'American Vandal' Spoilers: If Dylan Is Innocent, Who Is the Real Vandal?
"American Vandal" is one of the newest shows on Netflix, and it is focused on solving a laughable but expensive vandalism case.
At the center of the show is high school prankster Dylan Maxwell (Jimmy Tatro).
"American Vandal," which is dubbed as a mockumentary, will get the audience hooked into finding out whether Dylan is guilty, and if not, who drew the graffiti on the cars of 27 high school staff and faculty?
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Getting down to the bottom of it is aspiring filmmaker sophomore Peter Maldonado (Tyler Alvarez), who makes the case his subject for his next film documentary.
Why Dylan Maxwell Was Innocent
The school board had originally built a strong case against Dylan. However, as Peter dug deeper, he became convinced they were wrong. One of Dylan's regular pranks was to draw male genitalia on the school's whiteboards, sometimes with permanent markers. But Peter argued that the prankster never drew them without the hair – a point strongly supported by past photos and videos.
The male genitalia spray-painted onto the 27 cars at the school's parking lot did not have a single hair. This led Peter to start deconstructing the school board's very strong case against Dylan.
Proving Dylan's Innocence
Ultimately, Peter needed to prove that Dylan was not in the school parking lot at the exact time the vandalism happened: March 15 at 2:30 p.m.
First, he proved that the eyewitness, Alex Trimboli (Calum Worthy) was not as reliable as the school officials thought by arguing that the latter had lied about making out with Sarah Pearson (Saxon Sharbino).
Peter then clearly explained why Dylan's and his loyal friends' statements on his whereabouts during the time of the crime did not match. However, physical evidence that Dylan was at his girlfriend Mackenzie Wagner's (Camille Ramsey) house will not surface until later on in the series.
Peter also argued that there were eight other members of the school morning show that had access to it other than Dylan – including himself and his best friend, Sam Ecklund (Griffin Gluck), who helped him film the documentary.
Finding Dylan's Solid Alibi
After considering several possible suspects, Peter ended up learning that Mackenzie's mother had a relationship with their gym teacher, Coach Rafferty (Sean Carrigan). This gave Mackenzie the motive to commit the vandalism, especially since days before it occurred, she had trashed Rafferty's office and wrote: "Stick your d*** somewhere else."
Fearing that she would be publicly accused of the crime and that it might affect her college plans, Mackenzie was forced to let Peter access her Twitch account. In it was a piece of footage of her stripping for another gamer after losing a bet.
While flirting with a fellow gamer through a web camera, Dylan popped into Mackenzie's room. His face was clearly caught on tape which also proved he was not at the scene of the crime.
Who's the Real Culprit?
After proving Dylan's innocence, Peter reviewed the case after learning that the student council president and activist Christa Carlyle (G. Hannelius) – one of the nine students who had access to the school's security footage – had been lying about her alibi from the start.
Christa's alibi was that she had attended CPR training and she had a certificate to prove it. But Peter and Sam found something suspicious about it since the paper was signed by her camp counselor boyfriend Van Delorey (Hunter Clowdus).
Peter also learned that Christa had reason to seek revenge. By that time, Peter and Sam were convinced that Rafferty was one of the possible main targets of the vandalism. They also learned that about a year ago, a student filed a complaint against him for "inappropriate conduct with a student."
While the complaint hid the student's identity, Peter theorized that Christa could be the complainant after it appeared Rafferty might have said something offensive to her when she tried out for the men's football team that Rafferty coaches.
The complaint was filed on Sept. 2, 2015 – the same day Christa tried out for the men's football team. But it was simply marked "resolved" without any explanation on March 10, 2016, which was five days before the vandalism happened.
The Cliffhanger
Hoping to squeeze more information from Christa, Peter asked for an interview – a request she consistently dodged until, conveniently, after her graduation.
During the interview, Peter presented the case and directly asked her if she had vandalized the cars to seek revenge on Rafferty and for the way the school handled her alleged complaint. But that was also Christa's cue to walk out.
Unfortunately, that was how Peter's documentary concluded – not having a name for the real culprit.
As for Dylan, though he was earlier found innocent and was not expelled from school, he still ended up getting arrested for vandalism.
"American Vandal" consists of eight episodes and can be watched on Netflix.
