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My Name is Earl Fodder

My Name Is Earl: Camdenites (or Take Me Home Country Road)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- My Name Is Earl makes the best use of music better than any other show on TV now or ever. Let's get to recappin'!

The ep opens with Earl and Randy and Billie watching TV in the snug quarters at the Palms Motel. Billie it seems has a (somewhat) annoying habit of pointing out the good bits that are about to happen. I swear, there should be a special place in Hell for people who like to point out the good bits that are about to happen.

Billie also does all of the driving now. Apparently she feels that Earl drives too wussily. I suppose almost running over a school crossing guard is cool in Camden County, but ask my wife who's a crossing guard, it ain't too cool anyplace else. That poor little lead-lined metal lunchbox gets the worst of it.

Earl's lottery winnings are all gone, so Earl is living off of Billie's insurance money now. Easy on the tissues there, Rockefeller. One per sneeze. And poor Randy? Why, since Billie is making all the decisions he's sleeping al fresco nowadays.

Earl's favorite part of the day now is when Billie takes a shower, and not for the obvious "she's all wet and naked" aspect of it. Earl finally gets a little peace when she's otherwise occupied. He reminisces about his comatose sitcom life when things were all fuzzy hazy warm and perfect. Compared to now when Billie comes out of the shower saying, "Ahhh, there's nothing like a crap in the shower to make ya feel better." Now maybe Billie said, "There's nothing like a crap AND a shower -- ", but judging by Earl's reaction I think my first take on it was right.
Earl needs some marital advice on how to live with a difficult woman so he goes to the smartest man he knows.

Darnell's home/trailer is still on its side (thanks to Earl and some drunken strippers). Mr. Turtle is the only one who's happy about their current living situation. Darnell shows Earl his journal where he writes down everything that Joy does that bothers him. It's got more volumes than the Encyclopedia Britannica. Joy busts him, but Darnell explains that it's just his poetry. Joy reads a particularly revealing bit, but the point of the exposition eludes her. She points out that it doesn't even rhyme. Earl and Darnell wet their pants a wee bit having dodged a blond bullet.

Now we throw in a tidy bit of overt product placement. The Klondike Bar people paid a pretty chocolate-covered penny here for this next bit. Summary? Randy would do pretty much anything to get a tasty bit of chocolate-covered ice cream and let's just move along people.

Still seeking advice, Earl goes to the happiest couple he knows. Mom and Dad? Nope, Gay Kenny and Stuart. Their best bit of advice involves calling your lover lover and lots of foreplay. Earl tries it out on Billie but ends up getting a little some extra that's SO not on the menu.

Earl finally goes home to seek out workable advice, but Carl is working late at the office. Quite unfortunate since Kay needs help picking out drapery material. Quirky coincidence, that. Turns out that Carl is quite the genius. He's always had to work late whenever Kay had some goofy-ass wifely-oriented chore that needed doing. He could be the Dean of Husband University. Avoidance -- ahhh -- that's the ticket.

At the Crabshack, Earl is avoiding Billie. Joy walks in. She's mighty ticked off that her trailer is still on its side. In fact, the ceiling fan has lopped off one of her pony-tails. Blogger's Comment â€" Whoever does Jaime Pressly's hair must surely have one of the best jobs in town. Earl is unable to help Joy's trailer situation as he just doesn't have the money to rent a crane. He just doesn't understand. He's doing Karma's handiwork to get away from a nightmare of a wife, and Karma sticks him with a nightmare of an ex-wife. Randy gets to the heart of the matter. He realizes that ants can lift weights much greater than their own. And boy they must be ripped and get laid a lot. But that gives Earl a capital idea.

Earl assembles almost everyone he ever helped. With everyone pulling together they manage to right-side-up Joy and Darnell's trailer. Oh, Happy Day! Time for a kegger! But Captain Buzzkill Billie calls Earl while his trying to get a cold and frothy fuzzy.

But hold on -- what's that? There's a leg under the porch. It's a prosthesis. Whuh-huh? Hello # 86 â€" Stole a Car From a One-Legged Girl. Can you say Dee Dee? And I ain't talking about Dexter's Laboratory.

Earl and Randy go to visit old friend Dee Dee at her place of employment figuring that she'd be less likely to have her shotgun at work. She may not have her shotgun but she's got plenty of donuts to fling, and fling 'em she does. Earl chills her out, and to make things right, she wants Earl to feel her pain. She puts Earl through a one-legged ringer. It only needed an ass-kicking contest to round out the tasks she makes him perform. Earl finally understands what Dee Dee's been going through, and See Dee is satisfied. Earl can cross her off of his list.

Back at the Palms Motel, Billie is nice again. Seems t hat whenever Earl is nice to a woman, Billie is nice to Earl. Karma must have a uterus is all I can figure. Earl tests his theory by having Catalina whack him around a bit with a broom. And yup, Billie gets even nicer. This points Earl in the direction of # 204 â€" Seduced Seven Virgins.

Just outside of Camden County lives a community called the Camdenites. The Camdenites are a religious sect that broke away from the Amish because they thought the Amish were just a little too flashy and playful. And as part of the Camdenite experience, when a girl turns 21, she is loosed upon an unsuspecting world for twenty-one days so that she may judge for herself which lifestyle she prefers. Partly thanks to Earl, none of these girls has ever returned to cross over the covered wooden bridge to resume Camdenite ways. Earl referred to this event as the Running of the Virgins. As Earl says, "Some years the bounty is plentiful, and some years there's a drought. But a good farmer always finds something to plow."

Ruth, the Camdenite woman that Earl is explain his list to, tells Earl that if he wants to make things right, he has to make sure that her niece Greta must return. Earl will do his best.

First stop? The Palms Motel. Earl is showing Greta what outside life is all about. What better example than television. Right about then, Billie comes home. She's got lovin' on her mind. After giving Randy and Greta the boot, Billie lays down an ultimatum: It's either me or the List. Earl chooses the List, and Billie lays out Earl with a telephonic blow to the back of his cranium. And the Battle of Karma's List has begun.

At the Crabshack Greta meets Catalina, and she's in full Club Chubby regalia. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Thank God for a lax border patrol. The phone rings, and it's Joy calling for Earl. Billie has gone ballistic and she's up-ended the trailer again. And not only that, but she's set out to undo everything that Earl has done for the last two seasons. She's dropped a dime on Kenny's sexual orientation with Kenny's parents, mocked Rhino Man and Tiny Guy, and set afire Pop's hot dog cart.

At the Palms Motel Command Center, Catalina's keeping a list of Billie's other reversals that includes Too Tall Maggie, Donnie Jones' mom, Crazy Arms, Mistletoe the stripper and even Escobar-a-lop-lop. And it's not long before all of those unhappy folks are in Earl's motel room demanding that he do something about that wife of his.

Right about then the phone rings. It's Billie. She repeats her ultimatum, and this time Earl relents. She's just done too many mean things to too many nice people. Earl reluctantly chooses Billie over the List.

Earl and Billie meet up at the Camdenite bridge. As they talk the cops roll up. But it wasn't Earl t hat called Camden's finest, but Joy. Joy is pressing charges against Billie for tipping over her trailer. But Billie high-tails it into Camdenite territory, and Camden's finest are powerless to pursue. Billie threatens Earl's life, and Earl has five days to find Greta and return her to Camdenite Village or else Billie is going to end Earl in spectacular fashion.

Earl searches all over Camden County but is unable to locate Greta. He goes home to the Palms and there she is large as life making Alka-Seltzer champagne with Randy. Finally it's night0-time, but Earls dreams are haunted with visions of a homicidal Billie. When he finally does wake up it's to a real-life vision of an axe-wielding Billie come to call. Woe is Earl!

Billie explains that she isn't there to decapitate Earl, but that all Camdenite women carry an axe when they go out at night. That's what we do, she says. We, Earl asks? You're a Camdenite?

Turns out while Billie was hiding out with the Camdenites, she became accustomed to their ways. For so long she had been searching for herself and for her purpose, and she found it in the simple life of no mirrors, no wheels, no pitchforks, and no medicines.

Billie and Earl come to a most amicable understanding. She offers up divorce papers, and Earl knows exactly where to sign. She leaves him with a kiss and a check for seventy-two grand.

Earl has his list back, he has his life, and he's back where he belongs.

That's it for this season. I'll try and post some MNIE news as it happens. Drop a line if yer of a mind, and we'll see you in the fall. Have a great summer -- Hit 'em long and straight.


Posted by Randy Welk on May 16, 2008 11:49 AM
Permalink |






You know I rarely get home in time to watch MNIE, but I've always admired the premise and the few shows I have seen, I've enjoyed.

Now that I know who's doing the writing I'll have to stop by more often, and catch the show more often, too.

P.S. You should sign your reviews.

-- Posted by: Cecil Rose at May 22, 2008 12:38 PM

Cecil,

I hope you can catch the show when it starts up again in the fall. Of course the reruns are first-runs if you haven't seen 'em yet.

I really think MNIE is one of the funniest shows on TV. Their use of pop culture references (yes - they even referenced Lost and Heroes but not yet House) and their use of music is incredible. The humor is all over the place from dry British-type to bawdy to politically incorrect...good good stuff, seriously under-rated IMHO.

And you're right - I should sign my stuff. Hell I wrote it...people should know who to blame.

-- Posted by: Randy at May 28, 2008 5:59 PM

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