The Ghost Writer

Serial is, in my opinion, THE podcast of all podcasts. 

Serial made me fall in love again — violently, head-over-heels, first love obsessive love — with true crime. I listened to it for the first time while getting my post-bac at a college outside the city, and I spent most of my fall on the student shuttle, staring out at the changing leaves of the West Side Highway, listening to discordant piano strokes and Sarah Koenig’s robust, trustworthy voice tell me first about Adnan Syed and, later, Bowe Bergdahl. 

This year, I wanted to kick off my late summer (AKA fall eve) spook fest with something new: something spooky, calm, and atmospheric. I’ve watched all of Mike Flanagan’s mini-series (although, later, I’ll likely get into why I have a love-hate relationship with them). Someone recommended Only Murders in the Building.

!!!!! The reason, wholeheartedly, that I dragged myself through the first season: the discordant piano notes that brought me back so acutely to that student shuttle, falling leaves, and time in which I had nothing to do but listen to podcasts. It was enough the first few episodes to overlook the gaping holes in the plot.

And then, Tina Fey’s character: Cinda Canning. My brain translates: Sarah Koenig.

I gave up a season in, and my lingering thoughts: if the show is going to mirror one exploitative true crime podcast, it should have been Crime Junkie, not the masterpiece that is Serial. 

I’ve had to stop midway through season two, if only because I expected a lazy, lethargic story like the Thursday Murder Club and was instead given something both stressful and uninteresting.

I can forgive the show if only because it is to Serial as La Croix is to a margarita: a whisper of a feeling I’m so fond of, like one-sixteenth of being drunk.

XXX