I'll try to keep this as short and concise as possible.
I usually judge a series based on its ability to keep me watching, wanting to know what happens next. Season 1 was very good at this. The concept of the tapes is excellent and was what drew me in, and wanting to keep watching to find out what happened to her and what Clay did (though this part was extremely anti-climactic as I was hoping it would be something bad he did to her while drunk or something that he didn't remember).
Season 2 was a bit more of a struggle for me to get through. The only thing that kept me going was hoping that Bryce would get his comeuppance and waiting to see if it would happen. It was quite a weak season, to the point where the comical brawl in the hallway was by far my favourite part despite its ridiculousness, and I was literally shouting out loud at the screen telling Alex to hit Monty with his cane, then he did, that was awesome. I thought the ending was quite good as well, I was literally shitting myself thinking Tyler was actually going to do it, and had a horrible feeling in my stomach that it was going to happen any moment while they were at the dance, expecting it to be while some of the main cast weren't on the dancefloor when Jessica went to the bathroom and stuff so certain members of the main cast would survive. As others have alluded to, I have a sneaking suspicion that originally the plan was for Tyler to actually shoot up the school, and that this was an alternate ending they decided on due to recent events. One criticism I have of this is that it was entirely predictable from the start of the series that Tyler would end up as a school shooter type.
Onto one of my main overarching criticisms of the series is that we don't really get to see enough of Hannah's mental deterioration, and the writers break every "show don't tell" rule in the book, with the exception of the scene when she gets groped by Bryce and runs out of the store crying. At the start of the tapes, after every misfortune or slight that she suffers, things just seem to go back to normal for her until the next thing happens, and we don't really get any sense of her slow downfall, she just tells us she's sad. Then even later after the really bad things happen, like after witnessing Jessica get raped, we just see Hannah puke in the toilet once, and we don't get any real sense of how it haunts her up until her own rape.
Something else that has also been mentioned by many in this thread from Season 2 is Hannah's summer fling with Zach, which I completely agree didn't make any sense, and just contributed to her becoming less and less likeable as the series goes on. Though that part is also something I can give the writers credit for, in that they make Hannah a more grey character when you hear everyone else's side of the story, and the viewer is left not really sure what to believe and leaves you with that same sense of betrayal and feeling like you never knew her at all, which is exactly what Clay is going through and helps you to understand him better.
Also found it weird that all the football players from the school all happened to be the best baseball players of the school as well. Completely different sports with unrelatable skill sets.
Well Bryce did say they don't win at football often
This leads me very nicely onto another point. I completely agree with you on this, because it makes this school seem like an incredibly small world. They really didn't do a good job with the use of extras and background characters, to give you a sense of the scale of the school, it's far too small of a world.
I feel like in a real high school there would be much more of a disconnect between the likes of Clay, Alex and Tyler, and the jocks like Justin, Zach and especially Bryce who is in the grade above them (you don't pay attention to Sophomore gossip? Well clearly you do since they're the only people we ever see you interact with). I mean they even try to throw in the classic trope of the basketball coach not knowing Clay's name because he's not sporty and just calling him "skinny kid" but some of the jocks know Clay quite well. Then you've also got Marcus who is really smart but also really popular and friends with the jocks for some reason. It's the same for the girls as well. You can argue the tapes brought them all together under a common cause but even before Hannah's death you really don't get that sense of disconnect, even Hannah herself is more involved with the jock types than her character should be considering her personality.
