TV-Reviewed

On this week’s Earl, Earl crosses Randy off his list, by helping him realize his dream of becoming a cheerleader. With a good guest appearance and some funny moments through out, it’s another good episode for this season of Earl.

I’ve said it before, but one of the cool things about this season of Earl is how fluently the show goes into what Earl is going to do next for the episode. There’s been some cool sequences before hand that just has Earl remember something. This week Earl’s watching a cheerleading competition when he remembers how he made fun of Kenny for wanting to be a cheerleader when he was a kid. I have to say this task on his list seemed like it didn’t totally belong on the list because it seems rather petty to put making fun of someone when they were kids on the list. The task though takes an interesting turn when Earl finds out that it wasn’t Kenny who wanted to be a cheerleader and that it was Randy. The task then turns into Earl having to cross Randy off his list instead of Kenny. It was nice to have Kenny back and great to have an appearance by Mike O’Malley playing his boyfriend.

Ethan Suplee as Randy

Earl goes with Randy to the cheerleading camp where the two realize that Camden continually have the worst cheerleaders at the camp every year. The Camden cheerleader’s apparently have one of every stereotype on their team too, with the black chick, the nerdy one, the pregnant one, and the weird one I guess. I’m also pretty sure that the pregnant cheerleader’s name being Juno was something that the show just wanted to throw in their just for fun.

Jenna Elfman was cast well as the head of the cheerleader camp, and it was fun watching her play an adult who was still into cheerleading. Randy really was center stage in this episode and it’s good to have the stupid Randy back. Whether it was Randy talking about how the pilgrims make the rules or copying Earl’s decision, it’s just nice to see that the writers have went with a consistent character for Randy again.

The side story this week started off disturbing with Joy finding out that Dodge had a little crush on Catalina, so the whole episode has Joy trying to get Dodge to think of her as being pretty. By dressing up in skimpy outfits and other things it became rather sick. It takes a little bit of a turn when we realize that this isn’t just another random thing that Joy is doing, but that she doesn’t want her kids to grow up. This season has really given us a new take on Joy’s feelings about being a parent. It just sucks that we were already disturbed by the time the sweet part of the plot came along, plus if the writers would have given that story more time and changed the plot it would have made the episode better.

So in the end, we get another pretty good episode of Earl. The problem this season is that every episode is another task off the list and nothing else. While last season did not enough list, my fear is that this season will do too much of the list. Hopefully by the end of the season, there will be some good character developments as well as some tasks off the list crossed off.

Rating: 7.5