Brian Reed opens by addressing S-Town listeners directly, announcing a new show called The Trojan Horse Affair, produced by Serial and the New York Times and edited by Serial's Sarah Koenig. The show is set in Birmingham, England, and Reed describes it as a legitimate British mystery. The central mystery involves a strange, unsigned letter that surfaced some years prior and caused enormous political and social upheaval in England. The letter purported to be a secret communique between Islamic extremists who had been infiltrating Birmingham schools as part of a coordinated plot called Operation Trojan Horse. Despite being bizarre, incoherent, and badly photocopied, the letter sparked one of the largest school scandals in British history. Government investigators descended on Birmingham schools, national counter-terror policy was strengthened, schools were restructured, teachers lost their jobs, and some individuals were banned from working in education for life. The scandal reached the highest levels of government, with Prime Minister David Cameron convening a special meeting of the government's extremism task force. Reed notes that, remarkably, none of the official investigators ever attempted to identify who wrote the letter or why. Reed explains that his co-investigator, Hamza Syed, is a journalism student from Birmingham for whom this is his first investigation. Syed approached Reed at a public event, speaking urgently about the unsolved mystery in his hometown. Reed agreed to partner with him, and the two spent years pursuing the story. The trailer includes audio of Syed explaining the letter's background and Reed reflecting on how working with a first-time investigator changed his perspective on his own work. The investigation led them from local primary schools all the way to the highest levels of British government. Audio clips in the trailer capture sources refusing to speak, a woman claiming to be busy and trying to shut a door on the reporters, and a subject walking away entirely. Reed and Syed describe the series as a mystery in eight parts that many people do not want the public to hear. The episode closes with Reed mentioning, in what appears to be an unscripted aside, that he has just received a letter threatening a legal injunction against the show.
