(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
Before a single episode was released, âS-Townâ earned the Apple podcast chartâs top spot, doing so on the back of just a short teaser â and its association with the mega hit true-crime podcast âSerial.â
On the morning of March 28, âS-Townâ finally debuted. The team released (as planned) all seven episodes at once. The first episode begins with a brief explanation of the practice of restoring antique clocks â which, we learn, is connected to the person who ultimately becomes the center of this story.
âIt seemed weird,â host Brian Reed told The Huffington Post of the choice to begin the show with the meditation on clock-making. âI havenât heard stories start with a description of horology. If we can get away with it, letâs try it.â
The creators behind âS-Townâ are essentially a supergroup of radio and podcasting all-stars, with figures like Ira Glass, Sarah Koenig, Julie Snyder, Reed and Starlee Kine attached to the project. Each member of the team has some background with âThis American Life.â A few have made their own bonafide hits â such as âSerialâ (Koenig and Snyder) and the tragically short-lived âMystery Showâ (Kine).
The show description seemed to suggest that the team was looking into yet another crime, perhaps in the same vein as the investigative journalism of âSerial.â A man had reached out to Reed to look into the son of a well-to-do family, who had allegedly bragged about a murder heâd gotten away with in his Alabama town.
However, the story that eventually emerged wasnât about the murder.
Reed and Snyder had started working on the show before production on âSerialâ even began. The subject of the show, John, initially contacted Reed in 2014. Given Johnâs sweet but peculiar personality, Reed decided to meet John in Alabama and see where the story could go. The show leads with Reedâs investigation into the murder, until someone else ends up dead â and the reporting takes an unexpected turn.
Although the showâs name is officially âS-Town,â Reed refers to the show as âShittownâ throughout the season: The name John would use to describe his hometown. Below are quotes from HuffPostâs separate conversations with both Reed and Snyder, which took place about a week before the premiere.
The impostor name
Despite officially being named âS-Townâ (a presumed play on the showâs affiliation with âSerialâ), Reed refers to the show as âShittownâ throughout the episodes. Reed and Snyder discuss the struggle that came with choosing that name.
Brian Reed: I mean, quite honestly, it just became impossible for me to imagine it called anything else. We would always call it âShittownâ to each other, as we were working on it, before it got to a point where we actually needed a name. And then we were like, âOK, wait, so this is going to be called âShittown,â actually?!â [Laughs]
Julie Snyder: We would tell people that it has to be âShittownâ and theyâd be like, âHmmm.â And then youâd tell them your other ideas and theyâd be like, [Laughs] âOK, âShittownâ sounds good.ââ
BR: We had sessions where we tried to come up with another name just because, we felt, letâs try it and see if we can picture it with another name. And we had like, âThe Vulgar Horologist,â or something like that, which just sounded like a bad book at the airport.
At one point I got on this kick, a phrase from âA Rose for Emily,â [a short story by William Faulkner] which John gave me to read, thereâs a phrase in there to describe Emilyâs house â âan eyesore among eyesores.â And I remember coming in in the morning to work one day like, âI have it! âAn Eyesore Among Eyesores,â thatâs what itâs going to be.â
I was super into it for like an hour on the train in and then I shared it with my coworkers and they were like, âOh, my god, no. Thatâs horrible. Who would want to listen to something called, âAn Eyesore Among Eyesoresâ?!â
The trouble with âShittownâ
Snyder and Reed were aware of the potential issues with the showâs name.
BR: We donât want to call it this just because itâs provocative. The reason that thereâs nothing else to call this [is because] this is like a frame of mind [John] was in. Itâs not just a word he used and it was funny. The dude ... this kind of took over his way of seeing the world.
Itâs a worldview, basically. And we hope that the title points you to that. That itâs a way that John saw the world and I think a lot of people see the world that way. I think itâs something worth interrogating.
JS: First, we felt really defiant and fuck-the-man and weâre-going-to-call-it-âShittown,â [ignoring] your bourgeoisie concerns. We were really, âThis is what weâre doing.â
The thing that convinced me [to use âS-Townâ], was when somebody pointed out, âYou know, if you call it âShittown,â itâs going to be one of those things that every time itâs in print, itâs going to be referred to as the show that you canât print its name.â And I was like â oh, that seems so lame and cloying to me and also really true. Iâve seen that before.
That helped convince us over to S-Town. And then, plus, I told Brian, like I have to get all these contracts for music licensing and things like that and I donât know, itâs weird to see the word âShittownâ when youâre talking to someone whoâs a lawyer.
Initially when we formed the LLC, it was Shittown LLC, but that was back when we were being more defiant. We refiled recently for doing business as S-Town, mainly [to avoid] feeling weird on these contracts.
The shadow of âSerialâ
Reed was working on this story before the team started on âSerial,â but its connection to âS-Townâ naturally helped the latterâs rise to the top of the Apple podcast chart. The duo explained how âSerialâ did and didnât affect the process of creating this project.
JS: Obviously, if âSerialâ had tanked ... well you know, Iraâs actually very supportive, so he probably would have supported us.
BR: We did feel like we could veer off the path. I donât know if it was because of âSerial.â Weâre all formerly or currently producers on âThis American Life.â And even though thatâs a specific format, within the format, thereâs a spirit of experimentation that we try to foster among each other.
JS: Thereâs an incredible amount of talent. I mean, oh my God, these are some of the best radio reporters, period. I love working with them and theyâre so good at what they do. And theyâre really ambitious and weird. They like trying to find different ways to tell stories.
BR: Weâre always out to amuse ourselves and try to do things to keep ourselves interested. So I think it came more out of that spirit, we like to try new things and this story seemed to lend itself to maybe trying something a little different. A slower burn. [But] we were definitely cognizant that it was different.
JS: Weâre really really not mercantile people. Weâre just not good at thinking about, âWhat does the market want?â and âWe will give it to them so that we can make money.â We just have different ways of telling stories and things that are interesting to us and certainly, yeah, I think the success of âSerialâ allows that.
I think we could still be doing it, but the fact that people actually hear it and pay attention to it. But then itâs like, I donât know. The success of âSerialâ is our ability to tell stories so thats why [âS-Townâ is possible]. Itâs like yeah, itâs a really good story.
âShittownâ is like a novel, while âSerialâ was prestige TV
Snyder told HuffPost she âwas definitely copying TVâ in the creation of âSerial.â She initially promoted that show by comparing it to television shows like âBreaking Bad.â
âThatâs how I thought about it,â said Snyder. âSarah [Koenig] says it never even slightly occurred to her. But thatâs OK, it didnât need to occur to her. It occurred to me, thatâs how I thought of it.â Comparatively, with this project, Snyder and Reed wanted âS-Townâ to feel more like a novel.
BR: I guess I wanted to signal to the listeners that this is the kind of story this is. Itâs going to feel a little literary and a little more like a novel than a TV show, maybe. Some podcasts feel a little more structured after serialized TV; this is more like a book you might sit down to read over the course of a week or two.
JS: It was really explicit. We talked about it as a novel and we referenced novels. We both looked at the same novels.
BR: My hope for it is that people listen to this kind of in the way that they would read a novel. Maybe you do it all at once. You sit down and tear through it and thatâd be awesome. Iâm not saying you shouldnât do that.
Or, over the course of a week where you listen before you go to bed or while youâre commuting or whatever like that â it kind of embeds itself in your brain a little bit. Youâre just doing your normal day stuff and youâve got this little window in to your little world, like, in your brain like you would with a good novel.
JS: We donât even consider the episodes as episodes. Theyâre chapters. It just feels like a book.
BR: And thatâs kind of like why I did the story. I like the story and I like that I have this place and these people in my head and thatâs the experience Iâm trying to give people who listen to it, basically. Thereâs no news imperative to tell this story. Itâs just, I like it.
The âS-Townâ team is essentially a supergroup of radio all-stars.
Glass founded âThis American Life.â Reed has been a longtime producer of that show. All the key members have background with âThis American Life,â but Koenig and Snyder went on to start âSerial.â Kine went on to create âMystery Show,â a similarly beloved and popular podcast.
BR: It is. Yeah, I mean thatâs the secret sauce to anything we make. Our editing process and being able to edit with those guys is just, itâs the bomb. [Laughs]
JS: I started at âThis American Lifeâ about 20 years ago now â definitely means that Iâm old. But, also it means that I have worked with a lot of people on radio.
BR: Julie and I, weâd spent about five weeks, I think, just talking through the story and storyboarding it. So right outside my door, thereâs this giant wall filled with notecards for all the seven chapters, that, like, wraps around a corner.
JS: Starlee, sheâs very clever, sheâs very funny, sheâs a really good writer. But her actual secret true power skill is sheâs really good on structure.
Itâs funny, I had had drinks with Alex Blumberg, I remember, at like the end of last summer. [For context, Blumberg also worked at âThis American Lifeâ before founding Gimlet, a podcasting company, where Kine worked as she hosted and produced âMystery Show.â Despite the showâs popularity, Gimlet officially canceled the show last fall with few details.]
So yeah, we were having drinks and I was kind of telling him where we were on âS-Townâ and being like â weâre trying to structure and we were on our, like, third week of this now. And he said, âYou know who you need to call?â âAnd I was like, âI already did and sheâs coming in next week.â
BR: We brought [Starlee] in [last] summer, before Iâd written a word.
JS: Starlee came in with her dog. So me and Brian and Starlee sat around for a couple of days and she really helped us out a lot on the overall arc of the show. Sheâs just game. She really gives it her all. Sheâs not paying attention to anything else while sheâs with you. sheâs really focused exactly on the story. So she helped us, at that point, with the overall story structure.
And then with Ira and Sarah, we bring those guys in when weâre on a second draft of a chapter. So Brian and I do the first draft of the chapter together and then we do what we would call like a more formal edit. Thatâs Ira and Sarah and then also Neil Drumming, who is a producer at âThis American Life.â Heâs really great on story and heâs kind of got a weird â heâs a filmmaker too â so heâs kind of got a weird sensibility.
BR: Weâll [all] actually read the stories aloud to each other, to hear it aloud.
Handling the death
Warning: Spoilers below.
Early on in âS-Town,â Reed reveals that John died by suicide while he was reporting the story. Reed spoke about his emotional state when learning this had happened.
BR: I mean, I just felt sad. I felt grief. I donât know. Honestly, my feeling was it makes me sad that Johnâs no longer in the world. He made the world a more exciting and unknowable place. Thatâs kind of how I felt.
And it was sad to not be able to call him and it was sad to not be getting emails from him, like, whistleblowing on the latest bit of gossip he heard at the gas station on the corner or whatever. Iâd been planning to go back down there. Iâd told him I was going to be down there in like two weeks. I was finishing up a really big story. I was on a deadline.
[The feelings are] just the normal thing that happens, I think, when someone who is in your life suddenly isnât, you know? And then there was the [aspect that] he talked to me about this. He talked to me that he was going to commit suicide and it was a little bit like the boy who cried wolf. That was hard.
He had [been telling friends he was going to kill himself] for so long. Itâs just hard. He told everyone, and nobody did anything. And I was one of those people.
The challenge of understanding Adnan versus John
A memorable moment from âSerialâ is when Adnan Syed tells Koenig that he doesnât feel as if she really knows him. Arguably the crux of âS-Townâ is about trying to understand John, creating a parallel to the previous series, whether intentional or not.
JS: I didnât think about it vis-Ă -vis Adnan or anything. I mean, that kind of relationship is so different. I think part of the main thing that was so weird in all of their talks and all of their interviews was both of them were constantly aware that ... well, he was constantly aware that maybe she thought maybe he was lying. And she was constantly aware that he might be and that his life really depended on trying to convince her otherwise.
And I think when Adnan said, âYou donât know me,â thats a lot of what that is. Where Brianâs relationship with John and everything â weâre just talking about very different circumstances.
BR: I talked to a lot of people who knew him. Heâs a complicated person and everyone youâre dealing with is a complicated person. And he was a brilliant, funny, dark, troubled person. And all those things I hope are in there. And youâll never get it perfect, but thatâs in my head, all these parts of him are important.
JS: How you can know about what someone is thinking and how well can you know somebody? Itâs always an interesting question.
I think that for us the thing that I was amazingly aware of was not wanting to presume that we know what John was thinking. That was kind of the main thing that we had discussed. And it is hard when youâre doing something a little more literary because then you want to be the full narrator, right? And the narrator knows what the main character is thinking.
That was something we talked about, saying we need to be aware of moments like that â if we feel like weâre starting to slip over into presuming that we know what John was thinking or feeling. All we know is what he told us, or what he told Brian. We talked to a lot of people who knew him pretty well. But yeah, itâs tricky.
BR: Thereâs just a richness to the details of the things he was interested in and the kind of vibe. A lot of the story is like a feeling, and the feeling comes from [details] like, heâs into clocks and he has a maze.
That was important to me, to create this ambiance around the story.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
âS-Townâ is now available for download on iTunes, Stitcher, and other podcasting platforms.
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