I have been working on boring SAP stuff and setting prices for next year (yawn), so I've been relistening to old Serial episodes. And I've noticed things that I had forgotten, or never connected previously:
Episode 5 (Route Talk): in the recording of one of Jay's interviews with the police, he mentions that when Adnan tells him about killing Hae, he says that he was afraid she would scratch him and get his skin under her fingernails. In Episode 6, Adnan tells Sarah "It's not like they found my skin under her fingernails or anything." Maybe I've been listening too much, but that seems like a very specific detail to pop up in both stories. Specific enough that it makes me think there is a kernel of truth there.
I didn't notice this before, but in Episode 6 (The Case Against Adnan Syed), Adnan spends a lot of time talking about how much it bothers him that people think he could have premeditated killing Hae. He never says that it bothers him that people think he was capable of killing Hae, only that people think he planned it. Hmmmm. Maybe you could argue that he thinks anyone could be capable of killing someone under the right (wrong?) circumstances, so it's the premeditation angle that upsets him...except that when Sarah suggests that maybe everyone is capable of killing, Adnan disagrees with her. So we're back to "It doesn't bother me that people would think I killed her, just that they think I planned it." (Not in so many words, but that's the gist of it.)
I SO do not get the relationship between Adnan/Jay. They both act like they weren't that close (when Adnan talks about how the police said they talked to Jay, he acts like he's not even sure who they're talking about at first, like "Wait, that guy?"), like Jay was just some dude Adnan would use to score some weed (and his friend's BF). Jay refers to Adnan as his friend in one of the police interviews, then quickly corrects it to "ex-friend." Will at track practice (I think it was WIll? Someone at track practice, at any rate) said it wasn't at all unusual for Jay to drop Adnan off at track, it happened all the time. Which sounds like more than just casual acquaintances. It kind of seems like they're both downplaying their friendship and trying to make it sound like less than it was. Maybe Adnan wants to minimize their relationship because Jay knew where Hae's car was (among other things) while Adnan has maintained that he had nothing to do with anything, so he needs to distance himself from the guy who led the police to her car. And maybe Jay is distancing himself because Adnan is serving life for killing Hae and Jay only got probation for helping bury the body and ditch the car--maybe he just wants to keep his head down and put it all behind him.
Or maybe they're downplaying their friendship because whatever happened, they were both involved, and saying so makes them both look even worse. That would also explain why Adnan is so freaking calm: I hope in his shoes, I would be wise and forgiving enough not to hate Jay forever. But honestly, if I were locked away for life for a crime I didn't commit, based almost entirely on Jay's testimony, I would be yelling "Jay is a freaking lying liar!" at the top of my lungs from Day 1, I think. And Adnan's all "I don't know why Jay said I killed Hae, but whatev, let me tell you about how I can make barbecue sauce from pancake syrup if you don't have molasses or brown sugar." ???
I don't know: I want to believe Adnan, but if he truly had nothing to do with it, why would Jay point the finger at him? Because Jay really killed Hae? But why? Because Hae was going to confront him about cheating on Stephanie? Anything is possible, but I don't really buy that as a motive.
If I had to vote right now, I guess I would say that Adnan snapped and killed Hae in a sudden fit of rage, and Jay is way more involved than he lets on: maybe he was there when it happened, maybe he could have intervened and didn't. But come Thursday morning, who knows what I'll think. What do you think?
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