My Name is Earl“Camdenites”
Original Air Date: May 15, 2008
Laura Kelley - TwoCents Reviewer
LauraKelley@thetwocentscorp.com
Being married to a woman who prefers Sammy Hagar over David Lee Roth is tough. Those of us who’ve never experienced such horror firsthand cannot possibly understand what a hard time Earl is having being married to the increasingly annoying Billie.
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My Name is Earl
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Original Air Date: May 15, 2008
Laura Kelley - TwoCents Reviewer
LauraKelley@thetwocentscorp.com
Being married to a woman who prefers Sammy Hagar over David Lee Roth is tough. Those of us who’ve never experienced such horror firsthand cannot possibly understand what a hard time Earl is having being married to the increasingly annoying Billie.
Earl married her believing that she was his karmic reward for righting his past wrongs, and is confused when she treats him the way she does. She refuses to let him drive because he “drives like a girl,” limit’s the number of Kleenex he can use, and makes Randy sleep outside on the balcony in what feels like a “giant crib,” so Randy suggests that Earl “should just cut her head off, like that King of England dude, or that guy downstairs.” I think we all knew that the Hickey brothers didn’t live in the best of neighborhoods, but if someone is decapitated on my street, I think I’ll probably move.
Earl goes to Darnell for marriage advice since Darnell is the smartest person he knows. Darnell reveals that he writes down every annoying thing Joy does and tells Joy it’s his poetry. Joy continues to nag Earl about their sideways trailer, saying that she’s “got so many bruises from climbing through the door that I look like a woman in a Lifetime movie.” While Earl seeks marriage advice, Randy is forced to sell Girl Scout cookies to get Billie to give him a Klondike bar. I’m not a fan of product placement, aside from the Staples references on The Office and the episode of Arrested Development where Carl Weathers and Tobias go to Burger King, and I thought this was pretty heavy handed.
Since Joy and Darnell are obviously not the people to go to for marriage advice, Earl visits his mother, where he discovers his father’s secret to a successful marriage: stay far, far away. Earl realizes his father missed most of his least favorite childhood moments due to his job: Wednesday night dining adventures, family portraits (which Earl’s gerbil was not allowed in because he wasn’t white), and Christmas caroling in the rain. So Earl decides that since he’s unemployed, he’ll throw himself into his karma list.
First, he gets an idea from Randy, who describes his fondest wish: to be “an ant who was ripped and got laid a lot.” Earl uses the ant’s strategy of working in teams, and gets lots of people to tip Joy and Darnell’s trailer.
Underneath the trailer, Randy finds Didi’s leg, which to Joy’s relief isn’t another dead body. Earl and Randy go to the donut shop to return the leg, but in order to cross Didi off the list, Earl has to walk a mile in her shoe. They go shoe shopping, hop across intersections, go to the Crab Shack, and share a foot bath before Earl realizes how tough life is for her. Since he hurt his foot by hopping on it all day, he has to hop home on the other foot. To his surprise, Billie gives him an ATM card and his very own box of tissues, and he realizes that it happened because of karma. To further improve his marriage, Earl decides to cross number 204 off his list, “seduced seven virgins.”
The virgins Earl seduced were Camdenites, women from the local Amish community who spent 21 days in the outside world. Earl and Randy called this ritual “the running of the virgins.” To get the women to trust them, Earl and Randy said they were Nathanites on journeys of their own. Since none of the seven women ever returned to the Camdenite community, Earl must make Greta return after her foray into the outside world.
To scare her, he shows her an episode of CSI Miami and tells her that “the creamsicle-looking guy’s name is Horatio.” Had he shown her an episode of The Hills, she’d never have stayed. Earl’s strategy hit’s a snag when Randy gives her gum, which we all know is a “gateway candy.” Since Earl has spent the day ignoring Billie, she forces him to choose between her and the list. He chooses the list, and Billie makes it her mission to undo every good thing Earl has done, starting with Joy’s trailer.
Earl, Randy, Joy, and the police catch up to Billie outside the Camdenite settlement, where Billie tells Earl she intends to kill him and then steps onto Camdenite land to hide out where the cops can’t get her. Earl is afraid to sleep, and faces a moral dilemma when Greta refuses to return home because she “wants to stay here in the land of zippers, mirrors, and tampons not made of hay.” Randy has fallen for Greta, who for some unknown reason thinks that everything he says is smart. Billie returns to Earl’s room and tells him she has found happiness as a Camdenite and gives him divorce papers. She also gives him a check for $75,000 as a reward from karma. I am very glad that their marriage is over.
If this season of My Name is Earl has taught us anything, let it be that we should never marry anyone who robs liquor stores on Jesus’ birthday and hates David Lee Roth. I think it was a really good finale, but I’m not entirely sure where the show intends to go from here. I definitely can’t wait to find out!
What did you all think of the season finale? Leave your Two Cents in the comments below, and enjoy the long summer hiatus!