Note: If you're avoiding spoilers, do not read this. 

Before "Making a Murderer Part 2" launched Friday, we listed questions these next 10 episodes of the hit Netflix docu-series needed to answer.

Among them: Who provides the drama? And what will we learn that we didn't know when America binged the show for 10 hours nearly three years ago? 

These latest episodes follow the internationally popular first season, which tracked the homicide cases against Manitowoc County's Steven Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey. The two, convicted in the 2005 homicide of photographer Teresa Halbach, have fought their convictions ever since. 

While the first season had more than a decade of content to work with, the second season had only 2½ years of appeals court content — not to mention that the cases' twists and turns through the legal system were by then being watched around the world. 

For those who have followed the cases since the first season, these new episodes provide some behind-the-scenes views on the more public happenings — at least from the Avery-Dassey side of the courtroom. 

It's important viewing for people interested in imbalances in the American justice system. But to say it's as compelling as the first season would be an overstatement. 

DOWNLOAD: Get six episodes of the "Making a Mania" podcast

RELATED: 'Making a Murderer:' 12 questions Season 2 should address

RELATED: 'Making a Murderer Part 2' to show more of victim Teresa Halbach's life, filmmakers say

Who provides the drama? 

As expected, Kathleen Zellner is the focus. The suburban Chicago attorney, who took up Avery's cause after the first season was released in 2015, is portrayed as an all-knowing crusader who will fight 'til the end against a system she says keeps Avery imprisoned for a crime she says he did not commit.

There are some cringe-inducing moments, especially one late in the first episode in which Zellner's team repeatedly throws a weighted, tape-covered mannequin into a parked Toyota RAV4 to investigate blood spatter.

The series also shows her making multiple chauffeured trips from Illinois to the Avery homestead, and offers soundbites galore about all the things she thinks went dreadfully wrong in the initial investigation, prosecution and defense.

“It will be a real pleasure unmasking Mr. Kratz,” she says of former prosecutor Ken Kratz.

The show also follows Dassey's Chicago-based attorneys, Steven Drizin and Laura Nirider, as they assemble their case to challenge Dassey's conviction.

Their most dramatic moment comes with Dassey on the verge of release on bond after his conviction is overturned — until a higher court agrees with the Wisconsin Department of Justice that he should remain in prison as his appeal moves forward.

What was uncovered 

In the trailer, the filmmakers asked, "WHAT WILL BE UNCOVERED" then cut to an expert saying that 70 to 80 percent of homicide victims were slain by someone they knew. 

That seemed to be an allusion to Halbach's ex-boyfriend, Ryan Hillegas, whose actions after Halbach's disappearance are framed by Zellner and the filmmakers as questionable and suspicious. But the season eventually concludes with the claim that Zellner believes Brendan Dassey's brother Bobby is the likely killer.

Zellner argues that violent pornographic images on a computer to which Bobby had access indicates he's capable of violence and that their stepfather, Scott Tadych, might somehow have been involved. Both Scott Tadych and his wife, Barbara, vehemently dispute that claim when they learn of it in the final episode.

"He didn't do it, Steven!" Barbara Tadych says in a phone call with Avery. "I was (expletive) with him from five o'clock on!"

Zellner also presents a case, as was implied in the first season, that evidence that linked Avery to the killing could have been planted, and that Manitowoc County sheriff's officials could have had something to do with that (officials have repeatedly rejected that as ridiculous).

Much of those segments plow old ground, and there are few bombshells: There's a potential "gotcha" moment when a blood expert indicates that blood "flakes" mean one thing and blood "droplets" mean another … but it fizzles when there isn't adequate blood left to make a case.

Who speaks for the Halbachs?

It's not voices from the family, but the voices of people with relationships to Teresa Halbach who have their say, mostly in the first episode. Some of their perspective is conveyed in footage of an interview with one of her friends from when she was a University of Wisconsin-Green Bay student.

There's one key exception: A powerful clip of Teresa's brother Mike speaking in court in Episode 3.

"I will ask you to send this rapist and murderer to prison for the rest of his life," he tells a judge. After Dassey is sentenced to life in prison, with no possibility of parole for more than 40 years, Mike Halbach says, "for the next 41 years, I’d rather not think about Steven Avery or Brendan Dassey at all."

And unlike the first season, the filmmakers seem to make a concerted effort to recognize that no matter what one believes about guilt or innocence, Teresa Halbach and her loved ones are victims. A segment of the first episode is devoted to her life, and the third episode opens with footage from her hometown of Hilbert.

Her family has declined interviews for the past several years. They did not speak with the filmmakers.

Zellner's other suspects

The Hillegas angle is inconclusive, perhaps because neither Zellner nor the producers envisioned that Judge Angela Sutkiewicz would reject her argument so swiftly and without arguments in court. That story line trails off.

It's replaced by one in which Zellner has people re-enact Halbach arriving at the Avery salvage yard property, talking with Steven, then leaving with Bobby Dassey following without her knowledge. Zellner concludes Bobby could have caught Halbach and waved her down off a highway west of the Avery property.


Zellner says Halbach was killed, dismembered and burned near a neighboring gravel pit, basing the conclusion on the action of tracking dogs that police used after Halbach's disappearance. Zellner alleges the remains, which include bone fragments later found in a burn pit on Avery's land, were moved by someone who hoped to frame him.

There's no discussion of Bobby's lack of a criminal record or other indications he could have committed a violent crime; the focus is on inconsistencies in his story of what happened the day Halbach disappeared. Nor is much offered to explain why Scott Tadych would have had any motive to participate.

The cellphone call

Since joining the case, Zellner has claimed she can prove Halbach left the Avery property after going there to photograph a vehicle for Auto Trader magazine. Indeed, the Season 2 trailer features a graphic that shows Halbach's phone "pinged" a tower at Whitelaw, a ways west of the Avery property.

Left unaddressed: a ping offers no proof of who had the phone at the time.

The ping plays a different role in Zellner's attack on prosecutor Ken Kratz's timeline of when Halbach was slain. Essentially, the show argues in Episode 7, she could not have been killed on Avery's property at the time prosecutors claim she was slain; her other stops that afternoon would not have allowed it.

That fits the defense's larger argument that the murder didn't happen on Avery's land. Zellner also employs the cellphone scenario to cast suspicion on Hillegas, who she believes the police should have treated as a suspect.

Zellner had argued in a motion of more than 1,200 pages that Hillegas is more likely than Avery to have been the killer. In a seven-page decision, Sutkiewicz rejected that claim.

Who's the bad guy?

Former Calumet County District Attorney Ken Kratz, who prosecuted both cases, remains the central villain, albeit in abstentia. He is one of 79 people the filmmakers list at the end of each episode as declining to be interviewed in season two.

Kratz, now retired from the legal field and living near Appleton, is shown in archival video from the trial, and from press conferences held during the case. In an early clip, he says "there is no doubt in my mind" Avery caused Halbach's death.

In the first season, the filmmakers had Kratz share the "bad guy spotlight" with Manitowoc County sheriff's officials. In the second season, those officials receive less attention.

Even the normally measured Drizin, part of Dassey's team, is incredulous in season two that Kratz determined less than 24 hours after Dassey's controversial confession that it was reliable. "The confession had not even been ruled admissible by a court," Drizin exclaims, "and he's already talking about it" to the media. 

Drizin also finds it in bad taste that after Dassey's hearing before an appeals court in Chicago that Kratz doesn't bother to leave the building to hold a press conference.

What of Buting and Strang?

Dean Strang and Jerome Buting, the folk hero lawyers from Part 1, show up from time to time in the new episodes, mostly to defend their work. As Zellner bounces from topic to topic, it's a recurring theme that Buting and Strang missed opportunities to further poke holes in the prosecution's case. 

RELATED: Dean Strang discusses justice issues raised by "Making a Murderer"

We also get a quick look at the purpose of their post-"Making a Murderer" speaking tour. Much of that is via footage of one interview in Madison more than a year ago. The two also are in some archived footage used throughout.

But their role as "heroes" has been supplanted by Drizin and Nirider, whose passion for justice is evident whether they're in court, or working deep into the night on Dassey's appeal.

Still believe in innocence?

The members of the Avery and Dassey families continue to wait and hope for a release from prison.

Avery's parents, both declining in health, show a sense of urgency in getting their son home before too long. His 81-year-old mother undergoes two surgeries and deals with diabetes during the season. Her husband Allan, also 81, seems to be losing his hearing. Both remain convinced their son is innocent.

Why did Dassey confess?

There's little new information; it's mostly the same explanation we see in Part 1. Dassey confessed because he felt pressure from detectives under hours of questioning, likely didn't understand the consequences because of his intellectual challenges and age, and probably believed he could leave if he told investigators what they wanted.

The series spends some time discussing why people sometimes confess to crimes they didn't commit.

Is Dassey OK?

Photos taken at Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage show a more-mature Brendan Dassey than the teenager convicted in a brutal murder more than a decade ago.

His phone calls home convey an optimism that he'll be exonerated, but they also hint that naivete remains. At one point during his appeal, he tells his mother he's packed a box and a half of belongings, is thinking of donating his dominoes to the other guys on his prison tier and has limited his ice cream purchases to two $2.50 pints because he'll be released before he could eat any more.

Tellingly, though, a message Dassey recites to the "people of the world" toward the end of the final episode is delivered with the flat affect that will take viewers of the first season back to a frightened teenager — one who just wants his interrogation to end so he can go back to school and turn in the project due in sixth period.

"I am innocent of the rape and murder of Teresa Halbach. My confession is false. It always has been," he recites. "I’m gonna keep fighting to get home. … Thank you for helping me stay strong."

Where's Zellner's proof?

Much of this is addressed earlier in this story, but Zellner does seem to score points on several occasions, at least in the court of viewer-opinion. It's unclear, though, if they would matter in an actual court.

»One of her experts concludes the foreign material on a .22-caliber bullet fragment found on the floor of Avery's garage is wood, rather than blood or other human remains. Another said a bullet used to shoot a person in the head — as prosecutors, based on a statement Dassey made to investigators, say Halbach was killed — would have remained in that person's body because a .22 is a low-powered weapon.

»An expert also confirmed a theory put forth in the first season: the RAV4 key found in Avery's trailer should have had Halbach's DNA on it, even if Avery had handled it. Zellner's claim: if only Avery's DNA was on the key, the key was scrubbed and the DNA planted.

LISTEN: Find all the "Making a Mania" podcast episodes

»Zellner also says the so-called "sweat DNA" of Avery's that was found on the hood latch of Halbach's SUV was planted, and that someone cleaned the latch before doing so. Her experts said they found far more DNA than one would expect on such a surface, but there was far less dirt and other contamination than they'd expect on a six-year-old car part.

But her overall arguments about other potential suspects get confusing: "Ryan Hillegas is the killer! Wait, it's Bobby Dassey! And maybe Scott Tadych was involved! Or maybe not!"

Those seem like they could form a solid foundation for reasonable doubt that Avery and/or Dassey killed Halbach (A judge barred Avery's trial lawyers from trying to prove someone else committed the crime). But Zellner has vowed to "find the real killer" and win Avery's release.

So far, that hasn't happened.

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