Notes on OMG Serial’s back

In a world that has an insatiable obsession with the visual, Serial brings relief. I sit in bed at 9pm on a Thursday, eyes closed, no earphones necessary. I want Sarah Koenig’s voice to bounce off the walls and into my head like a paintball machine, sploshing much needed color on the lazy canvass that my imagination has become. ‘Serial’s back!’ I say to myself, noticing the subtle tingling in the back of my head I’ve longed associated with excitement. It spreads down my neck, washing the day away as I nestle cosily into this season’s pilot ‘DUSTWUN’.

For the second season of Serial, Koenig has teamed up with Mark Boal, screenwriter of films like The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty. Boal has been corresponding with Bowe Bergdahl, whose famed five year Taliban captivity, prompted both celebration and questioning stares upon his release in May 2014. Many, including members of Bergdahl’s platoon, have called him a deserter. Others question whether or not he has been “turned”, which would explain his survival after so many years in captivity. Questions and conspiracies abound, Bergdahl is currently stationed in Texas in a clerical position, as he awaits news of a possible trial that could result in him spending the rest of his life in federal prison.