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Hello and welcome to Slate's serial spoiler special. I'm Slate's senior editor Gabriel Roth, and joining me from our DC studio is Slate's words correspondent Katie Waldman. Hi, Katie.

Hey, Gabe. In case you're joining us for the first time, this is the podcast where Katie and I discuss season two of serial episode by episode, going deeper into the show's

themes, exploring its characters and situations, and looking at the ways in which the podcast

reverberates in the world. This week, we're diving into episode 10 of serial's second season,

thorny politics. Katie, what did you think? What did I think? Well, I will skip the intellectualizing and just go straight to the judgment, the value judgment. I thought it was an amazing episode. I thought it was so good. I have been thinking that the episodes are picking up. I've enjoyed listening to them more and more. And this was a high point. I just thought that the political maneuvering was so

interesting and it's surprising, right? Like this is not sort of on the level of individual psychology

anymore. Now it's sort of image management and like the big political machines and all the strategy. And

it's fascinating. Yes, I completely agree. I thought this was the most compelling episode of Serial Second season that we've heard so far.

I wasn't sure if it was going to play for anyone except for me,

because the themes of this episode are things that I personally am always interested in

and love to read about.

Bureaucracy's breaking down and the constraints of political actors and the particular

problems that people in American government are having right now of trying to get things done.

And so I thought, oh, maybe this episode is just fan service for politics nerds.

But no, everyone that I've talked to, not just you and me, seems to agree that this episode really had something.

So when you try to summarize this episode, what was this one about?

I would say it was about the different ways that different institutions and people spun Bo Bergdahl's

return. So from the soldiers who were furious at the Rose Garden celebration and also at Susan

...