Conversation starter or suicide snare?

Against the advice of mental health experts and the pleas of concerned parents, Netflix plans to release Season Two of the teen suicide drama 13 Reasons Why on May 18.

The 13-episode show explores scenes from the life of 17-year-old Hannah Baker, who left behind cassette recordings for people she blames for causing her to commit suicide, an act depicted in graphic detail in the final episode. The journal JAMA Internal Medicine reported that internet searches for suicide-related terms such as “how to kill yourself” increased by 19 percent in the 19 days following the show’s initial release. Dan Reidenberg, executive director of Suicide Awareness Voices in Education, told the Syracuse Post-Standard last year that Netflix contacted him for guidance on the show, and he told them not to run it. After it aired, he said suicide prevention workers from across the country inundated him with questions about how to talk to teens about the show.

Netflix insisted the show started positive conversations about suicide prevention between teens and parents. It commissioned a survey by Northwestern University that found 56 percent of parents who watched the show and talked about it with their child said it made the conversation easier. Eighty percent of adolescent and young viewers surveyed said 13 Reasons helped them understand their actions have an impact on others.

“From the beginning, because the series broaches uncomfortable topics, we believed it had the potential to be a powerful agent for change,” said Brian Wright, vice president of original series for Netflix.

And that might be true for teens in stable mental health with engaging, involved parents. (Though that doesn’t necessarily justify watching the show, which is rated only for viewers 17 and older because of filthy language and depictions of sex and violence.) But for adolescents who already suffer from bullying, depression, or suicidal thoughts, the effects of a show like 13 Reasons can be deadly.

“Evidence suggests that pictures or detailed descriptions of how or where a person died by suicide can be a factor in vulnerable individuals imitating the attempt,” researchers wrote in a JAMA Internal Medicine editorial after the show aired.

Season Two centers on how the characters handle Hannah’s suicide, including attempts to conceal the real reasons she killed herself. Netflix is responding to viewer concerns by adding an introduction to both seasons in which the actors warn the show addresses sexual assault, substance abuse, and suicide.

“If you are struggling with these issues yourself, this series may not be right for you or you may want to watch it with a trusted adult,” actress Alisha Boy says in the intro video, which also directs viewers to 13reasonswhy.info, a Netflix-sponsored site with suicide prevention information.

But for Tim Winter, president of the Parents Television Council, the changes are not enough. The council called on Netflix to delay the release of Season Two “until experts in the scientific community have determined it to be safe for consumption by an audience that is comprised heavily of minor children.”

“Netflix has demonstrated that it now has full knowledge of this program’s potential effect—especially on young viewers, and they cannot now feign ignorance should tragedy strike,” Winter said.

Bill Cosby Associated Press/Photo by Mark Makela (pool)

After the verdict

One of the jurors in the Bill Cosby trial said the comedian’s admission of giving drugs to women before sex helped tip the jury against him. Jurors convicted Cosby on three counts of aggravated indecent assault last week for drugging and molesting a woman at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004.

The prosecution called five other women to testify that Cosby assaulted them, too, but their evidence did not hold as much sway as a 2005 deposition in which Cosby said he had given women quaaludes, a powerful sedative, juror Harrison Snyder told Good Morning America on Monday.

“I don't think it really necessarily mattered that these other five women were here because he said it himself that he used these drugs for other women,” Snyder said.

Cosby’s wife, Camille Cosby, released a statement Thursday excoriating the prosecutor in the case. She compared her husband to Emmett Till, the victim of a 1955 lynching in Mississippi, and other African-Americans mistreated by the justice system: “This is mob justice, not real justice. This tragedy must be undone not just for Bill Cosby, but for the country.”

Also on Thursday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences expelled Cosby along with another convicted sex abuser, film director Roman Polanski. In 1977, Polanski pleaded guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl and later fled the country to avoid extensive jail time. He continued to make movies abroad and won the 2002 best director Oscar (in absentia) for The Pianist. —L.L.

Bill Cosby Associated Press/Photo by Mark Makela (pool)

On the docket

Harvey Weinstein has a swamp of legal ordeals to wade through, stemming from the sexual assault accusations against him.

On Tuesday, his bankrupt movie studio accepted a buyout offer from a private equity firm in Dallas. But a judge must still approve the sale, which faces fierce opposition. Actors such as Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, and Brad Pitt, claim the sale would rob them of money they’re still owed. And a group of Weinstein’s accusers who filed a class action lawsuit against him say the sale would leave his alleged victims empty-handed. Broadway producer Howard Kagan tried to submit a last-minute bid that would have reserved money for a victims’ fund, but the board rejected it, calling the due diligence incomplete.

Also this week, actress Ashley Judd sued Weinstein, invoking unfair competition laws in a claim that his behavior toward her hurt her career. The suit is an attempt to “shine a light on the broader economic damages caused when individuals in positions of authority attempt to punish those who have resisted their improper advances,” said Judd's attorney, Theodore J. Boutrous Jr. Another aspiring actress sued Weinstein in federal court over accusations he abused her in Cannes, France, in 2014. Since the alleged incident happened overseas, plaintiff Kadian Noble is attempting to sue under a sex trafficking law. It’s up to a judge to rule on the suit’s merits. —L.L.

Returned valuables

The U.S. government on Wednesday gave back to Iraq thousands of ancient clay tablets agents seized from the collection of Hobby Lobby’s president. Steve Green acquired the tablets as he built a collection of antiquities for the Museum of the Bible, which opened in 2017 in Washington, D.C., with funding from the Green family. Green allowed Israeli dealers to smuggle the tablets into the country, a mistake he attributed to his being a novice collector. Hobby Lobby agreed to pay a $3 million fine and forfeit the tablets in a settlement with the U.S. government. —L.L.