Insanely popular podcast, Serial, has returned this morning with the first episode of the second season now available to download.
The new season of the podcast will focus on the story of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, a US army veteran who served in Afghanistan. He abandoned his post in June 2009, which prompted a manhunt involving thousands of troops and led to him spending five years in brutal captivity under the Taliban. His ordeal ended in 2014 when the Obama Administration swapped him for five Taliban detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
This is the first time that Sgt. Bergdahl has spoken publicly about his ordeal. The series will aim to determine whether he was a deserter who endangered the lives of his comrades or a confused soldier who had wanted to warn senior commanders about leadership problems in his platoon.
This high-profile topic is a big change from the widely acclaimed first season which saw the creator and narrator, Sarah Koenig, pluck a story about a murder in a Baltimore suburb out of obscurity. She spent many hours interviewing Adnan Syed who had been convicted of the murder in 2000. The first season was downloaded more than 100 million times and earned a Peabody Award. It has also been widely viewed as an influence in a Maryland court’s decision to grant Mr. Syed a hearing to introduce new evidence, an important step towards him potentially getting a new trial.
