Unlike Episode One when I had a flurry of both emotions and opinions after listening, upon finishing the second episode my immediate thought was “Where is this going?”

I didn’t believe Bergdahl’s explanation of walking off his post in the first episode and nothing I heard or anything the Taliban said (you gotta admit, ringing the “Taliban” is a interesting hook) made me change my mind. If the Taliban were interested in lying they certainly could have come up with a better story than Bergdahl falling into their laps inside a Koochi tent.

I have more of a problem with Koenig questioning the Taliban’s responses to her questions than she did to Bergdahl’s. I don’t remember any scrutiny in his account. I’m sure there is an episode coming dedicated to Bergdahl’s motives but nothing the Taliban said was out of line with what possibly happened. Bergdahl’s future freedom is based on him portraying his motives in the best possible light. I have to keep that in mind in everything he says.

The issue of his capture (and he was captured, not “kidnapped”) was never going to be resolved. On one side is Bergdahl’s motive and incredibly stressed mind after five years of captivity and on the other is the ambiguities/nuances that get lost in translation and six years since the capture happened. That part of the episode could have been covered in ten minutes without the LLVI transmissions that didn’t resolve anything.

As far as the reactions by the guys in his company and other soldiers searching for him, I wasn’t surprised. If he was found he wasn’t going to get shot, shooting Bergdahl at that point isn’t happening, it just isn’t. He’s way too hot. But the talk of it didn’t surprise me; put a bunch of young guys on a seemingly never-ending, lost cause of a mission to look for a guy who walked off his post and guys are going to talk tough. Or talk out of anger. It’s what soldiers and Marines do because that’s all there is to do in that situation. Blow steam. Not like you can hit the local pub after an endless day of patrolling.

The episode wasn’t a dud, but when this season is done I won’t be surprised if this is one of my least favorite episodes. Having said that, the interview with the former operations major at the end was incredibly informative. In a couple sentences he laid out our whole nightmare of getting into the quagmire of occupying another country, especially Afghanistan.

Our system of rotating units in and out of country will always work against us. It’s not a knock against that philosophy, leaving units in-country for multiple years would be a disaster on many levels but as the major spoke of- we’ll never have an institutional awareness of how their political system works, much less a centuries old tribal system with a rotating presence. And that was the thought six years ago, and we are still there.

The problem with this season, and it’s a problem I’m going to have to deal with internally, is Koenig’s (and the public in general) complete lack of awareness of how the military works, and more importantly, how the mind of a young soldier works. In Season One she had that tone of bewilderment when something unquestionably surprising or shocking happened. Now she has it when it’s not a factual surprise but a lack of understanding. Like I said last week, stirring shit in the field isn’t a surprise.

Yet still I listen and will keep on listening. I can’t imagine five years in the hands of the Taliban no matter if they consider you a “guest” or not. I hope Bergdahl gives it straight, his “no matter how many kung fu movies you watch” comment gives me pause to believe he knows the difference between reality and his movie-version of reality. At this point, I’m not sure if Bowe knows and Koenig is interested in finding out.