Making a Murderer Season 2

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We've gone on holiday by mistake
Just finished binge watching the whole thing.

WARNING SPOILERS

The season takes us on 2 intertwined journeys. 1) Brendan Dassey's journey through appeals from 2016 to present. 2) Kathleen Zellner's re examination of the case and her attempts to uncover new evidence.

Not as good as Season 1 from an entertainment perspective but I think that comes from the fact that a lot of what has happened since 2015/16 has been well publicised, especially on the Brendan Dassey side and its a recap of what we know about his appeal process.

The star and white knight of this season is undoubtedly Kathleen Zellner. I had no idea what to expect but found her to be quite an exceptional person, early on she makes it clear that she is interested in what actually happened, and says to Steven if you are guilty then watch out I will bury you. She really comes across as fair and honest and quite sharp.

Some thoughts;

-Strang and Buting at times get a rough ride from KZ. Unfairly imo and quite surprising.

-Steven aces an advanced lie detector/brain scanning test used by FBI/CIA.

-Judges at war with each other over Dassey's false confession. One judge said of Wiegart and Fassbender that the interview made her skin crawl.

-Manitowoc County and Wisconsin DA's office contain some really deplorable people.

Some of the "bombshells" imo

WARNING: "." spoilers below
-Star witness Bobby Dassey's computer contained really sick material which was withheld from the defence. Like repeated child porn searches, mutilated/decapitated women, animal porn, "knife going into flesh", really really bad stuff. For those that may have forgotten Bobby D got on the stand and said he "didn't" see TH leave the property despite telling his brother that he did see her leave. Seems really clear that a deal was made with Bobby that if you testify against SA we will let slide all the child porn and wont come after you for the TH murder. Fassbender is filmed having a chat with Bobby outside the Avery 2007 trial. Bobby sits down with Kathleen Zellner's investigator (off camera) during MaM2 and becomes quite distressed when he learns that Kathleen and her team have his hard drive, seems more interested in finding out what they know or are up to than answering questions.


-Ryan Hilleagas (ex boyfriend) in possession of Teresa's day diary that almost certainly came from her car.


- Remember the part in 1 where Sgt Colburn is accused of finding the car and calling in the plates? Here we have a truck driver that has come forward to KZ saying that he observed a car by the side of the road not far from the Avery yard on 03/11 (2 days before discovery on Avery lot), the car looks like a green Rav4, he thinks nothing of it until he stops at a garage nearby where he sees a poster with TH/car on it and makes the connection. Luckily there is a Sheriffs deputy in the garage so he has no reason to call it in and reports the find to the deputy. The truck driver thinks nothing of it until 10 years later when he watches MaM and thinks back to this incident, and do you wanna take one guess at who he recognizes to be the deputy that he reported the car to?? Colburn, who he recognizes from the documentary. No report was ever made by Colburn of what the trucker told him.


-The coroner was barred from entering the crime scene on the Avery property even though that is the normal procedure in any murder. When she complained she was threatened with arrest by Sheriff Peterson in person. The judge in the original case deemed this irrelevant and her evidence dismissed. She resigned 6 months later after 15 years as Coroner.

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I don't think they're milking it. Just finished watching Season 2 and while not as addicting as season 1 it was very interesting to watch Zellner create a version of what she thinks happened based on her investigation. It's obviously one sided but what can the producers do when nobody from the state will talk. They won at trial and they want it to go away and Calumet and Manitowoc County need it to go away (if what Zellner suggests is correct). It's in their best interest to remain silent.

I think what Zellner has uncovered is more substantial than anything in season 1. She has more/better experts reviewing all the materials and evidence and she has the time/money to be more thorough. One of the biggest "new" evidence drops, in my opinion, is
WARNING: spoilers below
that there is no skull fragments embedded in the lead on the bullet that supposedly killed Teresa but wood fragments are embedded?
Combine that with no physical evidence (blood, DNA) at the scene of the crime (according to the States theory) and what do you have?

If you saw the entire list of the crap Bobby was looking looking up online you would think he would jump to the top of any potential suspects list. That's a sick dude.

Towards the end of the series they do a re-enactment of Zellners theory based on her discoveries and it comes across as very plausible. Safe to say Barb Tadych (Stevens sister, Brendens mom) isn't very happy about it.

The Brendan stuff was less interesting for me. It's simply a journey through the court system.
I can see why the 7th District ruled the way they did but I still can't grasp how a reasonable person can't see he how Brenden was fed info which leads to his confession. His only hope now is through Steven and Zellner.



We've gone on holiday by mistake
That feeling (combined with the obvious agenda, whether they're right or wrong) is why I'm not entirely sure I'll even watch it.
I think it's worth a watch, Zellner takes a much more scientific approach and really goes after the evidence. She is a real pro.



We've gone on holiday by mistake
Apparently there is "big news" coming today in just over 2 hours (1230 CT).

According to Zellner's twitter that is. She is even tagging big news outlets.



Family member who has similar feelings to me about the first season (that it was padded) says the second is the same, but much worse, so I'm gonna pass for sure. Seems like they barely had enough story for their episode total last time (a problem with lots of Netflix shows, even scripted ones) but had to follow-up given the success of the first (another Netflix show problem).

Think I'll just wait and hear both sides and consider them from a distance. I just can't enjoy a documentary once it's clear the documentarian has an agenda. I become too keenly aware of the emotional manipulation. Once you notice that stuff you can't go back.



We've gone on holiday by mistake
Family member who has similar feelings to me about the first season (that it was padded) says the second is the same, but much worse, so I'm gonna pass for sure. Seems like they barely had enough story for their episode total last time (a problem with lots of Netflix shows, even scripted ones) but had to follow-up given the success of the first (another Netflix show problem).

Think I'll just wait and hear both sides and consider them from a distance. I just can't enjoy a documentary once it's clear the documentarian has an agenda. I become too keenly aware of the emotional manipulation. Once you notice that stuff you can't go back.
I think that's why you of all people will like s2 and Zellner in particular. She waves away conspiracy like "the key" being planted and says it really doesn't matter and gets down to a hardcore examination of the evidence, and lots of things the defence didn't do last time around.

Half the show follows Brendan on his journey through the federal courts and anyone who has kept half an eye on updates over the past 2 years knows how that pans out but getting a more in depth view and understanding of the process is useful.

There is no question that they probably didn't need 10 episodes this year and there is plenty of filler, a 5 episode addition would have been fine.

Anyhow just bumping because supposedly something MAJOR going down in 2 hours, Reddit users who have heard the rumours are already talking of imminent arrests of Law Enforcement involved with the case. We will just have to wait and see.



We've gone on holiday by mistake
Interwoven.

Keep an eye on Zellner's twitter today.



The Adventure Starts Here!
Maybe it's just me but I didn't find either season padded. I liked the details. I liked anything some might have called a tangent. I think if any of those things had been skipped or left out, they'd have viewers asking those questions anyway: "Hey, what about X, Y, and Z?"

Once I got past Zellner's ridiculously perfect dentures/caps and her ridiculously dark-colored hair, I found her fascinating to watch. She knows her stuff, and she knew where to go to find information, and who to call in as an expert. I suspect Manitowoc County just never envisioned this kind of scrutiny and figured early on they could easily get away with framing Avery to get back at him for the lawsuit.

Also, although this is a documentary, Yoda, I don't find its level of bias unseemly or overdone. Frankly, I'd say MANY documentaries have an agenda or cause. Whether they handle them somewhat fairly is another story. Aside from a subtitle here and there, there aren't any voice-overs or narrators leading us by the nose.

Perhaps I enjoyed both seasons because, for some reason, I was NOT following these stories outside the Netflix series. Not at all. So I had no clue what was coming next or where anyone ended up.

And now I'm off to break that streak and go follow Zellner on Twitter.



We've gone on holiday by mistake
Maybe it's just me but I didn't find either season padded. I liked the details. I liked anything some might have called a tangent. I think if any of those things had been skipped or left out, they'd have viewers asking those questions anyway: "Hey, what about X, Y, and Z?"

Once I got past Zellner's ridiculously perfect dentures/caps and her ridiculously dark-colored hair, I found her fascinating to watch. She knows her stuff, and she knew where to go to find information, and who to call in as an expert. I suspect Manitowoc County just never envisioned this kind of scrutiny and figured early on they could easily get away with framing Avery to get back at him for the lawsuit.

Also, although this is a documentary, Yoda, I don't find its level of bias unseemly or overdone. Frankly, I'd say MANY documentaries have an agenda or cause. Whether they handle them somewhat fairly is another story. Aside from a subtitle here and there, there aren't any voice-overs or narrators leading us by the nose.

Perhaps I enjoyed both seasons because, for some reason, I was NOT following these stories outside the Netflix series. Not at all. So I had no clue what was coming next or where anyone ended up.

And now I'm off to break that streak and go follow Zellner on Twitter.

This, the case was never supposed to stand up to this heightened level of scrutiny. I suspect there are a lot of nervous Law Enforcement agencies around the US that they might be the next one to feel this heat.



The Adventure Starts Here!
This, the case was never supposed to stand up to this heightened level of scrutiny. I suspect there are a lot of nervous Law Enforcement agencies around the US that they might be the next one to feel this heat.
Precisely. Small town politics and sweeping things under the rug. Without MaM, they'd have gotten away with it, too. Ken Kratz in particular makes my skin crawl, to coin a phrase from that one judge.



The Adventure Starts Here!
Interwoven.

Keep an eye on Zellner's twitter today.
I'm just refreshing her Twitter feed, but does anyone know the hashtag(s) to follow? She includes a bunch in many of her tweets.



We've gone on holiday by mistake
Doesn't seem like much new info. Disappointed so far.



We've gone on holiday by mistake
Choo Choo!

All aboard the Zellner hype train again!!

More "important information" on Zellners twitter at 230 ET today.