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Hello and welcome to Slate's serial spoiler special.

I'm Slate Senior Editor Gabriel Roth, joining me from our brand new DC studio is Slate's Ward's correspondent Katie Waldman. What's up, Katie?

Hey, how are you? I'm good. This is a beautiful studio over here. Is it very fancy? Is it way

fancier than before? Yes, I just want to confirm everything implied by your tone of voice

when you introduced the DC studio.

I've heard other people talk about the studio, and I imagine now you being there in that studio in the sort of palatial glory of the new studio.

Anyway, no one wants to hear about your studios.

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 nine of serial's second season, cleverly titled Trade

Secrets. Katie, we've zoomed back out two weeks ago.

In a special two-part episode, we took a long look at Bo Bergdahl himself, the strange and

sometimes difficult character of the man who is at the center of this whole situation.

Now we have zoomed out to the U.S. diplomatic efforts in Afghanistan. What did you

think? Yeah. I mean, I thought it was interesting, obviously, in a very different way than the

prior episode was. Interesting and frustrating. It was sort of like watching a chess match

...