After seeing the pilot, I wrote a few weeks ago that my new favorite show is “My Name is Earl.” Here are the four main reasons why:
After seeing the pilot, I wrote a few weeks ago that my new favorite show is “My Name is Earl.” Here are the four main reasons why:
Lowlifes being Lowlifes
No TV show had ever accurately portrayed the nature of lowlifes before “Earl” (this is how I am going to refer to the show from now on so all the kids can see how hip hop I am or something). In other shows and movies, lowlifes are always criminal masterminds with tortured pasts, and while that may be true almost none of the time, most lowlifes are like Earl and his friends. They are lazy opportunists who, because they never cared about much, have no problem wasting their lives away until they need enough money to warrant pulling another stunt or running another job (in the criminal world, a stunt is a crime you do alone like selling drugs, and a job is a crime that involves more than one person and/or a con—all knowledge is learning). A true career criminal is a lazy ass, just like Earl.
The Whole Karma Thing
I actually learned this around the age of 18, when I gave up certain criminal activities, got into college and decided to live my life the straight and narrow. I used to run with a crew of about seven other people, and in time, all of us straightened up (all before our 20th birthdays). Earl is in his late twenties before he figures out Karma, so he has a lot to atone for. And please note that I atoned for everything I ever did wrong except for stealing ten garbage bags full of cans from a bum in Michigan (10 cents a can in Michigan) and that was only because I never could find the guy from whom I stole. Also, I still have two hockey cards I stole from some kid who moved to Washington D.C. Never could find him either, mainly because I forgot his name. But I did go around and apologize to a lot of people. I even gave some stuff back, did chores and paid money to some of the many I had wronged. All scumbags, when they discover the problem with themselves, have some kind of karma realization (the realization that bad people do bad things and thus, suffer the fate of bad things happening to them). I guess what I’m saying is, there are more people out there that can relate to “Earl” than you probably think.
Jason Lee being Jason Lee
I have enjoyed everything Jason Lee has done, acting-wise. And I think he chose this show because it’s a chance for him to finally use a fake accent and do some actual acting, instead of just being essentially a walking one-liner machine. Also, I don’t think he’s good enough to pull off this level of acting in a movie yet, so he made the right call with this project. But what I enjoy most is when he slips up, loses his accent, and causes me to go, “Hey, that’s Jason Lee. I totally forgot he was in this.”
Hot Chicks
Need I say more?