Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl tells his side of the story in 1st new Serial episode

The first season of the Serial podcast was a huge success, both in terms of reach and because it won a Peabody award. Thursday morning, Serial released the first episode of Season 2, focusing on Bowe Berghdal, the Army sergeant held captive by the Taliban for five years after leaving his base in Afghanistan, finally traded by President Obama for five Taliban detainees. Republicans have criticized the prisoner swap, and the large Army manhunt for Bergdahl that preceded it, with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) saying two months ago that Berghdal is "clearly a deserter" and GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump called him a "traitor" who "should have been executed."

In the first episode of Serial, Bergdahl starts to tell his side of the story, beginning with his realization, 20 minutes after leaving the base, that he was "in over my head." Suddenly, he told screenwriter Mark Boal — in taped interviews that are the backbone of Serial's new season — "it really starts to sink in that I really did something bad. Or, not bad, but I really did something serious." Bergdahl says he originally planned to hike 18 miles to a larger Army base to report leadership problems he saw in his platoon, but quickly decided to gather information about Taliban improvised explosive devices, to mitigate "the hurricane of wrath that was going to hit me."

"When I got back to the FOB (forward operating base), you know, they could say, 'You left your position,'" he told Boal. "But I could say: 'Well, I also got this information. So, what are you going to do?'" Berghdal also said he was "trying to prove to myself, I was trying to prove to the world, to anybody who used to know me, that I was capable of being that person," meaning a good soldier or even someone like fictional spy-hero Jason Bourne.

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Serial won't say what the rest of the season will entail, but that there will probably be 8 to 10 episodes and it won't just feature Bergdahl. Executive producer Julie Snyder told The New York Times some things the podcast will explore: "Exactly how long did the search last? What were the consequences of the search? Was this all a search in the name of Bowe? Was this top cover for stuff that they wanted to be doing, but they already knew Bowe was in Pakistan anyway?... We definitely are heading down that path." You can start the second season at Serial's site or your favorite podcast app.