Back in late 1999, there was a classic commercial produced by Nike that showed a guy going out for a run on New Year's Day morning, 2000. As he traverses through his neighborhood, ATMs are shooting out money, there's a power outage, and people are rioting in the streets. However, the message from Nike was despite all this mayhem, remember to "Just Do It." Funny, funny stuff. (If you want to see it, check it out at YouTube.)

Anyway, Earl Hickey wasn't immune from Y2K madness, and last night's episode was a flashback to the time when Earl and his gang decided to start a "new world" on January 1, 2000 since they think the world as they knew it came to an end at midnight. This was all predicated by Earl wanting to cross number 24 off his list--stole a red take-a-number-machine at Camden County's version of Wal-Mart, Bargain Bag.

Earl readily admits in his narration that usually he and his friends were too drunk during previous New Year's celebrations that fireworks went off at midnight and a parade took place the following morning, so they think they are the only ones left and want to start a new society at the store. Being the misfits that they are, things go awry quickly when everyone becomes territorial over areas such as the beauty and pharmaceuticals and TV departments.

After a dispute which culiminates in tennis balls being shot at Earl and Randy getting plunked with a can of pumpkin pie filling, the gang realizes the error of its ways and decide to use the take-a-number machine to settle their disputes, which ends up making everyone behave a lot better. They all sit down to a civil dinner and pledge to begin anew the following morning. Of course, when the Bargain Bag has its annual January 2 sale, their dream of a new world comes to a crashing end.

There were two other interesting parts of the episode--we saw how Catalina crossed the U.S.-Mexican border by being hidden in behind the glove compartment of a car, and we saw how Darnell aka "Crabman" came to town. That was weird because it looked like he was in the Federal Witness Protection Program and being dropped off in Camden County. Hopefully, we'll get to see this subplot fleshed out a bit before season's end.

In any event, a solid episode. It was fun reminiscing about the good old days of Y2K and the fear of impending doom.