My Name Is Earl“Reading is a Fundamental Case”
Original Air Date: Dec 4, 2008
Laura Kelley - TwoCents Reviewer
laurakelley@thetwocentscorp.com
In Camden County, the library can’t afford the classics, so when Earl goes to the Bookmobile, he discovers books like “Trazan the Ape Man.” This goes a long way toward explaining the situation of many of Camden County’s residents. The Bookmobile reminds Earl of when he and Randy were sentenced to the “Humiliate to Rehabilitate” program, where they met Raynard, who was there for freeing a police horse.
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My Name Is Earl
ReplyDelete“Reading is a Fundamental Case”
Original Air Date: Dec 4, 2008
Laura Kelley - TwoCents Reviewer
laurakelley@thetwocentscorp.com
In Camden County, the library can’t afford the classics, so when Earl goes to the Bookmobile, he discovers books like “Trazan the Ape Man.” This goes a long way toward explaining the situation of many of Camden County’s residents. The Bookmobile reminds Earl of when he and Randy were sentenced to the “Humiliate to Rehabilitate” program, where they met Raynard, who was there for freeing a police horse.
Raynard is a few bulbs short of a tanning bed, but Randy thinks he’s sort of a genius for knowing that a globe is the Earth. But as smart as he is, he has trouble with women, so Earl and Randy take him out to meet girls at a bar. Earl tells some girls that he, Randy, and Raynard are in a band that’s “gonna share a shower with Bono” and he steals the Bookmobile to impress them. This ends up being #219 on the list. As Earl is reading “Trazan” to the kids at the bookmobile, he remembers when he and Randy went to retrieve the stolen bookmobile and found a feral Raynard living in it. He was there because Earl had refused to let him stay with him because Joy was pregnant at the time, and so Raynard wandered around until he happened upon the Bookmobile.
Things haven’t gone too well for Raynard, and he’s “married” to a cute raccoon named Charlene. Earl figures out what’s wrong: Raynard has been eating the same berries that Joy once got high from when they were camping. To Randy, Raynard’s just a “poor guy, out here eating crazy berries, doing God knows what to a raccoon.” But reason fails to appeal to Raynard, so Earl and Randy use Catalina as a trap to snare him even though Club Chubby has a strict policy against the dancers being lured into the woods.
Raynard is brought back to civilization, where Catalina tells Earl and Randy that a colonic will help him, so they do that. Then, all his ticks are removed, and Earl gets him a string of jobs that he fails at, and he manages to spray Joy in the face with rat poison along the way. Joy calls the cops, and Raynard is sent to a psych ward and diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. But Raynard isn’t happy, and Earl agrees to help him escape the psych ward by having the patients attack the guard for candy. Earl gives Raynard a tent to call home in the woods, and agrees to maybe run over Charlene the raccoon for him. Randy learns that a map is also Earth, and life is back to normal.
I loved this episode. It was much better than the last few and all the characters got some screen time, though I always think Crab Man deserves more. The story was nicely framed with the “Trazan” story, and overall I thought it was a good episode. What did you all think? Leave us your two cents in the comments section, and I’ll see you next Thursday!