The familiar ping-ping-ping of the hit investigative podcast Serial is back! Sarah Koenig returns to bring the story of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl to eager listeners.
Who is Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl? Serial season 2 is venturing to answer that question. The NPR podcast captured the attention of the nation with their first season, in which investigative journalist and host Sarah Keonig dove into the story of Adnan Syed and the 1999 murder of his former girlfriend, Hae Min Lee. Season 2 focuses on one radical decision made by Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who walked off his post one day while stationed in Afghanistan and the consequences that followed his action.
After leaving his post, Bergdahl was captured by the Taliban and held prisoner for five years until the United States made an exchange of prisoners. In the years following his capture, his platoon mates went on missions to find and rescue Bergdahl, some of which resulted in their deaths. The story is not new to the American public, yet the idea to explore Bergdahl’s story came to Koenig’s attention when film maker Mark XYZ, who was working on a film version of the Sergeant’s story, took his recorded interviews to her.
While this season will focus on the events that took place during his captivity, it will also take an intimate look at what war and wartime leadership look like. You can expect the same level of infatuation to arise from Serial season 2 as season 1. Koenig, when speaking to the New Yorker, echoes this sentiment saying, “Maybe this is what we do on This American Life or on Serial, but I feel sympathetic toward everybody. I really do. Like, it is a fucking difficult, difficult thing that happened. It’s sad, it’s complicated, the stakes are really, really high for everybody. It’s just— that’s been interesting. I really didn’t have any feelings about this story before I started reporting on it. It wasn’t on my radar. And now I just feel like— my God. This is a tough one.”
The first episode of Serial season 2, “DUSTWUN,” is now available exclusively on Pandora.