My Name is Earl: Midnight Bun

(S03E10) "Dr. Pronto to reception please." - Nurse

The simple decision to recap last week's episode in such a comically dramatic style is one of the things that sets My Name is Earl apart from other sitcoms.

After watching Catalina's scene with Joy's children, I now understand why they have so little screen time. They are bad actors. While I give the show credit for using kids who actually look like their parents, I feel that these kids could easily fall into the DJ Conner trap where their continuing lack of cuteness reveals their lack of talent. As a side note, seeing Catalina with those kids really made it difficult for me to enjoy her scenes in my usual way. Hey, I'm a creep not a criminal.

I am completely over Joy being pregnant. I think it's partly because I know once the baby comes, we'll never see it again but it's also the fact that ever since Jamie Presley had her real life baby, her fake pregnant stomach serves as a constant reminder that the whole baby storyline was just a way to write around her actual bundle of "Joy. "

To be honest, part of what I love about Earl is the fact that all the characters are so screwed up that they can't really change their station in life including their romantic endeavors. As we all know, very few things can ruin a show quicker than two characters hooking up and luckily for us Earl's writers know this as well. Whenever there's a chance that two of the characters might be an item, it's always squashed. Earl won't hook up with Catalina cause Randy called dibs. Randy won't get involved with Catalina cause he thinks she smells. It helps the sitcom focus on the all-important "com" part of the show.

Now help me out on this one ... when Randy compared Frank's ability to hop over the rock to the Fonz did he actually mean to say Dick Van Dyke or was it simply a Fonz reference? I understand that Randy has probably seen much more of Happy Days than The Dick Van Dyke Show but I just got the feeling there was a DVD reference hidden in there. Maybe it's just cause everything I see reminds me of old TV shows including new TV shows.

I really enjoyed the way this episode ended. The birthing scene was funny to watch but not too long and when Earl & Randy ran out of the trailer like the low budget version of The Defiant Ones I couldn't help but laugh. I wasn't too crazy about the rest of the episode but that's to be expected when wrapping up a cliffhanger. The good news is that Frank's capture gets Earl that much closer to being released. The bad news...there's another human being in Camden County with half the DNA of Joy Turner.