'Dancing With The Stars' Season 14 Dream Casting
What To Watch On TV This Week
My Name is Earl: GED
(S02E20) Our protagonist Earl has gone and crossed another item off his list -- after adding it to the list in the beginning of the episode. When I was reading the description of this episode, I was a little dubious. What does Earl getting his GED have to do with righting the wrongs on his list. But Earl's friends made a pretty compelling case that Earl should be on the list for ruining his own life. That, and as Randy points out, things go much more smoothly when Earl's on the list -- they don't have to waste time tracking somebody down and explaining the list.
As the woman giving out free t-shirts to anyone who qualifies for a credit card tells him, he's homeless, uneducated, and unemployed. Sure, he won the lotto, but seriously, how does he have any of his winnings left after all this time?
So Earl's off to become a grownup, and he decides to start by getting his GED. Until he realizes that he doesn't know anything about any of the subjects on the test.
When he heads back to his high school, he finds that the teachers have given up on educating their current students and have no interest in helping out a former hellion. So he and Randy decide to help the teachers regain control by scaring the students straight.
The best moments of the episode come when Earl takes the students on a field trip to show them what happens to students who don't graduate (with the possible exception of Earl telling Randy that "This is going to be one of those times when you think I'm talking down to you, but the squirrel on TV's a cartoon," just moments before he finds out that he can't get a credit card because he's, among other things, uneducated).
I have no idea how all of these kids were supposed to have hopped on the back of his El Camino (or how it was legal for him to take them on a field trip without parental consent), but they visited the motel and the crab shack. And they learned that Earl had recently had his head peed on by a speed freak and had been beaten at rock, paper, scissors by a monkey at the zoo.
What I love about Earl is that he earnestly admits these are all horrible things and that his life generally stinks. The list doesn't really seem to change that very much, but at least he feels better about himself. And just when you think the show's getting a bit too earnest for its own good the students flip Earl's car on its side and before you know it, the teachers have blown up a student's car.
The end of this episode seemed a bit trite, and some moments sounded like they were written by adults trying to remember what dumb kids sound like. I'm not going to end up a loser like you because I rock at Guitar Hero? Umm yeah.
But there was enough off-beat humor and Randy one-liners to almost make up for the throwaway plot. And we got another peak into Crabman's sordid past when we find out he graduated from high school with honors, but has seen the darkest parts of a man's soul.
This was a good, but not great episode. I'm going to give it a 4 out of 7.
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