http://serialpodcast.org/
Well season 1 of Serial has come to a close. I can’t share my conclusions in a tweet (or five), so I did this post.
I heard about Serial from friends and got drawn in and mainlined all the eps getting caught up over Thanksgiving. It is an intriguing and engrossing story. Sarah Koenig and the crew have done a masterful job of looking at it from all the angles. Adnan, Hae, and Jay’s stories are the heart of it all.
First of all I want to say thanks to Sarah and the staff. It is not an easy thing to do all the digging, looking examining into the case. It is also frustrating to have your passion snapped up by the world and have all the pressure to complete the story. The issue is that the story is not complete. People, all of us really want a conclusion, a finish, verdict. But the thing is real live in never that neat. Much of the time we have to live with out the whole story and in so we make our own conclusions. We write our own endings to stories (fictional and real) when we don’t like or are not satisfied with the conclusion. Sarah and her staff did not leave us with the middle ground to make our own conclusion. She stated what she believed and left us to make our own decision. It was the ending of season 1 that was best. Not a conclusion made to satisfy our desires for conclusion. So Sarah and the Serial staff, thank-you for treating your audience like adults, challenging us to think and discuss. I’m looking forward to season 2. Sarah and staff, please do not try to recreate the phoneme. Choose a story that intrigues and draws you in and share it with us. As a guy with a communications degree I applaud your work!
The case is not over and hopefully some of the investigations and the light the podcast has shown on things will help the legal system investigate and get the whole story.
OK now for my thoughts. I personally do not that Adnan did it. I think someone else did. I’m not sure what he and Jay were up to that day or what is being hidden. But in my mind there is not enough evidence or motive to convince me Adnan did it. I have major questions about Jay and his motivations. I can’t answer the how he knew where Hae’s car was issue. But after years of watching procedural shows, movies and reading books, I question most things. Call me an armchair CSI, that is fine. I know things are not as easy, quick or simple as the fictional shows depict (I have friends and family in law enforcement). But for me the case in not complete, the evidence not clear enough, and the defense and prosecution both lacking. Yes, I want to hear how things go. Hey Sarah may be a podcast update on it every now and then. But until more comes in Hae’s killer is still at large in my eyes.
What are your thoughts?
Update: Interesting things from “The Innocence Project” part of the case: Time article here.
