TVSquad

Tonight's episode was, as have the other two been so far, about the concept of "karma". How doing good things for others will be good for you. Earl Hickey has now devoted his life to that concept. Of course, re-righting his many wrongs will take a while, and there are some pretty damn bad wrongs he's been responsible for.

Tonight we saw Earl conjuring up his wicked, high-school football game-fixing past (with help from his ne'er do well brother Randy) to not only reclaim his impounded car (courtesy of his ex-wife Joy) which, by the way, is where he stores all of his $100,000 lottery winnings, but to help Randy achieve some glory for himself. Randy agrees with Earl's plan to go back to high school and join the football team for another shot at the brass ring. He notes that "I guess it would be cool to get lifted up by people."

At the same time, Earl's difficulties with Joy have become an interesting subplot. Joy wants half of the $100,000 lottery winnings so she can "support our kids" although Earl is not the father of her two boys. Unfortunately, Randy blurts out the fact that the money is in the car, and there is a race to get the $3000 necessary to reclaim the car. Joy pawns most of her possessions and hijacks a shopping cart full of aluminum cans from a sleeping homeless man. But it's not enough. She resourcefully decides to recycle the aluminum guard rails from a local road. 

In a bit of deja vu, Earl fixes another football game to get the $3000 and help Randy achieve glory. Randy struggles, but as he streaks toward the endzone for the winning touchdown, Randy fumbles the ball again like the last time. Earl's heartbroken, and is dealt another bad hand with Joy announcing that she had the $3000 to get claim his car. Earl thinks all is lost, but we then see Randy pulling up in Earl's car with the money. He says he fixed the game by fumbling the ball to get the $3000 and, at the same time, thank his brother for doing something good for him. Earl and Catalina lift Randy up in glory. To bringsthe episode to a full circle, as Joy speeds to the car pound, the homeless man walks in front of her and she then drives into a ditch. As Earl says, "karma" wins out again. Joy does something bad for someone, she gets something bad in return.

I enjoyed tonight's episode and I thought it was a nice touch that we saw the return of Kenny who did his best to help Earl get his car back by hiding in the trunk of a Le Car and jump out and get the money. Of course, the Dobermans got in the way.