(S02E23) Next season on My Name is Earl: a very special crossover episode starring Prison Break's Wentworth Miller. When Hickey and Scofield find themselves sharing a bunk in a Panamanian prison, Scofield tries to break Earl out, but failing that promises to take over Earl's list.But seriously, everything that happened in this episode was entirely predictable -- about 10 seconds in advance. Earl hooks up with the deaf lawyer. Saw that coming, a few seconds before it happened. Deaf lawyer dumps Earl after taking a closer look at his list. I needed about 15 seconds for that one. Earl makes a sacrifice to help Joy. Not too surprising.
Probably my favorite, "saw this coming" moment was the moment Dog the Bounty Hunter showed up in Mexico and Joy gushed over him. Of course, given how the folks of Camden County obsess over Cops, it's not surprising that Joy's a big fan.
I wasn't really sure after last week's episode how the program was going to work with Earl holding down a steady job. I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted after a full day's work and I don't think I'd have time to cross a few hundred items off a list, especially considering how much work most of those tasks seem to take.
So I was pretty certain Earl would lose his job. I just didn't expect he'd wind up sentenced to a two year prison term. I suppose the show could pick up two years in the future with a hardened Earl dissing the list and fighting karma. We've seen plenty of other shows take a similar approach, but they're usually action shows like Alias or 24. In fact, the whole cliffhanger ending felt more like something I'd expect from Prison Break than My Name is Earl.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. Because as predictable as everything was a few seconds in advance, I wouldn't have predicted any of what happened in this episode last week. And that's good. For a show that's often quite predictable, it's nice to have a few surprises beyond wondering what will come out of Randy's mouth.
I mean come on, "I brought a weeble for the judge to smack with his hammer. I always wanted to see what made these things not fall down." That's precious.
It was also interesting seeing the many sides of Joy in this episode. On the one hand, Earl couldn't find a character witness who wouldn't complain about Joy getting drunk and having a threesome with her parents or wearing a bikini to church. On the other hand, she saved her prison lunch pudding cups for her children and found a way to get a dead pony on roller skates for a kid's party. She's a good mom (and a terrible human being). 
On TV Squad's scale of 1 to 7, I'm going to give the season finale a 7. It was a great ensemble episode, bringing back several characters we haven't seen in a while, and fleshing out the characters we know and love like Joy and Darnell. But most importantly, that cliffhanger has grabbed my attention, and I can't wait for the show to come back for its third season this fall.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-10-2007 @ 11:21PM
Bill said...
Not *quite* as good as last week's, but definitely a winner. At the very least, all the jokes about what an awful person Joy's been (a threesome with her best friend's parents? hilarious) provided enough laughs for an episode and a half.
http://popculturejunk.blogspot.com/
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5-11-2007 @ 2:14AM
Garnet said...
A great Boogie Nights reference with Sister Christian playing over Earl/Crabmans' kids sugar fueled bender. Another great classic rock tune on My Name is Earl - its always a highlight of the show. Great season finale.
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5-11-2007 @ 2:14AM
E.T. said...
Here is a Fun Fact:
Did anyone notice when Earl walks into Joy's and Darnell's trailer the song playing is "Sister Christian" and the kid is playing with noisemakers type of Firecracker.
And in Boogie Nights when the Mark Walburg's Character walks into the the drug dealers house with his 2 friends the same song is playing and the gay Asian dude is playing with the same noisemakers.
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5-11-2007 @ 9:04AM
Jack said...
"ROBBIN' THE DEAF!!!"
Classic.
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5-11-2007 @ 9:19AM
jvvv said...
Perfect show! Let's hopethey'll keep it like that for next season!
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5-11-2007 @ 10:07AM
Grover said...
This show would have been non-stop laughter form start to finish had it not been super-sized, though I'm not complaining. Another solid episode... hopefully next season continues with top-notch shows.
Couple notable moments-
Ruby's (Joy's lawyer) translator eating a lemon square that was intended for Joy and cutting is tongue on the razor blade in it preventing him from translating for Ruby.
The replacement for him and the need to have a translator for the replacement translator.
The Mandarin to English translator still up to his habit of stealing pens.
Darnell's hair.
Earl to Ruby: "Now I know two things in sign language: 'thank you,' and 'your elbow is on my hair'"
Hopefully they got Mr. Turtle down
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5-11-2007 @ 11:04AM
austin_moreland said...
I replayed the "ROBBIN' THE DEAF!" scene so many times. Listening to Earl's 911 calls was unforgettable as well.
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5-11-2007 @ 11:42AM
Nathan said...
Earl loved her accent. That is just great cause it wasn't an accent. I laughed my ass of every time he said that. Making fun of the deaf in prime time, man you got to love that.
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5-11-2007 @ 12:40PM
Karen said...
Great episode; just great. And full of nice callbacks to the season. Hey Asian Man in Towel! Nice to see you again!
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5-11-2007 @ 4:19PM
Karim said...
Does anyone know the name of the song that played during the end of trial. When Earl took all the blame?
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5-11-2007 @ 5:37PM
Mel said...
I thought it was fantastic. Yeah, I did see it coming with Earl taking the blame for the crime, but they did it very well. The Turner family montage set to Baba O'Riley was just perfect, as was the ending with House of the Rising Sun. (Which I bought as soon as the episode ended.) Very striking. Some interesting turns, with Earl falling for Ruby (I really wonder how that will turn out), and running into Ralph again. I'm also wondering what will happen with Randy and Catalina now that he's moved out of the motel. They haven't touched on that in a while. Other things I loved were Crabman's hair (Firefly flashbacks!), Randy's deep angry monster voice when Earl wanted to wake the kids up, and, for some reason, the line about Joy getting a dozen buckets of KFC to Dodge's kindergarden graduation even when she was hung over, PMSing, and had two infected tattoos was my favorite.
Come to think of it, I've been waiting for them to do a storyline dealing with whoever Dodge's real father is. Maybe next season.
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5-11-2007 @ 5:39PM
Gina said...
The song was "House of the Rising Son" by The Animals.
I only know because my step son plays this song all the time on his guitar and he and his dad sing it :-)
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5-11-2007 @ 5:41PM
Gina said...
ok someone beat me to the punch, and I have to acknowlege that I spelled SUN wrong. grrrrr
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5-11-2007 @ 6:10PM
A Viewer said...
Totally hilarious episode. So many great moments, from the long chain of translators to "ROBBIN' THE DEAF!" to Earl's 911 calls to Crab Man's hair to the joke where he says that the other half of his heaart necklace is in his colon to Mr. Turtle to Randy screaming a "One-tone" to Earl thinking that Ruby's deaf "accent" was sexy. It was packed with laughs. One of the best episodes of the season.
Karim, the song at the end is "House of the Rising Sun" by the Animals.
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5-12-2007 @ 8:32AM
dave said...
What was the song during the "Robbin' the Deaf" scene?
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5-12-2007 @ 11:01AM
Cody said...
dave: that song was "Can't You Hear Me Knocking?" by the Rolling Stones. That song was so amazingly perfect for a scene where two men are robbing a deaf woman that that moment makes this one of my favorite episodes.
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5-14-2007 @ 2:03PM
dave said...
That Boogie Nights reference was great! Plus the Rudy reference last week. Dows Earl typically nod to movies like that? I've never noticed before
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7-11-2007 @ 9:11AM
tom said...
what was the name of the song just before "House of the Rising Sun" ??
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7-15-2007 @ 8:07AM
benny said...
do'es anyone knows the name of the song (theme) that in the end of evry episode of "my name is Earl"? (with the harmonican and stuf...)
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