Hey, it's Michael. Today, we're going to pause our usual Sunday Reads programming to bring you something really special. It's the first episode of a new show from our colleagues over at serial productions. And I don't want to spoil too much here. What I can tell you is that this is a show about love, friendship, fear, Hollywood.

And it poses enormous questions for all of us as humans

about our relationships with animals and with nature.

It's thought-provoking and it's moving.

It's the story of the captive killer whale named Kako, who starred in the

movie Free Willy. And it's hosted by Danielle Alarcon. And the show is called The Good Whale.

To hear the whole six-part series, you can search for the Goodwale wherever you listen to podcasts.

New episodes come out every Thursday.

Okay, here's episode one of the Goodwale.

Our story begins in the early 90s with an orca named Keiko.

He's just entering his teenage years, living at an amusement park in

Mexico City called Reno Aventura, or Adventure Kingdom. He's not from there, but for the last

seven years, a tank in this polluted, landlocked megacity more than 7,000 feet above sea level,

has been his home. Before that, it was a marine park in Canada, where he was bullied

by the other orcas. Before that, it was a tank in a big concrete building in Iceland, where he

was kept for about three years unable to see the sky. And even before that, it was North Atlantic,

where he was captured and separated from his mom and the rest of his whale pod, probably when he was

around too. I don't think I really understood how traumatic this could have been until I learned

that male killer whales are essentially mama's boys, and not just when they're young, but basically

their entire lives. Even as adults, they might swim by their mother's side. They depend on her.

A mother orca might

catch a fish, bite it in two, and give half to her son. This kind of closeness is documented in male

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