What Happened to Serial This Week?

Since early October, when This American Life aired the first episode of Serial to introduce the spinoff, the crescendo of both the story and the podcast’s notoriety itself has been spectacular. Each week provided new, confounding information about this tragic case, eliciting emotional and passionate responses from its ever-growing audience. Until this week.

Maybe this is the nature of serialized non-fiction stories, that not every installment will provide a sensational tidbit to hook in to. But I also didn’t feel like this episode moved the story forward. As it turns out, I don’t actually care whether Adnan is a “good” person. Maybe it’s an overly simplistic or idealistic view of what justice should look like, but at this point I’m solely interested in Adnan’s culpability or lack thereof. Perhaps if this episode came earlier in the series, as we were getting to know each player, it might have been more intriguing. However, Sarah Koenig’s done an excellent job of presenting each character, and the curious details around them, without taking the dramatic leaps that could so easily turn Serial into a tabloid exposé. Certainly if we heard the story unfold within the context of Adnan as a potential psychopath, that could color our perception.

The most interesting part of this episode for me was hearing the Truman Show-esque effect Serial has had on Adnan. More than anything, he’s eager for the series to be over. I assumed he would be optimistic about the renewed attention to his case, but he’s understandably wary. More than that, he’s proud of what he’s accomplished while incarcerated, of the person he’s become. I started to think about what life would look like for Adnan if he were acquitted. How foreign and challenging life outside jail would be for a 30-something man who’s been a prisoner since his teens. I’m getting ahead of the story, though; who knows if that will ever even be a consideration.

So, we have one episode left. If the series ends without a tidy bow, which seems to be where we’re headed, will you feel dissatisfied? I have faith in Koenig’s abilities as a storyteller to produce a brilliant finale, and I’m hugely curious to hear what her closing thoughts are after spending so much time with this case. Not knowing is an uncomfortable state for most people, regardless of what it is that’s unknown. If we’ve heard all there is to hear, two things seem clear to me: we’re not close to figuring out what happened, and, given the evidence, Adnan probably shouldn’t be in jail. What do you think?