Friday, September 22, 2006

My Name Is Earl: The Joy of kidnapping

"My Name Is Earl" premiere spoilers coming up just as soon as someone gives me my damn $3,000 back...

There are weeks when I feel like I should be copying and pasting reviews of previous episodes -- or, at the very least, like I need to write a macro for my feelings about how Good Earl needs to have at least a passing resemblance to Bad Earl. But the premiere was a lot of fun -- largely because it turned Joy into the main character.

Jaime Pressly and the writers have embraced Joy's glorious trashiness from the start, but this felt like they found an extra gear. Of course she loves Britney and K-Fed ("I swear, those two are like American royalty"). Of course her birthday party has a pinata full of cigarettes. Of course she would buy a TV cabinet too damn big to fit into her trailer. Of course she would describe Earl's do-gooding as "all that Robin Hood/Batman/Jesus stuff."

Other highlights: Randy eating chips with his feet, Randy's Lollipop Guild impression (sans helium), and Earl's froggy fake English accent.

Not a bad start at all, and Joy's arrest is going to add a small serialized element to the show for a while. Next week: Earl meets The Bandit himself (sorta).

What did everybody else think?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Eh... Watching "Earl" after "Office" is like chewing gum after shooting heroin, it just doesn't compare.

Jason Carlin said...

With Jaime Pressley being a breakout star on this show, it seems the writers are having a harder time including Catalina (Nadine Velasquez) in the storylines. She wasn't even in this episode, and last season it seemed her screentime got shorter and her lines fewer as the season progressed. It would be a shame if they cut her completely, I find her few scenes pretty funny, although most of her punchlines involve her referring to some strange and horrible past: "This is the sweetest, most justified kidnapping I've ever seen."

Anonymous said...

Loved the premiere. This show definitely faded towards the end of last season. It was good to see it back in great form...