serial season 2

‘Serial’ Recap 2×06: Every Col.’s Crazy ‘Bout a Sharp Dressed Man

“So, it’s come at last. At last, it’s come. The day I knew would come at last has come, at last.” After a windup lasting five episodes stretched out across two months, Serial host Sarah Koenig has finally elected to reveal what Serial Season Two is actually about: the ill treatment Sgt. Bow Bergdahl observed and received from his superiors. Treatment so poor it made him afraid for his life and the lives of his fellow soldiers. Treatment so poor he elected to run from his base and trigger an all-out manhunt just to call attention to it because he felt he had no other choice. What was this grievous abuse, this shocking neglect, this malign disregard for the safety of the American fighting man?

‘Serial’ Season Two Premiere Recap: The Fog of War

“War is too important to be left to the podcasters.”—Gen. Jack D. Ripper, Dr. Strangelove (paraphrased)

NPR journalist Sarah Koenig’s unlikely cultural phenomenon has its problems, but laziness in the advancement of its narrative is not one of them. How else could you characterize a show that spells out all of its major problems in a single sentence early in its Season Two premiere? Describing her production partner, Zero Dark Thirty screenwriter Mark Boal, and his discursive 25-hour taped conversation with infamous POW/deserter/whistleblower/traitor/fill-in-the-blank Bowe Bergdahl, Koenig says, “Mark isn’t so much after the facts of what happened, though he wants those too, but more, he’s after the why of what happened—trying to get inside Bowe’s head, to understand how Bowe sees the world.” The reliance on an entertainer of dubious reputation to acquire reportorial truth; the elevation of unknowables like intent over tangible, verifiable, old-fashioned who what when and where; the conviction that a self-described Jason Bourne wannabe has valuable, if not unimpeachable, insight into both his actions and the environment that produced them—the immensely popular podcast’s trifecta of fatal flaws are all right there. The message is as unmistakable as it is unintentional: Question the clarity of Serial’s storytelling at your peril, people.

Off-Brand ‘Serial’: ‘Lego Movie’ Creators Adapt Sara Koenig Saga for Scripted Show

Everyone's favorite flawed attempt at journalism is becoming a TV show! Sort of! Serial has been licensed out to Fox 21 Television Studios to be adapted (wait why?) by Phil Lord and Chris Miller of The Lego Movie (really?) into a scripted television series. (Come on.) Not about Adnan Syed/Hae Min Lee case, but about the siren sooth(ing)-talker herself, Sarah Koenig, and her rise to success.