I'm in the same place I was at the beginning of the series, Adnan is guilty as hell, but the State's case was incorrect and not proven beyond a reasonable doubt, Jay was probably more involved then he testified, and Adnan's lawyer was not the best. I enjoyed the ride though.

I was surprised that people thought the podcast would make a statement on who the killer was at the end. It ended the only way it could have ended.

This was the True Detective of podcasts.

It's real life, not an episode of The Good Wife. Get over it.

@3 you are so right, and i wrote a post similar on facebook. i have watched the funny or die skits three times already and it is still so perfect that i can't live. and omg i listened to last episode this AM and it was exactly what i expected but i was still let down. curious to see what plays out now that his case is such a huge deal!

@4 Is correct. This is real life, not True Detective.

I made up my mind about four episodes ago that Adnan did it -- that he and Jay most likely did it together -- but that there was not enough hard evidence to actually convict Adnan, to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

That being said, I don't know if I'd have voted to acquit Adana had I been a juror, as Koenig claims she would have. Until you've been handed that power, I think it's difficult to know for sure how you'd use it.

The episode was what I expected. And @2 is right: it could not have ended any other way.

Possibly due to the format and my lack of obsessive research, but I agreed 100% with Koening's conclusion.

I'm not really sure what people expected from the conclusion. This is a real story. Adnan is still in jail, awaiting one last procedural appeal. Maybe it would have been different if they had waited for the Innocence Project and the appeal to run their course, but as it stands, there was almost no possibility that the story could have a bombshell revelation about the true killer.

I'll jump in now. I didn't expect to hear who did it. But I think there is a real story here, and it's not just about the "nature of truth" stuff: it's the difference between what a person believes and what a juror does, and I don't think she nailed that. I wanted more on that issue and how it plays out. My displeasure was more about style. Too much wandering around in the woods out loud!

I think those who are in the "Adnan SO did it" camp will be eating some crow when none of the DNA evidence matches Adnan. I thought the podcast ended as well as it could have, at least Ms. Koenig did us a favor by telling us exactly where *she* comes down. As a juror, I don't think I could have convicted Adnan-- given what we know now. His lawyer probably did her best, though it sounds like her personal life was already unraveling during his trial and likely contributed to him not receiving the best defense. I wish the best of luck to the justice project who hopes to exonerate Adnan.

I sort of agree, but I think that she was [inadvertently or not] making a story about how journalism works. In that case, showing people all of the wandering in the woods is important.

I agree with @2, 7, 9.

What bothers me most is that it seems like everyone I have observed discussing this case is white, and yet never acknowledges their whiteness, and/or white privilege, and how that affects their view of Adnan, Jay, et al. There's just a whole lotta glib "oh yeah he's guilty" coming from the white folks on the AV Club Serial Serial podcast, etc.

Second, I wish there were more discussion of how the criminal justice system is clearly broken:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteveryt…

(And again, biased against non-whites.)

@12,

Convictions are achieved with that level of evidence all the time.

That defense attorney writing in the Washington Post apparently thinks her audience is credulous; I guess Koenig also thinks the same thing:

A serious Brady violation surfaced during Syed’s second trial. Jay, an alleged accomplice and the prosecution’s main witness, revealed on the stand that he was testifying pursuant to an agreement with the prosecution: his cooperation in exchange for leniency and pro bono representation. Upon revealing this highly unethical arrangement, Koenig asks her legally inclined listeners, “your jaw is hanging open right now, correct?”

Noooo. Why would my jaw be hanging open?

Wilks admitted to investigators, seemingly without much prompting, that he participated in covering up a murder, which opened him up to an accessory after the fact charge. Of course he's not going to testify against Adnan without a prior plea deal. If he didn't receive that deal, he could have/would have invoked his Fifth Amendment rights during the trial. If Adnan's defense attorney was too stupid or lazy to investigate what deals Wilks *definitely* got for himself, that's on her, and the main claim to an appeal is professional malpractice on the part of the *defense* attorney.

@13 -- True. If a jury *believes* in the guilt of a defendant, it will often convict, even in the face of lots of reasonable doubt. That may not be how our legal system is theoretically supposed to function, but it's what happens.