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He's a lowlife who wants
to set some things right
By DONNA J. PLESH
of TheColumnists.com
In a season where there is only one new comedy with "hit" written all over it (UPN’s “Everybody Hates Chris”), along comes NBC’s off-kilter and promising “My Name is Earl.” To be honest, I didn’t much like “Earl” the first time I watched it. I liked the premise--a guy decides to right the wrongs he’s done to people in his life--but I didn’t particularly like the pilot.
Then, to be fair, I watched it again. And,
guess what? I like it! And NBC, which desperately needs a hit--especially
a hit comedy series--could have one here
However, in “Earl” you aren’t going to get something
along the lines of past NBC comedy hits, such as the urbane and
witty “Frasier” or the romantic and well-written “Friends.”
Though created, written and executive-produced by Greg Garcia,
best known for “Yes, Dear,” “Earl” is light
years away from that run-of-the-mill CBS comedy.
Earl Hickey (Jason Lee ) is pretty much trailer park trash. He’s
slovenly, drinks too much and doesn’t have a job--unless
you count robbery as a job.
He lives with his wife--the tart-ish Joy (Jamie Pressly), whom
he really doesn’t remember marrying because he was so drunk
at the time--their two children (he’s
not the biological father of either one) and his equally slovenly
brother Randy (Ethan Suplee)--in a trailer. Not much of a life
until one day Earl winds up with a winning lottery ticket worth
$100,000.
His joy is short-lived because, while doing
a celebratory dance in the street, he’s hit by a car and
hospitalized. And the winning ticket he was holding blows away
in the wind.
Hospitalized and drugged up with pain killers, Joy gets Earl
to sign some papers, which turn out to be...divorce papers. She’s
decided to take the kids and make a
new life with Darnell (Eddie Steeples), the owner of the bar
where Earl and Randy drink pretty much continuously.
Just when things can’t get any worse for Earl, he has a
life-changing experience while watching Carson Daly on TV. Daly
attributes his success in life to doing good things for other
people. It’s karma--and Earl decides the only way he can
change his life and be a better person is to correct all the
bad things he’s done to people in the past. So, he makes
a list of people he needs to do right by--a list with 259 names
on it.
Out of the hospital and now living in a seedy motel with Randy,
who has taken up with the sexy motel maid Catallina (Nadine Velazquez),
Earl tells his brother of his new life plan and gets him to go
along with it. And then something good happens--Earl finds the
winning lottery ticket, claims his $100,000 reward, and sets
out to right his first wrong--No. 64 on his list--by making it
up to a classmate he picked on back in elementary school.
Earl is not the brightest bulb on the tree. How he goes about
righting this first wrong is both humorous and, at times, poignant.
The main thing for you to do is to give “Earl” a chance.
If you don’t like the first
episode, watch another. “Earl” grew on me and you may
find it growing on you, too.
©2005 by Donna J. Plesh. The photo is courtesy of NBC. This column first posted Sept. 12, 2005.
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