"My Name Is Earl" Recap & Review - "Foreign Exchange Student"

My Name is Earl
“Foreign Exchange Student”
Original Air Date: Thursday February 1, 2007

[Submitted by: Breanna P.]

This week’s episode, “Foreign Exchange Student” originally aired on February 1, 2007. I missed that airing (probably doing homework), but it was nice to see an episode I had not seen before. Although it was new to me, there is not a whole lot to be re-capped from the story. Not that it’s a bad thing, but the episode was pretty concise in its narrative. Earl Hickey, wanting to mark Number 46 off of his List of misdeeds, decides to write to the French Exchange student he had tormented as a adolescent. The student, Pierre, now a full grown French man (surprise!) decides to take Earl up on his offer to make America look like the great country it is instead of being full of jerky boys who get mad at foreign exchange students and attempt to strangle them in the school bathroom.

Pierre wants to leave the U.S. as soon as he arrives at the Crab Shack to head-butt Earl. He can’t because Earl steals his passport and I.D. out of Pierre’s “man-purse”. Pierre is then convinced to stay in the motel room next to Earl and Randy’s and continues to be cynical of both Earl and the U.S. since all he is shown are the eccentric “sites” around Camden County that Earl believes “make America great.” After attempting to seduce Catalina, Randy’s “green-card” wife, Randy does what Earl once did to Pierre and attempts to strange him in the men’s room. Pierre flees and hides in the motel room. Earl soon discovers that his adolescent strangling of Pierre prevented the enterprising foreign exchange student from conducting a kissing contest with the girls in their class. Adult Earl somehow tracks down four of the girls (and the fifth girl’s “very friendly sister”) and all of them readily agree to kiss Pierre as he seduces them with his French accent. Pierre finally forgives Earl and thanks him for making America good in his eyes. He then returns home to France to his wife and children.

Meanwhile, Randy, after nearly strangling Pierre, confesses to Catalina he loves her. She says she loves him, too, but tells Earl otherwise with her eyes. Joy then tells Catalina to sleep with Randy once, but to smell so awful and look so bad that he will never want her again. Catalina, through a montage of gluing hair under her arms and rubbing raw fish, onions, and various types of cheese all over her body, sleeps with Randy. After the awful love-making session, Randy tells Catalina that he does not want her anymore since she made him sick with her smell and pretending to be his “mother” during their love-making, but Catalina realizes wants Randy because he is the best lover she has ever had. Be careful what you wish for because you just may get it she discovers. And a lot of good cheese and vegetables had to be wasted to do so.

My overall grade for the episode is a B.