TV-Reviewed

Earl is only three episodes in to this season and it’s already proving to be better then last season. Getting Earl back to his list has proven to be a winning formula so far. This episode had the humor that we usually expect from Earl and having John Amos and Jerry Van Dyke just added to the fun of this episode.

It’s interesting how Earl is choosing which things to do on his list now. In the first two seasons, he was going to down the list mostly and choosing himself, but this season the things he’s choosing to do usually come up after someone else brings up a memory. While Earl choosing doesn’t add or subtract anything from the show, having Earl just sort of doing them randomly flows a lot better with the story.

Earl’s latest list item is triggered when Joy reminds him of the time they blew up an RV they stole from Jerry, a retired vet. When Earl goes to see Jerry, he’s sitting around in his house waiting to die — literally just sitting around. Jerry starts to become more alive though as Earl and Randy replace items that were lost in the RV explosion. There’s only one more item left to get before Earl crosses Jerry from the list and while at first it seemed like Jerry’s search for a one of a kind pendant from an old buddy was going to be simple, it becomes obvious that Jerry’s pendant was going to be his old buddy’s ear.

Ethan Suplee as Randy Hickey

The story about how Joe left Jerry was funny and it was truly an honor to have John Amos and Jerry Van Dyke play their respective roles. It wasn’t just the sight of seeing two people relive their old army days, but it was more the sight of two seventy-five year olds (even though John is younger then seventy-five and Jerry is older then seventy-five) past their prime trying to get at each other. It would have maybe been nice to see more contact between the two, maybe even a funny fight scene, but that probably would be pushing the two veteran actors too far.

Joy’s pursuit of trying to catch Pigsquatch had its moments too, but mostly served as a distraction to the main story. Randy’s habit of finding hats and having a different personality when he put them on was funny because it happened throughout the episode, never really distracting because it flowed so well. Randy’s personality change was just one of those things where you could tell when he did it and you couldn’t help but laugh.

My Name is Earl is definitely on the right track this season and this episode was another good addition to an already flourishing season. If the writing team keeps cranking out great stories to coincide with Earl’s list, we could be looking at one of Earl’s better seasons.

Rating: 7.5