S01.E08: Clean Up

[formerlyfreedom]

Quote

Peter is forced to reckon with his actions and attempts to learn lessons in the aftermath of the documentary. But the investigation might not be over.

 

[Scarlett45]

This series was well done. Intelligent, snarky, hilarious....the writing was top notch and the cast did well. I honestly had no idea who drew the dicks!

[Princess Sparkle]

I love that just like Serial and Making a Murderer, we don't actually find out every single thing about the case - Im dying to know what exactly the coach said. I thought it was going to come out that the coach was actually dating MacKenzie and the mom, so they actually did do an effective misdirect on me.  

[funkopop]

Oh Dylan.  This ended out a lot more poignant than I expected.  Ming on his way to becoming an alcoholic, Mr.Rafferty going too far to get back at a student (what did he say?!),  Dylan watching the doc with all the people who called him a fuck up which led to his self sabotage. I am kind of in my feelings about how this ended, I feel so bad about how these people's lives were turned upside down, even Sara.  How do people even function watching these docs about TRUE ACTUAL people?!

[formerlyfreedom]

Dylan after his lawyer basically proves his innocence - “Allegedly.” I’m dying…

Dylan turning over the new leaf – answering questions (wrong!), bringing a pencil to class…the earnestness that he displays is so great.

The after prom party…OMG. I do not miss this time in my life, and thank god the internet wasn’t really a thing when I was of this age!

Sam’s look at the camera as Peter goes into way too much detail about the ‘pool he owns’…Oh, Peter. Also, nice to see Sam and Gabi make up. Not sure that it leads to them being a couple, but I like them as friends for sure.

This was fantastic, and it also says so much about high school AND about life. The cast was spectacular, they all nailed their roles. They caught the feel of so many true crime documentaries, and at the same time, I rooted for these characters…

I’m excited to find out what the production team is going to do next!

[Miles]

Fake true crime is so much more satisfying than real true crime!

We actually know who did it and why (even though we don't know the exact words that were used) and everything else is also pretty much wraped up.

The ending was sad, but poigniant. Also we can rest easy in the knowledge that all these people are just (surprisingly good) actors who don't actually have to live ruined lives now.

[panthergirl13]

Brilliant concept, flawlessly executed. I also died at "allegedly"... but overall the acting was just stellar. Loved it!

[HunterHunted]

On 9/20/2017 at 2:55 AM, Miles said:

Fake true crime is so much more satisfying than real true crime!

We actually know who did it and why (even though we don't know the exact words that were used) and everything else is also pretty much wraped up.

The ending was sad, but poigniant. Also we can rest easy in the knowledge that all these people are just (surprisingly good) actors who don't actually have to live ruined lives now.

Loved it. Loved it. Loved it. Though, the one thing I was surprised by was Peter's constant refrain about Dylan going to college. I think we all know Dylan's best college hopes were dropping out of community college. 

[Guest]

The one thing I liked about when we thought Dylan actually WAS guilty, was I would've liked if that was a dig at Serial.  Serial was so intent on making the accused seem innocent, because the journalist liked him and he didn't look or sound like a killer to her, which is totally irrelevant.  I would've been cool with the message of this show being, "Sometimes the guy you like who swears he didn't do it, but all evidence points to him, actually did it.  Often, really."

I loved the show.  But I'm a little unclear on why those two chose dicks on all the faculty cars?  Why not just target the coach?  That was a lot of vandalism for two goody-two-shoes students with one axe to grind.  Maybe the show answered that and I didn't catch it.  

[rigs32]

1 hour ago, Winston9-DT3 said:

The one thing I liked about when we thought Dylan actually WAS guilty, was I would've liked if that was a dig at Serial.  Serial was so intent on making the accused seem innocent, because the journalist liked him and he didn't look or sound like a killer to her, which is totally irrelevant. 

Not to mention that the host of Serial clearly had a lot of disdain for the police and prosecutors who handled that case.  People make mistakes all the time, but I don't go around assuming I could be better at doing other peoples' jobs than they are.  

[Guest]

Totally.

I loved that the school was called Hanover High, because each time I saw it my mind thought, "Hangover High".  And the humpbacks being the mascot was funny.  I really loved the big spirit sign over the entrance saying "GO FOR THE KRILL!"  

[Flannery Tanner]

So it was right there all along and I didn't notice until the end.  Van Delorey sounds like "vandal".

[SongbirdHollow]

I went in thinking this was just a silly mockumentary but it ended up being so much more. Incredibly well done.

[Flannery Tanner]

I agree completely. 

[Dots And Stripes]

This was a really entertaining show. Presenting the theory that Christa did it while still only calling it a theory was a bit of a cop out. Whether they call it a theory or say they have proven it, this is still supposedly a documentary that local authorities would see. I'm not sure the semantics really makes a difference in terms of the consequences Christa would face. I will say the finale did a pretty good job of looping back to things from the beginning and driving home the point that the documentary had consequences for the subjects. For a show with a silly premise, it was surprisingly thought provoking. 

[Tdoc72]

Loved it until the last episode. Sam was so close when he asked if Christa was faking her broken leg. YES!  They showed two different pics with her cast on different legs. This was driving me nuts. I noticed in an earlier episode and kept waiting for this reveal. (The girl who played Christa was one of the only people I recognized in this.)

So it summed it all up but kind of disappointingly. I guess she was just mad at the school admin and enlisted her boyfriend to help.  

Edited January 20, 2018 by Tdoc72
Added pic so people would know what I meant

[ketose]

On 10/11/2017 at 0:09 PM, Winston9-DT3 said:

The one thing I liked about when we thought Dylan actually WAS guilty, was I would've liked if that was a dig at Serial.  Serial was so intent on making the accused seem innocent, because the journalist liked him and he didn't look or sound like a killer to her, which is totally irrelevant.  I would've been cool with the message of this show being, "Sometimes the guy you like who swears he didn't do it, but all evidence points to him, actually did it.  Often, really."

I loved the show.  But I'm a little unclear on why those two chose dicks on all the faculty cars?  Why not just target the coach?  That was a lot of vandalism for two goody-two-shoes students with one axe to grind.  Maybe the show answered that and I didn't catch it.  

Targeting everyone would make it hard to tie it to anyone. However, I think the main reason is that the school covered up the complaint AND they gave the coach an award. Christa probably thought everyone was guilty.

[kimbrchick]

On 12/29/2017 at 10:20 PM, Flannery Tanner said:

So it was right there all along and I didn't notice until the end.  Van Delorey sounds like "vandal".

After I saw your post I thought about it noticed Christa Carlyle's last name sounds like Car-Lie-ul. It's a stretch but thought it was funny.

[methodwriter85]

On 9/18/2017 at 11:17 PM, saoirse said:

This was fantastic, and it also says so much about high school AND about life. The cast was spectacular, they all nailed their roles. They caught the feel of so many true crime documentaries, and at the same time, I rooted for these characters…

Peter makes such a great point about how high school is just 4 years in your life. If you lead a normal lifespan, that's about 5 percent of your life. It's miniscule, yet even afterwards a lot of us still see ourselves as who we were in high school.

I'm going to pretend that Dylan eventually gets himself straightened out and finds his way.

Given that this apparently all takes place in the spring of 2016, that would mean Peter and Sam would just about be hitting graduation. I wonder what they're up to now.

[Miles]

On 11.10.2017 at 6:09 PM, Guest said:

The one thing I liked about when we thought Dylan actually WAS guilty, was I would've liked if that was a dig at Serial.  Serial was so intent on making the accused seem innocent, because the journalist liked him and he didn't look or sound like a killer to her, which is totally irrelevant.  I would've been cool with the message of this show being, "Sometimes the guy you like who swears he didn't do it, but all evidence points to him, actually did it.  Often, really."

To me it seemed like she just really wanted to figure out who did it, be it Adnan or somebody else.

The evidence against him was flimsy, there was no motive to speak of and he had shit representation. The whole case really hinged on the testimony of a guy who might have done it himself. All the other evidence was circumstantial at best.

He might have done it, but boy did the police and prosecution do a shit job proving it. I'm a 100% sure he wouldn't have been convicted in germany.

 

On 11.10.2017 at 7:15 PM, rigs32 said:

Not to mention that the host of Serial clearly had a lot of disdain for the police and prosecutors who handled that case.  People make mistakes all the time, but I don't go around assuming I could be better at doing other peoples' jobs than they are.  

I don't remember her having any disdain towards police or prosecution. I remember some disdain towards Adnan's lawyer.

[nb360]

On 1/19/2018 at 11:45 PM, Tdoc72 said:

Loved it until the last episode. Sam was so close when he asked if Christa was faking her broken leg. YES!  They showed two different pics with her cast on different legs. This was driving me nuts. I noticed in an earlier episode and kept waiting for this reveal. (The girl who played Christa was one of the only people I recognized in this.)

So it summed it all up but kind of disappointingly. I guess she was just mad at the school admin and enlisted her boyfriend to help.  

 

Interesting. This couldn’t have been a mistake on the real producers’ part. I wonder why they didn’t make more of this?

Edited September 17, 2018 by nb360

[Zuleikha]

I think that was just a continuity mistake since the show established the cause of Christa's fall, the leg injury was irrelevant to her alibi, the show explicitly said the leg injury wasn't fake, and Van Delorean is the one who actually tagged the cars. There's no extra plus for Christa faking her leg injury.

I don't think Peter would have caused any real trouble for Christa because his theory was so speculative. The camp has records that confirm Van and Christa at the CPR training, so Peter would need something a lot stronger to get her into actual legal trouble. She's clearly smart, and she didn't say anything incriminating on the interview. We read her reaction as guilt because we want a definitive answer to who did it, but it wasn't really a weird reaction given that Peter was asking her about a clearly very upsetting incident and then clearly setting up to accuse her of a serious crime. I wish there was some hint about what the coach said that was so over the line because it's hard to imagine exactly what he could have said. Also, I love Christa for advocating for Rosh Hashanah equity! Thank you, fictional character for caring!

I binge watched this today because I had some stressful issues and I needed something light and frothy. I picked it because I'd read good things and it was funny, but I didn't expect it to have such depth. It called out the ethical issues in this genre in a great, accurate way. 

[Ravenya003]

I just finished binge watching this, and I loved it. All the characters seemed so real, and though I JUST missed out on social media being a real big thing during high school (we had cell-phones/texing but not much else) there was so much here that brought back memories of that time. Most of all, just how serious everything felt, when in reality it's just a passing moment in time. 

It also got particularly dark at times, not just in Dylan's arrest and despair at life, but the little things in hindsight. Like, I'm pretty sure that the coach knew all along that he was the target and Christa was the culprit, but his demeanour when the boys come into his office (with the phone in their shirt pocket) is so demonstrative about how confident he felt - in his colleagues, in his position - that nothing would ever come of it. 

[anniebird]

This show started as a silly parody, turned into a really well-done whodunit, and ended up being an insightful commentary on the American high school experience.  I loved it.

[iMonrey]

I just discovered this two days ago and binged it in two days. It was brilliant. Not only did it keep me entertained but it was just as engrossing as if it were a real mystery. I loved all the little cliff-hangers and actually gasped aloud when some new clue was discovered by Peter and Sam. I'm actually moved by how poignant the ending was. Just,  Bravo!