Serial: Season 01 Discussion - This American Life meets True Detective

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I kinda buy the theory that the cops liked Jay, so he made up a story to serve up Adnan.

It's just that the timeline is so messed up. The police posit that Adnan killed Hae in a Best Buy parking lot in broad daylight, then dumped the body in a park, all while leaving no physical evidence tying him to either scene or the body.

So on the one hand, it's a very opportunist, impulsive-type murder, and on the other, it's organised and careful and meticulous.

If Adnan did do it, then it didn't happen the way Jay said it did.

The thing about someone else doing it, is that Hae didn't seem to have any enemies or anyone saying she was into criminal behaviour, so the motive for killing her seems either like jealousy (which fingers Adnan most likely) or a sexual assault by someone else. But Hae's body wasn't obviously sexually assaulted, so who kidnaps a teenage girl and dumps her body unless they knew her and had a reason to kill her?

edit: One more thing. The "innocence project" type people that Sarah talked to who were so eager to help? I remember they said something like, "if we investigate, then determine Adnan did do it, we'll just stop." And they went on to say that they won't share their findings because it's not in their prerogative to dump on people behind bars.

Just saying we haven't heard from them in a few eps...
 
Mail Kimp must be high-fiving themselves every day, all day over this sponsorship.
Dr.Acula said:
3nYAHk7.gif
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Can't watch yet, is that actual Koenig?
 
rottingcore said:
My only concern with this podcast is that the narrator feels biased, like she WANTS him to be innocent.. even when evidence is so clearly pointing to the contrary.
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I don't know that she WANTS him to be innocent, but she definitely believes he's innocent or at the very least should not have been convicted on this flimsy of a case. But, that's also kind of the whole point of the show. If it wasn't for that element of reasonable doubt, Serial wouldn't be about Adnan at all. Why waste 13 weeks of airing, and a year of her own life, on a case that ultimately amounts to "Guilty man who definitely killed his ex-girlfriend 15 years ago is definitely still guilty and should continue to be in jail."

Maybe Adnan did do it, but if she believed wholeheartedly that from the start, she wouldn't have done the show.
 
rottingcore said:
Does anybody know if season 2 will be about this case, or a new case altogether? While i'd much prefer a new case - as there isn't much else that can be squeezed from this one.. i think her passion for this specific case is what keeps it interesting.
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New case. Or more accurately, a new story, since she's said they probably won't do a "murder mystery" again.
 
sparky2112 said:
Huh, all this time I thought she was the one who got fired from SNL for dropping the f-bomb her first-ish show. Not her. She was, however, Matthew's neurotic girlfriend on The New Adventures of Old Christine, which was a pretty good sitcom a while back.
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That was Jenny Slate, who is also awesome.
 
studyguy said:
So how was it that Adan called Jay from what is apparently a non-existent phone booth? I forget.
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Outside information warning.

According to a reddit post, the phone booth was directly inside the BB at the time instead of outside like Jay said, and its number was registered to the hotel that used to exist at that site before it was torn down for the BB, which is why Koenig and co didn't find it.
 
studyguy said:
So how was it that Adan called Jay from what is apparently a non-existent phone booth? I forget.
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There might have been a phone booth nearby and Jay misremembered.

So basically Adnan calls from a booth within the vicinity and tells Jay to meet him outside BB. Jay thinks Adnan was AT a booth at BB.

There's also some evidence to suggest the phone was inside the doors in the air-lock type area of the store.
 
I'm not sure what actually happened but I don't think the Best Buy pay phone is a sticking point at all.

I think Adnon most likely did it but I don't believe anything that Jay is saying about the details...maybe he was too high to remember the specifics so he was making stuff up as he went or maybe the police helped his story align with their timeline during those 3 hours which weren't on tape.
 
‘Serial’ missed its chance to show how unfair the criminal justice system really is
The prosecutor assesses the strength of the state’s case and, in most cases, offers a plea bargain. We can push for a better offer, but the stakes are daunting for defendants. If negotiations fail and we go to trial, the client risks conviction under harsh sentencing guidelines. So, it almost always makes sense to take the offered plea; every day, innocent people plead guilty for that very reason. (As all “Serial” listeners know, trial is a roll of the dice. I don’t know whether Syed is innocent, but he was clearly convicted despite many reasonable doubts.)

This helps explain why 95-97 percent of criminal cases end in guilty pleas, without a trial. Every defender has seen clients insist on their innocence and refuse to plead guilty; we’ve then seen defeat creep across that client’s face as she realistically weighs her options. What once seemed unimaginable — a felony record and three years, say — suddenly appears palatable when compared to the possibility of a 15-year sentence.
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All of which would be better, or at least less bad, if prosecutors actually acted in the interest of justice, as is their mandate. But in my experience and in the experience of the defenders I know, prosecutors act like adversaries. And given the power disparity, I find myself negotiating cautiously, hoping for favors, aware that I am not legally entitled to much. I recently represented a teenager accused of assaulting a police officer. My client was badly injured, and the officer was not — a possible sign that in this incident, as in many others, the police had done the beating and not the other way around.

The plea offer was not bad: in exchange for a guilty plea, the prosecution would drop the felony to a misdemeanor, and my client would spend only a week in jail. The incident was captured on video, which, if it showed what my client said it showed, could have exonerated him, but the prosecutor was not obligated to hand over the footage until much later in the case. This would likely take several months, months which my client would have to spend at Rikers. I asked the prosecutor if she would tell me some of what was on the video, so that I could present my client with a fuller view of his chances at trial.

The prosecutor paused and said, “No, I don’t want to do that.” My client took the plea.
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That's a Japan-esque conviction rate.
 
Feel like Serial did a wonderful job of exposing just how completely one sided those kinds of cases are when faced against even the flimsiest line of evidence by the prosecution. It's almost scary.
 
Blader said:
err, ok.

I like that this thread includes True Detective in its title, because I imagine the finale will inspire very similar disappointments the way TD's finale did: lack of a major twist, lack of OMG ending, no wrap-everything-in-a-bow ending.

And there are others who are going to say, "well I never expected or wanted that, but I think the show should have been in the can ahead of time for a clearer beginning-middle-end structure." But why? This is a real case, a 15-year-old case that -- given the fact Adnan is still in jail and likely always will be -- has no ending. There's just a very murky, convoluted beginning and middle; why shouldn't the show reflect that? There's nothing clear about the real thing. There are filler shows, the third episode itself being one giant digression, but they matter for exactly that reason too.

Many of the complaints about Sarah Koening as a person and journalist (and racist? lol), and how the show's formatted, just seem like fairly bizarre and unfair reaches to me more often than not.
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Agreed. A lot of the criticisms in general seem to be the sorts of things that were apparent with the format going in, particularly if you're familiar with the type of storytelling TAL does.
 
rottingcore said:
Me and my coworkers have been listening to this podcast and discussing it on our breaks. We're all pretty much on the same page. Adnan is guilty, Jay probably had far more to do with this then he lets on.

My only concern with this podcast is that the narrator feels biased, like she WANTS him to be innocent.. even when evidence is so clearly pointing to the contrary.

Another thing that my co-workers and i agree on is that the narrator (Sarah Koenig) seems to have a weirdly semi-sexual fascination with Adnan.

Does anybody know if season 2 will be about this case, or a new case altogether? While i'd much prefer a new case - as there isn't much else that can be squeezed from this one.. i think her passion for this specific case is what keeps it interesting.

P.S.
Episode 10 was garbage.
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What did I just read. I think you are projecting your own sexual fantasies in this podcast.
 
Just finished the episode. A pretty great wrap-up of everything, and I think SK pretty much nails and sums up the entire case and the issue with speculation/facts by the last ten minutes. It'll be interesting to see what happens to Adnan after the show, but can't wait for Season 2.

Note: I wouldn't be suprised if all the "Adnan is guilty" people cry foul though at the end.
 
Season 2 is confirmed for 2015, so won't be too long I guess. Less than a year probably.

As for the episode:
I think that was the perfect way to wrap it up. Sarah thinks he's innocent, Dana thinks he's guilty, neither can prove it though.

The Niesha call being pretty much explained is pretty big. I think some (but not all) of thje things Dana was saying we're 'unlucky' for Adnan can be explained by Jay planning to frame him.

I think overall Adnan is slightly more likely to be innocent than guilty, but there's no way I could commit to either side. I definitely think there was no grounds to convict him based on that case.

EDIT: Oh, and
What Don said about the prosecutor was pretty shocking too, yelling at a witness because they refused to lie about the defendants character? Is that legal? That's some Von Karma bullshit.
 
Such a messed up case. Even if there's a good chance he is guilty, there are multiple issues in the case that are frequently aspects of wrongful convictions. He might get a retrial from the appeals, and if that happens, I definitely see him walking.

Hell, the first trial, before it was declared a mistrial, would have seemingly ended in acquittal.
 
Ending was okay, I guess. I always knew that we'd get no real explanation but that doesn't help it being somewhat dissatisfying. It doesn't really feel like the story is over and rather just that we're going to stop paying attention to it.

That being said, I'm pretty comfortable with the Adnan did it, he's a sociopath kind of explanation.
 
Greyface said:
Was it worth it?
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YES !

I learned a lot new things about the USA, the system and about living in 1999 on the east coast.
And I "loved" the story for the lack of a better term.

It was fantastically produced and this story will continue now that its out there and some developments are still going.
 
I think was about as perfect a wrap-up episode could have been for Serial and Adnan's case.

Major spoilers follow:

It turns out this case is as screwed up as we all thought it was. The prosecution, the lies from all angles, the screwy call log that seemed to stand up in court, the racist tones, the DNA evidence never tested, the big holes never filled.

Now the bigger questions that come from the end of the show. Will any of this really matter to Adnan? Not talking about just the appeal using the Asia, but the extra info that shows that the shaky evidence used in the trial is essentially non-existent and unusable? I can't claim Adnan's innocence, but I stand with SK that I couldn't have convicted him based on what we had then, nor what we have now.

The other big question is the other convicted killer, Ronald Moore. If he had anything to do with this at all, that just opens up another can of worms on how Jay knew about all of this, plus all the screwy cellphone records and the storyline unknowns. I look forward to a follow up specifically about the DNA testing.

Overall, I'd say the season was worth it. There were some lower moments where I felt like things got a bit aimless, but in the end it all came together. Plus, I think some of the details we do have now may have never been teased out if this was released all at once. It's popularity helped to add details that I'm sure Sarah never thought would come up from people she didn't know to contact.

I do hope that Sarah has grown as an journalistic investigator this season and that those fruits appear in the narrative and structure of season 2.
 
I enjoyed the season overall but my general disappointment with the final third or so hasn't changed. It was fairly clear from the beginning that this wasn't a whodunit that would end with smoking guns or pointed fingers, but I did expect the show to ultimately focus in on something it wanted to really "say" and I'm not sure it did that.

I really hope the second season doesn't continue the structure of airing the show as they're still putting it together. Maybe finishing the initial season and then starting to produce a follow-up "what's happened since airing" episode or two as the season proper airs.
 
If Hae was killed by the serial killer then the only explanation for Jay knowing about everything is that the cops told him in the unrecorded time before the tapes start.

Given some of the stuff the prosecution was doing I don't think it's impossible they decided early on Adnan did it and convinced Jay he did, and got him to 'help them' put him away. Still pretty unlikely but not impossible.
 
Very satisfying ending for me. Ended up pretty much where Sarah did. Also yelled "then who was phone?" in my car during the part about Jay calling the house while he was there.
 
Thought it was a great ending. It's a fucked up case and in the end we have no real clue because it's such a strange case. Whether he did it or not it sounds like the cops and prosecution had a story for what happened and were too pressured to make it stick.

Really excited to see what they decide to do with season two and how they decide to follow this up. I kind of hope they don't do a case like this and cover something a little more low key but very thoroughly.
 
petethepanda said:
I enjoyed the season overall but my general disappointment with the final third or so hasn't changed. It was fairly clear from the beginning that this wasn't a whodunit that would end with smoking guns or pointed fingers, but I did expect the show to ultimately focus in on something it wanted to really "say" and I'm not sure it did that.

I really hope the second season doesn't continue the structure of airing the show as they're still putting it together. Maybe finishing the initial season and then starting to produce a follow-up "what's happened since airing" episode or two as the season proper airs.
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I disagree. We wouldn't have gotten any of the info revealed in this final episode had they done it your way.
 
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