TV Verdict

So far this season, Earl has been more ambitious within more narrow parameters than in previous seasons, especially last. Instead of elaborate season-long arcs or new locations, each episode has been self-contained. Within each episode, though, the series has experimented in various ways. Some episodes used elaborate storytelling techniques, others were special effects extravaganzas. Not all the experiments have been successful, but without having a writer’s strike this season the rate is much higher than it was last season. This week was no exception. It played a little with timelines, it used a guest star, and there were even some special effects. It was a very funny and entertaining episode that’s emblematic of a solid season with a few bad (but not terrible) spots.

Much of this episode’s success centered on its guest star, Ewen Bremner best known as Spud from Trainspotting. The notion of a Scottish hooligan entering the redneck haven of Camden County is admittedly unusual, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t fit in. In fact, his introduction at the beginning of the episode was one of the all-time classic moments in this series’ history. Earl, while reading to kids from Camden’s bookmobile, reminisced about how he stole it and met Bremer’s character Raynard. Back in the day (pre-list, of course), Earl and Randy wound up doing community service on a roadside cleaning crew for a prank that went badly wrong. Each member of the crew wore a hot pink T-shirt printed with their offenses For instance, Randy: “Flasher”. Earl: “Pulled My Brother’s Pants Down in Public”. Earl creator and exec producer Greg Garcia: “I Like Hookers”. When Earl and Randy meet Raynard, they see that he is an unconventional free spirit, best typified by his offense: “Freed a Police Horse.” Indeed, he keeps his bathtub in the living room and his globe upside down (Randy, for one, is shocked: “You mean the globe is supposed to be the world?”). When the 3 of them go out to pick up girls at the Crab Shack, Earl instantly hits on the idea of pretending to be a rock band. It works right up until the girls demand to see their tour bus. Earl, improvising, instantly decides to steal the bookmobile and drive it off into the woods. After a night of partying, he leaves it there.

That would be the end of it, except that when Raynard is evicted, he tries to crash with Earl, who has by then married a very pregnant and very hormonal Joy. Unable to wheedle his way in, he takes refuge in the stolen bookmobile and sustains himself on psychedelic berries and the love of a raccoon he names Charlene. When Earl and Randy finally find him, they try to get him out and readjust him to society, but their inability to do so finally lands Raynard in an insane asylum. After reluctantly conceding that he’s just too free-spirted to function in the real world, he returns to the woods, though this time with just a tent and a backpack, and promising to stay “just friends” with Charlene.

So a very straightforward, well-constructed story. The experimentation was in the writing and direction. The story was told in flashback, but in a parallel to a Tarzan-ripoff book that Earl just happened to be reading to the kids who gathered around the recovered bookmobile. There were fancy special effects seen when depicting the effects of the psychedelic berries. There was even a new appearance by Dan Coscino as Dan Coscino, singing at the Shack with his band, the Dan Coscino band (and, really, who is this guy? Why does he always appear wearing a shirt with his name on it?). I wasn’t too taken with the psychedelic berries storyline, as I thought it distracted from the joke that poor Raynard had been so isolated that he forgot how to speak to other people (as Randy put it, “He found a way to speak by taking out all the extra words”). Take out the berries, though, and the episode was excellent. Bremner was great, showing off great comic timing and fitting in well with the rest of the cast. The parallel Trazan story was complex and clever, and helped tell the story in an engaging way. Also, Catalina was once again scantily clad and jumping (hey, I’m not made of wood, people). Overall, another great episode. Even though I winced, as I’m sure the rest of America did, when Randy recalled how his G.I. Joe got stuck in an unfortunate location and, in his words, “got snagged on things”. Yeesh.