Verdict

It's over. It's done. We finally have all of the pieces of the case that Serial can offer to us. And it is quite a lot of information to take in.

With that, however, the questions have not lessened, but rather, have increased in number. The Nisha call was addressed once more, a call that should be extremely harmful to Adnan's case, a call that lends substantial weight to Jay's story. However, we are told that there is still ambiguity as to how much this call can contribute to the prosecution's case, as the case of it being an accidental dial was confirmed to be a possibility...which only leaves more questions at the final episode of the podcast.

Yet even if the Nisha call was an accident, even if people lied on the stand, even if, even if, even if, the fact that all these coincidences exist around Adnan cannot be coincidence itself. All of the unlucky coincidences that occurred around Adnan on the day of Hae's death...it bears some thought. There is a story behind each coincidence, not the most ironclad story, but a story nonetheless. Yet either he is the guilty man in the case, one who has crafted a substantial amount of information to account for a variety of occurrences that would pin him as guilty (occurrences that have now just become "coincidences"), or he is simply the most unlucky man in the case, one who is simply a victim of fate. Where does that leave us? What can we trust? Can we really believe the slight possibility that he just happens to be the most unlucky man in the case?

Evidently, because that is the juror's task. All of the facts have been laid out, we are now in the room deliberating on the case of Adnan Syed. And what I myself cannot get away from is that despite all of the coincidences sounding just like coincidence, in spite of the Nisha call, in spite of Jay, in spite of a variety of incriminating prosecution pieces of evidence, the lack of what we know dwarfs all of this by comparison. Far too many things exist that do not add up. What about Aisha? I'm still not convinced that she's out of the picture -- I was quite surprised when Koening did not give it that much weight in this episode. There is simply far too much reasonable doubt in the case.

 While I did not like at all that Koening voiced her opinion on the case (it's been quite painfully obvious but still, for the people who were blissfully unaware, now they have been influenced to think "not guilty" as well, given that the one who has spent a year on the case extensively has come to that conclusion), I find myself agreeing with her. Had I been a juror in the case, I would find Adnan Syed not guilty.