In this episode of Podcast Commentary, we dive deep into one of the most haunting recent stories to hit the true crime world: Crime Junkie’s November 2025 episode “Missing: Zelig Williams.”

Broadway dancer and Columbia, South Carolina native Zelig Williams was, by every account, a force of nature – a “pillar of light” whose career had taken him from Hamilton on Broadway to the national tour of MJ the Musical. After years of success, he moved back home in 2024 to be closer to his mother, teach dance, and pour into his community. Then, on October 3rd, 2024, he vanished.

We walk through the key facts Crime Junkie lays out and then start pulling at the threads. There’s the eerie iPhone SOS alert suggesting a violent crash at one location – and the discovery of Zelig’s undamaged SUV nearly 20 miles away at a flooded Palmetto Trail parking lot. There’s the GPS data showing the car entering, leaving, and then returning to the same spot, as if someone deliberately staged the scene. Inside the vehicle: his brown slides and clothes, but no phone. Outside: a wilderness area that was almost immediately swallowed by catastrophic flooding from Hurricane Helene, likely wiping away crucial evidence.

From there, we explore the clash of competing theories that has frozen this case in place. Was this a tragic result of a severe mental health crisis, compounded by medication issues and dangerous weather? Or does the evidence – the car’s movements, the abandoned shoes, the missing phone, the resume in his hands when he left home, and most of all his devotion to his mother – point toward foul play and a staged crime scene, as his family firmly believes?

We also look at what happened after the disappearance: the large-scale search involving helicopters, drones, boats, and specialized river teams; the enormous outpouring of community support; and the national spotlight brought by Hugh Jackman’s public plea. Then we discuss the long, painful silence that followed – sparse updates from law enforcement, a private investigator who never went public with any findings, and a missing persons case that remains “active” on paper but feels stalled in practice.

Finally, we dig into the new direction the family is taking. With the Palmetto Trail effectively “crossed off,” they’re now focused on Zelig’s social and spiritual circles in the months before he disappeared – including churches in South Carolina and Atlanta and a reported shift in his religious and personal identity. We examine how this could have made him especially vulnerable to manipulation or exploitation by someone he trusted, and why that possibility changes how you read every detail of the timeline.

This episode isn’t just a recap of Crime Junkie’s work. It’s a careful, critical re-examination of the contradictions in the case, the investigative choices made early on, and the emotional core of the story: a mother who has already buried two children and refuses to give up on her only remaining son.

If you care about true crime, missing persons cases, or the way media attention can both help and complicate investigations, this is a story you won’t be able to shake – and one that might still depend on the right person finally coming forward with what they know.

In this episode of Podcast Commentary we take on a giant – Chris Williamson’s marathon appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience Episode #2418 – and distill nearly three hours of dense, fast-moving conversation into something you can actually digest and use.

We start with the “digital drain”: why your phone feels like an unfair fight, how apps are engineered by billion-dollar companies to hijack attention, and what it really means that many young people now spend more waking time on screens than anything else. From addictive design to AR glasses and eye-controlled interfaces, we explore where the attention economy is heading and what that might do to our sense of reality, time and focus.

From there, we follow Rogan and Williamson into their most controversial territory. We unpack their critique of modern climate activism, from dramatic protests and “doom” rhetoric to the way carbon, pollution, money and politics get tangled together. We look at how labels like “misinformation,” “disinformation” and especially “malinformation” can be used to police debate, and why they worry about speech laws, online safety bills, and the growing pressure to self-censor on social media.

The episode then moves into the high-stakes fight over fairness in sport, breaking down headline-making cases in strength sports and boxing involving transgender athletes. We explain the “integrity of competition” argument, the collision between biology, identity and safety, and the uncomfortable questions raised when rules rely purely on self-identification.

On a more personal level, we zoom in on the psychology of ambition and the price of greatness. Using examples like Jake Paul vs Anthony Joshua, world-class golfer Scottie Scheffler, snooker legend Ronnie O’Sullivan, Dave Chappelle and singer Lewis Capaldi, we examine why huge wins often feel hollow, how success can collide with mental health, and what it means to love the craft instead of chasing rankings and fleeting validation.

Finally, we go deep on cognitive science: unreliable memory, why the brain thinks at thousands of words per minute while we speak at a crawl, and how future tech – from AR to silent “telepathy-style” communication devices – could change how we think, talk and even disagree. Along the way, we revisit the Cassandra Complex, Galileo vs Copernicus, and how punishing dissent can slow progress for generations.

If you want the key ideas, context and biggest “wait, what?” moments from Rogan x Williamson without having to block out an entire afternoon, this breakdown is for you. And at the end, we turn the spotlight back on you with one simple question: in a world designed to capture your attention, how will you reclaim even a slice of it for something that actually matters?