I must start with a disclaimer: I have finished episode 14. I survived. Barely.
I will do my best to avoid "spoilers," (except for one at the very bottom of this post!) because if I had to hear those two give their closing arguments with no fair warning as to how it would hit - then... damn it, so do you.
And before I move on to talk about Ep 3, I also actually need to issue a correction. This inches on the realm of "giving too much away" as it relates to the penultimate and final episodes, but - don't worry, I doubt you'd see this one coming from me.
Here it is.
I was wrong.
In my first two blog entries recapping this coverage, I have given Brett WAY too much credit and have given poor Alice WAY too little. I love (lovelovelove) taking notes while they're talking. The only problem is, now I've started to type with Alice's 2x speed voice in my head, which - kinda sucks, but, you know, it's the price I pay to be efficient and stuff.
So, here's a sneak peak at my FINAL EPISODE NOTES:
Brett, I really thought you were a Master Manipulator, but in reality, I've come to realize, that you're really just out of your depth.
Alice. Oh, Alice. You clever little thing. Gone are the giggles and fluff, gone are the ep's of "And That's A Great Point Brett!" because Alice... wow... just.... Alice. (and not in a good way.)
I had to pause for a minute to write all those things about Alice, but otherwise, my fingers were pretty tired by the time I finished using SIX GD PAGES of a legal pad to take notes and pretty much dictate Alice's Closing Argument. (Don't judge me; that's how I process.)
Anway, so I was writing at the top of each page like a header or whatever - like "Brett's Theory Continues..." but before long, after listening to Alice sound like a SUPER SPOOKY version of the Alice we thought we knew - my headers got fun. *rubs hands together*
Alice Closing Notes Page 3
F you, Alice - but continue Ep 14
Alice Closing Notes Page 4
OMG STILL Alice talking...
Alice Closing Notes Page 5
Wrap it up, bee eye tee cee eeeh-tch (Disclaimer: I spelled it the regular way.)
Alice Closing Notes Page 6
Alice, for F's sake!!!!!
I can't remember which page I was furiously writing on when I realized that Alice is a Sociopath. Probably around page two when she sounds like she's crying and you know, never showed one modicum of emotion in the preceding 13 episodes.
Because everything was all fun and games back then, as she just hooked some of you right in, knowing she would be coming RIGHT AT you in the end, and that she would sound so convincing, because... she set you up to believe her story. That's her job as a Prosecutor.
But, yeah. Back to episode 3. I'm REAL low on energy considering the massive amount of undue trauma I placed upon myself by deciding to listen to this absolute shit show, but I digress. I'm just going to to a listical whatever so you can read it if you want, but feel free to skip to one tiny spoiler at the end.
1) Alice thinks Brett made a "really great point!" about the AIM PROFILE because Hae has moved on, and as you can imagine, Adnan has not. And to see it "so public" (on dial up AOL instant messenger) is AKIN TO GETTING BY A CAR emotionally for him. (Cue me, and cleansing breaths.)
2) Brett brings up Becky Walker's testimony to convince us that Adnan is a known and proven liar regarding Adnan's recollection of the night before Hae went missing. Brett points out that Becky says at trial that Adnan told HER that Hae actually called him that night and that she wanted to get back together with him... but Adnan told her he didn't want to."
2a) Oh and by the way, Brett wants you to also know that "Adnan would also say to Becky," shortly before Hae's body was found, that he was kinda worried that something he might have said that night could have been what made Hae "leave or go away." Brett says this obvi isn't true because Hae didn't call him. He called her. Plus Hae is "literally" on the phone with Don and writing in her diary about him, so DUH, she wouldn't be trying to get back with Adnan.
Brett tells us, "I don't know why he told Becky this, but it's not true. This is not the conversation they had."
Okay, dawg. I didn't mean to go down a Becky rabbit hole, but let's explore this, shall we?
Becky must be the ONLY reliable witness of the friend group at Woodlawn. Remember, Brett has told us in earlier episodes that you can't trust Debbie or Asia or Jen or Krista or Cathy and ooooh, shucks, everyone's just mim-rememberin' all over the place.
Except, I guess, for Becky.
So, given Brett had established that's she's very credible, lets ponder what else can glean from her trial testimony:
1. Becky says Hae had a kinda stressful relationship at times w/ some of her family members.
2. She testifies that the whole Junior Prom debacle (when Adnan's parents showed up) ALL HAPPENED IN THE PARKING LOT. (So, Alice and Brett, just how DEVISTATING was this to Adnan's poor fragile psyche?!)
3. She started keeping a written journal while Hae was missing to record things down in case it could be helpful in the investigation to find her and at some point a cop or detective asks her if she's written anything down and they collect it, but she isn't sure who and if it was city or county. (I want to check this out.)
4. She says Hae had a pager.
5. Supports the idea that everyone at first thought Hae may have left for California or was with Don.
6. In what reads as a very emotional section of the trial testimony transcripts, Becky says:
"She just said she had to be somewhere after school. She didn't tell me where she was going but she just had to leave!"
7. Oh, and also, she answered "YES" when Christina G asked her if Hae would, as a habit, drive Adnan from the back of the school around to the front. -- Note: Brett and Alice make fun of this notion later, if they haven't already, and it becomes a whole "Adnan hates to walk places" kinda joke thing between them, so, that's fun for them.
8) She said if Hae was happy that all her friends knew it and she was less talkative when she was sad. - that makes me think of her mood on 1/13 during lunch in school cafeteria - Hae was quiet and "claimed" be thinking about Don. Was something else wrong?
9) Becky affirms she wrote in her journal that Adnan had mentioned if "things got really bad" Hae would just go to her dad's in California.
10) She testifies that Hae is still paging Adnan with messages of love... pg 205 - this was definitely new to me or something I'd forgotten - something else I'd like to look into.
And, lastly - Pages 196 and 197 of the trial transcripts cover this whole "did Adnan tell Becky the Hae called him the night of 1/12 or whatever and did she or he was someone (my eyes are glazed over) wanting to get back together?
In all seriousness, I find these pages and the testimony compelling, so I'll tweet the link to this blog and add screen shots of the trial testimony in the comments.
All I've done is talked about the VERY beginning of their episode 3. Their outline may be as long as The Great Gatsby or whatever, but I'm certainly not trying to write War and Peace.
So, a few more quick things: we get timeline and timeline and calls and calls in this ep, and, in the end, we mostly just get Brett telling us that because the 2:36 "come and get me call" was so dumb and implausible that the prosecution should have used the 3:15 call to really "nail home the fact" that Adnan had killed Hae by now...
And that the prosecutors in this case weren't conspiratorial, they just dropped the ball, because HELL, what do I know, Brett? I guess it can't be both.
Oh, and there was that awkward moment when they started the timeline with Alonzo Sellers clocking in and then also later tell us when he went to lunch and then kindly remind us that Sellers was "having a rough day" (Brett's words, not mine) talking to the cops around 1pm about the stolen walkie-talkie thing and stuff and then this timeline takes us to 3:30 and we haven't heard about Sellers again so yeah I guess he is definitely still talking to cops about a two-way radio at that time, because, you know, it was expensive and he definitely couldn't have been anywhere else between 1:00 and 3:30 because IT WASN'T ON OUR TIMELINE.
Oh, and lastly, Susan Simpson gets "atta-girled" for her work with the cell phone data. I believe Brett said something like "She did a pretty good job with it," and "Uh, she had a blog, it's called The View At LL2, I think."
I mean, couldn't he have talked to Susan, or maybe even tried to interview her on an episode (do they ever have guests? Like in past seasons?)
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know who they called. But I do know one person they called. they admittedly have "talked to." And it's someone who I find interesting...
This is an episode 13 or 14 SPOILER, so - FAIR WARNING *************** scroll down -
ALMOST THRERE
* Brett seriously fucking says in Ep 14. "We talked to Jay's lawyer and she said Christina wasn't sick at the time, just. busy."
*Why are they talking to Jay's lawyer? Who else are they talking to in order to get their materials and content for this podcast? Only the void? The internet? An echo chamber?
*Did Jay's lawyer just argue Effective Assistance of Counsel? Is this actually happening? Did I die and this is hell?
*Good god I'm exhausted. And this is an opinion piece and all opinions are my own, except or maybe the opinion that Susan Simpson never gets enough credit - because it's a fact that she rules.
Comments