The third season of the hugely popular true crime podcast Serial is slated to debut on Sept. 20. After its blockbuster first season (about a case in Baltimore; the podcast’s investigation led to a judge granting convicted murderer Adnan Syed a retrial) and its follow-up about Taliban-captured soldier Bowe Bergdahl, Season 3 of Serial delves into several cases in the Cleveland, Ohio area.
Serial’s producers and reporters spent a year in Cuyahoga County with what Variety calls “an unusual level of access to record inside courtrooms, judges’ chambers, hallways and attorneys’ offices.”
Cleveland Scene’s Sam Allard spoke to lead reporter and host Sarah Koenig and co-reporter Emmanuel Dzotsi for an extensive cover story about the new season. According to Koenig, Cleveland’s justice system was chosen partly because it is a representative microcosm of the kinds of cases happening across the country, and partly because it’s also small enough that there is a lot of interconnection.
“Cleveland is seeing all the same kinds of cases and experiencing the same kinds of problems that you’re seeing all over the country, but it’s small enough that you can see it all in that one series of
towers,” she said, referring to the Cuyahoga County courthouse. “It’s small enough that you get to know people.”
According to the Scene, the cases followed this season on Serial include the death of a five-month-old who was shot and killed in 2015 (which occurred amid a spate of shooting deaths involving very young children) and a police brutality case in which a grand jury charged two East Cleveland police officers with “conspiracy, felonious assault, kidnapping, obstructing official business, interference with civil rights and dereliction of duty.”
Serial premieres Sept. 20 with two episodes, after which a new episode will debut weekly. Subscribe to Serial (and listen to the Season 3 trailer) here.
UPDATE: Serial‘s first two eps are now live. You can listen to them through the show’s partnership with Pandora right now here, or wherever fine podcasts are served.
This article appears in Aug 29 – Sep 5, 2018.