The day of Earl Hickey's release finally arrives in this week's My Name is Earl, but not actually in the way many may think. You see, according to the deal he struck with the warden back at the beginning of the season, Earl has been earning time-off certificates for helping the warden out with various tasks and finally Earl has accumulated enough award time to be set free. So, we open the show with Earl saying goodbye to his inmate friends and beginning what he believes to be his final walk down the prison hallway. Outside, Joy, Darnell, Catalina and, of course, Randy are all waiting to greet their newly released friend. When Earl finally makes it to the front gate, however, he is greeted with some unfriendly news. Apparently the warden was so impressed with Earl's natural talent of getting things done, that he decided that he needed to keep him around and shredded all of his time-off certificates.


Earl soon confronts the warden and but when he stands firm on his decision, Earl loses it and knees the warden in the groin. Taking a page from Shawshank Redemption, the warden throws Earl into solitary confinement until he decides to change his mind and cooperate. After 60 days, they finally let a slightly insane Earl out. Earl is furious at this and decides that the time has come for him to break out of prison.

For help, he turns to his old friends, Frank and Paco. Frank and Paco have had quite a few unsuccessful breakout attempts and so they offer to tell him everything that they know won't work. So, while helping out the warden on various errands, such as preparing the prison for the upcoming Christmas party, Earl takes note of all the areas in the prison and checks for weaknesses. Then, using a stolen blueprint of the building, the three decide come up with a plan. Even Randy chimes in, using his experience as a prison guard to help with the plan.

Soon after, using a makeshift gun with one bullet Frank made, the four set off to put their plan in motion. After a planned disturbance, Randy assigns Earl, Frank and Paco to special duty. Once in the room they sneak into theairvent . Knowing that the guards don't check people of the cloth, Catalina distracts the minister and nun on their way to prison that day while Joy and Darnell take their place so that they can drive their disguised van into the prison gates and have the three inmates escape in the back. The plan, however, is put in jeopardy when the ceiling breaks under the weight of Earl and Randy and the two land in the warden's office. Using the gun Frank made, Earl holds the warden hostage in his office while comes up with a plan.

Outside, Darnell puts out a prison guard using the Vulcan neck pinch. After several minutes of waiting, the two begin to worry so Darnell climbs into theairvent looking for the gang. In the airvent , Darnell passes Frank and Paco but decides to move on to save Earl. Unfortunately, Darnell, too, falls through the ceiling in the warden's office, giving the warden the chance to sound the alarm.

This turns out to be a blessing in disguise, however, when Darnell recognizes the warden as a porn actor who filmed a movie in his apartment several years earlier. Not wanting toembarrass his wife, the warden agrees to honor the certificates and lets Earl free. As Earl walks through the gates, he sees Paco and Frank being brought back in. Apparently, after stealing Joy's getaway van, they soon crashed into a police car and were immediately recaptured. As he looks at the incredulous Frank, Earl can't help but feeling guilty for being let out when he clearly did something that was wrong in trying to break out of prison. In what could possibly be foreshadowing next week's episode, Earl comments how karma should be "kicking his ass" right now for what he did.

So Earl's out again. And, as impressed as I was with this season's storytelling, I can say I'm happy that he was released before the story got too old. However with next week's episode being titled "Bad Earl" it appears that he might be reverting back to his old ways sooner than we think.


-George Freitag, Buddy TV Staff Columnist

(Image courtesy of NBC)