Serialconcludes its deep dive of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl on Thursdaywith its season 2 finale.
This season was a shift for the award-winning podcast from the makers ofThis American Life.
Why are we there?
Credit: Sara D. Davis/Getty Images
How are we prosecuting this war?
What does it mean to be a solider now?
How does our politics bleeding into these conflicts?
Sara D. Davis/Getty Images
That makes me so happy.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Overall, how do you think this season has fared compared to season 1?
JULIE SNYDER:With the audience, its been great.
Karl Merton Ferron/Getty Images
SARAH KOENIG:Some of them were like, Whatisthis work?
SNYDER:Youre right.
Im just surprised; Ive never been in that situation before.
Because were not getting that stuff, I think people are surprised.
The vast amount of our downloads from season 1 came when we were finished with season 1.
A lot of people, it turns out, in this country train for marathons and listen to podcasts.
In terms of a cast of characters, its sort of infinite.
Youre not really returning back to the same people over and over again.
I think that might be the difference in this kind of story than the one we had last time.
That is where we followed our interests on this one.
KOENIG:Julie and I think alike on these matters.
We started to have questions.
I feel like our hearts are in this one, and we can do no other.
We put our heads down and did it as best we could.
Thats what you hope, [that] the audience will respond to the same thing we responded to.
That would be terrible for us as reporters.
If youre dispassionate about something, it might not breed as good of work.
We learned a lot going along the way; you’re free to only learn it once.
I think it would be really weird to go into a similar kind of story.
Theres only so many times you make that same discovery.
What are the things you thought you did well in the totality of season 2?
And what are some things you thought you could have improved on?
We didnt plan so well.
I would have given us more time.
When we had to switch to every other week, thats not ideal for us.
I dont want to watch TV that way; I get it.
What would have happened had we not had the ability, that would have been awful.
Hopefully, in the future, we wont do that, then well give ourselves a little more time.
KOENIG:In the ramp up, yeah.
SNYDER:Yeah, exactly.
In the ramp up.
The biggest overall revelation from season 2 was Bergdahls conversations with Mark Boal.
How did you balance using clips of this gold mine of unknown information with your own reporting?
KOENIG:Those conversations with Mark are why we chose this story.
We wouldnt be doing it absent those.
Its a completely different kind of vibe and atmosphere to those conversations, which made them really nice.
Then it became clear, Oh wait, but I have all these questions about what hes saying.
It just was dictated by which chapter of Bowes story are we telling right now.
SNYDER:Or who were the people holding him?
KOENIG:He doesnt even totally know that.
Then youve got to go outside of those phone calls and figure it out.
It was completely dictated by which chapter of the story are we going to tell.
You want him present throughout, because its his story.
But sometimes it wasnt appropriate.
We used it where it made sense.
In the middle of producing season 2, there were big hearings for season 1s subject Adnan Syed.
There were three standalone recaps of his hearings.
KOENIG:There was no way I wasnt going to go to that hearing.
I dont regret that.
It felt like, Oh, we can just recap it, itll be easy.
We just are not daily people thats not what we do.
We have marvelous other skills, we just arent good at those skills necessarily.
I feel like I could sort of take or leave those.
I dont think its some terrible grave error.
This whole idea of doing aSerialwas an experiment, is an experiment.
And its an experiment that worked.
Lets not mess with success.
That would be a horrible shame.
We have such great freedom; were in such a privileged situation in so many ways.
Yeah, lets experiment!
KOENIG:I do.
I dont know what will become of that checking in.
I will certainly check in as a reporter.
Well know when we get there.
Im certainly going to follow them just as a reporter.
KOENIG:No question.
Unfortunately, I feel like my shortcoming as a reporter is I will fill the time with whatever.
If you had given me three weeks, I probably would have sponged up all that and done it.
Im not good at limiting.
SNYDER:Itd be abadshow.
KOENIG:That was our fear: that we might mess it up.
We wanted to do right by this story.
Its a really delicate and important story.
You dont mess with that, just because youre like, Well, Im just going to rush it.
You dont rush that; that would be crazy.
Especially when you dont have to.
What was your biggest surprise in the reporting?
moments where decisions happened small or big or mistakes happened.
The human-scale decision-making that went on.
That its not some big geopolitical machine that kicked in to solve this problem of getting back a POW.
We didnt do it perfectly, we really didnt.
Just to get to know some of them and realize theyre all complicated in their own way.
They all have complicated, different feelings about what happened.
They see it differently from each other.
That shouldnt have been a surprise, but somehow it was.
I really wasnt expecting that.
Are there any updates about season 3?
Last fall, you announcedseason 2 and season 3 were in your crosshairs.
I figured that might have changed.
SNYDER:What if we came out with [season] 3 next week [laughs]?
We would be such geniuses.
No, I dont think we haveanythingon that front.
Were not being coy; we dont know yet.
We have to get back where everything is.
We are also looking into other projects, and other shows that are notSerial, butSerial-adjacent.
We have a lot on our plate.
SNYDER:Like new podcasts, basically, that would be coming as co-productions.
I think itll be exciting.
Were going to keep riding this podcast wave.
Were just going to take over.
So is there a story for season 3?
Or is still in nascent stages?
KOENIG:There is, but we just are not… Its an experiment!
Were not boxing ourselves into anything.
Portions of this interview have been edited and condensed.
