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[Cat in the Hat]

Just finished.

Just like Serial, this series starts off great and then fizzles out. The endings of these podcasts are always so unsatisfying.

As is life.

 

[Quote]

I enjoyed S-Town more than any season of Serial. Looking back on Serial S1 irks me that it built a fan base on a possible murderer.

I think I liked S-Town a lot because I knew it was going to be a story about a person rather than a murder mystery. In episode two I thought it was pretty obvious what was going on when the walk in the forest and tattoos were brought up.

 

[tirminyl]

Love, loved, love this!!! Just binged it all while traveling and I completely got swept up by John.

 

[border]

My main irk about the show is that its focus does not become clear until very late in the game, and you end up feeling like you've been strung along.

At first, it's a show about a murder that police swept under the rug.
Oh wait no, there was no murder. Now it's a treasure hunt to find this guy's secret fortune of gold bars.
Oh wait no, the hunt for the gold has turned up nothing. Now it's a show about a probate battle between a suicide victim's close friends and his distant greedy relatives.
Oh wait no, Rita just seems to be a well-meaning person who just wants to protect John's assets from being pilfered. Now it's a show about how the corrupt local police are trying to screw her out of the estate.
Oh wait no, the police and city officials are mostly neutral. Now it's just a character study about a savant, and how he became a repressed, obsessed misanthrope who pushed away everyone who might have cared about him.

All the intrigue surrounding John's death never really amounts to much, but it's played up at every turn. This might be forgivable in an actually serialized broadcast where new facts are being learned all the time. But it's clear that Reed had all the facts from the time Episode 1 was dropped, and was just dropping red herrings all over the place because it's lurid and draws people in.

What S-Town became ("a character study about a savant") was actually quite good. I feel like it would have been better if they had just focused on him rather than all those fantastic tertiary elements that never paid off.

 

[RobertM]

Didn't like the narrative nor the narrator of the podcast. It sounded like he was chocking up on every last word, so annoying.

 

[Timeaisis]

OK, just finished this. For the record, I loved Serial S1 (S2 was meh), unresolved mystery and all (because it presented options).

I liked this a lot at first. Then, somewhere around Episode 3,

Spoiler

I realized there was literally nothing left to talk about except for the incredibly personal details of John's life. At first, this didn't bother me all that much, as, stupidly as a listener, I'd assume the ends justify the means, and there would be an interesting revelation to come out of everything.

Such is not the case. The podcast ends with the listener knowing way too much about a poor dude's life, offers no resolution, and, as the John B puts it at some point is resolves with nothing more than "a fart in the wind".

And yes, it does very much feel like you are strung along. You go in thinking it's a true crime thing. Nope, maybe it's a town intrigue thing. Treasure hunt? Nope, maybe it's a love story. Nope. In the end it's nothing more than a really hard look into someone's sordid and troubled past.

EDIT: I'll spoiler that just in case. Even though it's vague.

 

[crimzonflame]

I finished it over the weekend and I share the same sentiments as many of the posters in this thread. It was intriguing in the beginning and then it just fizzled out near the end. I wish they would have at least let the listener know what they are getting into before investing their time listening to it. Strung along seems about right.

 

[Goldenroad]

I've got one episode left. I guess I'll probably finish it today while driving around, but yeah, I can totally see how it might just fizzle. That last episode (6) was basically a nothing episode. That kind of "character building" doesn't lend itself well to the final act of a story. John is definitely an interesting person, but if this is all just a character study on John, I'm not sure how much I'm really feeling that.

 

[Demoskinos]

So I started this last night foolishly about an hour before I needed to go to sleep. Well...I did not sleep. I just listened to the entire run I one sitting. While I do think some of the b-plots that the story got bogged down with in the middle could have been heavily truncated overall I think it was a facinating look into this guys life. I do think people were expecting too much if they were expecting some real grand finale with a huge revelation.

 

[Falchion]

Definitely going to have to binge this on some long walks this weekend since the weather should be nice. I loved S1 of Serial but I never got around to finishing S2 because it just didn't grab me as much.

 

[Jugendstil]

Honestly, the most disappointing thing was that Brian didn't give any more info on John B. having a Furby collection. Way to drop that amazing factoid and then not address it! I demand answers!

 

[Mister_Bubbles]

John

Spoiler

would have been tickled to listen to this and know that he's now immortalized and has (parts of) his manifesto given a platform. It's like his fire gilding - poisons giving rise to something beautiful.

That's a really poignant way to think about it. I like that a lot.

 

[Kuroi Gogeta]

Finished it the other day and really enjoyed it. Im flabbergasted at what eventually became of

Spoiler

john's maze. It seems like one of those things that the internet would team up on and some eccentric millionaire would come in and take it over and set the property the way John would have liked, but so far nobody seems to care enough to do that

John did have a lot of bad things happen to him, but as his old friend said, there were some things in his control, yet he refused to take charge and use his resources to fix his problems. I think that the

Spoiler

mercury poisoning

definitely contributed to the way John behaves, when you do a mental health assessment you actually have to rule out any sort of chemical reasons for why someone would be exhibiting certain behaviours. As a guy who is really interested in psychology I really valued john's point of view on everything. I wanted to know how such a man could exist, and it's truly sad what his circumstances were. Hes someone who cares more about fixing other things before fixing himself, and ultimately that kind of self sacrifice takes it's toll. His story is one that I think makes people rethink their perceptions of small town life, southerners, geniuses, and other types of people.

 

[WrenchNinja]

My main irk about the show is that its focus does not become clear until very late in the game, and you end up feeling like you've been strung along.

At first, it's a show about a murder that police swept under the rug.
Oh wait no, there was no murder. Now it's a treasure hunt to find this guy's secret fortune of gold bars.
Oh wait no, the hunt for the gold has turned up nothing. Now it's a show about a probate battle between a suicide victim's close friends and his distant greedy relatives.
Oh wait no, Rita just seems to be a well-meaning person who just wants to protect John's assets from being pilfered. Now it's a show about how the corrupt local police are trying to screw her out of the estate.
Oh wait no, the police and city officials are mostly neutral. Now it's just a character study about a savant, and how he became a repressed, obsessed misanthrope who pushed away everyone who might have cared about him.

All the intrigue surrounding John's death never really amounts to much, but it's played up at every turn. This might be forgivable in an actually serialized broadcast where new facts are being learned all the time. But it's clear that Reed had all the facts from the time Episode 1 was dropped, and was just dropping red herrings all over the place because it's lurid and draws people in.

What S-Town became ("a character study about a savant") was actually quite good. I feel like it would have been better if they had just focused on him rather than all those fantastic tertiary elements that never paid off.

Couldn't have summed it up better