My Name is Earl Fodder

My Name Is Earl: Girl Earl

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It's the morning after Earl and Billie's honeymoon night and Earl's feelin' fine. Billie's looking all Miley Cyrus, and in true wifely fashion, she's concerned with Earl's husbandly bits. Nothing a bucket of ice can't fix, Earl tells Billie. Oh, and by the way, Billie's started her own Karma list. Catalina helpfully tells Earl that he'll be changing his own sheets today. Earl's giddiness gets the better of him, and he shouts from the balcony that all is great in Earl-ville. A couple of shutups and gunshots convince Earl to keep his good fortune to himself.

At the Crabshack, Earl's trying to enjoy his lunch but Billie keeps swiping his chips. How's he supposed to crunch-bite-crunch if she steals his crunch? Throws off the whole balanced meal thing. Marriage is all about give and take, but in Earl's mind, he's doing all the giving and Billie's doing all the taking. In Billie's mind, she's just sharing. To the Spin Doctors' Little Miss Can't Be Wrong, we learn that Billie's got some annoying habits like keeping Earl on a very short leash, dressing him in questionable attire, and barging in on Earl's private bathroom time ("Bashful pee-er here!"). Plus she likes Van Hagar and Skynyrd AFTER the plane crash. Wuzzup widdat?

Comparing lists, Earl and Bille espy a common victim: Joel Maloney (played by Jon Heder of Napolean Dynamite and Blades of Glory fame). Joel was a Championship Grocery Bagger until he went to a bagging tournament (Music bed - Papa's Got a Brand New Bag by James Brown), and all the Camden County ne'er-do-wells decided to help themselves to his stuff. Courtesy of the emcee (played by Ralph Garman, the host from Joe Schmoe - hold that thought) we learn that Youngstown, Ohio is the Rivet Capital of the world. Good to know. When Joel got home from the tourney - placing second and winning a $25 Applebees gift certificate - his place looked like Whoville on Christmas morning.

Earl and Billie decide to return Joel's purloined belongings. Billie swiped a ceiling fan, and Earl and Randy had "borrowed" a TV and some carpeting. (No word if Catalina was munching it due to her conversion last week.) So they go to Joy and Darnell's upside-down trailer to retrieve the items. While there, Earl asks Joy if they'd had a getting-used-to-each-other period when they got married. Joy says hell yeah, and she enumerates several of Earl's most annoying habits such as his crunch-bite-crunch OCD-ness, his raising-one-eyebrow-while-thinking thing, and his penchant for rasslin' during foreplay to see who gets bottom.

Earl and Billie take the swag back to Joel's place. Joel has obviously gotten big into home security in the intervening years. His door is plastered with home security stickers and a closed circuit camera. Earl and Billie explain who they are and why they're there. In flashback we learn that when Joel got home from the tourney to find his home trashed, he punched a wall and mangled his hand. He would bag no more, contrary to the "Teabagger - Get It?" graffiti spray-painted on his wall. We also learn that Billie keeps her list in her cleavage. Lucky slip of paper that.

Earl feels really bad about Joel's condition, but Billie recuperates much faster (as witnessed by her getting out of her coma much faster than Earl). She crosses Joel off her list. She's done with that one. But Earl's really disappointed in her Karma-tizin'. On his way to help Joel reclaim his former glory, Earl passes Billie while she's reading I Am 55 - The Sammy Hagar Autobiography (have yet to find it on Amazon). Earl finds out that Joel is no longer a bagger but a lowly sweeper and the local Try 'n' Save. When Earl reacts with mongoose-like speed catching an errant can of peas thrown at Joel's head by a surly co-worker, Joel tells Earl that he has the hands of a championship bagger. Joel wants to train Earl, and to the Theme From Rocky, he does just that. After an inspired montage of training bits (I loved the finger-running-through-the-donuts-as-tires bit), the penny drops for Earl and he's ready to compete.

Earl handily wins the his first round match, edges out Barry Schmoe (See? I told it would come back around) in Round 2, and in Round 3 wins by a nose against Angry Gustav who flips his bagging table ("Cleanup on table 2!") when he loses to Earl. Earl's on to the championship match against 12-time winner, Bagger Lance.

At the tourney, Billie enters and proclaims that she's done, she's finished her list. She derides Earl's lack of list-finishing ability, and poking him in the chest, she says "Work smarter, not harder, Grasshopper." Always did love a good Kung Fu reference.

Earl goes off on Billie. He may have a few faults (a few?), but this Karma-list-completing business ain't one of 'em. He chides Billie on her lack of sincerity and empathy telling her that when you do an item on your list you have to "...pour your whole damn heart into it!" But then Earl makes the crucial mistake of poking Billie back. She don't like that sort of thing and she gives Earl's poking finger a mighty twist. Pain ensues. It's funny because it's mean and it happened to someone else. Randy tries to help by re-twisting Earl's finger in the opposire direction. More pain ensues, and Earl's out of the competition.

Randy notices that Earl and Joel each have one good hand (and boy are they handsome!). Joel reads the rules and finds that there is nothing barring them from competing as a team just so long as they only use two hands. I flashed onto Stuck On You with Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear - good movie...check it out if you haven't seen it. Lance is okay with competing against Earl and Joel "...mano a mano a mano..."

The final match starts, and Lance is kicking butt. To Rick Derringer's Rock and Roll Hoochie Coo, Lance gets a big rabbit-versus-tortoise type of lead and begins to get overly confident. Lance is juggling apples and feeling fine until he cuts his hand on a pineapple. Those things are dangerous - they should be outlawed, but then only outlaws would have pineapples. Earl and Joel find their groove and sneak out a win. They not only bag the trophy, they double-bag it! Score!

Some grocery groupies give the wink-wink-nudge-nudge to Joel as Billie comes up to Earl. She explains to Earl that she finally gets it, that she gets what's actually involved with completing an item on the Karma list. But then she puts the whole thing in the crapper when she tells Earl that he's going to have to lose the 'stache. Randy sums it up nicely when he says that she's going to have to go. Earl without his mustache? That's like the Mona Lisa without her smile! And we FTB.

Next week is the one-hour season finale. Will Earl and Billie get off the island? Oops, sorry...wrong show...


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