to the party where she sees a lot of people she knows, some are people who have done her wrong in the past. Throwing caution to the wind she strips down to her underwear and decides to get in a hot tub. In the book version she gets in the tub with Courtney and Bryce Walker. Courtney leaves the tub leaving Bryce alone with Hannah forcing himself on her. Tired of fighting her troublesome “slut” reputation she doesn’t fight back as Bryce rapes her. In the tv show Hannah is left all alone in the tub with her eyes closed. When she opens her eyes Bryce is there and he forces himself onto her. Not wanting to do anything with him Hannah fights back and tries to escape but Bryce overpowers her and aggressively rapes her breaking her spirit. When she gets back home she writes down on a piece of paper everyone that has caused her trouble and narrowed down the main people to be the main subjects of her cassette suicide tapes.
It’s funny that this story was written back in 2007 because as relevant the subject of #MeToo and getting away with it was back then it is even more prevalent now with the issues of public figures like Harvey Weinstein, Louis CK, Bill Cosby and etc. Bryce represents how dark a person can become when there are no restrictions. Bryce brutally raped Hannah, raped a drunk Jessica, and with the hints from characters like Clay that mentions how he mistreat women it’s safe to say there may be other rape victims out there because of Bryce. The ONLY redeeming quality Bryce has shown was being a “big brother” to Justin since his home life is in shambles however after failing to stop Bryce from raping Jessica its safe to say the once strong bond and loyalty between Justin and Bryce is no longer there from Justin.
In the book Hannah specifically says that she only wants the people on the list to hear her tapes but she didn’t want Bryce to hear them out of hear that he would destroy the tapes and skip town. In the book the majority follows her instructions with no issues but in the show her parents gets an audio copy of the tapes so her parents know what Bryce did and most likely they will tell everyone especially during the trial of Hannah’s parents vs the School Board. Bryce will be a major factor going into season 2 and its safe to say he will have the best lawyers that money can afford. Will Bryce go to jail for his crimes? Will he get gunned down by someone from his past? Will his money cause him to get away with everything. One thing is for certain: Bryce has a dark soul and he will do everything in his power to buy his way out of trouble and cause trouble for everyone in the process.
Fractured Mindframe 