In the next few episodes of Serial, Sarah Koenig takes her audience along for the continued investigation of Hae Min Lee’s murder. The episodes pick up directly after the previous episode, and each individual episode discusses a new facet of the investigation and murder. At the beginning of a new episode, Sarah starts off with a “previously on…” to remind the listener’s of what was discussed and analyzed in previous episodes and bring to light any previous details that might be important to the upcoming episode.
For the few episodes I listened to, Sarah continues to conduct her own investigation of Hae Min Lee’s murder and whether or not Adnan Syed was in fact the person who committed the crime. A previously mentioned friend of Adnan’s, Jay, presents some issues that Sarah tackles in one of the episodes. It is clear from all of the case notes and evidence that Jay provides copious amounts of inconsistency to the case. In his statements and interrogations to the police, Jay at first tries to claim he doesn’t know anything, but then “comes clean” and proceeds to continuously change the locations of important events in his stories. Each time Jay tells the story (he was interviewed four times and told the story twice at trial), some details shift. Some are big, like the differences in his grave digging stories, while others aren’t as big. The biggest discrepancy, however, was the differences in where Adnan showed Hae’s body to Jay. In the case of some of the smaller details, it is easy to see where Jay could have mixed up and said different things. But, the location of the place you are shown a dead body? How do you forget that?
To further her investigation, Sarah Koenig takes a detective along with her as they try to follow the timeline Adnan would have had to follow the day he killed Hae. He only had 21 minutes, and Adnan claimed that with all that was going on at that time of day, committing murder in that timeframe would habe been “impossible.” From his school, Adnan would have had to have made it to Best Buy (which is where Jay claims Adnan showed him the body) in 21 minutes. Despite all of the variables included in an after school window, Sarah and the detective make it to Best Buy in 18 minutes. But, that only leaves Adnan three minutes to kill Hae, move her to the trunk, and call Jay to come pick him up. Sarah and the detective manage to time it to 22 minutes and two seconds, so they decide that Adnan could have done it, but it seems a little far-fetched since there could be no room at all for any error or pause. The timeline has lots of problems, and Jay’s story, although it consistently shifts, lines up with the timeline, which was enough evidence to make Adnan the prime suspect.
As for the episode structure itself, I have noticed that the episodes always start with a “previously on…” section and end with a hook or lead into the next episode. The same music is always used for the introduction, but isn’t always used throughout the episode. Music is really only used when in between points or questions, or to indicate a big point or mood change. Also, the recordings used aren’t always just Sarah sitting at a desk or in a booth speaking into a microphone. The last few episodes, recordings of Sarah in a car or talking to other people (detectives, police officers, friends of Adnan, Adnan) were included, and snippets of Jay’s interrogations were integrated into the episodes.
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In the podcast Serial—An Investigation into the Murder of Hae Min Lee analyzed by Kaylie Yellowlees, she discusses how the podcaster continues to build her narration for her audience. In order to keep up the suspense and the storyline so that her listeners can easily follow along, Kaylie found out that each new episode starts off with “previously on…”. This allows the audience to get back on track into what the podcast series is about and what the key details were from the previous episode so that the host does not lose the audience partway through the episode either by loss of interest or suspense or by confusion about previous descriptions or plot points. Then, Kaylie continues on with what she heard in the next few podcast episodes she listened to. As she does this, she describes parts of the story that intrigue probably all the listeners including her. She adds the fact that the narration itself tells the case in a way that makes it seem mysterious by noting how Jay, the witness of the crime, continuously shifts the details every time he is questioned about the crime, how completing the crime in just 21 minutes would have been tight if not impossible, and how despite of this, all the evidence points to Adnan as the murderer. The way the host gives her narration of the crime story further makes her podcast all the more interesting to listen to.
I feel like this type of tying the episodes together is an advantage to making a podcast and overall helped the host of Serial in making her podcast a successful one. (272)