Serial (Page 1 of 2)

I'm absolutely addicted from EP 1.  I'm calling it now though, I don't think for a second we're gonna get a conclusive answer to the mystery.  I'm ok with that but I think the internet is going to shit in it's own mouth once the last episode drops.

I've literally never heard of this.

Someone give me the pitch.

So it's a non-fiction series around this one murder case?

I have issues believing that the sporadic reports of an ongoing investigation by an amateur mystery enthusiast (I assume) on a cold murder case could actually be sustainable or interesting... not mention the whole thing seems a tad bit morbid and in bad taste, but hey I'll leave judgement until I find time to actually listen to it.

I think the fact the listenership is so large is sort of the theme of serial so far.  It's easy to get wrapped up in the hysteria of the pursuit of a person's innocence or guilt, but the fact is trying to actually figure out the truth is hard, frustrating work.

I'm calling it now: the ending will be unsatisfactory to most of the listeners, and thus prove the whole concept: that the pursuit of truth is often unrewarding and bitterly dissatisfying, and yet we have to try anyway.

Well that was disappointing. SK bounced around, rehashed old evidence--most of which originated from Jay--as if it had more significance, introduced a new serial killer theory out of the blue and largely dismissed it, then announced that DNA would be tested. You've been working this for a year, and you stop just when DNA is going to be tested? Dumb.

But it illustrates my problem with SK all along. She isn't impartial; she's gullible. She believes everything, then she realizes she's being gullible and suddenly doubts everything. That's why she can't figure out the phone records. If you figure Jay did the murder alone and ignore where he (and confessed coverup accomplice Jenn) claims he was, you can construct a logical narrative that matches the records.

EDIT: another few thoughts...

The call to Nisha wasn't a butt dial that went unanswered and got billed anyway. Jay pressed the speed-dial by accident while frantically calling people to see who he could trust to help him. When she answered, he pretended Adnan had given him the phone and then chatted with her for a couple of minutes to seem casual. And he didn't actually remember she was from Silver Springs—that's just what the call log said: the cops showed it to him and asked him to explain it. He had to admit talking to Nisha for fear of her remembering talking to him. After all, why would Adnan call a random girl while he was in the middle of disposing of a corpse but then hand the phone to Jay to talk to her? It's nonsense.

Also, the prosecution invented the idea that the murder ocurred at 2:30, because that's the only incoming call that even comes close to matching any of Jay's stories. Jay claimed Adnan called him around 3:45 and asked to be picked up. That's because that's around the time when Jay was calling Jenn and others, hoping to get help he could trust, a call she characterized as Jay "acting weird". Jay had killed Hae after an argument about Stephanie when he randomly enountered her in the mall parking lot. He was buying his gift for Stephanie and she was planning to deliver a note to her new boyfriend about her change of plans.

Jenn's involvement is crucial. If Adnan pressured Jay to help dispose of evidence, why didn't Adnan and Jay throw away Jay's (and Adnan's) clothes and wipe down the shovels? Because Jay did the murder alone and couldn't ask Adnan for a ride to get rid of his clothes and wipe down the one-and-only shovel. That's how he conveniently knows where "Adnan" stashed the shovel(s), why Jenn doesn't know how many shovels there were, and why it's Jay's shovel instead of ones Adnan got as prep for this supposedly pre-meditated murder.

Also, around 7, Jenn called Adnan's phone to talk to Jay but was rebuffed by a man with a deep voice who wasn't Jay. That's when the killer was burying the body. But if that was Adnan, why would he answer his own phone in a fake voice and say that Jay, who supposedly was standing there not helping bury Hae, was busy? And why wasn't Adnan doing a fake voice part of Jay's story? Because Jay was alone, recognized Jenn's number, needed to stall her until he was done, and hoped that call would never be mentioned.

And one of the more important questions: if Adnan killed Hae and had Jay to help him dispose of evidence, why dump the body in one place and Hae's car in another? Why not just leave the car in Leakin Park, with the body or somewhere around? Or even just leave her body in her car at the Park & Ride? Why risk being seen in Hae's car at least FOUR TIMES? Jay's story is that Adnan got a ride from Hae to Best Buy or the mall, killed her, drove her body to the Park & Ride and maybe Patapsco Park to get high, rode with Jay to track practice and back later, drove Hae's car to Leakin Park while Jay drove Adnan's, then drove Hae's car to the drop location on Edmonson Ave while Jay drove Adnan's car again. The truth is that Jay killed Hae alone, left her car at the mall until Adnan dropped him off there after track practice, drove Hae's car to Leakin Park to dump the body, and then drove it to the Edmonson Ave to put himself in an innocent-seeming place to be picked up away from the body. That's just risking being seen in her car two times.

Sorry this has gotten long. My flight is delayed 6 hours, and I'm thinking of nothing but murder.

EDIT: As long as I'm still waiting, I might as well address SK's other point of suspicion.

Jay claimed that Adnan's plan was to tell Hae his car was broken down and ask for a ride to the mall/Best Buy. Adnan denies asking for a ride, but two people claim they saw him do so. My theory is that, once the cops heard Jay's story, they contaminated witnesses by asking if they remembered Adnan asking Hae for a ride. What are the chances a murderer would do that in front of two witnesses who would then be able to put him with the victim immediately before the murder?

Last edited by Zarban (2014-12-19 16:08:17)

Yeah.
Spent the past two days listening to it. Were people really expecting a podcast to solve a 15-year old murder case?
I see it more as a meditation on the mercurialness of memory, and how the exact same facts can be used to perpetuate at least two opposing narratives. It's fascinating, and scary.

Disclaimer: if you dislike the tone of a post I make, re-read it in a North/East London accent until it sounds sufficiently playful

Well, I thought that was kind of implicit, right? As evidenced by reddit, you can of course construct a coherent narrative with the phone calls corroborating the Adnan, the Jay, and the Jay&Adnan theories.
I kind of took them throwing up their hands as saying "see? all these facts we've gathered and we're no closer to a provable, beyond reasonable doubt, truth", but I think the ending was strong. Sarah explicitly says that she thinks he's probably guilty, but couldn't vote guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Which, I think should be the takehome message (12 Angry Men, anyone?).

Disclaimer: if you dislike the tone of a post I make, re-read it in a North/East London accent until it sounds sufficiently playful

Completely disagree. Tits or GTFO.

Don't play coy and pretend to offer an in-depth analysis over 8+ hours and throw up your hands and go "It's really really complicated you guys! We can't figure it out!"

As an aside, you know what's really funny (to me) about this?

A couple of months ago, there was another show that everyone was raving about. It kinda came out of nowhere, and the hype was similarly disproportionate. Everyone was raving about how it was one thing in particular and how it offered conspiracy and it led to hundreds/thousands of people picking apart the tiniest details in hopes of finding clues, of predicting the end.
When the end came... a sense of deflation, disappointment, and in extreme cases, anger and betrayal.
Meanwhile, most people either ignored, or were silent about what a good character study it was, about how different people saw their world and tried to make sense of it. On that front, I thought it was an excellent show.

The name of it? The appropriately titled... True Detective

Disclaimer: if you dislike the tone of a post I make, re-read it in a North/East London accent until it sounds sufficiently playful

I was one who was disappointed in True Detective and Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Their answers didn't make sense of their complex stories. The difference between crime fiction and true crime is that a true crime has one actual, genuine, unambiguous answer. There's little reason to present a true crime story, especially in such depth, if you can't ultimately even come up with a decent theory about that answer.

And as I suggested above, this isn't really even that hard of a mystery. Jay and Jenn are confessed co-conspirators, and if you figure Adnan wasn't with Jay, you can easily construct a version where the call log makes sense. I haven't seen a coherent story that makes sense of the call logs with Adnan as the murderer.

EDIT: I've since read some more analysis of the testimony and call log and have modified my theory slightly, because there are several shopping malls in the case, and I was mistaken about which was which.

I now think Jay was thinking of delivering Stephanie's birthday gift to her at the end of the day at school. But he encountered Hae randomly in a gas station or something near the school where she stopped on her way to pick up her cousin. (It surely wasn't the busy school parking lot.) They argued, and he got violent. He probably drove her car to Best Buy's secluded parking spot so he could put her body in the trunk, at which time he accidentally activated the speed dial to Nisha.

There's simply nothing other than Jay's completely unreliable, highly self-serving statements that really links Adnan to the crime. Other than the Nisha call, all the calls from noon to 5 and especially the really damning ones from 7 to 9 were Jay's. Jay admitted transporting and burying the body, ditching the car, needing rides from Jenn, and disposing of evidence of his guilt. If Adnan were his co-conspirator, Jay wouldn't have needed Jenn to be a co-conspirator.

Last edited by Zarban (2014-12-24 07:43:53)

Cecily Strong's Koenig impression had us howling with laughter in my living room.