TV-Reviewed

Venturing on through season 4 of Earl, we’re still on the list, but one can’t help but feel a sense of deja’ vu. This season of Earl essentially feels like season one of Earl with almost no differences. This episode attempts to cross “sleeping with Sweet Johnny’s girlfriend” off his list. The result of this episode ends up being far less than the episodes before it, but had it’s moments.

Joy getting carjacked gets Earl to attempt to cross “sleeping with Sweet Johnny’s girlfriend” off his list. Sweet Johnny was the neighborhood stuntman and Earl had a thing for his girlfriend, Sheila; it was supposedly her nice hiney that did it for him. Just so Earl could spend precious moments with Sheila, he would get Johnny to do stunts that were dangerous so he could injure himself, which would give Earl more time to have sex with Sheila in Johnny’s van.

David Arquette as Sweet Johnny

Johnny’s reaction when Earl tells him what happens was funny which involved shooting staples at Earl. Earl decides to give him a day to cool off, only when he comes back the next day, Sweet Johnny has no recollection of the previous days events. When Earl goes to see Johnny, he tells him about how an accident that he had that basically has him reliving the same day ala Groundhog Day or 50 First Dates.

We’ve seen this used before and Earl doesn’t bring anything different to the whole situation. After the first couple of times of reliving the day, the whole thing does start to get a bit annoying. David Arquette was a pleasure to watch and Earl continues to pick the right guest stars to appear on the show. Unfortunately though, the character of Sweet Johnny is somewhat forgettable. We don’t really get to know Johnny as well as some of the other characters that we’ve had on the show and giving him memory loss doesn’t help at all.

It was weird, but Randy trying to prove to a beer bottle that he wasn’t a virgin was just as interesting as Sweet Johnny. Randy is back in full form this season and it’s great to have the random Randy back instead of the inconsistent intelligent Randy from last season. The other storyline had Joy getting a gun after being carjacked at the beginning of the episode. Darnell doesn’t like guns and the writers should give be given props for making Darnell into the most anti-stereotypical character on the show. Joy packing a gun had its moments, but was mostly due to Darnell being in on it.

This was one of those episodes that wasn’t bad, but it had no heart and it’s one of those episodes that didn’t have any moments where we’ll remember it a season from now.

Rating: 6.7