Season 2 Of Serial Is Here And It's Everything Yet Nothing Like Homeland

The first episode of season two from perhaps the world's best podcast 'Serial' is now online and everyone's losing their shit.

This time around they are looking at the case of Bowe Bergdahl, a US army sergeant who was charged with desertion after five years in captivity. Bergdahl disappeared from his post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was subsequently held in captivity by the Taliban until last year.

However, upon his release he was later charged by the US and could face a life sentence in prison.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0sog3MpNjw

On the face of it, his story sounds remarkably like that of Nicholas Brody. An American soldier taken into captivity by the Taliban only to be possibly turned by his captors. However the comparison ends there.

Many in the US media have been quick to point out already that reality is of course far more complex than a television show. The case against Bergdahl is a complicated one, with some saying, at best, he is guilty of deserting his post, thus contributing to the deaths of American soldiers who searched for him or at worst, he may have been actively involved with the Taliban.

In truth this appears to be much more about the problems faced within an army and the pressures of war than it is about some sort of grander plot or conspiracy that is the basis of the television show Homeland.

In fact, salon.com have been hugely critical of CNN in the past for actually bringing on Gideon Raff, the executive producer of Homeland, to discuss the similarities between the show and the Bergdahl case at the time. They said 'It was the latest tone-deaf misstep in what, for Lemon, has become a career full of them — and an example of just how surreal CNN’s news coverage has become.'

Whether or not this story is similar to that of Nicholas Brody's I'm sure it will make for one of hell of a season two for Serial.