I searched for a thread or post about this podcast, but didn't see anything.
Anyone else been following and listening to the episodes? I'm completely hooked. It's so compelling and just absolutely intriguing.
Here's a brief summary from the podcast's site:
On January 13, 1999, a girl named Hae Min Lee, a senior at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore County, Maryland, disappeared. A month later, her body turned up in a city park. She'd been strangled. Her 17-year-old ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, was arrested for the crime, and within a year, he was convicted and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. The case against him was largely based on the story of one witness, Adnan’s friend Jay, who testified that he helped Adnan bury Hae's body. But Adnan has always maintained he had nothing to do with Hae’s death. Some people believe he’s telling the truth. Many others don’t.
Sarah Koenig, who hosts Serial, first learned about this case more than a year ago. In the months since, she's been sorting through box after box (after box) of legal documents and investigators' notes, listening to trial testimony and police interrogations, and talking to everyone she can find who remembers what happened between Adnan Syed and Hae Min Lee fifteen years ago. What she realized is that the trial covered up a far more complicated story, which neither the jury nor the public got to hear. The high school scene, the shifting statements to police, the prejudices, the sketchy alibis, the scant forensic evidence - all of it leads back to the most basic questions: How can you know a person’s character? How can you tell what they’re capable of? In Season One of Serial, she looks for answers.
This really felt like a speed bump of an episode to me. Something that should have been done much earlier in the season. It didn't really move anything forward. Although the letter at the end was mildly interesting. But what was the point, really?
I'm pretty much convinced, since it's ending next week, that this entire thing ends up being a commentary on the justice system. I don't get the feeling that anything revelatory is going to happen in the last hour.
You know, it just occurred to me that this is playing out a lot like True Dectective did last year. Not to relate fiction to reality, just that it starts out seeming like it's one thing, and the internet gets all hyper about it, and then it just sort of fizzles out toward the end. Hopefully I'm wrong. [Reply]
Originally Posted by keg in kc:
This really felt like a speed bump of an episode to me. Something that should have been done much earlier in the season. It didn't really move anything forward. Although the letter at the end was mildly interesting. But what was the point, really?
I'm pretty much convinced, since it's ending next week, that this entire thing ends up being a commentary on the justice system. I don't get the feeling that anything revelatory is going to happen in the last hour.
You know, it just occurred to me that this is playing out a lot like True Dectective did last year. Not to relate fiction to reality, just that it starts out seeming like it's one thing, and the internet gets all hyper about it, and then it just sort of fizzles out toward the end. Hopefully I'm wrong.
Much more well written than what I just posted, but I agree 100% with what you just said.
This is the Stephen King Novel of podcasts. Great ride, no real ending. [Reply]
Yeah it seems to me like she thought she could solve this and when she realized she couldn't, she was like fuck - how am I going to finish the series out. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Baby Lee:
I'm far from a 'reefer madness' type, but it seems to me that the unwritten star of this series is how difficult it is to establish a coherent narrative it is when you have a bunch of potheads telling you 'their story.' I don't think pot had much at all to do with this crime, but when all you have is a bunch of altered chroniclers [npi], it does end up like an episode of Colombo smashed into an episode of That '70s Show.
If you get a new trial based on ineffective assistance of counsel in the first two, suppress the call log because it may not reliably show that a call with a person happened and throw in that his DNA wasn't on the body things look pretty good for an acquittal. [Reply]
I went in that episode expecting to dislike it, but it was my favorite in weeks. No new information really, but the new perspectives were interesting (if doubtful, referring to Jay's somewhat creepy-sounding friend).
Her conclusion (which I didn't even expect her to make) is the same as mine is and basically has been from the beginning. I don't really believe Adnan did it. But he could have done it. Either way, I don't think there's any way he should have been convicted on the evidence prosecution presented.
I think the stuff with the innocence project and the dna is a pink elephant. That won't lead anywhere. Unless...Jay was completely fed his story from the very beginning by the police. That they knew where the car was and led him there, rather than vice versa. But that stretches credibility to me. Although I do think there were some of those prosecutorial shenananigans going on. Anyway, if it was a 3rd party serial killer completely detached from this circle of kids, then how did Jay know where the car was? If it was another individual other than Jay or Adnan, then he or she has to be connected to Jay somehow, I think.
In any case, I thought she ended that about as well as she could have. I did not feel let down or deflated like last week. [Reply]