It's a grouchy Thursday for Serial addicts. No new episode because of the holidays. But to help you get your fix, we caught up with the podcast's host, Sarah Koenig, just after she edited episode four (relax—it will air next week).

A primer if you're just jumping in: While last year's series was an intimate probe of an old high school murder no one had ever heard of, this time Koenig leads us head-on into one the biggest news stories of the year as it unfolds in real time: the case of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who left his base in eastern Afghanistan on June 30, 2009, and was then kidnapped by the Taliban. After nearly five years of captivity, he was rescued in a trade for five Guantanamo Bay detainees.

A hero who fought for his country and endured the unthinkable? Or a traitor who deserted his post and put countless soldiers at risk? In Serial's season two, we hear Bergdahl himself for the first time, through taped conversations with filmmaker Mark Boal (Zero Dark Thirty and The Hurt Locker) and Koenig interviews everyone from the soldiers who went looking for Bergdahl to Taliban fighters describing his capture. As she does, she takes us around the world to better understand the War on Terror, the workings of the military—and the profound consequences of one young man's decision to walk away.

GLAMOUR: This story came to you through Page 1, the media company founded by Mark Boal, who got 25 hours of taped conversations with Bowe Bergdahl while doing research for a new movie. Did you immediately think this would be season 2?

KOENIG: I don't know that I had an "aha—this is season two!" moment. It was a slower process. We weren't even thinking Serial at first. Hugo Lindgren [a journalist and president] of Page 1 brought the tapes to Julie Snyder [Serial's executive producer], and it was more like, "What do you think?" But yeah, I read the logs of some of the interviews and it was really interesting and upsetting, and nothing I'd ever seen before.

__GLAMOUR:__What did you think of Bergdahl before your reporting?

KOENIG: Hardly anything. All I knew was that snapshot of him in his formal portrait, yellow ribbon, POW. Honestly it wasn't a story I was tuned into.

GLAMOUR: Now it's a story that's unfolding as we speak. After your first episode, the Army announced its decision to court martial Bergdahl. [He's charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy; if found guilty, he could be sentenced to life in prison.] Do you think Serial had anything to do with it?