In “The Frank Factor,” Joy visits Earl in prison, still feeling guilty about him doing time for her. Suddenly, Earl spots a guy in prison he knows, Frank (Michael Rapaport), and it turns out they have quite a history together.
Flash back to seven years ago. Earl’s parents are having their house fumigated, so Earl and Randy are homeless, sleeping outside on someone’s discarded sofa. But trash day comes, and Earl and Randy are homeless again. Earl spots an ad for a cheap room to rent, and he and Randy sublet the kitchen floor of Frank’s trailer home. Paco, Frank’s other roommate, turns out to be Catalina’s lost love from Mexico.
At the Crab Shack, where Frank works, Earl spots an expensive watch on Japanese businessman Yoshi, and decides he’s going to steal it. They break into Yoshi’s motel room, only to find Frank and Paco already there, also trying to steal Yoshi’s watch.
After they steal and sell Yoshi’s watch, Frank decides he’s going to go for bigger heists: robbing an Indian casino that Howie Mandel is performing at. So they hatch a plan to break into the casino with guns, take a hostage and get the money.
Needing to relax before the heist, Earl goes out to the Crab Shack and gets really drunk. Joy is also at the Crab Shack. She’s pregnant and desperate to trap a husband, and she sees Earl as easy prey. They get married that night, and Earl calls Randy to tell him that he won’t be able to go to the casino. Randy gets distracted by a Kroft Superstars marathon on TV and he misses the heist, too.
But Frank and Paco pulled off the robbery on their own, and it went off without a hitch. They got the cash and even got Howie Mandel as a hostage. Cruising down the road, they accidentally rear-end the FBI van that just dropped off Darnell in Camden County. Frank and Paco end up doing 20 years for the robbery. Joy realizes that her marriage to Earl actually saved him from doing 20 years in prison, and she’s not guilty anymore.
A good episode and a nice escape from this season’s prison humor. We got some good backstory on the origin of Earl’s El Camino and trailer home, Darnell’s journey through the witness protection program, and Catalina’s journey across the border.
Stuff We Learned: Low-Cost Solutions For Living The Good Life
El Camino is the Cadillac of cars.
Don’t buy a treadmill. Just run in place.
No need to take a shower. Just use a kitchen sprayer to wash “the sweet spots.”
Doing things by twos makes stuff go faster.
Make homemade sake by tearing the label off a bottle of vodka and drawing a dragon on it.
Shoot a hole in your closet so you don’t have to open the door to get your coat.
Instead of buying porn, just draw naughty parts on the people in TV Guide.
Wisdom From Randy: If we don’t die, we’re getting a monkey.
Crab Man Chronicles: Darnell doesn’t speak Spanish. He only speaks French, Russian and Arabic.
