Serial - the podcast *spoilers*

"Something goes wrong"

I liked the story earlier where Jay did it all by himself and was the master criminal better.

xps to cardamon:

adnan and hae and some other key ppl like krista were all in a small magnet program and were close friends. jay was a year older and out of school, but dating steph, who was also in that same program and friends with them all. jay and adnan were basically just weed-smoking buddies, not close friends.

xp I mean, I've got nothing that properly adds up. However, even in my own life I've known very 'ordinary nice people' go from sometimes taking drugs, to doing a little bit of 'friendly face' dealing for a serious gang, to getting in way over their heads and either they are endangered or people in their life are endangered

justin thanks, that's cleared it up a lot

the speculated motive for jay being the murderer, that SK never brought up bc obv there was no evidence for it, was that Hae knew jay was cheating on steph and was going to tell her. IF there was evidence that this was true, i'd find it a compelling motive.

My favorite part of the episode:
Is this just a routine case were applying intense scrutiny to? We asked a guy we're paying to look into it and he said no.

xp Motive for a confrontation that becomes violent and results in killing, rather than motive to want to kill someone though right?

the story that the co-worker told got me thinking that maybe it wasn't adnan but someone else/some others in adnan's religious community who killed hae and enlisted jay's help. it's totally far-fetched, but the way jay kept talking about these "people" who were after him and being so terrified... it just seemed weird.

if that was the motive, the murder must have been reasonably premeditated, considering all the circumstantial evidence.

xp

the speculated motive for jay being the murderer, that SK never brought up bc obv there was no evidence for it, was that Hae knew jay was cheating on steph and was going to tell her. IF there was evidence that this was true, i'd find it a compelling motive.
--just1n3

Speculated motive on reddit.

the speculated motive for jay being the murderer, that SK never brought up bc obv there was no evidence for it, was that Hae knew jay was cheating on steph and was going to tell her. IF there was evidence that this was true, i'd find it a compelling motive.
--just1n3

Speculated by reddit.

I think maybe the implication was that Adnan had tried to scare Jay by invoking this kind of Pakistani community mafia that would come after him if he betrayed Adnan

xp

Another thing I'm not clear on - who is driving whose car when

Speculated by reddit sure but thats what Adnans lawyer was getting at with all that "stepping out" stuff in the clip from the trial

How does Hae know this again? And why would she confront Jay about it? And when in this timeline? This strikes me as nearly as fantastic as Jay meeting a serial murder during a drug buy.

I thought lawyer was getting at him being dishonest but who knows wasn't exactly clear.

Jay was cheating on Stephanie with Don duh

Maybe jay just a joe Jackson fan

my overall takeaway from this was

1 -- it was a cool podcast, v engaging and I enjoyed listening to it.

2 -- I had a hard time with how hard they leaned on storytelling when they didn't have any investigative angles to cover. so many useless pointless cul d sacs that I could have done without. and i could live without SK's livejournaling re: Adnan. But that's just me. I kinda wanted a liiiiitle bit more objectivity somehow? it just felt a bit too creepily invested

3--- my personal unsubstantiated theory is that I have no idea who killed Hae. But Jay and Adnan seem both to be covering up something else that they were doing together that day, that they don't want incriminate themselves or someone else in. Something that perhaps did not even involve Hae's murder. Whether's w33d or whatever else. But the inconsistencies in both their stories just seem to be pointing people's noses in weird, unusual directions that feel like some kind of awkward subterfuge. Like, I don't think that they worked out a story together, but they just both really want the focus not to be on [x] whatever [x] is.

4---I don't hate the serial killer theory. And I don't blame them for at least pursuing it as something to rule out. Granted Hae's murder was not tied to a burglary and seems a bit too convenient to fit this other dude's mo, and if it was this guy then it just underlines even more like what the everloving fuck were jay and adnan even doing/saying/talking about this whole fucking time. But a helicopter view of this is refreshing! it gets too myopic to just be picking over phone records all the time and talking to the same 5 people you've talked to 20 times...a fresh perspective can show you what the case is not, and bring new details forward that weren't being looked at before. And some kind of dna testing at least helps with scientific evidence which, I mean the fact that they hardly have anything really puts this case in the shitter investigatively, if we're going to be really real here.

But yeah. This was an engaging exercise. I feel v sad for the irl people involved, ie adnan's family and hae's family and generally having to deal with all the nerd-detectives who are going to want to solve this for them

i thought it was sweet that don said adnan was the kind of guy hed be friends w/ if he went to my school

By which he must have meant grad school
Wasn't he like 26?

Some people on redditors are saying someone involved with the video interview could have done it, or someone who saw the interview on TV, can't remember if we've discounted that

Yes brilliant.

3--- my personal unsubstantiated theory is that I have no idea who killed Hae. But Jay and Adnan seem both to be covering up something else that they were doing together that day, that they don't want incriminate themselves or someone else in. Something that perhaps did not even involve Hae's murder. Whether's w33d or whatever else. But the inconsistencies in both their stories just seem to be pointing people's noses in weird, unusual directions that feel like some kind of awkward subterfuge. Like, I don't think that they worked out a story together, but they just both really want the focus not to be on x whatever x is.

Same here

If your alibi is, you were doing something illegal, and giving your alibi also makes you a snitch, maybe you just say you don't know what you were doing

pretty much

I try to avoid getting too out there with my speculation, but I remember there being a detail that stuck with me about Adnan dating a girl in another city, like I think Philadelphia? I thought that just seemed unusual for a high school student, I mean Philly is like almost 2 hrs drive from Baltimore.

I don't know what that would mean exactly, but it just made me wonder if he was involved in dealing or something beyond the range of typical high school kid activities, although it's kind of hard to imagine how his seemingly strict parents and other religious friends and relatives wouldn't have noticed if he was.

Regardless of that, I'm not even sure anymore that I couldn't convict based on the evidence. The problem is we're not getting the evidence the way the jury got it, so it's really hard to say what we'd do in their shoes.

And we know what happens when kids from Baltimore visit Philly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s66z5sK2Hbk

ha! probably a subconscious association there

man Baltimore-Philly-Drugs-NPR, the circle is complete

i had friends who dated friends in the city 120mi away when i was like 17 or 18

That doesn't answer question of whether there were drugs involved, gr8181.

tbh they were all straight edge lol

That was their story, but really who knows. Truth is elusive.

Yeah, we should probably put them in jail for life, just to be sure. Depending on how the prosecution presents the case.

they were probably guilty of being white at least

xp or how sing-song-y their attorney's voice is.

If your alibi is, you were doing something illegal, and giving your alibi also makes you a snitch, maybe you just say you don't know what you were doing

I keep coming back to this too, but I also think, what the hell would they have been involved with that would have been worse than murder? Like surely admitting to selling w33d, even at a higher level than just to some high school kids, would be preferable to being the target of a murder investigation.

Yeah they'd have to be super paranoid and not thinking straight

they were probably guilty of being white at least

― ancient texts, things that can't be pre-dated (President Keyes), 19. december 2014 18:07 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, you're right. They should probably get off with a warning, then.

Does it look as though they're going to keep on the real crime theme or will it be totally different each series?

I'm assuming season two will not be helmed by SK, but some other TAl person.

I guess Alex Blumberg already has his own serialized thing, with that Start Up podcast.

it's a tough one because, true crime or not, it kind of has to be some kind of mystery to keep people hooked.

and it has to be unsolved/mysterious enough for make it really hard for the internet to solve it before the show does.

but also solve-able enough that not every series ends up being an unsatisfying "meditation on the nature of truth" type thing.

(which this kind of did, as much as she said she was taking a stand, she really did split it right down the middle... will be hard to get away with the same ending again next time, even though I think most people, myself included, were fine with it for this one).

unless it was some kind of story that was unfolding in real life at the same time as the show, like say someone's appeal trial or something

the other problem will be that as soon as they start investigating something new people will jump on Reddit and say "I just got an email from Serial!"

I imagine they'll do something very very different from this season - any kind of true crime would be boxing them into a corner, and I got the sense they want to keep it more open-ended.

they should do Mumia next.

they should do cereal: what is riboflavin?

they should find out which religion is correct