Serial season 2, episode 1 is up. It is about Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

After almost a year since the finale of its first season and briefly breaking the internet this morning, Serial — the addictive, Peabody Award–winning and game-changing podcast — has returned for its second season.

This year, the program will follow the case of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, an American soldier who disappeared from an Afghanistan base and was later captured and tortured by the Taliban. The first episode, "DUSTWUN" (an abbreviation for "duty status — whereabouts unknown"), opens with host Sarah Koenig describing Bergdahl's return to the United States after a prisoner swap with the Taliban and recalls the underlying question of this case: Was Bergdahl a deserter?

Serial's second season will involve interviews with Bergdahl, who, Koenig explains, "hasn't spoken to the press or done any interviews on television. He's been a ghost at the center of a raucous fight."

The anticipation for this second season has been so popular that Serial's website briefly crashed this morning. You can now listen to and download the first episode of season two at Serial's site.

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