Serial
Our newest podcast, “The Preventionist” is out now. Search for it wherever you get your podcasts. Serial Productions makes narrative podcasts that have transformed the medium. Sign up for our newsletter at nytimes.com/serialnewsletter to find out about new shows, get behind the scenes stories, and see photos and videos you can’t see on a podcast. To get full access to Serial Productions shows, and to other New York Times podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, subscribe at nytimes.com/podcasts. Have a story pitch, a tip, or feedback on our shows? Email us at [email protected] "Serial" began in 2014 as a spinoff of the public radio show "This American Life." In 2017, we formed Serial Productions when we launched the podcast “S-Town.” Since then, Serial Productions has produced every season of “Serial” along with shows like “Nice White Parents,” “The Trojan Horse Affair,” “The Coldest Case in Laramie,” “The Retrievals” and more. In 2020, we joined the New York Times Company. Our shows have reached many millions of listeners and have won nearly every major journalism award for audio, including the first-ever Peabody Award given to a podcast.
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Recent Episodes
The Idiot - Chapter 5
Mar 26, 2026Allen will almost certainly be released in a few years. What should M.’s family do with a guy who refuses to own up to his own crime? Can he be re-integrated into the family? Should he be? While M. ...
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In this final episode of The Idiot, host M. Gessen confronts the aftermath of Alan's conviction for attempting to hire a hitman to kill his ex-wife Priscilla. With Alan halfway through his prison sentence, the family must grapple with his eventual release and potential reintegration. The episode explores the opposing trajectories of healing and denial: Priscilla rebuilding a stable life for herself and her children, while Alan's mother Lena continues to destabilize that security through boundary violations and denial. Ultimately, Gessen decides to confront Alan directly about his continued lies and what accountability might require.
- Family Fractures and the Question of Forgiveness
- Priscilla's New Life: Independence Through Sacrifice
The Idiot - Chapter 4
Mar 26, 2026Allen finally agrees to talk … and talk and talk, for 35 hours of interviews. M. wants to understand Allen on his own terms, to try and figure out how this scion of bohemian intellectuals ended up hir...
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In this deeply personal episode, journalist M. Gessen examines their cousin Alan's sentencing for hiring an undercover FBI agent to kill his ex-wife Priscilla. Through extensive prison interviews, Gessen explores Alan's transformation from a struggling Soviet immigrant to a McKinsey consultant, and attempts to understand how he arrived at such a desperate solution. The narrative weaves through Alan's difficult immigration experience, his need to be useful and solve problems, his relationship with his overbearing mother Lena, and his tumultuous marriage to Priscilla—ultimately revealing a man trapped between his love for his son O, his inability to win Priscilla's love, and his mother's controlling presence.
- The Sentencing: Maximum Penalty
- Breaking the Ice: Prison Conversations Begin
The Idiot - Chapter 3
Mar 26, 2026M. attends Allen’s trial in San Francisco. The FBI’s star witness, an agent who went by “David," plays his undercover recordings of Allen. They reveal how Allen’s scheme to deport Priscilla turned int...
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In this episode, journalist M. Gessen attends the federal trial of their cousin Alan Gessen, who was arrested for hiring someone to kill his ex-wife Priscilla. Through surveillance recordings and FBI testimony, the prosecution reveals how Alan negotiated with an undercover agent to have Priscilla murdered for $50,000. The episode explores the family's struggle to reconcile their memories of Alan with the damning evidence, while M. Gessen wrestles with their own unexpected desire for justice despite typically opposing harsh sentencing.
- The Trial Begins: A Family Confrontation
- The FBI Investigation: From Money Laundering to Murder
The Idiot - Chapter 2
Mar 26, 2026M. seeks out Allen’s ex-wife, Priscilla, who tells her side of the story. It begins with a whirlwind romance but quickly turns to chart Allen’s betrayal: taking her son from Russia and stranding Prisc...
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This episode chronicles the harrowing story of Priscilla, whose international romance with Alan Gessen turned into a nightmare of custody battles, alleged orchestrated attacks, and ultimately a murder-for-hire plot. After meeting in Zimbabwe in 2011, their relationship spiraled into a toxic cycle culminating in Alan kidnapping their son O from Russia in 2019. What followed was a years-long battle across three countries involving violence, imprisonment, and legal warfare, ending with Alan's arrest for attempting to hire someone to kill Priscilla.
- The FBI's Early Morning Knock
- The Whirlwind Romance and Red Flags
The Idiot - Chapter 1
Mar 26, 2026For decades, M. simply disliked Allen. They saw him as a fool, a pompous “international businessman” who bragged about shady deals and drove fancy cars while living in Eastern Europe and Africa. But o...
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In this intimate and shocking first episode of 'The Idiot,' journalist Masha Gessen recounts how their elastic, immigrant family absorbed cousin Alan and his mother Lena after they arrived from Moscow with Alan's five-year-old son—but without his mother Priscilla. What begins as a seemingly messy custody dispute transforms into something far darker: Alan's arrest for hiring someone to murder Priscilla. Gessen navigates the uncomfortable territory of being a double agent, helping Priscilla locate her son while maintaining family relationships, only to watch the situation escalate from international parental kidnapping to an alleged murder-for-hire plot.
- The Elastic Family and Alan's Arrival
- Alan's Character and Questionable Past
The Idiot - Trailer
Mar 19, 2026The New York Times writer M. Gessen is widely known for their award-winning writing about totalitarianism, terrorism and the erosion of human rights. Now, M. is examining a more personal target: their...
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This is a promotional trailer for an upcoming podcast series called 'The Idiot' from Serial Productions and the New York Times, hosted by M. Gessen. The show, launching March 26th, is a five-episode investigative series about Gessen's cousin Alan and a shocking family crime. While Gessen is known for writing about serious topics like totalitarianism and human rights, this podcast takes a personal turn, combining dark subject matter with humor as Gessen tries to understand what their cousin was thinking.
- Series Introduction and Host Background
- The Show's Unique Tone and Format
The Preventionist - Ep. 3
Oct 30, 2025What’s the harm of “better safe than sorry” in cases where abuse is ambiguous? One mother’s story is our answer to that question. Our newest podcast, “The Preventionist” is out now. Search for it wh...
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This episode follows Amanda Surinofsky's harrowing journey through the child welfare system after her newborn son was injured in what she claims was an accident involving her toddler. Despite Amanda's explanation, Dr. Deborah Asernio-Jensen's child protection team diagnosed abusive head trauma, leading to the removal of all five of Amanda's children for nearly four years. The episode explores the devastating impact of family separation, questions the certainty of medical diagnoses in abuse cases, and reveals Amanda's ongoing struggle to reunite her family—including a custody battle for her youngest son who has been in foster care so long he barely knows her as his mother.
- Hospital and County Officials Defend Their Actions
- The Night Everything Changed