“My Name Is Earl” Recap: Gospel

Earl and Randy don’t go to church very often — they’re usually hungover on Christmas and Easter — but they’re happy to go to the church festival. Joy is happy, too. She drank 25 Dixie cups of wine. And Catalina has had great luck at the carnival games. She even won an AM/FM radio headset! But no such luck for Joy. As she’s taking the drunk walk home from the festival, she steals a riding lawnmower, and runs Catalina down with it. Joy drives the lawnmower into a storage shed with Catalina pinned against it. Catalina threatens to go to the police, but Joy can’t have that. She’s already got two strikes. So she leaves Catalina stuck in the shed.

At the festival, Earl and Randy recognize the preacher (Faizon Love) as No. 35 on Earl’s list. Earl once stole the church’s organ (you know, to sell organs on the black market). The reverend was once a thug known as “Hash Brown,” so he understands Earl’s desire to make amends. Earl gives back the organ to the church. But that wasn’t the only wrong Earl did to the reverend. Earl stole the reverend’s tools from a worksite, then knocked over a Chubby’s Porta-Let while the rev was in it. Earl agrees to make it up to the reverend by volunteering for Sunday service, where it’s also revealed that Earl once slept with the reverend’s wife while the rev was in prison. Oh, and to top it off, Earl once shot out the tail light of Hash Brown’s truck while trying to reenact a magic trick with Randy. It was the busted tail light that led to Hash Brown’s arrest. And it was that arrest which saved Hash Brown from being killed in a gang deal gone bad. The reverend realizes that Earl saved his life, and he’s grateful and forgives Earl for everything else.

Meanwhile, Joy brings Crab Man to the shed with Catalina still stuck inside. Crab Man’s only solution is to kill Catalina and get rid of the body. As Crab Man is about to whack Catalina, Joy brains Crab Man with a shovel. Touched that Joy would hit her husband with a shovel just to save her life, Catalina forgives Joy, and she won’t go to the police. So now are things going to be weird between Crab Man and Catalina? I suppose they can’t be weirder than the phone booth incident a few episodes back.

What We Learned

How are you supposed to win anything when the church has Jesus on its side?

We always thought the devil would be taller.

Do not put out a fire with buckets of confetti. It just makes it worse.

Wisdom From Randy: His name is Randy Hickey and he loves to smell his shoes. Amen.

Crab Man Chronicles: Crab Man’s Moral Hierarchy: God, family, country. Strippers that his wife have pinned are nowhere on this list.

About Ryan Berenz 2166 Articles
Member of the Television Critics Association. Charter member of the Ancient and Mystic Society of No Homers. Squire of the Ancient & Benevolent Order of the Lynx, Lodge 49, Long Beach, Calif. Costco Wholesale Gold Star Member since 2011.