Serial: episodes

60 recent episodes from the show's feed. Back to the show

1. METRO - Heavy is the Head that Refuses to Share the Crown

   Nov 5, 2026 · 49 min

   In New York, the competition is famously brutal. Even if you get to the top, you have to fight to stay there. In this episode, Sarah Koenig looks at two battles for control: one, on a small college campus; the other, inside the city’s biggest political party.

2. METRO - Karat and Schtick

   Oct 30, 2026 · 40 min

   TraxNYC, a store in New York’s diamond district, doubles their business in the wake of a video depicting the store’s owner in a full-on brawl with a rival jeweler. But Sarah Koenig wants to know: At TraxNYC, how much is real and how much is for show?

3. Special Preview: METRO with Sarah Koenig - Ep. 1

   Oct 22, 2026 · 17 min

   In this first episode of the new podcast “METRO with Sarah Koenig,” Sarah goes on a whirlwind tour of New York City to find out what New Yorkers are worrying about. Crime? Sure. The new mayor? Yes. Their weak, little handshakes? All the time.

4. The Last 12 Weeks - Ep. 5

   Jun 18, 2026 · 39 min

   Days before the execution, the defense team scrambles to respond to an unexpected ruling, while the lead lawyer makes what may be his final visit to David Wood on death row. Everyone waits to find out Wood’s fate.

5. The Last 12 Weeks - Ep. 4

   Jun 18, 2026 · 31 min

   To justify sentencing David Wood to death, prosecutors argued that he was a convicted rapist turned serial killer. And yet, Wood has insisted all along that isn’t true. We head to death row to hear him tell us why. But not before a victim of his earlier crimes has her say about the kind of person she believes he is.

6. The Last 12 Weeks - Ep. 3

   Jun 18, 2026 · 44 min

   In the final weeks before the execution date, the defense team has to decide just how far it’s willing to push people to save David Wood’s life. The team’s deliberations lead to a key witness on his deathbed … and the mother of one of the Desert Killer’s victims.

7. The Last 12 Weeks - Ep. 2

   Jun 18, 2026 · 46 min

   The way the state constructed the case, there’s no one big shiny piece of evidence for the defense to knock down. Instead, there are a million little threads to pull at. With less than two months until the execution, the lawyers comb through the evidence one last time, and a new witness offers unexpected revelations.

8. The Last 12 Weeks - Ep. 1

   Jun 18, 2026 · 41 min

   In 1992, David Wood became El Paso’s most notorious convicted serial killer. He has been on death row ever since. More than 30 years later, his lawyers have just a few months to argue his innocence and stop his execution.

9. The Last 12 Weeks - Trailer

   Jun 16, 2026 · 2 min

   In 1992, David Wood was convicted of murdering young women and girls and burying them in the desert outside El Paso. He has been on death row ever since. “The Last 12 Weeks” takes you behind the scenes as a capital defense team races against the clock to stop an execution 30 years in the making.

10. The Idiot - Chapter 5

    Mar 26, 2026 · 29 min

    Allen will almost certainly be released in a few years. What should M.’s family do with a guy who refuses to own up to his own crime? Can he be re-integrated into the family? Should he be? While M. has grown increasingly compassionate toward Allen, they learn their family has been moving in the opposite direction. Meanwhile, Priscilla has been trying to make a life without Allen. But Allen’s mom

11. The Idiot - Chapter 4

    Mar 26, 2026 · 1h 3m

    Allen finally agrees to talk … and talk and talk, for 35 hours of interviews. M. wants to understand Allen on his own terms, to try and figure out how this scion of bohemian intellectuals ended up hiring someone to kill his ex. It’s hard for M. to believe everything Allen says, but over the course of their conversations, M. comes to feel for their cousin. And they think they understand what drove

12. The Idiot - Chapter 3

    Mar 26, 2026 · 50 min

    M. attends Allen’s trial in San Francisco. The FBI’s star witness, an agent who went by “David," plays his undercover recordings of Allen. They reveal how Allen’s scheme to deport Priscilla turned into a murder-for-hire plot. Allen is his own star witness, but his attempts to defend himself fall flat in court. M. begins to wonder why they loved seeing Allen humiliated on the stand.

13. The Idiot - Chapter 2

    Mar 26, 2026 · 50 min

    M. seeks out Allen’s ex-wife, Priscilla, who tells her side of the story. It begins with a whirlwind romance but quickly turns to chart Allen’s betrayal: taking her son from Russia and stranding Priscilla and her daughter in Moscow. What follows is Priscilla’s two-year odyssey, a journey that includes surviving a brutal attack and shocking arrests in Zimbabwe, only to reach the U.S. and have Allen

14. The Idiot - Chapter 1

    Mar 26, 2026 · 22 min

    For decades, M. simply disliked Allen. They saw him as a fool, a pompous “international businessman” who bragged about shady deals and drove fancy cars while living in Eastern Europe and Africa. But one day Allen suddenly shows up at their father’s home in Cape Cod with his mother and 5-year-old son. He says he has separated from his wife, whom he has left behind in Moscow. M. suspects this could

15. The Idiot - Trailer

    Mar 19, 2026 · 2 min

    The New York Times writer M. Gessen is widely known for their award-winning writing about totalitarianism, terrorism and the erosion of human rights. Now, M. is examining a more personal target: their least favorite cousin, Allen. For decades, they saw Allen as a fool, a pompous ‘international businessman’ who bragged about shady deals. But then Allen is arrested for trying to put a hit out on hi

16. The Preventionist - Ep. 3

    Oct 30, 2025 · 58 min

    What’s the harm of “better safe than sorry” in cases where abuse is ambiguous? One mother’s story is our answer to that question.

17. The Preventionist - Ep. 2

    Oct 30, 2025 · 50 min

    One pediatrician’s path to Pennsylvania, and the rise of a powerful new field in child medicine.

18. The Preventionist - Ep. 1

    Oct 30, 2025 · 40 min

    The story of how this extraordinary situation in the Lehigh Valley came to light — because it almost didn’t.

19. The Preventionist - Trailer

    Oct 16, 2025 · 3 min

    In the summer of 2023, reporter Dyan Neary received a tip about a problematic doctor in Pennsylvania. Families were claiming that when they sought medical care for their children, this pediatrician falsely accused them of abuse, and their children were taken away from them. The Preventionist traces this doctor’s decades-long career across multiple states, and explores the rise of a new and powerfu

20. The Retrievals S02 - Ep. 4

    Aug 7, 2025 · 45 min

    Sometimes you can’t wait for research to tell you what to do — you just have to go ahead and do it. We get back on L&D with Clara, Mindy and Heather.