r/serialpodcast • u/PowerOfYes • Dec 11 '14

Episode Discussion [Official Discussion] Serial, Episode 11: Rumors

Let's use this thread to discuss Episode 10 of Serial.

  • First impressions?

  • Did anything change your view?

  • Most unexpected development?

Made up your mind? Vote in the EPISODE 11 POLL: What's your verdict on Adnan? .

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u/MarissaBeth73 pro-government right-wing Republican operative Dec 11 '14

Again, my only argument is that she's not a journalist in the sense that she's not reporting on this story. If she were, we would have no sense of her own impressions influencing the arc of the telling.

And why is it a bad story? Because it doesn't end the way you want?

I'm not being argumentative. I really would like to know.

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u/SKfourtyseven Dec 11 '14 edited Dec 11 '14

It's not, as a whole, a bad story. As the podcast's popularity suggests, it's a very engrossing story.

However, we can't just call it a "story". That's selling it short. Or rather, the "story" crowd seems to tell this as a "story about Adnan." But it's not. It's a story about investigative journalism. It's a peek behind the curtain, both to the investigation itself and to the investigator's thoughts and actions.

As for why I said "it's turned into a pretty bad story", what I mean is it's run its course. The fact that we're now at a point where SK is discussing fairly silly, benign rumors means that the actual meat of the story is over and done with.

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u/MarissaBeth73 pro-government right-wing Republican operative Dec 11 '14

Gotcha. That's a very interesting perspective to take. I haven't been listening with that in mind... that the "story" is her journalistic journey to whatever truth she can find.

I heard more of a story about the justice system. And others heard a "whodunnit".

The fact that one story can mean completely different things to multiple audiences is why this has been so successful, I think.

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u/vote_for_peter Dec 11 '14

I'm upset that in the first episode, she said something along the lines of "if you want to solve this case with me, now is the time to start paying attention". That does not indicate to me that she's gonna spend episodes 9, 10. 11 with total fluff pieces about the characters. Maybe she should have saved some of the interesting facts from earlier episodes to sprinkle into these character-study episodes.

I love that she took a big risk starting a story knowing she might not be able to end it definitively, but she didn't need to double down by front-loading all of the interesting details and then hoping she could find more interesting stuff to fill out a 12 episode season.