{"id":499,"date":"2019-11-18T09:06:16","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T17:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/?p=499"},"modified":"2020-10-10T17:19:55","modified_gmt":"2020-10-11T00:19:55","slug":"ear-hustle-part-3-season-4-finale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/2019\/11\/18\/ear-hustle-part-3-season-4-finale\/","title":{"rendered":"Ear Hustle: Part 3 – Season 4 Finale"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For this blog post, I thought I\u2019d do something a little different and jump ahead. To recap, I have been following the podcast, Ear Hustle<\/em>, which is a prison slang term for eavesdropping, and every episode gives an inside look into the American prison system and what life is like as an inmate, and post-incarceration. For the past two posts, I started from the beginning listening to the very first episodes of the Ear Hustle<\/em> podcast in order to see how they were developing. This time, I jumped to the most recent episode from this past October, the season 4  finale called \u201cTell Christy I Love Her\u201d. 
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This episode tells an amazing story. It is told from separate interviews between former police officer, Tom Morgan, and now parolee, Jason Samuel, but pieced and intertwined together to give the listeners both sides of the story at every point. Back in 1997, when Jason was 17 and Tom was 39, the two got into an altercation and Jason shot Tom in the throat, beat him up, and attempted to kill him. Tom miraculously survived to tell the story of his and his wife\u2019s, Christy\u2019s experience and Jason was sentenced to 19-years-to-life. This episode varies from most of the past episodes as the majority of this episode is narrated by Tom, Tom\u2019s wife Christy, and Jason. Usually you hear hosts Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods dominate the discussion, but this time they were able to take a step back and just guide the episode and interjected here and there, allowing these people to tell their story.  
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This was an intense episode, and some parts were hard to listen to. In his interview with Nigel, Jason talked about his rough and abusive upbringing, giving some background as to why he found himself in that position that night. In Tom and Christy\u2019s interview, they recount the nightmare of a memory that was the night of his shooting. Both get choked up and at one point during the interview you hear them stop talking as Tom goes over to comfort his crying wife saying, \u201cI\u2019m sorry I put you through that\u201d. Even I got choked up listening to that because it was such an intimate moment between the two that I felt like I was intruding.
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When Jason, Tom, and Christy are talking about the most horrific times of their lives, there is no music playing. That was a smart editing choice as it gives the listener nothing else to focus on, so nothing is being taken away from these people telling their stories, and the listeners can just hear the depth and gravity of what is being said. 
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However, although this story is pretty heavy, it is ultimately about forgiveness and grace. Tom, Jason, and Christy were able to participate in a restorative justice program together about 20 years later. After Tom had an emotional reunion with Jason, Christy requested to see him as well. Christy recalls she had so much pent up hatred and anger. The night of Tom\u2019s shooting, she wanted to kill Jason, and it wasn\u2019t until this moment that those emotions finally started to subside. Jason said when he saw Christy, he put his hands behind his back, thinking she was going to hit him, and he was going to let her because he felt he deserved it. Instead, Christy embraced him. They cry as Christy hugs him, because she said she could see his remorse and it meant so much to her just to know how ashamed he was and to see him acknowledge his past mistakes. Using the CNN documentary audio you hear Jason tell her \u201cThank you for seeing me for who I am today\u201d and she responds, \u201cI see you. And I am proud of you\u2014and who you are, everything you\u2019re doing\u201d It was a really powerful moment that the podcast production team was able to incorporate seamlessly. 
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During the more uplifting moments, like after this encounter when Christy remembered \u201cI kept telling everyone, \u2018I feel so light. I feel so light I feel like I could fly or something\u2019\u201d uplifting music starts softly building in, adding to the inspirational and awe-inspiring message of this story. She and Tom were both able to forgive Jason, and now talk about the rehabilitation of their relationship.
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This was an excellent episode, it struck all the right chords and was beautifully executed and produced. The heart of the podcast is no different from the first episodes of season 1: all the emotion and passion is still there–if not greater than before and they are still there to uncover the big ideas that need to be talked about. That being said, I could tell that over time it has been taken to the next level. It sounds more professional with the sound mixing, editing and effortless transitions that when you listen to the podcast, you are solely focused for 43 minutes on this story and can\u2019t help but be completely enraptured. Suffice to say, I can\u2019t wait to hear what Ear Hustle has planned next for season 5.
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Word Count: 847
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For this blog post, I thought I\u2019d do something a little different and jump ahead. To recap, I have been following the podcast, Ear Hustle, which is a prison slang term for eavesdropping, and every…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-engl200c"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":503,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions\/503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}