(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)

Before a single episode was released, S-Town earned the Apple podcast charts top spot, doing so on the back of just a short teaser and its association with the mega hit true-crime podcast Serial.

On the morning of March 28, S-Town 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 which, we learn, is connected to the person who ultimately becomes the center of this story.

It seemed weird, host Brian Reed told The Huffington Post of the choice to begin the show with the meditation on clock-making. I havent heard stories start with a description of horology. If we can get away with it, lets try it.

The creators behind S-Town 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 This American Life. A few have made their own bonafide hits such as Serial (Koenig and Snyder) and the tragically short-lived Mystery Show (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 Serial. 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 hed gotten away with in his Alabama town.

However, the story that eventually emerged wasnt about the murder.

Reed and Snyder had started working on the show before production on Serial even began. The subject of the show, John, initially contacted Reed in 2014. Given Johns sweet but peculiar personality, Reed decided to meet John in Alabama and see where the story could go. The show leads with Reeds investigation into the murder, until someone else ends up dead and the reporting takes an unexpected turn.

Although the shows name is officially S-Town, Reed refers to the show as Shittown throughout the season: The name John would use to describe his hometown. Below are quotes from HuffPosts separate conversations with both Reed and Snyder, which took place about a week before the premiere.

The impostor name

Despite officially being named S-Town (a presumed play on the shows affiliation with Serial), Reed refers to the show as Shittown 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 Shittown 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, OK, wait, so this is going to be called Shittown, actually?! [Laughs]

Julie Snyder: We would tell people that it has to be Shittown and theyd be like, Hmmm. And then youd tell them your other ideas and theyd be like, [Laughs] OK, Shittown sounds good.

BR: We had sessions where we tried to come up with another name just because, we felt, lets try it and see if we can picture it with another name. And we had like, The Vulgar Horologist, 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 A Rose for Emily, [a short story by William Faulkner] which John gave me to read, theres a phrase in there to describe Emilys house an eyesore among eyesores. And I remember coming in in the morning to work one day like, I have it! An Eyesore Among Eyesores, thats what its going to be.

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, Oh, my god, no. Thats horrible. Who would want to listen to something called, An Eyesore Among Eyesores?!

The trouble with Shittown

Snyder and Reed were aware of the potential issues with the shows name.

BR: We dont want to call it this just because its provocative. The reason that theres nothing else to call this [is because] this is like a frame of mind [John] was in. Its not just a word he used and it was funny. The dude ... this kind of took over his way of seeing the world.

Its a worldview, basically. And we hope that the title points you to that. That its a way that John saw the world and I think a lot of people see the world that way. I think its something worth interrogating.

JS: First, we felt really defiant and fuck-the-man and were-going-to-call-it-Shittown, [ignoring] your bourgeoisie concerns. We were really, This is what were doing.

The thing that convinced me [to use S-Town], was when somebody pointed out, You know, if you call it Shittown, its going to be one of those things that every time its in print, its going to be referred to as the show that you cant print its name. And I was like oh, that seems so lame and cloying to me and also really true. Ive 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 dont know, its weird to see the word Shittown when youre talking to someone whos 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.