The first season of Serial was a phenomenon, racking up more than 100 million downloads and at least that many words written about it on the internet. The podcast dug deep into the murder case against Adnan Syed, presenting the evidence for and against conviction and, most notably, a series of phone calls between the charming Syed and the show’s host, Sarah Koenig. It was incredibly addictive for listeners, many of whom became really, really passionate about it, as you could probably tell from the 20-minute monologues they’d launch into if you asked any of them if they had any opinions about Jay or “the Nisha call.”
And now, as of 6 a.m. Thursday morning, Serial is back, with a new season focused on the story of United States soldier Bowe Bergdahl. Sarah Koenig posted a welcome message on the podcast’s official website, which outlined things a bit:
Our first season was about a murder case few people had heard about. Season two is a story a gazillion people have heard about: the story of Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. soldier who walked off his post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was captured and held by the Taliban for nearly five years. It’s been in the newspapers and on TV; it’s been the subject of congressional investigations (in fact, this very day, the House Armed Services Committee is releasing a report on the Bergdahl trade) — and it’s an active case in military court.
This story — it spins out in so many unexpected directions. Because, yes, it’s about Bowe Bergdahl and about one strange decision he made, to leave his post. (And Bergdahl, by the way, is such an interesting and unusual guy, not like anyone I’ve encountered before.) 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.
The New York Times has a write-up on the new season, too, which gets into the various whys and hows of putting the season together. Perhaps most notably, it gives listeners a tiny notion of what to expect. Or rather, what not to:
The program’s producers were reluctant to discuss future episodes or to say how many there would be. “Do we have a ‘Jinx’ moment or something like that?” Julie Snyder, an executive producer, said, referring to the dramatic conclusion of the HBO documentary series “The Jinx,” in which the real-estate scion Robert A. Durst may have confessed to murder. “No, we’re not holding back on something that the world needs to know.”
So hurry up and listen to the first episode, and prepare to get obsessed all over again. Then, after you listen, join us tomorrow as we launch a regular roundtable feature in which several Serial-obsessed Uproxx writers pick apart each episode.