Serial Just Sneakily Dropped The First Episode Of Its New Season For You
Welcome back, nerds.
A couple of months ago Sarah Koenig and the rest of her Serial team were caught sneaking around courtrooms and speaking to people about Bowe Berghdal: the US Army Sergeant who was held by an insurgent group in Afghanistan for five years after leaving his post and is now being charged with desertion. Maxim broke the story that this may be the new topic for their upcoming season and Koenig and co. freaked.
“WhhhhaaaaaAAAT?” they exclaimed through a series of a much more eloquent replies to news organisations. “We are but humble professional journalists and know little of which you speak. It may however be explained by the fact that the Serial team are at once in all places. Whenever a long and complicated story breaks, we are there. Wherever there’s a possibility of confusing listeners and starting inappropriately intense conversations on Reddit and at the pub, we shall appear. We are working on several things simultaneously.” (The last line of that may be more true than others).
Now they’ve dropped the surprise first episode of their second season. It is about Bowe Bergdahl.
On this point, the show’s host Sarah Koenig has also written a welcome message to accompany the episode on the Serial website.
“Yes, it’s about Bowe Bergdahl and about one strange decision he made, to leave his post,” she said. “But it’s also about all of the people affected by that decision, and the choices they made. Unlike our story in season one, this one extends far out into the world. It reaches into swaths of the military, the peace talks to end the war, attempts to rescue other hostages, our Guantanamo policy. What Bergdahl did made me wrestle with things I’d thought I more or less understood, but really didn’t: what it means to be loyal, to be resilient, to be used, to be punished.”
Here Koenig also noted that the Serial team, previously comprised of just five people, has expanded and they are now able to better interact with listeners on social media. Throughout the season, producers will be answering questions on Tumblr and Twitter and posting updates about the show on Facebook and Instagram. There will also be a bunch of new graphics features on the site including 3D maps.
With a topic this complex and high-profile, there will definitely be plenty of opportunity to use them. Bergdahl’s story has been hotly debated ever since his return to the US and as Koenig is unafraid to point out, it’s been the subject of congressional investigations and is currently an active case in military court.
Welcome back to the mayhem. *darkly mysterious music plays*
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Listen to the first episode ‘DUSTWUN’ here or subscribe on iTunes here. A new instalment will be posted each Thursday night.