1. SERIAL IS BACK. I have something to talk to my relatives about at Thanksgiving!
  2. I wonder if Kim Kardashian knows. Someone tell her she can skip S2.
  3. The show that exploded the True Crime genre is now decidedly moving away from true crime conventions. It’s no longer a single story focusing on one person (Adnan Syed, Bowe Bergdahl) but on an entire community. The true crime genre is multimedia and spans in all directions, but their narrative structures are all pretty much the same – a single murderer or victim gets their grisly story told. Will all people listen?
  4. Man, I missed Sarah’s narrator voice. It’s like she about to tell me a dark family secret but has the legal authority to make sure it doesn’t blow back on me. In this scenario, she’s also a lawyer and I have a great-aunt Buella who died. She had three greyhounds named after the Rat Pack.
  5. Okay, into the trailer. Seven minutes! Hell yes, that’s an entire episode of The Daily.
  6. Oh no, Cleveland. LeBron’s gone and now this? What will you tell me next, the river is on fire? Also, what are your recording practices in courts? Is it zero?
  7. Sarah is sitting in the back of a mugging case. Greg Rucker knows he’s innocent and wants to defend himself, but both the judge and his lawyer says that’s a terrible idea. The judge is even telling him to take a plea deal and not go to trial.
  8. “Either Greg Rucker was innocent… or he was bonkers.” I’m a sucker for a good journalist hook.
  9. Uhhhh yeah, Greg totally did it. Greg, c’mon. I was on your side! And then there was a ton of evidence against you!
  10. Oh damn, listen to those charges. Kidnapping? On a mugging? That’s insane. I took for granted the fact that Greg was properly being charged and the jury and judge weren’t really paying attention. This is what this season wants to expose, right?
  11. I hope this season makes me smarter and not just feel bad that I don’t understand (cough cough Season 2 cough cough).
  12. “What does That Case tell us about the criminal justice system?” Not much! The murder of Hae Min Lee was wild and unprecedented. But it’s certainly not a normal case. The question comes up again: is a wide-ranging investigation of the normal horrors of the American Justice system interesting to listeners? We’ll see.
  13. This reminds me more of a This American Life investigation than Serial season 1 -diving deep into a story that’s a microcosm for American Society. It feels a lot like one episode in particular – Ep. 513 – 129 Cars. Here, the reporters of TAL spend a month at a Jeep dealership on Long Island as they try to make their monthly sales goal. It explores class and economics and cars and Long Island accents and more… could this be 129 Cases?
  14. Hey, Sarah Koenig worked on a story that didn’t make it into the broadcast of 129 Cars, but is available on the Internet. *pins red yarn from Serial to this episode on massive flowchart I made in my apartment*
  15. “We take a look at the entire criminal justice system” *Law and Order sound* But also, OKAY I’M STRAPPED IN, LET’S DO IT.
  16. Yes, it turns out, the recording restrictions in Cleveland’s courts is zero.
  17. You can record in judges’ chambers?! Cleveland! Protect yourself! Self respect!
  18. “One courthouse told, week by week.” Damn, I’m happy Serial’s back.
  19. Hi Ira!
  20. Are we name-checking Pandora in the “listen on these platforms” rundown now?
  21. Exclusive sponsor ZipRecruiter! Now I know it’s about to go down.
  22. Gut reaction: I’m really, really excited. We’ve been burned before, but this could be the wide-ranging investigation I’m looking for. I don’t think it’ll burn down everyone’s ears like season 1, but it could be important journalism. and in 2018, that’s good. That’s very, very good.

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