My Name is Earl Fodder

My Name Is Earl: Sold A Guy A Lemon Car

Everybody knows somebody like Cappy. Earl and Randy's annoying talkative get-to-the-friggin-point kind of storyteller. Much much worse than John Candy's character in Planes, Trains, & Automobiles. ("You know what would be nice? When you tell a story, have a point. It makes it so much interesting for the listener!") But thanks goodness for Catalina. (Oh, how many times have I said that?!?) Catalina's got a special knack for getting rid of annoying dudes. Must be all that hard-earned experience from shooing away drunken pawing letches at Club Chubby. She re-locates Cappy to the West Wing (Move over, Jed Bartlet) and serenity (Hello, Inara Serra...) returns to the second floor.

So Earl's in full relax mode, catching some tube, when the door to his bro-chelor pad slams open. At the threshhold is a wispy-bearded hooded stranger. Ted Kaczynski? Phil Laak? Nope, just the new neighbor. What are you doing in my room? the hooded stranger asks Earl. Ah, says Earl, you must be the new next-door neighbor. Without a word or a handshake, the new neighbor creeps off. Randy is put off by the new guy's lack of friendliness-ness. He would like Cappy back.

Nighttime at the Palm Motel is rarely quiet and uneventful, but this is beyond the pale. The new neighbor is noisy-ing up the joint something fierce. Earl goes over to talk to him, but the new neighbor, with blow torch in hand, tells Earl couldn't've been me I was sleeping. Earl goes back to his room and the noise from next door starts up again. Randy peers through the bullethole in the adjoining wall only to see creepy neighbor's eyeball peering back at him.

Next day and Catalina gives Earl some 411. The new guy's name is Lloyd (played by Courtney Gains, Malachai from Children of the Corn), he thinks she's pretty (can't be all bad right?), and he does not want her in his room (I stand corrected). Catalina's okay with it - one less room to clean.

Joy's been studying German under the tutelage of Colenel Klink ("Hey Dummkopf...") and apparently has gotten a new job. Really? No, not really. She's just skimming the motel pool (everybody...repeat after me...ewwwwww...) looking for a fish to disprove that wacky theory of evolution. There's a science fair going on and doggonit she wants that $500 prize so she can buy a Jane Seymour Open Heart diamond necklace (a more blatant commercial tie-in I have never seen, yet done with tongue firmly in cheek).

A dreaming Joy speaks with medicine-cabinet-mirror Jane. Jane's been scoping the labels and hawking jewelry in Joy's medicine cabinet. Must be a hold-over habit from her Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman days. Or maybe Jane's still looking for Christopher Reeve.

So pool-skimming Joy scoops out a tampon, a condom, a pacifier (I'm sensing a theme here) before she finally snags her fish. Joy's got Darwin firmly in her sights now. But Joy does a double-take upon seeing the hooded wierdo. She knows Lloyd, and as it turns out, so does Earl.

Back in the pre-cuckold marital bliss days, Earl and Joy turned their sticky-fingered hands to the automobile re-sale industry. They'd buy a junker, give it a hillbilly tune-up, and sell it to some unsuspecting naif. That unsuspecting naif? Why, none other than pre-wispy beard sunshine-and-lollypop Lloyd.

Earl explains to Lloyd the whole Karma list, did-you-wrong, I-wanna-make-up-for-it spiel we've montaged through before, but Lloyd ain't buying. Be a short episode if he did. See, after Lloyd bought the car from Joy, it crapped out on him before he ever even got it out of Camden County. So what did Lloyd do? He gave it a hillbilly tune-up and sold it to an old woman. And that bad mojo just kept right on going down the line. Well, says Earl, what if I can show you that not everybody's scum, what if somebody broke that bad mojo chain? Lloyd says it'll never happen. So they make a $500 bet. Lloyd turns away and climbs the stairs with a box of explosives under his arm, leaving Earl to say I think I created a terrorist.

In Pimmit Hills Trailer Park, Joy's science experiment trumps Darwin. Her fish has taken the evolutionary escalator and grown feet overnight. Your fish hasn't grown feet, says Darnell, that's a tadpole. Joy's bummed out, but Darnell names his new pet Mr. Frog.

Earl takes Lloyd to find the old woman he sold the beater to...umm...to whom he sold the beater (don't wanna piss off my editor now, do I?) She sold the car to old friend Nescobar-a-Lop-Lop, who gave it a Nairobi tune-up and sold it to a Pooky James. Earl and Lloyd locate Pooky, and Pooky turns out to be a dead ringer for Darnell. Darnell...I mean Pooky...tells Lloyd that that car finally gave up the ghost, so he melted it down and turned it into playground equipment. This info soothes Lloyd's savage breast just long enough for Lloyd to turn around and see the EPA's Public Enemy # 1 belching smoke down the street. Lloyd's misanthropy fully justified, he calls Earl scum and steals the El Camino.

Earl beats feet back to the hotel and finds Lloyd commencing the countdown on his MOAB.

Earl beseeches Lloyd not to set off his bomb, to which Lloyd replies Bomb? It ain't a bomb...it's a rocket ship to launch me into outer space. What? Do you think I'm crazy? Earl has no answer for that.

But wait, says Lloyd. You though I had a bomb, and you ran toward it? That's completely unselfish, says Lloyd, I guess not everybody is scum. Lloyd regains his faith in humanity, and Earl crosses another item off his list. And that's when Earl realizes that he's a lot like Lloyd. Where Lloyd saw only bad in people, Earl fails to see the good in people. People like Cappy, the annoying long-winded neighbor.

Lloyd's rocket ship is not going to go to waste. Joy's entered it in the Science Fair, and it's good enough for Dodge to win First Prize - a $500 Savings Bond in Dodge's name! Darnell knew it was a bond but he didn't want to tell Joy for fear she wouldn't go for it and Dodge wouldn't get that unearned feeling of satisfaction. And to make up for Joy's certain disappointment, Darnell bought a Jane Seymour Open Hearts necklace. But Darnell makes the mistake of trying to educate her about how diamonds are made. Joy, already mesmerized by her new best friend, and not wanting Darnell to suck all the fun out of her sparkling multi-faceted moment, tells him Don't be a turd in the sandbox. Roll credits.

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Posted by Randy Welk on November 7, 2008 11:46 AM
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