For some types of Hollywood-history obsessives, early August in Los Angeles can’t arrive without reminding them of 1969, when what would later be called the Manson Murders terrified the movie industry and everyone connected with it. Charles Manson was merely a Hollywood wannabe, but his brief time in Los Angeles connected him to Dennis Wilson, Doris Day, Kenneth Anger, and more industry insiders, well before his followers arrived at Sharon Tate’s house.

Manson’s strange Hollywood story, and the many equally fascinating stories that spun off around him, has been at the center of the ongoing season of You Must Remember This, a Hollywood-history podcast meticulously produced and narrated by Karina Longworth, an author and former full-time film critic. Previous seasons of the podcast dug into a wide range of Hollywood stories, from 30s wild-child Kay Francis to Madonna’s tortured relationships with Sean Penn and Warren Beatty. But the Manson series has played out like a riveting drama, or maybe like a court case, with Longworth laying out the many fascinating, seemingly unrelated stories that all led up to the Manson family’s string of murders.

There are two episodes remaining in the 12-episode series after today’s episode, which chronicles what happened to Roman Polanski after his wife was murdered by Manson’s followers. Longworth said via e-mail that the Manson episodes have received, on average, double the listeners of previous series, and that she’s receiving “increasingly more e-mails and tweets every day,” including endorsements from podcast superstars like John Hodgman.

Murder stories may grab a lot of ears in the podcast world—Serial’s legacy still looms large over this fledgling but booming corner of the media—but it’s not just the lurid details that make You Must Remember This so gripping. Longworth’s audible disdain for the rape, abuse, and rampant sexism that defined the counterculture movements of the 60s, and which allowed Manson to amass the following that he did, is part of the overarching theme of the show, which often focuses on the stories of women and other people taken advantage of by the Hollywood system. The Manson series isn’t just about reliving, in often sickening detail, what Charles Manson did and how he did it; it’s about examining the culture and industry that made it so easy for a smooth-talking white man to start a cult, and suggesting that the people who did and do succeed in Hollywood aren’t necessarily so different.

It’s not exactly a People’s History of the United States version of Hollywood history—episodes about swaggering white men like John Wayne, John Huston, and Frank Sinatra are equally fascinating—but You Must Remember This makes a consistently compelling argument for what actually should be remembered about an industry forever eager to re-invent its past. Start by learning what you never knew about the Manson murders, then dig into the archives for clear-eyed, lushly produced storytelling about the Hollywood we ought to have known all along. Subscribe via iTunes here.