This time last year, we were up to our necks in Serial. Remember the last SNL of the season? Serial. Our Christmas party small talk? Serial. The only reason most of us didn’t abandon our cars on the side of the highway en route to work/family functions/dinners/etc. and walk into the forest to live off the land? Serial.
Serial was everything to us. And now it’s gone.
And I know it’s coming back, but still. As recent as November 24, the Serial Twitter account told us that new episodes were coming “soon” and . . . that was it. “Soon.” A thing our moms said to us when we asked when we could leave the grocery store and go home and play outside. A thing our dads would say when we were in the backseat on a road trip, asking and re-asking, “But when will we finally get to North Bay?” A thing I still say to someone when I have no intention of leaving my house to go meet them for whatever it is we’re meeting for. (“Are you leaving yet” – “Soon.”) So, nonsense.
Nonsense.
I’m not saying that Serial owes us anything, but it does. It owes us everything and how dare anybody try to tell us differently. This podcast wasn’t a podcast, it was a way of life — a credo. Some type of religion, I think. I’m not sure. At one point, I was subscribed to two podcasts that analyzed the Serial podcast, and then after I finished those, I’d bring my bag of conspiracy theories to each and every table I sat down at and knew — just knew — I’d have made the best detective ever, had I chosen to be one.
“We’ll be back next fall!” was something Serial promised, and guess what: winter is coming.
And I don’t know why it left us. I also don’t know why it’s not channeling its inner Daniel Plainview from There Will Be Blood and screaming at the front of a church, “I’ve abandoned my child! I’ve abandoned my boy!” in an attempt to acknowledge its truth. We are its child. We are its boy (or girl — but honestly, though, for the sake of the movie reference, I’m referring us all to Serial’s strange, podcast-loving son so let’s just deal with that). And here we are, in a basket, waiting to be taken by our weird, oil-loving dad to answer the world’s most tragic questions. (Or not, because we don’t even know what this next season of Serial is going to be.)
And that’s another thing: how dare we not know. I want facts. I want to analyse previews. I want to make as many theories about Serial as I made jokes about the Batman V Superman trailer, which is many. (Many — because holy shit, Lex Luther’s wig is too much just way too much.) I’m desperate and thirsty and starving for acknowledgement. I want Serial to come back and say, “It’s fine, I love you, and let’s do this together” and I will say, “You had me at hello,” despite it never having said that.
I feel like I did in grade 12 when the guy I liked told me he was coming over and then never came over . . . twice. I feel like that one Taylor Swift song where Jake Gyllenhaal (allegedly) stood her up at her birthday. I feel like Serial’s second season better be about finding Serial’s second season and why it took so long.
At this point, I will take Sarah Koenig reading aloud from a Julia Child cookbook. Or at least a tweet directly from them, telling me that I’m special.
Serial, we love you. Please come back and hug your son.
