We say "Netflix treatment," but S-Town executive producer Julie Snyder told Wired that the spinoff actually used novels as a model in the same way Serial used TV. "In a novel, you're entering into a hermetic world," she said. "That's what we were trying to do, that we hadn't yet done with a podcast: where you can enter their specific world, and you don't know really know what it's about or where it's going, but hopefully you're compelled to stay in it the whole time." Just don't expect to be listening to the podcast equivalent of a crime novel, because what you'll get is a Southern Gothic tale wrapped in layers of small-town mystery.