Serial obsession

I, hopefully like most of you, am obsessed with Serial the podcast. (I donated, FYI). I've talked everyone around me into listening to the podcast. Now I just want to hear everyone's theories. Oddly enough, it's working. And also oddly, all of America seems to be following suit. It's so addictive.

Credit Courtesy of “Serial”

My friend Pam posted on Facebook about it, and her friend who's a lawyer posted such interesting follow-ups, like this: "Jay was obviously involved regardless of who you believe because he knew where the car was. So either he did it himself, he did it with someone other than Adnan, or it went down (more or less) the way he said, and the changes in his story are attributable to a drug dealer being generally suspicious of cops and/or having other, non-murderous things to hide. Even if he's innocent, I can 100% understand not wanting to give a recorded interview 15 years later. These people show up at your apartment unannounced and you're just supposed to trust them AND let them record an interview? I wouldn't have even opened the door, and I've definitely never killed anyone. "

I have another friend who has been on Grand Jury since July (THREE DAYS A WEEK!! And she was just informed that her time has been extended so they can call her 4ish times a month for 3 more months!!). I had dinner with her last Tuesday and we were totally grilling her about being on a Jury, what it means, how people think, do they actually heed the Judge's warnings?  All of it in response to episode 8 where we hear from a juror. Molly might start listening once her jury duty is over... :)

Are you guys having conversations like this, too? Every cocktail party I've been to, every outing where I talk to someone new my new opener is "Do you listen to Serial?" And if they do, we discuss. If they don't I (attempt to) talk them into it.

There has been some backlash to the program lately. Sarah is white and privileged, who is she, really, to be investigating this case? For me, she does her utmost to understand the culture, the people, and explain the circumstances to us. I don't find her judge-y. I don't think she's misleading. I think she's a journalist who's investigating a crime and taking us along for the ride. This article, though, was more insightful than I'd like to admit. I also saw somewhere that someone referred to the obsession as "murder porn" which I don't agree with, it's more of a collective, deep interest in law and order that's probably driven by our entertainment consumption--Homeland, The Good Wife, How to Get Away With Murder, Criminal Minds, Sherlock, NCIS, CSI, Law & Order, Bones, Castle, Breaking Bad... We're all armchair analysts and detectives and this true story brings out our inclination to exercise our detective muscle. But is it fair? Is it right to, in essence, crowd source theories that put real people in the cross hairs? I don't know. But I'm too interested in this 'plot' and how justice comes to pass to stop listening or wondering what happened. Listening to this story I find myself appalled at how little evidence it took to convict someone of a crime that resulted in life in jail and I want to see Justice done, but, at the same time, without a confession there is no way that we'll know 100% what happened. And how do you get Justice for something so inconclusive? I'm not sure.

I'm very pro- this podcast. I'm intrigued. Who committed this murder? How will it be resolved? Without this investigation, this case would still be considered complete (Which is unnerving). How many other cases with similarly flimsy evidence have there been? I appreciate the initiative it took to investigate and the commitment to figuring out what happened. And for that, I'm glad I have this to listen to and look forward to. And I'm glad someone as thoughtful and interesting as Sarah is the one doing the investigating.

For those of you  who also can't wait until the next episode, here are some interesting reads:
A chart of the characters. Very helpful.
Charts for people obsessed with Serial (mostly funny)
Are podcasts good for public radio or bad for them? (NYTs) (The opening line of this is SO TRUE: "On Thursday, people will gather around tables everywhere and, well, talk about how bummed they are that “Serial,” the wildly popular podcast, is taking Thanksgiving off.")
Should Serial replace Shakespeare in the classroom? (In the first episode, Sarah does call this story a bit of a Romeo and Juliet... As a huge Shakespeare fan, I think they should just compliment each other, no either / or)
10 Things you Might Not Know about Serial
There might not be a satisfying ending. Sigh.

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