Zach Dempsey delivers perhaps the most shocking testimony thus far in the Baker case, as Justin comes out of hiding. Hannah opens the episode writing the letter she gave to Zach, who is reading it before his testimony, and he assures his mom everything will be okay. After a short scene where Clay asks Sheri about the Polaroids to no avail, we go outside the court. Despite Andrew and even Olivia's friend Jackie suggesting a united front by holding hands, Olivia stands firm against Andrew. Inside, Zach explains the jocks typically talk about sexual exploits with girls, often untrue, though he doesn't name anyone specifically. At school, an exasperated Clay quizzes Alex on what he remembers for a doctor visit, but the latter quickly becomes frustrated. Tyler, meanwhile, tells Cyrus about his neighbor calling his dad about the guns, resulting in his dad calling Cyrus' wanting to take them to a gun range. After his violent encounter with Mrs. Foley's boyfriend, Mr. Porter gets out of jail, with his wife saying she is proud he watches out for the kids, but urges caution. Ryan, wondering about Hannah's words, asks Sheri if she knows what the clubhouse is. Thinking he wants to dig up dirt on Hannah, she shuts him down. Back at court, Zach confirms that no one did anything after a dark letter from Hannah was real aloud in class. Porter gets a visit from the baseball coach, who comes in to essentially blackmail him by saying he knows about the arrest and has a police friend who can make it go away. Justin finally makes his return to the school, telling Jessica he couldn't forget her and that he will stay or leave depending on what she wants. She tells him she wishes he were dead, and as he turns to confront Bryce, he collapses. Despite snapping at Chloe that he's fine, Bryce is clearly scared and agitated about Justin's return. The defense lawyer, Sonya, asks if Hannah reached out to Zach directly after he dark note, and when he says yes, she asks how often they talked. Zach explains that he apologized to Hannah for his past actions, then began going to the movies just to see her. They got closer as a result, even having a date at her house that her parents didn't know about. Prodded about why he told no one, Zach explains he wanted to keep it between them because it was the summer his father died and he found they connected well. As Sonya keeps asking about the nature of their relationship, Zach finally reveals he and Hannah lost their virginities to each other and had sex throughout the summer. Through more flashbacks, we see them repeatedly together during the summer, growing closer as they explore more. After the testimony, an upset Olivia vents to Andrew about their daughter becoming a woman without them noticing. They argue about how they handled problems during their relationship, and he finally admits to living with his girlfriend and her daughter. At Clay's house, Justin hides as someone breaks in and searches his bag, coming out just in time for Mr. Jensen to find him. Word quickly spreads about Zach's testimony, and in the locker room he finds a pair of panties with Hannah's name and a blood spot in his locker. Enraged as Bryce begins laughing, he starts a fight that the coach quickly breaks up. Knowing how Clay felt about Hannah, Olivia is determined to bring him to testify despite Dennis and Andrew's objections, and Dennis finally agrees to contact him. Upset that Hannah had a relationship with Zach but shortly after pushed him away, a fuming Clay rants at Zach, saying he didn't deserve her and to go away. When Sheri comes to let him know about the clubhouse, he snaps that he doesn't care anymore. Tyler and Cyrus learn proper gun handling from Mr. Standall, who agrees with Tyler's dad that they should learn from an expert, and says Tyler is a good kid who has been a good friend to Alex. After Alex's doctor visit, he blows off PT by sitting in the locker room, where he rants to Zach that he is "plateauing," meaning he will never improve further. He gets violently angry, but during a scuffle he makes a surprising discovery. Olivia tries to convince Clay to testify, and while he says the testimonies have made him feel like he didn't know Hannah, Olivia asks if he can put them out of his mind. Jessica finally opens up to the survivors group, telling them about her rape and how ever since, she has felt Bryce every time someone gets close to her. We cut to Tony, entering the place he had his parole, only to leave upon seeing a scarred man learning self-defense from his trainer. Tyler and Cyrus, now drinking some kind of concoction, hack into Zach's iCloud account, finding a photo of Hannah, as well as a video of the jocks with a naked girl at the school. Cyrus wants to leak it, but Tyler suggests messing with Zach first. As Jessica and Nina leave the group, she congratulates Jessica on taking steps and telling her story, saying she should be proud of taking control back. The episode comes to a close with more confrontations, as with previous episodes, starting with the Jensens talking to Clay and Justin, who gives Clay advice about how he feels not about Hannah. Following this comes brutal honesty between Zach and his mom, as well as flashbacks showing the source of Zach's picture and how Hannah dealt with Zach's desire to keep things between them. Zach's character took a sharp turn from things we've seen before, though not unbelievably so. His decision to finally be open with everyone and how he feels reveals a lot about his and Hannah's past. Last season we didn't get much about Zach's home life aside from his mom being overbearing, but here we learn that his father's death hit him hard. While last season he initially helped try to keep Clay quiet, here he is open about everything and is more than willing to take any punishment he deserves. As we've seen with past characters interacting with their parents in new ways, we see a confrontation between Zach and his mom, as he finally confronts the poor communication skills she taught him that cause problems in his life. We also get some emotionally raw moments with Justin, both in him telling Jessica how he's felt as well as in the final scenes with Clay and his family. Like Zach, he spent last season trying to keep Clay quiet, but now he not only wants to get the word out, he also helps Clay personally. While much of the episode focuses elsewhere, Jessica's openness was great to see, as there is a sign she is finally able to start taking her life back from Bryce. Earlier this season, she abhorred the idea of being in a survivors group, saying she even hated the word. With Nina's help, however, she has made strides in telling her story and feeling more comfortable with herself again. Her account in the group shows the kind of lasting damage that is done to a survivor over time, as she says she feels his breath when someone kisses her and feel him pressing her down and forcing her to submit. With Clay, we're getting much more of the negative aspects of his personality than we did last season, which I've enjoyed seeing. He said at moments that he feels like he didn't really know Hannah and doesn't know how to feel anymore. In the same way, we are learning things about him we didn't know before, like his extreme jealousy toward Zach where he acts like he deserved Hannah more than Zach, like she was an object. Much like he has to try not letting the defense's argument completely change his view of what kind of person Hannah was, we have to try to understand that these things don't make him a horrible person, but rather more complex than we previously saw. Now that Clay will be called to testify at some point, an interesting argument will likely appear as a hopefully stubborn Clay faces the crafty Sonya.
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